A Step-by-Step Guide to Building Your ATS RFP (With a Ready-to-Use Template)

When you’re looking for a new Applicant Tracking System (ATS), a lot of demos start to look like the “perfect” solution for your needs. The dashboards are clean, the automation sounds effortless, and the pitch is polished. But as anyone who has managed a hiring process knows, the real work happens in the details – the small, daily workflows that either make your team more efficient or slow them down.

Whether you’re hiring for your 30th role or replacing a legacy system for a team of 1,000 employees, the challenge is the same: how do you move past the presentation and find the tool that actually fits your team’s goals? You need to see how the software handles your specific requirements before signing the contract.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to run a streamlined evaluation that prioritizes your organization’s needs. We’ll show you how to define your goals, avoid common procurement pitfalls, and use our free, ready-to-use ATS RFP template to find the best fit for your business.

What is an ATS RFP (And Why Bother?)

At its core, an RFP (Request for Proposal) is a document you send to vendors to get written, binding answers about their software. Instead of relying on verbal promises made during a demo, you get a documented record of how the platform actually functions. 

Why an ATS RFP matters for the 30-person team

When you’re scaling, you can’t afford an expensive wrong turn. An RFP prevents you from guessing which solution’s features sound the best. It helps you ensure that the tool you’re buying to solve today’s problems won’t be something you outgrow six months from now.

Why an ATS RFP matters for the Enterprise team 

The bigger the company, the noisier the search. An RFP is the best way to compare five different vendors without your evaluation notes turning into a blurred, subjective mess. It gives you a clean data set to present to leadership when it’s time to justify the investment.

The Result: An RFP helps shift the power from the salesperson back to you. You set the agenda, they provide the proof. 

ATS RFP Common Mistakes and Best Practices

An RFP is only as good as the questions you ask. If your evaluation is too broad, you’ll end up with a pile of generic vendor responses that all sound the same. Here are some common mistakes to avoid and best practices to implement to keep your evaluation focused on what matters to your business:

Step 1: Defining Your Goals

Before you book a single demo, you need to be clear on what success looks like for your team. An ATS is a tool, not a strategy. Without defined goals, it’s easy to buy into a vendor’s vision instead of solving your actual needs.

Instead of starting with a feature wishlist, try a pain list. Think about the specific friction points that are currently costing you time, money, or candidates:

• Identify the Bottlenecks: Where are candidates dropping off in your current process? Look for tasks that are currently managed in spreadsheets or email threads. Whether you are moving away from manual processes or replacing an old system, your goal is to identify where the effort is currently higher than it should be.
• Account for Growth: A system that works for your volume today might break when your hiring needs double next year. Your RFP should look beyond the recruiter’s desk to include requirements for hiring managers, finance, and IT. 
• Determine Decision Ownership: Identify who has the final say and any deal-breakers. Getting a must-have list from your IT and Finance departments early prevents a last-minute rejection after you’ve already picked your favorite solution.

Step 2: Designing Your ATS Evaluation Framework

Choosing the right ATS for your needs shouldn’t be a game of who had the best demo. Unstructured decisions tend to be subjective, making it more difficult to get leadership buy-in. You need to turn your goals into a scoring system that enables you to compare vendors objectively. 

Define Your Evaluation Categories 

Organize your RFP into clear categories to avoid jumping between topics. This helps you (and the vendor) stay focused on the specific outcomes you need:

• Recruiter & Manager Workflows: Don’t just ask if a platform is intuitive. Inquire about the specific steps required to move a candidate from the initial screen to a final offer. If it takes fifteen clicks to schedule one interview, that’s your answer.
• The Candidate Journey: Instead of asking if the solution is fast, ask for the average time-to-complete for a mobile applicant. You need to know exactly how many hurdles a candidate has to jump through to get into your system.
• Data Accessibility: Go deeper than basic ROI questions and request a list of out-of-the-box reports. Can the system automatically track your cost-per-hire and source effectiveness, or will you have to export data to Excel and do it yourself?
• Accountability & Support: Don't ask what the partnership looks like. Ask for the average support response time and exactly how many hours of implementation are included before they start charging extra fees. 

Mandatory vs. Weighted Criteria

Not every feature is created equal. Many organizations have mandatory items and requirements (like SOC2 compliance or a specific payroll integration) and weighted items (such as an AI sourcing tool). 

By assigning a weight to each category, you help ensure the winning vendor is the one that actually solves for your needs. For example, if your primary goal is efficiency, your workflow category should carry the most weight in your final score.

Step 3: Prioritizing Integrations

One of the biggest mistakes organizations make in the RFP process is treating integrations as a post-selection task. Waiting until after you’ve signed a contract to check the technical connection between your ATS and the rest of your tech stack risks massive manual headaches, compliance errors, and integration nightmares. 

Your ATS RFP should evaluate the depth of an integration, not just its availability. Consider how the new ATS interacts with your other critical systems: 

• Background Screening: The most common ATS integration. You need to know that you can initiate a check and view results directly within the ATS, or if your recruiters will be toggling between two different platforms and manually entering data.
• HRIS & Payroll: When a candidate is hired, does their data flow automatically into your HRIS, or is someone in Finance re-typing their address and social security number into a different system?
• Sourcing & Onboarding: Your goal should be a single source of truth, where data flows automatically as the candidate moves through the funnel.

Many vendors will put a logo on their website and say it's a partnership. You need proof of integration. Instead of just checking a box, look for automation that functions properly and actually saves time. If a vendor claims they integrate, but your team still has to manually sync data or click five extra buttons to send an order, it isn't a true solution.

Step 4: Scoring the Results and Shortlisting Vendors

Sales teams are experts at writing impressive responses that sound good but don’t actually commit to a specific functionality. To find the right fit, you must move past the prose and look at the factual data.

• Assign a Scoring Rubric: Don't just read the answers, grade them. Use a simple 1-5 scale where a 5 means the vendor meets your requirement natively, and a 1 means they require a manual workaround or a third-party add-on.
• Prioritize Your Must-Haves: Multiply each score by the weight you assigned to that category in Step 2. This ensures that a vendor with a great interface but fails on your must-have background check integration doesn’t end up at the top of your list.
• Identify Evasive Answers: Spot the red flags. If a vendor answers a specific question about data security with a generic paragraph about their customer-first culture, it usually means the feature isn't as robust as they claim.

Download Your Ready-to-Use ATS RFP Template

RFPs can feel intimidating, especially when you’re starting with a blank sheet. Verified First built a comprehensive template that turns the advice above into a structured, customizable process you can start using today. 

What the template includes:

• Pre-Defined Categories: Sections organized by the workflows that matter to you – from sourcing and candidate experience to background check integrations and reporting.
• Targeted Questions: A library of questions designed to move past yes/no answers and get to the core of how the software functions.
• Easy Customization: A clean, simple structure that you can adapt to your specific tech stack and hiring needs in minutes.

How To Use Verified First’s ATS RFP Template

The template is a tool for your internal strategy, not a replacement. Use it to understand the ground rules of your evaluation before you invite vendors to the table. By defining your priorities in the template first, you ensure the final decision is based on your actual needs. 

Choosing an ATS is one of the most important tech decisions your company will make. A structured RFP process helps you move past idealized scenarios and get a clear view of how a partner and technology will actually support your team.

Download Your Template