Overview
An applicant tracking system (ATS) is the backbone of an efficient hiring process. This helps your team stay organized, move quickly on top talent, and gain valuable insights about your recruiting workflows.
To get the most out of your ATS, it should be tailored to your organization’s unique needs. Below, we’ll link you to key articles in a sequential order to guide you through the process of configuring baseline features in your Gem ATS for the first time.
This article doesn’t cover all features — we recommend reviewing the settings in your Gem ATS account to decide what settings to configure before adding your team to Gem ATS.
Already using an ATS? If you’re migrating from another system, reach out to Gem Support at support@gem.com for assistance with data migration to ensure a smooth transition.
Requirements
- Your team must have Gem ATS enabled to configure these settings. If you don’t have Gem ATS enabled but are interested in adding it, contact your Gem Customer Success Manager.
- You must be an Admin in Gem to manage these settings. For more information, see Gem access types and permissions.
Access Gem ATS
Every company’s hiring strategy is different, shaped by its departments, its sourcing channels, and its candidate journey. Customizing your ATS to reflect your organization’s process is key.
To access your ATS settings:
- Select your account at the bottom of the main sidebar, then select the Admin settings option in the dropdown.
- Select the Gem ATS header.
This is where all of your ATS settings are located.
Set up departments
Departments help you organize roles by functional area in Gem ATS. When you create a job, you assign it to a department, which helps keep your jobs organized and supports department-level reporting.
Gem doesn’t come with any departments by default. We recommend adding a few to your account so that your team can select them when creating jobs, openings, and offers.
For steps to create, edit, and archive departments, see Gem ATS: Create and manage departments.
Set up locations
Locations allow you to specify the geographical area of a job, opening, or offer. This includes the city, country, state or region — and even different office names to distinguish locations within the same city.
Each job you create in Gem ATS will be associated with one or more locations, which will be displayed on your job board.
Gem doesn’t come with any locations by default. We recommend adding a few to your account so that your team can select them when creating jobs, openings, and offers. You should add locations for all places where you expect to open jobs and hire candidates, such as your office locations and remote regions.
Note: If your company is fully remote, you must create at least one location in the state where your company is incorporated.
For steps to add, edit, and archive locations, see Gem ATS: Create and manage locations.
Review default sources
Sources help your team track where applications come from, so you can compare recruiting channels and measure ROI.
Gem provides a set of sources by default, which your team can add to applications manually or as part of automated workflows. You can also add custom sources that are tied back to your default sources. For example, if you’re adding a Spring break career fair custom source, you can set the Source type to Event or University.
For steps to create, edit, and archive sources, see Gem ATS: Create and manage sources.
Review rejection and dropout reasons
Tracking rejection and dropout reasons is essential for refining your recruitment strategies and enhancing the candidate experience. By systematically capturing and analyzing this data, you can identify patterns, address potential issues, and reduce unnecessary candidate drop-offs, leading to a more efficient and effective hiring process.
Gem provides a set of rejection reasons by default, which your team can add to applications manually or as part of automated workflows. You can also add custom rejection reasons.
For steps to add, edit, and disable rejection and dropout reasons, see Gem ATS: Manage rejection and dropout reasons.
Review job close reasons
A job close reason is the specific rationale recorded when a job opening is closed or taken offline. This could occur for a variety of reasons — the position gets filled, the role is put on hold, or the job is removed entirely due to budget constraints. Tracking job close reasons allows organizations to capture structured metadata about the fate of their job openings, providing insights into hiring processes and aiding in strategic decision-making.
Gem provides a set of job close reasons by default, which your team can add to jobs manually or as part of automated workflows. You can also add custom job close reasons.
For steps to add, edit, and disable job close reasons, see Gem ATS: Manage job close reasons.
Set up Project fields
Projects allow you to categorize prospective candidates at the top of the funnel so you can create and send outreach Sequences for open roles. Project fields allow you to keep your set of projects organized for reporting purposes.
We recommend you create a set of project fields before allowing your team to create projects. As a baseline, the most commonly used fields include Department and Project Type (e.g., open role, events, nurture, referral). Later-stage companies might also incorporate fields like Recruiting Team and Location.
For steps to create projects and project fields, see Create a Project in Gem.
Create and manage openings
You can use openings to set up and manage settings and approval processes for jobs you’re posting multiple times, or for which you plan to hire multiple candidates. This makes it easy to quickly create jobs pre-populated with opening settings, such as the job title, locations, hiring team, compensation details, and more. It also allows your team define and manage headcount for finance, budgetary, and tracking purposes.
For instructions to set up and manage openings, see Gem ATS: Openings.
Create and manage jobs
After you review and manage your job ATS settings, you’re ready to set up your first job!
Setting up and managing jobs in Gem ATS is a streamlined process that helps recruiters and hiring teams efficiently organize roles, track candidates, and configure interview workflows.
For steps to create a job, see Gem ATS: Create a job. For steps to edit a live job, see Gem ATS: Edit a job.
Add candidates to jobs
After you’ve created a job, you can add new or existing candidates to that job. This allows you to quickstart your talent pipeline with a set of qualified leads.
For steps to add new and existing candidates, see Gem ATS: Add candidates to a job.
Manage global notification settings
Admins can set global notifications to help your team stay on track during the interview process. For example, Gem can automatically send interviewers reminders before an interview, and follow up after an interview to prompt scorecard submission.
We recommend reviewing and configuring your global notification settings as part of the process of setting up Gem ATS to suit your team.
For steps to review and manage global notifications, see Gem ATS: Manage global notifications settings.
For steps to integrate Slack so you can enable Slack notification settings, see Gem integrations: Slack.
Connect integrations
Gem ATS integrates with various platforms to streamline your hiring workflow. During your initial setup, be sure to connect the tools you already use.
Below, you’ll find step-by-step instructions for integrating with some of our most popular Gem ATS integrations.
- Gem integrations: Certn
- Gem integrations: Checkr
- Gem integrations: CoderPad
- Gem integrations: CodeSignal
- Gem integrations: Docusign
- Gem integrations: iMocha
- Gem integrations: JobTarget
- Gem integrations: Sterling
- Gem integrations: Slack
Have any issues or questions on this topic? Please feel free to contact your dedicated Gem Customer Success Manager directly or our Support team at support@gem.com.