Run an ATS proof of concept on one real requisition instead of a sandbox. Load genuine candidates, hand the system to the people who will use it daily, and run the full path from job post to offer over two to four weeks. Score the result against pass criteria you wrote down before the trial began.
Test the workflows you run every week, not the feature list. Pick one live requisition and push it through the whole path: job posted, applications in, resumes parsed, screening, interview scheduling, feedback captured, offer sent. The questions that matter are whether your careers page still looks right, whether duplicate candidates collapse properly, whether a hiring manager can leave feedback without a login problem, and whether reporting reflects what actually happened. Vendors demo the happy path. A proof of concept exists to find the unhappy ones: the odd job title, the candidate who applied twice, the interview rescheduled three times. Write those cases down first, then check them off one by one. If you have not mapped your process yet, do that before you start, because [applicant tracking software](/ats) shapes itself around whatever workflow you give it.
Long enough to close at least one hiring stage in real life, which for most teams means two to four weeks. Shorter than that and you are only testing setup. Longer than that and the trial becomes a shadow system nobody wants to leave, or the vendor loses interest in supporting you. Anchor the window to a hiring event rather than a calendar: run it from the day the role opens to the day you have interviewed a shortlist. Sequence matters too. Spend the first few days on configuration and data import, the middle stretch on live use with no vendor hand-holding, and the last few days on reporting and export. That final step is the one teams skip and later regret, because it tells you how easily your data comes back out.
The daily users, not the buyer. A recruiter or coordinator who lives in the tool eight hours a day will surface friction that an HR director evaluating from a demo deck never sees. Give that person authority to configure things, not just to observe. Add one hiring manager who will be asked to review candidates and leave feedback, because manager adoption is where most rollouts stall, and add someone from IT or operations if single sign-on or an integration is part of the requirement. Keep the group small. Three or four people running one requisition produces cleaner signal than a dozen people poking at features nobody is accountable for. The buyer's job during the trial is to collect the notes and protect the team's time, not to drive the tool.
Score against criteria you fixed in writing before the trial, weighted by how much each one matters to your hiring. Split them into must-haves that end the evaluation if they fail, and preferences that break a tie. Typical must-haves: candidate data exports cleanly, your hiring managers can complete a review unaided, scheduling works with your calendar system, and the reports answer the questions your leadership actually asks. Then ask the daily users one blunt question: would you rather keep this or go back? A hesitant yes is a no. Record the decision and the reasons, because you will run this evaluation again in a few years and the notes are worth more than the memory. If the shortlist is still tied, a scoped [product walkthrough with the vendor](/book-demo) on your exact failure cases usually settles it.
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