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Are you a recruiter looking to streamline your hiring process? You’re hardly alone in that camp. Thankfully, there’s recruiting software that helps you do precisely that and then some.
In a fast-paced recruiting environment where you need to sift through hundreds of potential applicants with differing strengths and weaknesses, your best bet is adopting an applicant tracking software that allows you to make the best hiring decisions possible.
With so many recruiting software options to choose from, the problem is that it quickly becomes an overwhelming choice to make. No one wants to invest in tools that aren’t entirely useful to their process.
In this in-depth review, I’ll dive into the best recruiting software options on the market, as well as how to pick one that fits your business best without having to deal with the overwhelm.
Let’s get started.
The Top Recruiting Software Options For 2020
How to Choose The Best Recruiting Software For You
If you’re looking for an applicant tracking system (ATS), it’s clear your main goal is to make quality hires for your business in the most efficient way possible.
The question becomes, what criteria do you use to choose the best software-company fit? Here are a few key factors to consider:
Hiring Budget
Your business is unique, and so is the budget you assign to your hiring process.
With a bit of research, you can find an ATS that fits your company without putting you over budget.
If investing in a robust ATS software will save you money by making less bad hires in the long run, save you time by having instant access to large amounts of data, or let you employ less hiring managers, then the investment is well worth it.
In the ATS world, there is a range of prices you can choose from that help you stay on track financially. We’ll dive into more detail on that below.
Specific Features
Are you looking for a hiring system that lets you integrate email campaigns, pre-screenings, or specific candidate analytics?
Is testing a big part of your hiring process? Maybe you’re looking for a basic system that lets you compare applications with straightforward data.
Make a list of the features your business can’t compromise on, and use those as a filter for narrowing your best options.
Usually, additional features like landing pages, automations, planning software, or workflow integrations can be added down the road. This allows you to make the best choice for where your company is now and you can upgrade and build on it later.
Hiring Frequency
You might be a small company with a lower turnover rate. Or maybe you’re a sizable company with more than 500 employees and are constantly looking for new hires.
Your ATS needs to be able to handle the amount of hiring data you’ll be managing daily.
Ask yourself how frequently you make new hires and what your average turnover rate is. This will be a good way to filter which software will fit you best.
Recruiting Software Type
Are you a small up-and-coming business, a hiring agency, or a sizeable enterprise?
This is an important distinction to make when you’re choosing a system. No software system is a catch-all for every business. There are too many hiring variables and unique business needs for this to be the case.
While some software is built to handle hiring agency needs, others are better for an established business with in-house HR and hiring managers. Whether you need a simpler ATS or a more robust CRM is an additional distinction to make that we’ll talk about more in the following sections.
The Different Types of Recruiting Software
Recruiting software generally falls into three defining categories: applicant tracking software, candidate relationship management, and interviewing software. I break each of them down for you below.
Applicant Tracking Software
Processing job applications and resumes, keeping track of interviews, and managing job postings can all be done with a simple applicant tracking software.
These are basic capabilities most ATS software will have. As your company gets bigger, you’ll start looking for additional capabilities.
This is where we get into CRM software.
Candidate Relationship Management
If you need to gather a pool of potential candidates according to different hiring criteria on a rolling basis, then a candidate relationship management (CRM) system might be the better option for you.
An ATS focuses on managing applicants interested in any given active job ad, while CRM systems revolve around attracting the best talent from a candidate pool and managing it continuously.
This usually works best for enterprise-level businesses that are more established and are continually perusing and hiring through a pool of qualified candidates. It’s also an excellent option for hiring agencies.
Interviewing Software
Finally, interviewing software can be big time savers. Not only do they help you sift through potential candidates, but they allow you to schedule and record interviews and interview questions you can review on your own time.
This way, you can easily compare answers, as well as perceived candidate skills.
This is a great fit for larger companies with higher turnover rates.
Below, you’ll find a list of the best recruiting software for different criteria, along with pricing, features, and benefits.
#1 – Recooty – The Best Recruiting Software For Small Businesses
Recooty prides itself on being the easiest recruiting software for small businesses.
If yours is a small business, chances are you’re trying out hiring software for the first time. With Recooty, you can easily cover all your hiring basics.
You can post jobs, schedule interviews, check out possible resumes, and hire with a few simple clicks.
Though Recooty is geared towards smaller businesses, you can still create a branded careers page that fits your company profile. This, in particular, is a great feature that helps you differentiate yourself as a recruiter in the job market.
But you don’t have to stop there. You can also be accessible and post to the most popular job boards in no time.
Pros
- Bulk import and export when you’re ready to upgrade
- Branded careers page
- Ability to post to multiple job boards
- Social network sharing capabilities
Cons
- Very limited capabilities that don’t scale with the growth of your company
- Limited app integrations
- Does not offer CRM capabilities
Pricing
Recooty’s pricing is straightforward. You can choose to go with a monthly plan or save 20% with an annual payment.
For starters, Recooty has a great free plan that allows you to post three jobs, a branded career page, and lets you track applicants.
For more advanced options, you can choose the Pro Plan for $29 a month or the Ultra Plan for $49.
Check out each of their pricing tiers in detail here.
#2 – BambooHR – The Best Recruiting Software For Medium-Sized Businesses
BambooHR is a great solution for smaller to medium-sized businesses with more significant hiring needs. Their user interface is immensely easy to navigate and helps you get through the hiring and onboarding cycle seamlessly.
What makes BambooHR stand out is that they aren’t only an ATS but also a human resource system.
This means their all-in-one system also helps you track things like time off, payroll, employee timesheets, and report management once you’ve already hired a candidate. For a hiring team, this can be a real time-saver.
One of the more standout features of BambooHR is their expansive 45 app integrations with job sites like Indeed or Glassdoor to help you automate the job listing process.
Additional app integrations, like signing in through Google, connecting with Slack, or Universal Background Screening, make it that much easier to manage your prospect pool. Plus, if there isn’t an app integration you’d like to get, they give you the option of requesting one or using Zapier to make it happen.
Their best features make it easy to create and list job openings. They have an IOS and Android compatible app for easier access to hiring tools, data, and employee self-service features. This helps your hiring team create rapport and stay in constant communication with prospects and hires.
You can even add custom permissions at each stage of the hiring process for any company stakeholders wanting to give input on any candidate.
Pros
- Ability to create custom workflows from done-for-you templates
- Electronic signatures for easier paperwork management
- Applicant tracking for faster hiring
- User-friendly and easy to navigate
- HR reporting and analytics for optimal decision making
Cons
- Depending on your budget, some software capabilities will cost extra.
- If you choose the Essentials tier, you don’t get access to basic phone support.
Pricing
Though they list either an Essentials or Advantage option with the ability for add-ons, BambooHR doesn’t provide cookie-cutter pricing tiers.
Instead, they create personalized packages that work with your budget. You can either sign up for a free trial or receive a pricing quote on their website.
Get started with a free BambooHR trial here.
#3 – Bullhorn – The Best Recruiting Software For Recruiting Agencies
You might be wondering whether Bullhorn is an ATS or a CRM software. Well, it’s both.
If you’re a staffing agency with a hefty pool of applicants to manage, Bullhorn is your go-to system for streamlined and centralized hiring processes.
They make it easy to find and place talented hires in open roles at scale and without data storage limitations that might hold you back.
Their interface brings together the ability to manage the applicant and recruiting cycle so your team can make the best hiring decisions faster.
Integrations with Outlook, Gmail, and LinkedIn, also make it easier to communicate with potential hires, which is a key function for any recruiting agency. With Bullhorn, you can edit and parse any resume, add notes to applications, and even search keywords to find the right candidates for any open role.
One of their best features is the Bullhorn marketplace, with more than 100 applications to choose from.
This makes them a truly customizable platform that allows staffing agencies of any size to personalize their hiring processes and create a system that works for their team.
Pros
- Centralized talent sourcing system that helps your team collectively find the best hiring fit
- Advanced reporting to learn the health of your hiring system within a few clicks
- Highly customizable workflows
- Email tracking and mass emailing
- Detail-oriented resume parsing and keyword search
Cons
- It can be a pricey investment for up-and-coming recruiting agencies
Pricing
Bullhorn lists Team, Corporate, and Enterprise as their three main pricing tiers, but they don’t readily list their prices. You’ll have to request a pricing quote on their site since it’s based on the number of people on your team that need access to their system.
Request a Bullhorn pricing quote here.
#4 – Greenhouse – The Best Recruiting Software For Entreprises
Greenhouse is made for enterprises to manage hiring at scale. Structured hiring is the name of their game as they focus on creating an equitable interviewing and onboarding process for all candidates.
Their systems are designed to lessen problems like biased hiring by basing its decision-making on each applicant’s individual evidence and data. If you’re a big company focusing on hiring diversity, equality, fairness, and lessening bias, Greenhouse has built-in capabilities that help you nurture those values.
The Greenhouse interface is specifically designed to scale easily and grow right alongside your business with more than 300 hiring and management applications.
Their best recruiting tools include the ability to share application reviews, access to scorecards that evaluate candidates consistently, and even finer details like allowing candidates to pre-record the right pronunciation of their names for more inclusivity.
Pros
- Automated surveys to measure hiring experience
- Predictive analytics along with machine learning help make data-based decisions
- Onboarding performance measurement
- Accessible mobile apps for easy access to specs like candidate profiles, summaries, and scorecards
Cons
- Can be an expensive addition to your hiring process
Pricing
Greenhouse doesn’t list their prices since their pricing is based on the size of your organization.
You can get a custom quote by requesting their free demo here.
Conclusion
With the right recruiting software, you can forget the piles of paperwork and overbearing spreadsheets that are inefficient for getting you through the hiring process.
Adopting a system that caters to your specific business needs can make all the difference in the quality of your hires. Once you beat the overwhelm in the decision-making process, the next step is to make the choice and start.
Pick the best ATS software using this guide and start making better hires this week.
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