The recruitment software landscape has changed dramatically, yet many firms still rely on legacy ATS/CRM’s. In today’s candidate-driven market, recruiters should use the right technology that lets them focus on high-impact work. Clinging to your existing ATS in the AI era is no longer a viable option.

Legacy ATSs show 4 key weaknesses

1. Manual, Time-Consuming Workflows

A sizeable chunk of a recruiter’s day-to-day work does not require human intervention and could be automated. Current systems were not built for that as their primary purpose was simply to store and retrieve data. Recruiters spend hours manually searching for the right candidate, managing their pipeline and drafting reports & emails.

2. Clunky User Experience

Many legacy ATSs have outdated and unintuitive interfaces. When a recruitment platform is hard to navigate, recruiters get frustrated and start disengaging from it. This slows down teams and often lead to higher employee turnover and an unreliable database.

3. Not Designed for AI

Existing ATSs weren’t built with AI in mind. Their relational databases are not compatible with modern AI capabilities, lacking the vectorized structure needed for true AI adoption. As a result, recruiters are stuck with poor or no AI support and still lose time that should be spend on human side of recruiting, where they add the most value. Spott is the ATS/CRM built by design for AI.

4. Fragmented Tools

Most recruitment firms use a myriad of (AI) tools to compensate for the lack of capabilities of their legacy ATS. While using several add-on tools can get expensive, the bigger issue is that they often fall short of the expectations. All the different (AI) tools do not always communicate properly with each other or with the ATS, leading to lost information, avoidable errors, and extra manual work. Candidates may have notes and move forward in one system but not in another, causing missed follow-ups or data issues. A single, integrated platform avoids these problems by centralising everything in one place, improving accuracy and efficiency. This is even more important with AI, as it delivers the best results when it has complete context.

Why Change Now: Recruiting Needs Modern Tools in The AI era

With AI and automation rapidly transforming recruitment, making the switch is no longer optional. As more firms adopt AI-driven ATS tools, those clinging to outdated systems risk falling behind. Speed and quality of hire have become key to staying competitive, and only an AI-native platform can deliver on both.

At the same time, consolidating your tech stack can reduce your tech spend. Modern recruitment platforms like Spott can cut costs by up to 50 percent by eliminating the need for separate tools like note takers, data enrichment apps and CV reformatters. This leads to immediate ROI.

What to Look for in a Modern ATS

AI Integrated Through the Entire Workflow

A modern ATS should have AI built into every step of the recruitment process. Spott lets you, for example:

• Automatically link CVs to candidate profiles

• Match candidates with relevant vacancies

• Generate personalised email templates

By automating a large chunk of every step in the recruitment process, Spott enables recruiters to spend more time on strategic, human-centric activities like interviewing or decision-making, where human judgment is irreplaceable.

Data Quality and Hygiene

Maintaining high data quality and hygiene is essential. With Spott, all candidate information is methodologically organised within individual profiles, making it easy to access and update. Notes taken during interviews or meetings are automatically stored in the right place, so important details are never lost. Spott ensures data flows into your system automatically, with high accuracy and quality, eliminating the need for manual entry.

Clickless User Experience

Your recruitment platform is your daily operating system, so it must be enjoyable to use. If a simple task takes more than three clicks, the platform isn’t doing its job. Spott is designed to maximise the clickless user experience while minimising manual actions, allowing recruiters to work more intuitively & efficiently.

There is no better time to rethink your ATS

If you’re still using an outdated ATS, now is likely the best time ever to consider switching. Even if you’ve recently moved to another legacy system, there’s no need to invest time and money into fixing a legacy ATS when Spott exists. Book a demo and we’ll show you how it can set you up for continued success.