Updated October 2026. Covers the Anti-Age Discrimination in Employment Act (RA 10911), the Data Privacy Act of 2012 (RA 10173) and the First Time Jobseekers Assistance Act (RA 11261).
An applicant tracking system (ATS) is the software that holds every job opening, applicant and hiring decision in one place, from the moment someone applies to the day they accept an offer. For most Philippine employers it replaces a shared inbox, a JobStreet dashboard, a spreadsheet of names and a group chat where interview feedback gets lost. The payoff is speed and fairness: every applicant moves through the same stages, nobody is forgotten in "screening" for three weeks, and the reasons behind each decision are on record. The calculator below shows how many applicants a role really needs, and the rest of this guide covers how to set up the pipeline around it.
Hiring funnel calculator
| Stage | Pass rate | People needed |
|---|---|---|
| Applications | - | |
| Passed screening | ||
| Final interviews | ||
| Offers | ||
| Hires |
Each stage is rounded up to whole people. Replace the default rates with your own once your ATS has a few months of data.
What an applicant tracking system does
- Publishes jobs on your own careers page and gives you an apply link you can share on job boards, social media and referral messages.
- Captures every application in one place with the resume, answers and source, and spots repeat applicants instead of creating duplicates.
- Moves applicants through stages such as screening, interview, assessment, reference check and offer, so everyone on the hiring team sees where each person is.
- Handles communication with consistent emails for receipt, next steps, rejection and offers.
- Reports on the funnel: where applicants come from, where they drop off, and which roles are stuck.
Job ads and application forms: RA 10911
The Anti-Age Discrimination in Employment Act (RA 10911) is the hiring law Philippine employers break most often without realizing it. It makes it unlawful to:
- Publish a job advertisement that suggests a preference, limit or specification based on age, such as "22 to 30 years old only."
- Require applicants to declare their age or birth date during the application process.
- Decline an application because of the applicant's age.
There are exceptions, for example where age is a genuine occupational qualification reasonably necessary for the job, or where the law sets an age requirement. Violations carry a fine of ₱50,000 to ₱500,000, imprisonment of three months to two years, or both. In practice: remove age ranges from job posts, and do not put a birth date field on the application form. Collect it after the offer, when it is needed for SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG and payroll.
Applicant data and the Data Privacy Act
Resumes, contact details, exam results and interview notes are personal information under RA 10173. The rules that matter most in hiring:
- Tell applicants what you collect and why. A short privacy notice on the application form covers it: purpose (evaluating the application), who sees it, and how long you keep it.
- Collect only what you need at this stage. Government ID numbers, family details and medical information belong after the offer, not on the first form.
- Set a retention period. Keeping rejected applicants on file for future openings is fine if they were told; keeping everything forever is not.
- Control access. Interview feedback and salary expectations should be visible to the hiring team, not the whole company. Resumes forwarded through personal email and chat apps are the usual leak.
First-time jobseekers: RA 11261
Under the First Time Jobseekers Assistance Act, first-time jobseekers do not pay government fees for pre-employment documents such as the NBI clearance, police clearance, barangay clearance and PSA birth certificate, provided they present a barangay certification of first-time jobseeker status. It helps to mention this in your requirements email for entry-level roles. Applicants who know the documents are free tend to submit them faster.
Setting up a hiring pipeline
A pipeline that works for most roles:
| Stage | What happens | Suggested time limit |
|---|---|---|
| New | Application received, acknowledgment email sent | 1 to 2 days |
| Screening | Check minimum requirements and screening answers | 2 to 3 days |
| Phone interview | Short call on availability, salary expectations, basics | 3 days |
| Assessment | Online exam or work sample | 3 to 5 days |
| Interview | Hiring manager or panel interview | 5 days |
| Reference check | Previous employers, certificate of employment | 3 days |
| Offer | Offer sent and negotiated | 3 to 5 days |
| Hired, Rejected or Withdrawn | Final outcome with a recorded reason | - |
The time limits matter more than the stage names. Good applicants in the Philippine market often have two or three processes running at once, and the employer who replies in two days usually beats the one who replies in two weeks.
Screening questions and assessments
Screening questions on the application form do the first pass for you. Yes-or-no and multiple-choice questions work best: "Are you willing to work night shift?", "Do you have a valid professional license?", "Can you report to our Cebu office?" Keep them about the job, and never use them to ask about age, civil status or other characteristics the law protects.
Online assessments are the fairest way to compare applicants for skills-based roles. A timed test with a set pass mark gives every applicant the same questions and the same standard. Shuffling questions and answer choices, blocking copy and paste, and recording when the applicant leaves the test tab make a remote test much harder to game.
The four hiring metrics worth tracking
- Time in stage: how long applicants wait at each step. It shows exactly where the process is slow.
- Source of hire: which channels produce people who get hired, not just people who apply. Referrals usually win.
- Stage pass rates: the numbers in the calculator above. They tell you how many applicants each future opening needs.
- Rejection reasons: if most applicants fail on the same requirement, the job ad is attracting the wrong people.
How Tropa handles applicant tracking
Tropa's applicant tracking system covers the hiring steps above in one workspace:
- A careers page you build yourself with drag-and-drop blocks (hero, job list, company values, team, testimonials, video, FAQ), your logo and colors, and SEO titles, plus a shareable apply link for every posting.
- Job postings with employment type, work arrangement, seniority and an optional public salary range.
- Configurable application forms: choose which fields are required and add per-job screening questions (text, yes or no, single or multiple choice). Repeat applicants are matched by email instead of duplicated.
- Pipelines with time limits per stage. Applicants are flagged at risk as they approach a stage's limit and overdue once they pass it, on a list view, a triage kanban and a pipeline board.
- Online exams with auto-grading, time limits, pass marks and shuffled questions, sent automatically when an applicant reaches a stage. Copy and paste are blocked, and tab switches and time away are logged for the hiring team.
- Team collaboration: notes, tags, ratings, assigned recruiters and structured rejection reasons on every application.
- Source and referral tracking for the careers page, LinkedIn, Indeed, JobStreet, agencies, career fairs and employee referrals.
- Ten editable email templates covering receipt, stage updates, interviews, exam invites, offers, rejection and hiring, and an optional status page where applicants can check where their application stands.
- A hiring dashboard showing active and overdue applications, the funnel, sources and a recruiter leaderboard.
Frequently asked questions
What is an applicant tracking system?
Software that stores job openings and applicants in one place and moves each applicant through hiring stages, from application to offer, with the history and decisions recorded.
Can employers in the Philippines put an age limit in a job ad?
Generally no. RA 10911 prohibits job ads that state age preferences or limits, and requiring an applicant's age or birth date during the application, except where age is a genuine occupational qualification or the law requires it.
How long can we keep applicant resumes?
The Data Privacy Act does not set a fixed number of days. Keep them only as long as the stated purpose needs, tell applicants that period, and delete or anonymize them after. Many employers keep unsuccessful applications for 6 to 12 months for future openings.
Do first-time jobseekers pay for NBI and police clearances?
No. Under RA 11261, first-time jobseekers with a barangay certification are exempt from government fees for pre-employment documents such as the NBI clearance, police clearance, barangay clearance and PSA birth certificate.
Is an ATS worth it for a small company?
If you hire more than a few people a year or more than one person reviews applicants, yes. The main gain is that no applicant is lost between email, job boards and chat, and every decision is recorded the same way.
How many applicants do we need for one hire?
It depends on your pass rates at each stage. With typical rates (25% pass screening, 40% pass the first interview, 35% of final interviews get an offer, 80% accept), one hire needs about 36 applicants. Use the calculator above with your own numbers.
Bring hiring into one pipeline. Build your careers page, screen with questions and online exams, and see every applicant's stage and time-in-stage at a glance. See the Tropa applicant tracking system, the HRIS, the HRIS buyer's guide, or see pricing.