The Differences Between an ATS

and Job Board

An ATS (Applicant Tracking System) is a product used by employers. They range in

size and cost from bare-bones and inexpensive on up to enterprise systems used by
global employers. Some examples you may have heard of:
Targeted for small/midsize companies:
JazzHR, Zoho Recruit, Lever, Greenhouse, BambooHR, Workable, Jobvite, BreezyHR
Enterprise systems (~5K-10K+ employees)
iCIMS, Taleo (Oracle), Workday, SAP Successfactors
In general, an ATS is a cloud-hosted system that relies on a backend database to store
information. That information includes: users inside the organization (recruiting, HR,
hiring managers, interviewers) with varying levels of permissions; job openings
(including an approval process for opening a job, a relevant associated finance number
for budget tracking, and usually some sort of EEOC statement in the US, or GDPR
statement in Europe, or other legal statement in the host country), and applicant
tracking (individuals who apply for jobs.) The more an ATS is used, the more diverse the
information that is stored in it, such as records about previous jobs and a host of past
applicants and a record of their journey through the process.

The ATS is used primarily by recruiting to manage the entire hiring process. We
generally have two views that we switch between frequently. The first is the “job” driven
view, the second is the “candidate” driven view. On the job view, we can see a list of all
the jobs that are open, then all the applicants on a specific job. In the candidate view,
we can look at individual candidates and see *their* records including their resume, all
the jobs they have applied to (and the history of each job), interview
comments/feedback, notes by recruiters and hiring managers, and a breakdown of their
contact information. Here is a screenshot of my own candidate profile (what I see when
I am looking at a candidate):

The Differences Between an ATS and Job Board 1

 An ATS is accessible only by the authorized users with varying levels of access; the
information is considered PII (Personally Identifiable Information) and is HIGHLY
REGULATED globally in terms of how it may be used and by whom.
In the US, there is also a section of the ATS during the application process that includes
voluntary demographic information for the EEOC. This information is NOT viewable by
individuals; the information is aggregated anonymously and reported to the EEOC.

One of the functions of the ATS is also to integrate with internal systems, including the
external job/careers landing page for the employer.

Job Boards are third-party websites that employers can pay to use to post their jobs.
Most job boards allow either one-time postings or subscriptions (“job packs”, usually 3,
5, 10, etc. with a specific posting time, usually a month.) They can be stand alone
businesses covering multiple industries, specialty (ie healthcare), or sections of
professional organizations. Examples would be Monster.com, CareerBuilder, Dice.com,
ZipRecruiter, jobs2careers, medicaljobboard.us, jobs.ama.org, Facebook jobs,

The Differences Between an ATS and Job Board 2

 craigslist.org, etc. LinkedIn has special license options for employers to post jobs,
search profiles, and connect with professionals. A single job posting can cost $10/day,
or a full “recruiter seat” subscription for ONE PERSON can cost in excess of $5K-$10K
depending on the type of plan chosen (number of inmails, number of job posting slots,
whether the employer chooses to enable “easy apply”, etc.) Indeed.com is also a job
board, with the option to pay for sponsored job ads (meaning that the employer pays for
them to display at the top of any searches based on several categories such as
location, title, keywords, etc.) It will also scrape career sites and display jobs; however,
there is no guarantee that the job is still open.
Anyone who is willing to pay money to post a “job” on a job website can create an
account, and if they pay a full subscription to access the resume database, they have
access to ALL resumes in the database. For a mature product like Monster.com, that
means access to resumes going back to the 1990’s.
One disadvantage of job boards is the use of/access to your data and privacy by third
parties. Below are screenshots the TOS from Indeed for using their service.

The Differences Between an ATS and Job Board 3

 A lot of job seekers ask what the best method is for applying for jobs. That is an easy
one to answer: ALWAYS apply directly on the employer’s website. It is the 100%
accurate method to protect your data, and make sure your resume/application is directly
connected to the job/s you are interested in.

Recruiters also get questions about the Easy Apply function on LinkedIn. There are a
few things to consider. 1) LinkedIn is still a third party application – there is no
guarantee that the link to the employer’s career site/ATS is actually functional. 2) Unless
your LI profile is 100% complete – as in contains ALL the information of a resume/CV –
you run the risk of a recruiter not having enough information to actually evaluate your
qualifications and therefore reject you 3) using the Easy Apply function doesn’t create
an actual profile for you to access if you decide to change your resume, update your
contact information, or track the roles you have actually applied for.

The Differences Between an ATS and Job Board 4