Best Free Recruiting Software — October 2020

SmartStart is the free version of SmartRecruiters talent acquisition service, specifically made for smaller businesses. You’ll have access to an unlimited number of users as well as a variety of services including multi-board job posting, scheduling management tools, candidate database management and one-click apply.

SmartStart’s unlimited user accessibility enables many hands to be a part of the hiring process, unlike many other free options. The service also offers one-click job postings on any of over 200 available job boards. Unfortunately SmartStart is limited to 10 active job postings at one time. If your team finds this is holding you back, there are different plans you can upgrade to.

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.

If your company is around 50 employees in size, Freshteam’s free offering might be ideal. This package, called Sprout, 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 Sprout 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.

Scheduling software is useful to any recruiting team. Calendly is one of the best out there and happens to be free. The basic plan allows a single user to connect their Calendly schedule to any of the big name calendars, while providing automated notifications, website integration, video chat integration and a personalized link.

If the basic plan is limiting to you, the Premium and Pro plans are still inexpensive. It’s probable that your hiring team will eventually want an ATS or other service to have automated scheduling, but Calendly remains an effective free solution in the meantime.

iKrut’s free version offers an unlimited number of users and applications, whereas other ATS providers limit this in their free versions. iKrut features mobile compatibility, online interview scheduling, an iKrut-powered career site and mass emailing capability. However, just because it has unlimited users and applications doesn’t mean it is without flaws. The paid iKrut solutions have much more functionality to offer.

MightyRecruiter is a completely free end-to-end ATS. It allows for unlimited job postings on a variety of job boards and social networks. No need to fuss with free trials or low-tier plans with other providers. MightyRecruiter features candidate rankings, screening questions and a vast searchable database of over 21 million resumes.

Gem offers a free trial of their Chrome extension for prospective buyers to take advantage of their candidate sourcing tool. It’s a far cry away from the candidate touchpoint tracking abilities and follow up automation of their paid version, but the free trial is a stepping stone to automating your candidate sourcing process.

Yes, the job board giant Indeed is a great free recruiting tool. Why? It allows companies to post jobs and apply skill assessments to those open positions to reach one of the largest talent pools on the internet -- for free. It also has a built-in messaging system for direct contact with candidates.

While using Indeed will likely prove to be limited in the long run, it's an easy-to-use tool when in a pinch or in transition between recruiting software providers.

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, including their blind hiring module and advanced filtering capabilities, they do offer a free Chrome extension. Called SeekOut Sourcing Assistant, the tool will extract rich information directly from LinkedIn and GitHub and allow you to organize, enrich and export candidate profiles.

ATS provider 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.

myInterview is an easy-to-use and quick-to-implement video interviewing tool that offers a free forever solution. It helps candidates record and send their own interviews via any device, no app necessary, in order to speed up the hiring process. The free Starter plan includes one active job interview, two user seats, and up to 30 candidates a year. It’s not an ideal solution for large companies that are constantly hiring, but for the small business or startup looking for the best costless solution, myInterview is the right choice.

Vultus is a recruiting and workforce management SaaS company with free trials for both solutions. Their ATS option, called Vultus Recruit, can publish to job boards, schedule interviews, manage recruiting pipelines and even has Candidate Relationship Management capabilities. On top of their free trial, their subscription plans are extremely affordable, making it an ideal choice for a startup or small business looking for their first ATS.

Applicant tracking system Recooty features a completely free basic program for a single user. The basic plan features 3 active job posts, a branded careers page, applicant tracking and social network sharing capabilities. They also offer customizable plans alongside their two main paid plans, which are all available for a 15 day free trial.