Secure export rights in the contract, verify a real export during evaluation rather than trusting the feature list, prefer standard integrations over bespoke ones, keep your own copy of critical hiring data, and avoid long initial terms. Lock-in is mostly created by data you cannot retrieve and processes built around one vendor's assumptions.
Three things, and only one is technical. The first is data you cannot get out in a usable form: records that export as rendered documents rather than structured files, activity history that does not export at all, or attachments that come back without the candidate records they belong to. The second is process dependency, where your hiring workflow has been rebuilt around one product's particular model of stages, permissions and automation, so moving means redesigning the process rather than just the tooling. The third is integration debt: custom connections built to a specific API that must all be rebuilt elsewhere. Contract terms amplify all three by adding cost and timing constraints, but the underlying grip comes from data and process, which is why the protection has to start during evaluation.
Run a real export during the trial and inspect the file. Check that candidate records, applications, stage history with timestamps, interview feedback, notes and attachments all come out, and that the relationships between them survive. A common failure is exporting candidates and applications as separate flat files with no reliable key to join them, which technically satisfies an export promise while making the data close to useless. Also check whether a normal administrator can run the export or whether it requires a support request, since a process that depends on vendor goodwill is not a right. Confirm API access at your tier and its rate limits. Do this while you still have leverage, because after migration these questions become requests rather than requirements. Treat portability as part of [what you evaluate in the product](/ats-features), not as a legal afterthought.
Explicit statements that you own your data, that you may export it in a structured format at any time during the term at no additional charge, and that on termination you have a defined retrieval window with the format named. Add a shorter initial term where possible, since a one-year commitment costs a little more per year and preserves your ability to change course. Negotiate renewal price protection, because unbounded increases at renewal are a commercial form of the same problem: you stay because leaving is expensive, not because the product is right. Also check whether the vendor claims any right to use your data beyond providing the service. None of these clauses are unusual to ask for, and a vendor confident in their product rarely resists them.
Keep a periodic export of your hiring data somewhere you control, such as a warehouse or secure storage, and treat it as a business record rather than a backup. Document your hiring process independently of the product, in your own language, so a future migration starts from a description of what you do rather than a screenshot of how one system does it. Prefer standard integration methods over bespoke builds, and where custom work is unavoidable, keep the logic on your side of the connection. Finally, review portability at each renewal alongside cost and fit. Teams that check their exit options annually rarely feel trapped, because the answer is current rather than something they last considered at signature.
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