7 Steps to Choosing the Right ATS (In Collaboration with Pinpoint)

A practical framework from Udder and Pinpoint to help talent teams make confident, data-informed ATS decisions.

The Problem: Too Many ATSs, Too Little Clarity

If you’ve ever been through an ATS review, you’ll know it can feel like shopping for a new phone except there are hundreds of models, the specs don’t line up, and every vendor insists theirs is “the most intuitive.”

We speak to hundreds of in-house talent and people teams every year, and one thing’s always clear: choosing the right ATS isn’t just about features, it’s about fit.

That’s why we partnered with the team at Pinpoint. A platform that’s helped thousands of recruiters and hiring managers streamline their process to create something we wish existed years ago:

The 7 Steps to Choosing the Right ATS:  a complete guide to evaluating, comparing, and selecting the system that’s right for your team.

Why We Made This Guide

Most “how to choose your ATS” articles out there are either vendor-led (read: biased) or too generic to be useful.
We wanted to do something different something that combines:

• Our experience at Udder: helping organisations navigate complex HR tech decisions every day.
• Pinpoint’s expertise: building one of the most well-rated ATS products on the market.

The result? A practical, vendor-neutral framework that walks you through how to think, what to ask, and how to decide.

What You’ll Learn

The guide walks through seven clear, actionable steps that simplify every stage of the ATS buying process:

• Understanding your hiring DNA before you choose an ATS — define what makes your hiring unique before you even look at tools.
• Which stakeholders to involve in your ATS decision (and when) — align early with the right people so the process doesn’t stall later.
• How to make sure your ATS requirements reflect the way you hire — translate your real workflows into system needs.
• How to make ATS vendor demos useful for your team — focus on what actually matters to your users, not the feature fireworks.
• After the ATS demo: What to do next — turn your notes into structured comparisons and clear next steps.
• 7 red flags (and 7 green lights) when choosing an ATS vendor — know what to look for (and what to avoid) in your shortlist.
• What to double-check before signing an ATS contract — make sure the deal, the data, and the implementation plan all stack up.

Why This Collaboration Matters

We’re big believers in collaboration over competition. By bringing together a consultancy that helps teams choose tools (that’s us) and a company that builds one of those tools (that’s Pinpoint), we’ve created a genuinely balanced perspective. No fluff, no hard sell.

It’s rare for a vendor and an independent advisory firm to come together on a project like this. That’s exactly what makes it useful.

Who It’s For

This guide is for:

• Heads of Talent or People leading an ATS review.
• HR teams tired of spreadsheet-based comparisons.
• Founders or operations leads trying to scale hiring systems.
• Anyone who’s thinking: “We’ve outgrown our current setup — what next?”
  

Go Read the Guide

You can read the full guide for free here:  7 Steps to Choosing the Right ATS

If you’re thinking about changing your ATS in the next 12 months or just want to sanity-check your current setup, it’s worth a read.

A Final Word

We’ve both seen how overwhelming HR tech decisions can get.
Our hope is that this guide gives you the clarity, confidence, and language to make a choice that actually works, not just one that ticks boxes.