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Hand picked by our HR Technology experts after product testing, user research, and much debate - enjoy!
Talent acquisition teams know that a good recruiting software solution makes their lives way easier while also invigorating their hiring process. From candidate sourcing and job posting to resume parsing and interview scheduling, the right recruiting tools mean more of the best talent in your pipeline and more efficient recruiting cycles.
Those tools can add up in cost over time. If you’re a large business with an extensive HR team, you might want to check out our Best Recruiting Software page for the best of different categories and all-in-one paid options.
However if you’re visiting this page, you are likely a startup or small business who can’t afford to spend money on enterprise-level software. As such, we have curated a list of the best free and inexpensive recruitment software choices, including some of the major players that have options for free trials. That way, it’s easier to find the right solution that fits your recruiting needs as well as your budget.
Our criteria: How we chose the best vendors
We take research seriously. To make sure we’re offering our readers the very best solutions in a given software category, we are methodical, rigorous, and expansive in our research. We consult with HR professionals, vendors, and industry experts. We cut through the noise to bring you a carefully curated list of vendors, along with other essential information, to help you find the right software platform for your business.
Here’s how we chose who makes the cut:
Product: We believe in gaining a comprehensive understanding of a product before we recommend it, so we start by getting to know the software. Whenever possible, we meet with a senior executive (CEO or Head of Product) for a demo and Q&A. We also test the product ourselves to make sure it has a solid UI, intuitive workflows, and the features to make it a best-in-class offering.
User feedback: We go straight to the source and compile feedback on user experience. Real-world input supports our commitment to diligence in our software evaluation methods and the products we recommend. Keeping up with the everyday experience of HR pros also puts new vendors on our radar, and it keeps us close to our community so we can better connect the right products to the right people.
Financial metrics: We are certified finance nerds, so we use all the data we can get our hands on to make selections for our guides. We comb through data for concrete statistics like retention rates, growth, profitability, and scalability. We evaluate the bottom line of each product because we know making a software purchase can put your reputation on the line.
Best for a use case: Software is never a one-size-fits-all product. Sometimes the best solution is free or cheap. Other times it’s the one that is best for global companies or the one that’s sized right for early-stage startups. Keeping this in mind, we include solutions across the spectrum so our readers can find the best fit for their unique needs.
Here's more detail if you want to read more about how we research vendors. Our dedicated staff writers rely on hard data, impartial experts, and user feedback to ensure our reviews are helpful, truthful, and hopefully a pleasure to read!
Top Free Recruiting Software
We surveyed the landscape and came up with these free recruiting software solutions that your team should look into.
Why we love it
:
GoHire is an affordable recruiting solution that's also scalable; SMBs can derive value from its introductory plans, and upgrade as their operation grows.
There are both pros and cons to using GoHire.io. Let's take a look at some of the most important ones:
- One user appreciated the in-app messaging and email saying “Great templating for messages and emails.” They further liked the fact that they were able to control the on-boarding process as well as display jobs on the website.
- The platform is easy to use and helps businesses keep track of their hiring process by providing them with tools to manage job postings, candidate screening, interview scheduling, and offer management.
- GoHire.io makes it possible to post jobs on multiple job boards giving the user a wide variety of applicants. Therefore, hiring managers and founders can manage the applicants from numerous job boards on one platform. One user stated that they used to receive three job applications for €12.8 when using LinkedIn Jobs paid advertisements, but are now receiving 50+ applicants every month for free while using GoHire.
- The HR team appreciates that GoHire.io has a responsive customer support team. One user even appreciated that they were happy that their feedback was taken seriously and implemented on the ATS.
- GoHire.io does not support sending SMS to the applicants.
- While GoHire.io has received a lot of positive feedback about its platform, a significant number of users who had bought lifetime deals via AppSummo felt let down when the company discontinued the plan despite stating that it was a lifetime deal.
- One user complained that they were not able to upload multiple file formats for candidates. They were only able to upload PDF files.
GoHire
Review:
GoHire is a simple to use ATS that is perfect for smaller companies focused on growing their teams. Their software will distribute your roles to job boards, schedule interviews, record candidate feedback, and communicate with candidates. This is a great offering for budget conscious companies and they offer a two week free trial.
GoHire
Customers:
Snagajob, Promoter, Sweetberry, Swapcard, Voucher Cart
Snagajob, Promoter, Sweetberry, Swapcard, Voucher Cart.
GoHire
Pricing:
GoHire.io offers three pricing plans to meet the needs of businesses. The plans provide flexible schedules for both monthly and annual payments. The company also offers a cancel anytime policy that is helpful when a business is not hiring. For new users, the company offers a free 14-day trial. The plans are:
- Starter costs £58 per month (about $74) and includes baseline features, with 3 active job posts, 3 active talent pools, Interview Scheduler & Calendar Sync, Customizable Pipeline Stages, and unlimited team members.
- Growth costs £83 per month (about $125) and provides everything from Starter plus 10 Active Job Posts, Talent Pools, Application Form Editor, Bulk Actions, Team Inbox, and @Mention Team members.
- Pro costs £165 per month (about $241) and provides all Growth features Plus Unlimited Active Job Posts, Automated Stage Actions, Advanced Reporting, Selection Questionnaires, Interview Scorecards, Careers Page Editor, Slack Integration, Zapier Integration, Audit Log, and Priority Support.
GoHire.io offers three pricing plans to meet the needs of businesses. The plans provide flexible schedules for both monthly and annual payments. The company also offers a cancel anytime policy that is helpful when a business is not hiring. For new users, the company offers a free 14-day trial. The plans are:
- Starter costs £58 per month (about $74) and includes baseline features, with 3 active job posts, 3 active talent pools, Interview Scheduler & Calendar Sync, Customizable Pipeline Stages, and unlimited team members.
- Growth costs £83 per month (about $125) and provides everything from Starter plus 10 Active Job Posts, Talent Pools, Application Form Editor, Bulk Actions, Team Inbox, and @Mention Team members.
- Pro costs £165 per month (about $241) and provides all Growth features Plus Unlimited Active Job Posts, Automated Stage Actions, Advanced Reporting, Selection Questionnaires, Interview Scorecards, Careers Page Editor, Slack Integration, Zapier Integration, Audit Log, and Priority Support.
Best For
GoHire is best for small business that are scaling quickly but need an affordable ATS.
Why we love it
:
Not only does Manatal cover most of the features you’d expect from a budget-friendly ATS, the platform tops that off with AI-powered actions, such as candidate filtering and recommendations. All of Manatal’s features can be trialed for free for up to 14 days, no credit card required.
- Manatal is quite affordable and offers a 15-day free trial for users to test it out before making commitments.
- Manatal is fairly easy to use. It features drag-and-drop enabled pipelines for candidate organization.
- Manatal’s AI-based recommendations feature can save hiring managers quite a bit of time. It’s able to scan job descriptions then search a users talent pool and bring up candidates most suited for the job.
- The AI recommendations feature works best with resumes that are in English, and doesn’t work as accurately with other languages according to several users’ feedback. Several users have also complained about Manatal’s interface only being available in English and that career pages cannot be published in languages other than English and Spanish.
- Manatal doesn’t offer a free plan. We mention this as a con as several SMB-geared ATSs do offer a free-forever verison, and that puts Manatal slightly behind competition.
- Manatal doesn’t offer prebuilt integration modules. They do have an open API that allows users to plug in third-party products and custom tools, but that required a bit more time and technical knowledge to accomplish. It’s also worth mentioning that only Custom plan customers can access Manatal’s API and Zapier integration. Customers on the Professional and Enterprise plan cannot.
- Users can search for candidates via Boolean Search or Advanced Search, but cannot combine the two search methods together. E.g users cannot use the Boolean search operators (AND, OR and NOT) within Manatal’s Advanced Search tab.
Manatal
Review:
Manatal is a budget-friendly recruiting software that helps HR teams find and hire the right people. Through it, you can create a custom-branded career page, post jobs to multiple job boards, upload candidate profiles and automatically enrich them with data derived from their social media accounts.
We like that Manatal features a customizable recruiting pipeline that’s drag-and-drop enabled. It also has an AI-powered recommendations engine that recommends suitable candidates based on your job descriptions, customizable analytics dashboards, a mobile app for on-the-go access, and a LinkedIn chrome extension, allowing you to quickly connect with and save the candidates who fit your job requirements.
Manatal
Customers:
Manatal is used in over 100 countries. Their customer list includes Unilever, Cocacola, Panasonic, Ogilvy, and Toyota.
Manatal is used in over 100 countries. Their customer list includes Unilever, Cocacola, Panasonic, Ogilvy, and Toyota.
Manatal
Pricing:
Manatal has two plans with fixed pricing. When Billed annually, they cost as follows:
- Professional: This plan costs $15 per user per month for up to 15 jobs per account and 10,000 candidates. Customers on this plan can add unlimited guests.
- Enterprise: This plan costs $35 per user per month for unlimited jobs per account, as well as unlimited candidates and guests.
Note:
- “Users” refers to the individuals with full unrestricted access to Manatal’s platform and its features such as recruiters and HR professionals who actively use the software.
- “Guests” refers to individuals who are invited to collaborate on the platform through a dedicated portal such as hiring managers and decision-makers. These guests can access the platform free of charge and do not count towards the billable number of users.
Manatal has two plans with fixed pricing. When Billed annually, they cost as follows:
- Professional: This plan costs $15 per user per month for up to 15 jobs per account and 10,000 candidates. Customers on this plan can add unlimited guests.
- Enterprise: This plan costs $35 per user per month for unlimited jobs per account, as well as unlimited candidates and guests.
Note:
- “Users” refers to the individuals with full unrestricted access to Manatal’s platform and its features such as recruiters and HR professionals who actively use the software.
- “Guests” refers to individuals who are invited to collaborate on the platform through a dedicated portal such as hiring managers and decision-makers. Thes
Best For
Manatal is used by organizations of all sizes across different industries, but it’s worth noting that the ball-park of their customers are SMEs.
Why we love it
:
Gem gathers data from tools that recruitment teams use on a day-to-day basis, such as LinkedIn InMail, ATS, and email, and combines it into a single talent management hub that automates candidate sourcing and engagement while providing detailed insights to support and optimize your recruiting strategy.
- Gem helps you discover qualified candidates across multiple channels, send personalized messages, visualize your recruitment pipeline, and stay on top of crucial hiring metrics
- Gem's integration with LinkedIn and various ATS means that all candidate data is stored in a centralized location. Users find this feature extremely useful.
- According to users, one of Gem's finest features is the ability to create automated drip campaigns to engage with both active and passive candidates
- Gem helps you discover qualified candidates across multiple channels, send personalized messages, visualize your recruitment pipeline, and stay on top of crucial hiring metrics
- Gem's integration with LinkedIn and various ATS means that all candidate data is stored in a centralized location. Users find this feature extremely useful.
- According to users, one of Gem's finest features is the ability to create automated drip campaigns to engage with both active and passive candidates
- Some users have experienced slow load times and lags while using the application
- In rare cases, the contact information, such as the email address or phone number of a sourced candidate, might be wrong
- While Gem currently integrates with LinkedIn, it does not provide the option to automate messages via LinkedIn InMail
- Some users have experienced slow load times and lags while using the application
- In rare cases, the contact information, such as the email address or phone number of a sourced candidate, might be wrong
- While Gem currently integrates with LinkedIn, it does not provide the option to automate messages via LinkedIn InMail
Gem
Review:
Gem has taken many of the best practices your sales team uses to engage leads and applied them to your recruiters’ workflows when engaging candidates. It is primarily a talent engagement platform with features to support talent sourcing, candidate outreach, and recruitment pipeline management. Hiring teams can use Gem to capture information about relevant candidates, engage with them through multistage drip campaigns, and see what's working and what's not through analytics. The best part about Gem is that it integrates with a range of ATS, LinkedIn and email.
While the software is not free, they do offer a free demo and trial so you can evaluate if it is a good fit for your business.
Gem
Customers:
Coinbase, Slack, Asana, Dropbox, Lyft, Indeed, Pinterest, and Doordash
Coinbase, Slack, Asana, Dropbox, Lyft, Indeed, Pinterest, and Doordash
Gem
Pricing:
The cost of Gem's services is based on the size of your recruitment team, the number of hires, and other factors like custom ATS integrations. You can reach out to their sales team for a quote.
The cost of Gem's services is based on the size of your recruitment team, the number of hires, and other factors like custom ATS integrations. You can reach out to their sales team for a quote.
Best For
Gem is best suited for large enterprises and staffing agencies that need to hire more employees in a short time period.
Why we love it
:
We love Freshteams because it is a robust and user-friendly ATS. Their free plan serves companies with up to 50 users quite well, eliminating the need to supplement their offering with additional tools.
- Freshteam is very user-friendly, with an intuitive UI that’s easy to navigate. It features a customizable, Kanban-style view of the full hiring process from initial contact to offer sending. Drag and drop mechanism makes it easy to move candidates around as they progress through the different stages.
- Freshteam is affordable for SMBs to use while still having a comparable feature set to more expensive solutions.
- Freshteam is quite scalable. With four plans to choose from, customers can start out with the free plan, then upgrade to more features as their business grows.
- While Freshteam has a free-forever plan that small companies can use, the plan is limited in features and allows for only 3 published job postings. That said, Freshteam’s paid plans are quite affordable, and can be used by small businesses - should they need to - without breaking the bank.
- Freshteam might not be suitable for enterprises and agencies that do volume hiring and are in need of advanced applicant tracking, candidate sourcing, and relationship management capabilities, as we've confirmed via several user interviews.
Freshteam
Review:
If your company is around 50 employees in size, Freshteam’s free offering might be ideal. This package helps you stay organized by presenting all recruiting and hiring operations on a single dashboard. It provides basic applicant tracking, interview scheduling, and integration with some Google services. However, the Free plan only allows for 3 active job postings at a time and has no resume parsing feature.
The paid plans all have a 21-day free trial as well, much longer than most competitors.
Freshteam
Customers:
Nissan, University of Pennsylvania, Daimler, SAP
Freshteam is one of the most widely used HR suites out there with over 7,000 customers including Monster, PharmEasy, Ocado, Reaktor, Nissan, SAP, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Freshteam
Pricing:
Freshteam’s free plan lets you add up to 50 employees and is ideal for small companies to handle their basic HR needs. The paid plans start at $1.20 per employee/month, along with a $71 monthly platform fee. These prices are lowered if you choose to pay for a full year.
Freshteam has 4 pricing plans. When billed annually, they cost as follows:
- Free: This plan is free of charge for up to 50 active employees and is limited to 3 published job postings.
- Growth: Costing $1 per employee per month + $59 platform fee per month, the Growth plan is ideal for small companies looking to handle their basic HR needs more effectively.
- Pro: For $2 per employee per month + $99 platform fee per month, the Pro plan comes with several added features to automate workflows and manage HR data.
- Enterprise: For $4 per employee per month + $169 platform fee per month, the Enterprise plan is Freshteam’s most premium offering, providing users with access to all features in previous plans with the addition of advanced customizations, reporting, and more.
Best For
Small, growing businesses.
Why we love it
:
We love Zoho Recruit because as with all of Zoho's products, it is quite robust. It is also completely free when hiring for only one active job.
- ATS + CRM in one platform
- Backed by a company like Zoho, notable for reliability and good customer service.
- 24/5 support
- Priced quite modestly after the free version
- Certain features like video interviews are available as optional add-ons.
- ATS + CRM in one platform
- Backed by a company like Zoho, notable for reliability and good customer service.
- 24/5 support
- Priced quite modestly after the free version
- Certain features like video interviews are available as optional add-ons.
- The free plan only allows 256MB of storage.
- Additional features, such as the client portal, mass email, workflow alerts, and API calls cost extra.
- Some users have complained about the quality of some of the integrations.
- The career site is not fully customizable until past a certain paid plan.
- The free plan only allows 256MB of storage.
- Additional features, such as the client portal, mass email, workflow alerts, and API calls cost extra.
- Some users have complained about the quality of some of the integrations.
- The career site is not fully customizable until past a certain paid plan.
Zoho Recruit
Review:
Zoho Recruit has a free plan that provides services for candidate management, email management, and interview scheduling. Zoho Recruit integrates easily with Google applications and supports 26 languages, allowing you to reach a large applicant pool. It also features simple resume search and 5 customized email templates.
Unfortunately, the free plan allows for only one active job opening. Overall, Zoho Recruit offers much more comprehensive solutions through their paid plans. However, you can start small and upgrade as you go, since they don’t require you to commit for a specific timeframe. Also, they have a 45-day money-back guarantee.
Zoho Recruit
Customers:
Bosch, Deloitte, Saint-Gobain, PWC, Allianz
Bosch, Deloitte, Saint-Gobain, PWC, Allianz
Zoho Recruit
Pricing:
Zoho Recruit has three paid plans on top of the free plan.
- Standard is $30 per user per month, with many more features compared to the Free version.
- Professional is $60 per user per month, with key features like assessments and social recruiting.
- Enterprise is $90 per user per month, and rounds out Zoho's entire feature set, except for the add-ons.
The client portal and video interview modules are what’s available as add-ons. Zoho Recruit also has a 15-day free trial, as well as a free-forever version. The free version has limited features and only 1 active job at a time.
Zoho Recruit has three paid plans on top of the free plan.
- Standard is $30 per user per month, with many more features compared to the Free version.
- Professional is $60 per user per month, with key features like assessments and social recruiting.
- Enterprise is $90 per user per month, and rounds out Zoho's entire feature set, except for the add-ons.
The client portal and video interview modules are what’s available as add-ons. Zoho Recruit also has a 15-day free trial, as well as a free-forever version. The free version has limited features and only 1 active job at a time.
Best For
Zoho Recruit is perfect for large and small companies of various industries that use premium and niche job boards to give them an edge over competitors. It is also worth considering for smaller recruiting firms, but also has tons of functionality that enterprise companies would value. Of course, any company wanting a free ATS that can integrate with the rest of their tech stack would be wise to consider them.
Why we love it
:
On top of being an affordable solution, Recooty has a lengthy 15-day free trial of its paid plans as well as a free forever plan.
- One user liked the usability of the software, stating that it is 'easy and self-explanatory.'
- The ability to post a job on multiple platforms makes it efficient, as per one user who labels Recooty a 'one-click job posting solution.'
- The company offers a cheap subscription, making it affordable for small businesses.
- The company does not have a mobile application, as stated by many software users.
- Recooty has limited features i.e., unlike its competitors, it doesn’t support employee referrals and one-on-one interviews.
- Recooty offers only two integrations from their dashboard; for Slack and LinkedIn.
- Recooty is more suitable for small and medium businesses and may not be ideal for large enterprises with more job postings and locations.
Recooty
Review:
Recooty's free applicant tracking system (ATS) enough functionality for small businesses to attract and hire the right people. Their free plan allows for one active job post at a time, job widget integration, the creation of branded careers page and social network sharing. They also offer a 15 day trial of their paid plans so you can test out some of their more advanced features before committing.
Recooty
Customers:
Recooty serves over 5000 companies, including Sendlane, Airtable, Uber, Rack Bank, American Hospital, and Trello.
Sendlane, Airtable, Uber, Trello, Rack Bank, American Hospital
Recooty
Pricing:
The company offers four pricing plans:
- Free plan - Limited to one active job slot, one user, and one location.
- Pro Plan - the plan goes for $49/month with 10 Active job slots, 10 slots, and 3 locations.
- Ultra Plan - goes for $ 99/month with 25 active job slots, 50 users, 10 locations, and all features under the Pro plan.
- Max Plan- goes for $ 199/month while offering 75 active job slots, 100 users, and 20 locations and all features under the Ultra plan.
All the plans come with a 14-day trial period in which you can test the service without providing your credit card details. After the trial period ends, you will need to update your card to continue using the services.
You'll appreciate Recooty's flexible and affordable pricing options if you're a small business. If you're starting, the free tier gives you access to one job posting, which is more than adequate for most small firms that only require one or two people at any given time.
The company offers four pricing plans:
- Free plan - Limited to one active job slot, one user, and one location.
- Pro Plan - the plan goes for $49/month with 10 Active job slots, 10 slots, and 3 locations.
- Ultra Plan - goes for $ 99/month with 25 active job slots, 50 users, 10 locations, and all features under the Pro plan.
- Max Plan- goes for $ 199/month while offering 75 active job slots, 100 users, and 20 locations and all features under the Ultra plan.
All the plans come with a 14-day trial period in which you can test the service without providing your credit card details. After the trial period ends, you will need to update your card to continue using the services.
You'll appreciate Recooty's flexible and affordable pricing options if you're a small business. If you're starting, the free tier gives you access to one job posting, which is more than adequate for most small firms that only require one or two people at any given time.
Best For
Recruitee's free solution is perfect for a small company with only one person doing the recruiting.
Why we love it
:
We love Indeed because of its massive database of candidates. Companies of any size can post jobs on it and access their talent pool - all for free.
- Indeed has a massive reach and is free for both employers and job seekers to find one another.
- The platform’s UI is modern and quite easy to navigate. New users are able to create accounts and post their first jobs within 10 minutes or less.
- There is a candidate assessment tool built in and a mobile app is available, enabling you to see candidates’ profiles, and resumes, review applications, schedule virtual interviews and more on-the-go.
- The free job posts lose visibility if they don’t get sponsored, as thousands of jobs are posted every day.
- Indeed’s video interviewing tool could use some improvement, as one employer said, “The video interviewing tool is frustrating, sometimes it’s not available, and it only works 50% of the time.”
- There isn’t a Zapier integration at this time, though Indeed’s marketplace is full of prebuilt integrations, coving most tech stacks.
Indeed
Review:
Indeed is perhaps the biggest and most popular job posting platform available today. It allows companies to post jobs and apply skill assessments to those posted jobs to reach one of the largest talent pools on the internet, all for free. Once a candidate passes the assessment(s) and their credentials have been reviewed, companies can use Indeed’s built-in messaging system to reach out to candidates and schedule interviews. Though it is optional, companies can also sponsor job posts on Indeed to reach quality candidates faster.
Indeed
Customers:
Indeed is used by over 3,000,000 companies, including Nokia, Schwab, McDonald's, and the University of Oxford.
Indeed is used by over 3,000,000 companies, including Nokia, Schwab, McDonald's, and the University of Oxford.
Indeed
Pricing:
It doesn't cost anything to post jobs to appear on Indeed's general search results. To reach more candidates however, you may want to try sponsoring your listing. The price for sponsoring a listing varies depending on the title, location and available job seekers for your posted job. After you define such criteria, Indeed will calculate and show you the price of sponsoring your listing so you’re able to decide if it’s within your budget before paying for it. To ensure you only pay for desired results, Indeed gives you 48 hours to reject unwanted applications before you’re charged.
It doesn't cost anything to post jobs to appear on Indeed's general search results. To reach more candidates however, you may want to try sponsoring your listing. The price for sponsoring a listing varies depending on the title, location and available job seekers for your posted job. After you define such criteria, Indeed will calculate and show you the price of sponsoring your listing so you’re able to decide if it’s within your budget before paying for it. To ensure you only pay for desired results, Indeed gives you 48 hours to reject unwanted applications before you’re charged.
Best For
Businesses of all sizes looking to recruit for any position across hundreds of industries/service types.
Why we love it
:
Calendly stands out from its competitors for its ease of use, slick design, and the amount of time it saves. It’s also one of the few scheduling tools with an indefinite free plan.
- Calendly’s simplicity is its biggest pro. It has an elegant user interface, it's very easy to navigate, it promptly gets the task done, and connects seamlessly with other applications.
- The reduction in back-and-forth emails. Your invitees can book a meeting slot, without reaching out to you multiple times. Calendly automatically sends them a confirmation and they can reschedule or cancel on their own. It’s even better for virtual meetings because once your invitees schedule a meeting with you, Calendly will automatically generate a meeting link based on your preferred video conferencing tool.
- The ability to set your own rules so that you can get complete control over your availability preferences. For example, you can decide how long a particular kind of meeting should be, buffer time between meetings, how many appointments can be booked per day, etc.
- Calendly seamlessly integrates with popular calendar and mailing tools. Meetings are automatically reflected on your personal calendar and video conferencing links with tools like Zoom or Google Meet are generated without any extra steps.
- Calendly’s simplicity is its biggest pro. It has an elegant user interface, it's very easy to navigate, it promptly gets the task done, and connects seamlessly with other applications.
- The reduction in back-and-forth emails. Your invitees can book a meeting slot, without reaching out to you multiple times. Calendly automatically sends them a confirmation and they can reschedule or cancel on their own. It’s even better for virtual meetings because once your invitees schedule a meeting with you, Calendly will automatically generate a meeting link based on your preferred video conferencing tool.
- The ability to set your own rules so that you can get complete control over your availability preferences. For example, you can decide how long a particular kind of meeting should be, buffer time between meetings, how many appointments can be booked per day, etc.
- Calendly seamlessly integrates with popular calendar and mailing tools. Meetings are automatically reflected on your personal calendar and video conferencing links with tools like Zoom or Google Meet are generated without any extra steps.
- Besides branding and the ability to choose different colors, Calendly does not offer a lot of options for customizations. This could be frustrating for users who want to embed Calendly in their website without making it seem like a completely different component.
- Calendly is not very mobile-friendly. You can’t perform all the functions on the mobile version.
- The payment collecting feature is not available in all currencies. Your invitees can only pay in the United States Dollar (USD), Australian Dollar (AUD), Canadian Dollar (CAD), Pound Sterling (GBP), and Euro (EUR).
- You’ll be severely limited in terms of features if you choose the free plan or the cheaper ones. According to Craig, a Customer Success Manager at a small business, “All advanced functionality is locked behind higher subscription levels – We have the Professional level so that we can set up a team, but they locked the most obvious and useful meeting type for teams behind yet another upgrade to the sub level.”
- Besides branding and the ability to choose different colors, Calendly does not offer a lot of options for customizations. This could be frustrating for users who want to embed Calendly in their website without making it seem like a completely different component.
- Calendly is not very mobile-friendly. You can’t perform all the functions on the mobile version.
- The payment collecting feature is not available in all currencies. Your invitees can only pay in the United States Dollar (USD), Australian Dollar (AUD), Canadian Dollar (CAD), Pound Sterling (GBP), and Euro (EUR).
- You’ll be severely limited in terms of features if you choose the free plan or the cheaper ones. According to Craig, a Customer Success Manager at a small business, “All advanced functionality is locked behind higher subscription levels – We have the Professional level so that we can set up a team, but they locked the most obvious and useful meeting type for teams behind yet another upgrade to the sub level.”
Calendly
Review:
Calendly is an appointment scheduling software that happens to have an indefinite free plan. Although not built for recruiting per se, HR managers can use it at the interviewing stage of recruiting.
It natively integrates with all the popular calendars and video conferencing tools. In the free version, you can create unlimited one-on-one events, send automated event notifications to your candidates, and customize your booking link. If you find the free plan limiting, you can always upgrade to the paid plans, which are still inexpensive compared to other scheduling tools. There’s also a free 14-day trial period for the paid plans.
Calendly
Customers:
Calendly has many big names in their customer base, such as eBay, Compass, Lyft, Dropbox, La-Z-Boy, Twilio, and Stack Overflow.
Calendly has many big names in their customer base, such as eBay, Compass, Lyft, Dropbox, La-Z-Boy, Twilio, and Stack Overflow.
Calendly
Pricing:
Calendly is totally free for a single calendar per user. It costs $8 per user per month for 2 calendars and $12 per user per month for 6 calendars. The premium pricing plans offer more functionality as well.
Calendly has five pricing plans that can be billed either monthly or annually. If you choose the latter, you’ll save 20%. Below are the prices you’ll pay per month per user, if you choose to get billed annually.
- Basic Plan: This is completely free of cost. However, as the name suggests, you’ll only have limited features to use.
- Essentials Plan: This plan costs $8 and is suitable when you need scheduling automation.
- Professional Plan: This plan costs $12 and is their most popular plan. Use it if you need customizations, integrations, and basic team features.
- Teams Plan: This plan costs $16 and is useful for teams that rely on collaboration and need to align on a scheduling process.
- Enterprise Plan: This plan has custom pricing and is suitable for teams with 30+ members and advanced needs. You’ll have to contact their sales team to get pricing.
All the paid plans come with a 14-day trial, at the end of which, you’ll automatically be downgraded to the free plan. They also offer special pricing for non-profit organizations. You’ll have to reach out to their customer support specialists for details.
Best For
Companies of all sizes looking for an affordable and user-friendly scheduling solution. Sole business owners and small businesses might find Calendly particularly helpful since there’s a free plan as well.
As a Recruiter and Business owner, Calendly has been beneficial in my business and profession. I used it for scheduling interviews with job candidates. I used it to book one-on-one meetings with prospects and clients, allowing me to specify the duration and location of each meeting. I also used it to coordinate events such as training, and coaching session with my mentees. That said, these key workflows, allow me to simplify the scheduling process to save time so I can focus on other important tasks.
What I like about Calendly is that it eliminates the need for back-and-forth emails. It makes it a simple and easy way for others to book time with me based on my availability. This process helps to schedule more effectively and efficiently thereby saving time and energy.
I have been using Calendly since 2018 and so far, I haven't come across anything I don't like about Calendly. That said, I am completely satisfied with Calendly and have no negative feedback to provide.
We use Calendly as it eliminates the need for back-and-forth emails. It makes it so easy for our candidates, clients, stakeholders, and others to book time with us based on our availability. This can save us a lot of time and energy and make scheduling a more efficient and effective process.
What I like about Calendly is that it is user-friendly making it so easy to navigate. It has customizable event types as it allows me to create various types of events and I can customize the details for each type. It has real-time availability. I don't need to check timebuddy.com anymore to ensure that the time and date are accurate as Calendly integrates with my calendar.
It has email and calendar integrations such as Gmail, Outlook, and Google Calendar too, making it easy to manage my appointments and meetings. Finally, it has an automated email reminder. I don't miss a single meeting since Calendly sends automated email reminders to me.
- User-friendly: This is the number priority that each has to consider. A tool that is easy to use and navigate will make your life easier and help you save time and energy.
- Customizability: The ability to customize events and appointments to meet your specific needs is also crucial.
- Integration: Look for a tool that integrates with your existing email and calendar tools. This will make it easier to manage your appointments and meetings.
- Multi-user support: If you are part of a team, it's crucial to find a tool that supports several users and makes it easy for everyone to coordinate their schedules in real time.
- Automated email reminders: Run the risk of missed appointments which will definitely affect your reputation as a professional. Automated email reminders can help reduce the risk and keep everyone on track.
- Pricing: Make sure you understand the pricing structure. Identify if the price is within your range.
By considering these criteria, you can ensure that you choose a scheduling tool that meets your needs and helps you streamline your processes.
Calendly has evolved through time and has added changes and additions. The goal is to ensure customer satisfaction and streamline the process. It has enhanced customization options. They also improved integration options and added a mobile app.
These are just some of the changes that have evolved and added through time showing their commitment to having a seamless scheduling process.
Calendly is ideal for Freelancers, Small Business Owners, Event Planners, Real Estate Agents, Sales Agents, and the like.
Large companies
Why we love it
:
We love SeekOut because it packs a Sourcing Assistant that is incredibly powerful for a free tool. They put many variants of artificial intelligence within the context of a search engine for talent.
- Sources from tons of external databases; over 780M candidate profiles and growing
- Can find talent also among your existing team.
- Truly tech-powered and search engine-like platform.
- Presents very complete candidate profiles, sometimes going through their code contributions, participation in conferences, academic papers, and more, in order to present top experts for certain skills or topics.
- Sources from tons of external databases; over 780M candidate profiles and growing
- Can find talent also among your existing team.
- Truly tech-powered and search engine-like platform.
- Presents very complete candidate profiles, sometimes going through their code contributions, participation in conferences, academic papers, and more, in order to present top experts for certain skills or topics.
- While they're always expanding their candidate list, they have been mainly oriented towards the US and Canada for years. Hence, companies outside those geographies might find that their searches are still somewhat limited when it comes to local talent. Such is the case of some users writing from Europe, for instance.
- Several users have complained about lags or glitches between the candidate’s info from the source and how/when it appears within the platform.
- While they're always expanding their candidate list, they have been mainly oriented towards the US and Canada for years. Hence, companies outside those geographies might find that their searches are still somewhat limited when it comes to local talent. Such is the case of some users writing from Europe, for instance.
- Several users have complained about lags or glitches between the candidate’s info from the source and how/when it appears within the platform.
Seekout
Review:
SeekOut is an AI-powered talent search engine designed to help your hiring team source and recruit candidates from social media sites. While most of their solutions cost money, they do offer a free Chrome extension. Called SeekOut Sourcing Assistant, the tool will extract rich information directly from LinkedIn, GitHub, and other sources, thus allowing you to organize, enrich and export candidate profiles.
Seekout
Customers:
SeekOut is used by enterprise customers such as VMware, Salesforce, Merck, UiPath, and Anaplan.
SeekOut is used by enterprise customers such as VMware, Salesforce, Merck, UiPath, and Anaplan.
Seekout
Pricing:
Seekout has a few different plans:
- Premium: Access to 441M+ candidates, diversity sourcing and hiring tools, people insights, contact info for 500 candidates per month and exporting of 5,000 profiles per month.
- Premium Tech: All of Premium, plus specific tools for sourcing tech talent. These include Coder Score rankings, GitHub search tool, direct access to candidate's code, and tailored insights.
- SeekOut Expert: Designed specifically for Engineering and Life Sciences hiring.
The actual pricing of SeekOut’s plans and services isn’t disclosed on their website. You would have to contact their sales team for a custom price quote.
Seekout also provides a free Chrome extension for sourcing, SeekOut Sourcing Assistant. It’s free to use but with a limit of getting verified social links and emails for 10 candidates per month.
Seekout has a few different plans:
- Premium: Access to 441M+ candidates, diversity sourcing and hiring tools, people insights, contact info for 500 candidates per month and exporting of 5,000 profiles per month.
- Premium Tech: All of Premium, plus specific tools for sourcing tech talent. These include Coder Score rankings, GitHub search tool, direct access to candidate's code, and tailored insights.
- SeekOut Expert: Designed specifically for Engineering and Life Sciences hiring.
The actual pricing of SeekOut’s plans and services isn’t disclosed on their website. You would have to contact their sales team for a custom price quote.
Seekout also provides a free Chrome extension for sourcing, SeekOut Sourcing Assistant. It’s free to use but with a limit of getting verified social links and emails for 10 candidates per month.
Best For
Seekout has segmented pricing plans for different industries. While there is a general plan for most businesses, Tech, Engineering, and Life Sciences hiring managers get the most functionality from Seekout. The tool can be used by companies with large in-house recruiting teams as well as small agencies looking for a user-friendly tool to reach a diverse pool of talent.
Why we love it
:
You can use myInterview's free-forever plan to send interview links for one open position. You can start the hiring process without worrying about an expiration date.
- myInterview has a neat screening feature that can sift through thousands of video submissions and identify suitable candidates not only based on skills, but also personality.
- The platform provides analytics that help you understand how well your current application process is working, so that you can make improvements as needed.
- It lets you add instant candidate ratings so you’re able to compare candidates and make data-based decisions.
- myInterview lets you create a branded, customized interview process. You can choose from their library of pre-recorded questions, or create your own.
- myInterview ensures that all your interviewers have access to the same information about each candidate. This is so they’re all asking the same questions and given a fair chance at evaluating each candidate's answers.
- A few users have noted that myInterview doesn't offer many customization options. For example, you can't customize the email templates without contacting support.
- myInterview currently doesn’t have a mobile app neither for hiring managers or candidates.
- Though they do have a free forever plan, it is limited to only 1 active job post at a time.
MyInterview
Review:
myInterview is a free video interviewing platform to help you shortlist and hire the most suitable candidates for your job. With no trial period or expiration date, you can start using MyInterview for free when you're hiring for only one job. If you hire for more than one job, you'll have to upgrade to a paid plan – and you can always downgrade to the free offering whenever you like.
MyInterview
Customers:
myInterview customer list include prominent names like Ocado, Facebook, Six Flags, Chick-fil-A, and more.
myInterview customer list include prominent names like Ocado, Facebook, Six Flags, Chick-fil-A, and more.
MyInterview
Pricing:
myInterview has with five pricing plans:
- Starter (Free forever): 1 active job, 2 user seats, 10 one-way interviews a month, 24/7 customer support, and other basic features.
- Growth ($59/month): 2 active jobs, 5 user seats, 360 one-way interviews a year, 24/7 customer support, and more.
- Team ($179/month): 5 active jobs, unlimited user seats, 1200 one-way interviews a year, 120 live interviews per year, templates, video questions, advanced analytics, 24/7 customer support, and more.
- Performance ($539/month): 20 active jobs, unlimited user seats, 6000 one-way interviews a year, 360 live interviews per year, all Team features, and more.
- Enterprise (Custom pricing): Unlimited active jobs, unlimited user seats, custom one-way interviews a year, custom live interviews per year, all Performance features, and more.
myInterview has with five pricing plans:
- Starter (Free forever): 1 active job, 2 user seats, 10 one-way interviews a month, 24/7 customer support, and other basic features.
- Growth ($59/month): 2 active jobs, 5 user seats, 360 one-way interviews a year, 24/7 customer support, and more.
- Team ($179/month): 5 active jobs, unlimited user seats, 1200 one-way interviews a year, 120 live interviews per year, templates, video questions, advanced analytics, 24/7 customer support, and more.
- Performance ($539/month): 20 active jobs, unlimited user seats, 6000 one-way interviews a year, 360 live interviews per year, all Team features, and more.
- Enterprise (Custom pricing): Unlimited active jobs, unlimited user seats, custom one-way interviews a year, custom live interviews per year, all Performance features, and more.
Best For
Companies of all sizes can use myInterview and derive value while staying within their budgets.
Free Recruitment Software Categories: What Are They and What Do They Do?
As you've probably noticed, recruiting software isn't limited to a single category.
Therefore, the key features to look out for in any recruitment tool will vary widely from one landscape to another. Let’s take a quick dive into the different types of solutions on this page:
Key Features from Applicant Tracking Systems
The ATS is a core piece of talent acquisition software, acting mainly as a candidate database. Therefore people think applicant tracking software is synonymous with recruiting software since they can handle the entire recruiting pipeline from applying to hiring.
Today’s ATS should have robust analytics, open APIs, candidate profiles, employee referrals, and capabilities that help source/engage talent. There are tons of options out there to track applicants, so check out our top free ATS page for more information.
Key Features for AI Recruiting Tools
AI recruiting tools allow HR and talent acquisition teams to supercharge their efforts through smart and automated workflows that eliminate tedious tasks, and let recruiting teams focus on the most strategic parts of their recruitment process.
Key Features for Video Interview Platforms
The right video interview software can save recruiting teams a lot of time and effort in producing new hires. The main differences between video interview software and regular video conferencing include automated scheduling, pre-recorded interviews, interview templates, and ATS integration.
Key Features for Candidate Sourcing Tools
These solutions handle sourcing top talent for teams in a time-saving manner. Many times, the right candidate isn't actively looking for a new job, so work-focused social media sites like LinkedIn or Glassdoor have allowed for the rise of candidate sourcing tools that leverage these and other databases. Key features include are smart filtering capabilities, AI-based recommendations, automated email outreach, and integrations with your ATS or other recruitment solution.
Pitfalls of Free Software
More often than not, free recruiting solutions are temporary. On one side they are temporary because they offer limited functionality that your company will eventually outgrow. On the other side, many are quite literally temporary free plans to give you the chance to try before you buy.
Regardless, these free recruiting software options are meant to give your organization a taste of what’s to come so you can make the right paid plan decision. Just be sure to cancel any trials before you're ready to buy to avoid the charge!
Free Recruiting Tools FAQs
What is free recruiting software?
Free recruiting software is any software tool that recruiters, hiring managers, and HR/TA teams use to streamline their recruiting workflow.
What kinds of tools are considered free recruiting software?
The following are different types of free recruiting software: video interviewing, sourcing tools, AI chatbots, virtual career fairs, recruiting CRMs, candidate assessment tools, and recruiting ATS’s.
What are some free recruiting software benefits?
Some benefits your company will see from using free recruiting software include faster time-to-fill, high quality candidates, diversity hiring, and saved money.
Are there pitfalls when using free recruiting software?
There are some pitfalls to avoid when choosing free recruiting software. First, instead of looking for a short-term fix, look for a long-term need. Next, think about what you really need before choosing a category. Don’t get shiny object syndrome. Finally, make sure every key employee is on board with the software you choose.
Final Advice
We hope this listing of free recruiting software was useful for your recruiting team. We also have a specific list of free Applicant Tracking Systems that could enhance your recruiting process too. If you have any additions, please send us a note, or leave a comment, and we’ll be happy to update the list!
Lastly, if you have the budget to buy, we recommend checking out our page on the best recruiting software out there, complete with questions to ask on demos, ROI calculations, etc. Enjoy!
Best Free Recruiting Software
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