Best Free Recruiting Software — 2023
The best free recruiting software, benefits, pitfalls, features, and more.
Free recruiting software helps talent acquisition teams streamline the hiring process without draining the budget. From candidate sourcing and job posting to resume parsing and interview scheduling, the best free recruiting software is crucial for cost-conscious companies looking to attract and hire the right talent.
We've rounded up the best of the best when it comes to free and budget-friendly recruiting software below. Whether you're a tiny team or a budget-savvy SMB, these tools can provide invaluable support throughout the hiring process without giving your wallet a shock.
Best Free Recruiting Software
When choosing the best free recruiting software, we took into account many factors, including the range of functions available, support resources, user interface (UI), customization features, and long-term potential. We've done a bunch of software demos, personally tested the software, and gathered insights from experienced TA and recruiting experts to put together this guide. Here's a closer look at those key factors:
- Range of functions: While free recruiting software may not offer all the cutting-edge features of paid solutions, a good one should provide essential features like applicant tracking, resume parsing, job posting, and candidate communication as a solid foundation for managing the hiring process effectively and efficiently.
- User-friendly interface: We understand that, as a free user, you may not have access to a dedicated account manager or extensive training. Therefore, we focused on software that had a simple UI that was easy to work with. This way, you can start using the software right away without the need for extensive training or assistance. We also favored platforms with strong support resources to assist with ease of use.
- Customization options: While we didn’t expect advanced customization capabilities, we made sure the free software offered good basic options. These features allow you to customize job listings, application forms, and branding elements to match your recruitment needs and maintain consistency with your company's image.
- Potential for future scalability: Some free options may offer paid upgrades or premium versions with additional features and capabilities. Evaluating this potential helps us ensure that as your recruitment needs grow, the software can still meet your requirements without the need for a complete switch to a different platform.
For more details on our methodology, check our article on HR software vetting methods.
GoHire
GoHire is an affordable recruiting solution that is also scalable. SMBs can derive significant value from their starter plan and upgrade as their operation grows.
PROS
- GoHire is easy to navigate and packs a range of tools for applicant tracking, interview scheduling, candidate screening, and offer management.
- 700+ job description templates.
- Offers multiple plans at transparent and affordable pricing.
- Provides unlimited hiring pipelines and team members to all plans.
- Discounts are available for early-stage startups and charities.
- New AI hiring tools to suggest content for job descriptions, career page content, outreach messages, interview questions, and onboarding checklists.
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.
CONS
- Does not support sending SMS text messages to the candidates.
- Only supports candidate file formats in PDF.
- The career page can only be directed to one domain.
- Limited built-in third-party integrations.
- Limited features for email template customization.
- Support is available via email and the help center. Doesn’t offer phone support.
- 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 hasn’t changed its pricing for the past few years. This, combined with its free trial and feature wealth, makes GoHire become one of the most affordable recruiting solutions for startups and small to medium-sized businesses.
Our initial impression of GoHire was its improved platform design, both visually and functionally. The latest version is much easier to navigate compared to its previous iteration, which could be a bit clunky at times. We tested the platform on different browsers and mobile devices, and the experience was seamless.
During the free trial signup process, we encountered a minor issue with email validation. However, we were impressed by the prompt response from the live chat support team, who quickly resolved the problem.
GoHire’s dashboard provided a step-by-step guide to familiarize us with each feature. We also had a dedicated account manager for further assistance. Creating our first job post was straightforward, aided by the availability of over 700 job description samples. Custom questions for pre-screening purposes were limited to paid plans, but we could easily publish our job posts on 15+ integrated job boards and invite team members to collaborate.
Lastly, GoHire recently introduced new AI hiring tools that generate job descriptions, career pages, outreach emails, interview questions, and onboarding checklists. We tried some, and they did deliver good enough answers in a few seconds.
Snagajob, Promoter, Sweetberry, Swapcard, Voucher Cart.
GoHire.io has three pricing plans which can be canceled anytime. For new users, the company offers a free 14-day trial. When billed annually, each plan costs as below:
- Starter: The plan costs $74 per month and includes basic features, 3 active job posts, a custom career page, interview scheduling, and unlimited team members.
- Growth: The plan costs $125 per month and has all features from Starter plus customizable pipelines, bulk actions, screening questions, and mention team members.
- Pro: The plan costs $241 per month and has all Growth features plus unlimited job posts, automated stage actions, advanced reporting, video questionnaires, and private notes.
Best For
GoHire can work well for early-stage startups, and small and mid-sized businesses looking for an affordable and easy-to-use recruiting solution.
Manatal
Manatal offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card required. The platform includes most of the features you would ask for in recruiting software, plus AI-powered tools like candidate filtering and recommendations to make hiring easier.
PROS
- Manatal offers a 14-day free trial for users to test it out before making commitments.
- Doesn’t require card info during the trial.
- Easy to navigate.
- 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.
CONS
- Can't use the GDPR consent request tool, email automation features, and the Manatal inbox to send emails.
- Job board posting is not available during the free trial.
- You will need to upgrade to a paid plan after the free trial ends.
- 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.
Not only does Manatal cover most of the features you’d expect from a budget-friendly ATS, but the platform also tops that off with AI-powered actions, such as candidate filtering and recommendations. You can explore Manatal’s features for free for up to 14 days, with no credit card required.
Signing up for a trial is pretty easy. We finished the sign-up form, verified our email address, and the vendor let us access its product. We started by posting a job and there were a few pre-built templates available for us to get things started. However, the salary currency just supports USD only. But other than that, everything looked good. There are several employment types and options to put the exact location, tick the remote position box, or leave it blank.
Navigating through the dashboard was straightforward. We tried making for ourselves a career page. It turned out this tool of Manatal is customizable but has some locked features like post-application and post-referral email workflows that we couldn’t use unless we upgraded to a paid plan. While we were expecting to be able to publish our first job to some free job boards, the trial didn’t let us do so, which was a bit disappointing.
To sum up, while Manatal’s capabilities are great, users won’t get much value from its free trial, as certain features like posting jobs on free job boards aren’t available for them to use. And as Manatal doesn’t offer a free plan, the only way to see how it actually works is to purchase one of its paid plans.
Unilever, Coca-Cola, Panasonic, Ogilvy, Toyota.
Manatal has three plans. The following is their pricing when billed annually:
- Professional plan: $15/user/month for up to 15 jobs and 10,000 candidates, unlimited guests.
- Enterprise plan: $35/user/month for unlimited jobs, candidates, and guests.
- Custom plan: Includes all Enterprise features, plus custom features, integrations, and support.
Best For
Opting for Manatal’s free trial is an excellent move for any team to try the software before committing. Its paid plans are especially good for SMBs to source English applicants at scale.
Gem
Gem is a talent management wizard that houses LinkedIn InMail, ATS, and email data. Their Sequence feature is the real gem — it incorporates curated content, automation, and tracking tools to provide valuable insights for your recruitment strategy.
PROS
- Automatically add profiles into specific talent pools based on set criteria.
- Ability to create automated drip campaigns and do A/B testing to engage with both active and passive candidates
- The “Likely to Move” filter identifies candidates more likely to switch jobs.
- Analytics is user-friendly and provides helpful hiring metrics.
- Suggests similar profiles to the ones recruiters are looking for.
- Auto adds potential candidates who meet users’ saved search.
- Compatible with some popular ATSs, sourcing sites, and communication tools. Supports adding new integration for customers with no extra fees.
- Provides live chat, a help center, email support, and a dedicated account manager.
- Has a free trial.
- 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
CONS
- Email addresses can be inaccurate at times.
- InMail sequences are manual.
- Takes a few weeks to get the tool set up and customized.
- Occasional slow load times and lag when using the tool.
- Cannot bulk filter out work emails.
- Plans are paid annually; no option to pay monthly.
- Lacks features for internal hiring.
- Lacks mobile app version.
- Undisclosed pricing.
- 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 is a paid platform, but it offers a free trial and demo to give users a comprehensive understanding of its features.
Gem's dashboard interface is user-friendly and provides step-by-step guidance for effective use.
The Chrome extension is impressive, enabling actions like lifting and saving candidate info from LinkedIn and Indeed to be used for automated email campaigns. However, locating the extension on the Chrome web store can be challenging, and users often have to rely on Gem's link to find it.
Gem integrates smoothly with popular ATSs and sourcing sites. Though most are seamless, some Lever users have reported difficulties. The support team is helpful throughout the integration process, and Gem is open to adding new integrations based on user requests.
The Sequence feature allows users to incorporate their email signature, add curated content, and track metrics. Users can track critical statistics on their outreach campaigns and sequence content to evaluate effectiveness. Reports can be shared with hiring managers and non-recruiting stakeholders.
Gem has a few limitations, such as the absence of a built-in email template library. Additionally, there are no dedicated internal hiring or referral programs features.
Coinbase, Slack, Asana, Dropbox, Lyft, Indeed, Pinterest, Doordash.
Gem has custom pricing. You can reach out to their sales team for more information.
Best For
Gem is an excellent staffing and recruitment agency solution for large recruitment teams.
The Recruiting Team used Gem daily to source. Our RecOps team used it to observe reports and pull key data points out for presentations. This was especially important when there were board meetings or quarterly presentations to the company. It also synced really nicely with our ATS (Greenhouse) which made it a great tool.
- Sourcing functionality is top-notch and helped increase the diversity of the candidate pool
- Reporting functionality helped bridge gaps in reporting that Greenhouse couldn't provide
- Gem's CSM team was a pleasure to work with.
My previous company used Gem because it provided a combination of sourcing and analytic functionality for the recruiting funnel. This was needed in order to report on goals and metrics that the Recruiting team needed to hit as well as improve DEIB initiatives. Gem did a great job of solving for helping us make data-driven decisions. Additionally, our Customer Success Manager helped us design reports and leverage Gem to its fullest capacity.
- Originality - It seemed like Gem would release similar features to their competitors in response to what the competitors were doing. This meant that the functionality wasn't always fully baked.
- Ease of use - The analytics aspects of the platform required a longer than anticipated ramp time to fully understand.
- System integration - When the integrations broke because of updates, it could take a bit of time to get back online.
Gem definitely innovates very quickly based on what they see. Because of this, some features can feel half-baked relative to their competitors (on the analytics side TalentWall, on the sourcing side, SeekOut). Generally, it is nice that Gem consolidated the specialty of those tools into one platform but SeekOut/TalentWall are more straightforward to use while requiring a lower ramp time to use.
I would consider the following bullets:
- Ease of Use
- Integration capability
- Purpose (does sourcing or analytics carry more weight?)
- Maintenance (which team is going to own this tool so that they have a strong partnership with the CSM team)
Gem is incredibly fast to build new functionality to meet changes that the users need. That ability to listen to their customers and users is fantastic.
Users: Sourcers, Recruiters, RecOps Team, Hiring Managers
It all depends on how each team is leveraging the tool. If it is primarily for sourcing, then it is incredibly nifty for Sourcers/Recruiters/Hiring Managers to build projects together and do paired sourcing.
Users: Interviewers, Non-recruiting members
Because they are not part of the recruiting process from a hands-on perspective, it can be a waste of a user seat to give them access.
Freshteam
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.
PROS
- Free-forever plan.
- Easy-to-use interface with Kanban-style view of the hiring process and drag-and-drop mechanism.
- Scalable plans at affordable pricing.
- 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.
CONS
- Limited features in free plan.
- Not suitable for enterprises or agencies
- 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.
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.
Nissan, University of Pennsylvania, Daimler, SAP
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.
Best For
Small, growing businesses.
Zoho Recruit
We love Zoho Recruit because, as with all of Zoho's products, it is pretty robust. It is also completely free when hiring for only one active job.
PROS
- Free version anyone can opt for.
- Paid plans with a well-developed resume parser, extractor, chatbot, and candidate-matching features.
- Multiple language support.
- Transparent pricing. Free version and trial available.
- 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.
CONS
- The free plan has limited storage (256MB) and allows one job at a time with limited customer support.
- 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.
Our first impression when testing Zoho Recruit’s free plan was that you get a lot of features for a no-cost tool. You can find candidate management, email management, and interview scheduling—all of which are essential to streamline hiring. We also found it convenient that it integrates with Google applications and supports 26 languages, enabling you to reach a diverse applicant pool. Not everyone likes the idea of doing things from scratch, so we’re glad Zoho Recruit provides users with five customized email templates plus a user-friendly resume search feature for time-saving.
However, it's important to note that the free plan has limitations. The most significant drawback is that it restricts users to having only one active job opening at a time. The storage limit isn’t ideal either — users can use only 256MB. These can be quite limiting for teams with multiple positions to fill simultaneously.
The good news is that Zoho Recruit allows users to begin with the free plan and upgrade as their needs grow. This flexibility is highly advantageous, allowing businesses to adapt their recruitment process over time without being locked into a specific timeframe. Moreover, it's worth mentioning that Zoho Recruit stands behind its product with a 45-day money-back guarantee.
Bosch, Deloitte, Saint-Gobain, PWC, Allianz.
Zoho Recruit offers three plans with free trials and optional add-ons:
- The Free plan allows for one active job opening at a time and 256MB of storage.
- The Standard plan is priced at $30 per user per month.
- The Professional plan is available at $60 per user per month.
- The Enterprise plan is priced at $90 per user per month.
- In addition to the plans, Zoho Recruit offers add-ons such as the client portal and video interview modules, which can be integrated into the selected plan for enhanced functionality.
Best For
Zoho Recruit's free plan is a great way for small teams to get started with applicant tracking and hiring.
Zoho Recruit is used on a nearly daily basis in our organization. We use numerous workflows to reduce wasted time in the recruiting cycle. We have workflows set up to cue each person in the process when it’s their turn to take action. This eliminated having to monitor systems constantly, freeing up personnel to accomplish other tasks or work on other applicants.
- It has helped us find many high quality applicants.
- The filters it’s got help us work through applicants.
- We can customize many workflows through it.
My organization needed to be able to sort through and source very specific types of applicants. With other software we used such as Indeed, Monster or LinkedIn, filtering through the loads of applications was a struggle. And even when we had a big number of applicants to sort through we struggled to find those perfect fits. Zoho solved these issues and made it easier to sort through and find multiple perfect fits.
- Sometimes we get flooded with candidates and if you're not careful when sorting, it can get overwhelming. For example, the last job I posted had an application feeding right to Zoho and I received over 1300 applications in one day.
- Sometimes we don’t find someone to meet all needs. Although this is rare, I would say maybe one out of 20 jobs we may come up empty. We can lower our standards with some of the jobs but then that's when we get overwhelmed with applications.
- There is a bit of a learning curve when bringing on new users.
I feel like zoho stacks up very well and the cost can be significantly better than their main competitor Linkedin Recruiting.
What type of people they are looking for. Do they need advance searches for specific qualifications
I believe Zoho Recruit can meet the needs of most organizations no matter how big or small. If they have higher than entry level positions, then this tool can bring a lot of value.
Entry level searches or companies that do not do a lot of hiring
Recooty
Recooty is an excellent tool for small businesses to post jobs on multiple platforms, access all received applicants, and own a talent pool for future access – all without spending a dime. Its paid plans are also affordable and have a free trial you can use to post up to 10 jobs.
PROS
- Recooty offers very competitive flat rates, making it ideal for startups and small businesses in the early stages.
- The platform has a free-forever plan and a free trial in which users can have up to 10 active jobs.
- The tool has an intuitive interface that is easy to navigate.
- Supports posting jobs on several job portals and social media platforms.
- Available in German, English, French, Hindi, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, and Vietnamese.
- 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.
CONS
- Can only access it through a web browser. No Chrome extension.
- 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 offers a free ATS with basic features that can be a great tool for small businesses.
The free-forever plan supports one active job post at a time, integrates with job boards, and enables users to create a branded careers page and share jobs across social media platforms. Users can also store received candidates on the system to build their own talent pool and reuse it later on.
We have found that Recooty’s free plan is easy to set up and use. Posting a position on multiple job boards takes just a couple of clicks. Applicant tracking is also a breeze, thanks to automated email notifications.
The biggest drawback of the free plan is that it only allows one user, so collaboration isn’t possible. Additionally, the platform can only connect with LinkedIn and Slack, making it challenging to sync data across your HR tools.
While we’re impressed by the tool’s affordability and simplicity, readers should note it lacks a Chrome extension and built-in communication tools for collaborative candidate assessment and saving messages within the system. Third-party integrations can serve as a workaround for this shortcoming, but that can introduce inefficiency and security issues.
On that note, API support is only available for Recooty’s highest-priced plan. We haven’t seen Recooty roll out its mobile app, though users have requested it often in the two years we’ve been keeping an eye on Recooty.
Sendlane, Airtable, Uber, Rack Bank, American Hospital, Trello.
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.
Best For
Recooty is an excellent choice for startups and small businesses looking for a budget-friendly, plug-and-play solution that supports basic recruitment needs. Users can post jobs on multiple platforms, and features include applicant tracking and talent pool management.
Indeed
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.
PROS
- 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.
CONS
- 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 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 is used by over 3,000,000 companies, including Nokia, Schwab, McDonald's, and the University of Oxford.
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.
I use Indeed.com on a weekly basis as part of my job responsibilities. Our organization uses the platform to post job listings and search for potential candidates in Malaysia. We take advantage of advanced search filters to narrow down the pool of candidates and find the most relevant ones for each job opening. Furthermore, we use Indeed.com to review resumes and track the progress of each candidate through the interview process. I have found Indeed.com to be very user-friendly and efficient, allowing us to streamline our recruitment process and find the best candidates for each job opening in a timely manner.
As an HR professional, I appreciate the features of Indeed for several reasons. One of the main benefits is its versatility for posting job vacancies, including internships, freelance jobs, and part-time positions. Additionally, I appreciate the "Update Applicant" button, which allows for easy communication with candidates and ensures they are not left in the dark regarding the status of their applications.
Furthermore, the professional color scheme used by Indeed is user-friendly and appeals to recruiters and HR professionals. The carefully selected colors contribute to a clean and organized look that is easy on the eyes, making the platform more appealing. The color scheme also helps to create a sense of professionalism and reliability, which is essential in a platform that is used to manage a crucial aspect of business operations.
Lastly, the option to make certain job postings hidden from candidates is also a valuable feature. Overall, I have found Indeed to be a highly effective and efficient platform for managing the recruitment process.
Our organization has been using the Indeed tool since 2015 to solve various pain points in the recruitment process, such as difficulty in finding quality candidates, a time-consuming recruitment process, high cost of recruitment, difficulty in reaching a large pool of job seekers, and an inefficient screening process. The key benefits of using this tool include access to a large pool of job seekers, the ability to post job listings for free, and advanced search filters to help find the most relevant candidates. Personally, I have been using Indeed.com for over 8 years and have found it to be a valuable resource in our hiring process. It has helped us overcome these challenges and streamline our recruitment process, saving us time and resources.
As a recruiter, I have experienced a few challenges while using Indeed. One of the main cons is the lengthy process involved in posting job advertisements. The multiple steps required to post a job ad can be time-consuming and hinder productivity.
Additionally, due to the high demand for job postings on Indeed, employers often use it as an opportunity to post multiple job vacancies. This leads to a large volume of job postings, making it difficult for certain postings to stand out and be seen by potential candidates. This could result in the job posting becoming hidden, which could potentially limit the number of applicants for a particular position.
Another disadvantage of using Indeed is the limited customization options for job postings. The platform offers a standard format for job postings, which can be limiting for recruiters who would like to showcase the unique aspects of a job or company. Customization options such as unique branding, company logos, and detailed job descriptions can help job postings stand out and attract more qualified candidates, but these options may not be readily available on Indeed.
- Indeed provides access to a wider range of job postings, including those from company websites and job boards, while its competitors focus on company-listed job postings.
- Other than that, Indeed offers both free and paid job postings for employers, while its competitors primarily offer paid job postings.
- To add more, Indeed features salary information and company reviews from current and former employees, which is not offered by its competitors such as Jobstreet.
- I think the most important criteria people should think about when buying this type of tool is a user-friendly interface. Meaning that consideration of a tool that is easy to use, with a clean and intuitive design.
- And come second, people should think about whether these types of tools completely settled their main requirements and problem. What is used for purchasing something that doesn't even settle our main purpose.
- Indeed has changed and evolved over time to better meet the needs of its users. Some of the key changes and evolution include increasing job posting quality.
- Indeed has implemented measures to improve the quality of job postings on its platform, such as better screening and verification of job postings and employer profiles.
- Indeed is a good fit for a variety of users and organizations, including Small and Medium enterprises, recruiters, and candidates that seek job vacancies.
- Not only that but Indeed also now reaches international users which are can be useful and fit for remote jobs or freelancers. With its global reach and telecommuting job postings, Indeed is a good option for those seeking remote work opportunities.
From my personal view, I believe that Indeed may not be the best fit for the large corporation of users or organizations:
This is because large corporations with extensive HR departments and well-established recruitment processes may prefer to use more specialized or enterprise-level recruitment tools and I believe Indeed cannot support that.
Calendly
Calendly is a straightforward interview scheduling tool that can be used in many business settings, including recruiting. It’s easy to use, and most companies can make do with their free version indefinitely.
PROS
- Self-service for interview scheduling. Simply send a Calendly link, and the candidate can book, reschedule, or cancel meetings on their own.
- Automatic confirmations and meeting links.
- Users can set their own rules for availability, meeting durations, buffer times, etc.
- Seamless integration with popular calendar and mailing tools, ensuring automatic updates and generating video conferencing links.
- The LinkedIn integration (in the form of a plugin) allows candidates to book interviews without leaving the social network built into the site.
- 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.
CONS
- Besides some branding and color options, Calendly does not offer much customization. This could be frustrating for users who want the tool to “blend in” when embedded in their site.
- According to our user research (and experience), Calendly is not mobile-friendly.
- The free plan is best for those with very minimal scheduling needs. For instance, the free plan only allows users to book one type of time slot.
- 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 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 has many big names in their customer base, such as eBay, Compass, Lyft, Dropbox, La-Z-Boy, Twilio, and Stack Overflow.
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.
Best For
Sole business owners and small businesses find Calendly to be a particularly good fit because of its free version and cost-friendly plans.
As a technical recruiter, I use Calendly for scheduling interviews with candidates and hiring managers. To set up an interview, I simply share my Calendly link with the candidate or hiring manager, and they can choose from the available time slots that work best for them.
Once the appointment is scheduled, both the candidate and I receive an email confirmation and calendar invite with all the details. This makes it easy to keep track of my interviews and ensures that everyone is on the same page.
Additionally, I use Calendly to set up different types of appointments for different types of interviews. For example, I have different appointment types for initial screening calls, follow-up interviews, and offer discussions. This allows me to tailor the interview process to the specific needs of each candidate and hiring manager.
Overall, Calendly has made scheduling interviews much more efficient and streamlined, saving me time and reducing the risk of scheduling conflicts.
- Calendly is user-friendly and intuitive, making it easy for both candidates and hiring managers to schedule interviews with just a few clicks.
- The platform integrates seamlessly with my calendar, allowing me to easily view and manage my scheduling schedule in one place.
- Calendly's customizable options and availability settings allow me to easily tailor the scheduling process to fit my specific needs and preferences
As a technical recruiter, I bought Calendly to streamline the scheduling process for interviews with candidates and hiring managers. Prior to using Calendly, I used to spend a lot of time coordinating schedules through email and phone calls, which was time-consuming and often resulted in scheduling conflicts.
Calendly has been a game-changer for me, making it easy for candidates and hiring managers to choose a time that works for them, without the back-and-forth. I've been using Calendly for about 2 years now, and I can't imagine going back to my old scheduling process.
One of the key benefits of Calendly is its intuitive interface, which makes it simple to set up and use. The ability to integrate with my calendar has also been a huge plus, as I can see all of my upcoming appointments and scheduled interviews in one place.
Overall, I highly recommend Calendly to any technical recruiter looking to simplify the interview scheduling process and save time.
- Calendly can be limited in terms of customizability, making it difficult to fully meet the unique needs of certain recruiting processes.
- The platform can sometimes have glitches or slow loading times, which can cause frustration and hinder the scheduling process.
- Calendly's reporting features can be limited, making it difficult to track and analyze scheduling data and performance.
Calendly stands out from its competitors by offering a more user-friendly interface and a more comprehensive set of features. Unlike other scheduling tools, Calendly allows for real-time availability updates, making it easier for both candidates and hiring managers to find a mutually convenient time for an interview. Additionally, Calendly's customizable scheduling options and robust integration capabilities set it apart from other scheduling solutions.
I've used several other scheduling tools in the past, but I find Calendly to be the most efficient and effective for my needs as a technical recruiter. The platform's ease of use and flexibility make it my preferred choice for scheduling interviews.
When buying a scheduling tool like Calendly, there are several key criteria to consider, including:
- User-friendliness: The tool should be easy to use for both the recruiter and the candidates/hiring managers, with a simple and intuitive interface.
- Customizability: The tool should allow for customization to fit the specific needs of the recruiting process, such as availability settings and scheduling preferences.
- Integrations: The tool should integrate seamlessly with other systems and tools being used, such as calendars and applicant tracking systems.
- Reporting and analytics: The tool should provide robust reporting and analytics capabilities, allowing recruiters to track and analyze scheduling data and performance.
When evaluating scheduling tools, it's important to carefully consider these criteria and how they align with your specific needs. It's also a good idea to try out a few different options before making a final decision to ensure that you're choosing the best solution for your organization.
Calendly has made several changes and improvements over time to better meet the needs of its users. Over the past few years, the company has rolled out new features and updates to make the scheduling process even more seamless and efficient, such as:
- Improved integrations: Calendly has expanded its integration capabilities to better integrate with other systems and tools being used, such as calendars and applicant tracking systems.
- Enhanced customization options: Calendly has added new customization options to allow recruiters to tailor the scheduling process to fit their specific needs and preferences.
- Advanced reporting and analytics: Calendly has improved its reporting and analytics capabilities to provide recruiters with more detailed data and insights into their scheduling performance.
- Mobile app: Calendly has also introduced a mobile app, making it easier for recruiters to manage their schedules and appointments while on the go.
By continually updating and improving its platform, Calendly has remained a popular choice for recruiters and has established itself as a leading scheduling solution in the market.
Calendly is a highly flexible scheduling tool that is suitable for a wide range of users and organizations. Calendly is a great solution for all, but it is particularly well suited for small and medium-sized companies.
It may not be the best fit for organizations that have extremely complex scheduling needs and require a high degree of customization, as Calendly's customization options are limited compared to some other scheduling tools.
Additionally, Calendly may not be the best choice for organizations with strict security and data privacy requirements, as the platform may not fully meet their needs in terms of data protection and access control.
It's important to carefully evaluate your organization's specific scheduling needs and requirements before choosing a scheduling tool, to ensure that you're selecting the best solution for your needs.
Seekout
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.
PROS
- The extension “Sourcing Assistant” is free, letting you extract rich information directly from LinkedIn, GitHub, and other sources.
- 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.
CONS
- No free plan. The extension is free but with a limit of getting verified social links and emails for 10 candidates per month.
- Pricing is undisclosed.
- 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 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 their SeekOut Sourcing Assistant — Chrome extension for free. The tool is quite handy in extracting rich information directly from LinkedIn, GitHub, and other sources, allowing recruiters to collect, enrich, and export potential hires’ profiles.
SeekOut is used by enterprise customers such as VMware, Salesforce, Merck, UiPath, and Anaplan.
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
If you're looking for a powerful AI-powered talent search engine, SeekOut free Chrome extension is a great way to get started, and it's easy to upgrade to a paid plan if you need more features.
We used SeekOut to source candidates. Even though we were a small team that shared licenses, we were able to create proper candidate reach outs and sequences. Additionally, we used SeekOut as part of our diversity-sourcing strategy. The blind sourcing functionality helped us overcome many biases that our hiring managers had about talent.
- Blind/anonymized sourcing - This meant information that could elicit bias (like names, university) were removed
- Ease of use - It was incredibly straightforward and easy to pick up
- Clean UI/UX - Everything is exactly where you would think it would be
- Integrations
We were a tech-based startup that wanted to source software engineers and other roles. SeekOut provides an easy to use platform that made sourcing easy and it integrated nicely with our ATS (Greenhouse) and LinkedIn license. With SeekOut we were able to build excellent projects and do partner sourcing with our hiring managers.
- Latency of syncing information - On a couple of occasions it took a few hours for candidates to port into our Greenhouse instance
- User access structure - It was difficult to understand the permissions
- Sequences - It took a few training sessions to really understand the process flow of their message sequencing (but their CSM team is fantastic and once they teach you, you never forget it)
- Reporting - The analytics were slightly lackluster but they were getting much better
As a sourcing tool SeekOut is fantastic. When compared to something like Gem, it feels more natural and visually easier to use.
- How much sourcing/hiring will you be doing?
- How many people will you want to have access to SeekOut and what will you want their permissions to be?
- Will you be connecting it to LinkedIn Recruiter?
It has been a year or so since I've used it but in that time SeekOut has put out more thought leadership that their users care about. They were always good about taking product feedback.
- Recruiters
- Hiring Managers
- Sourcers
- RecOps
People not involved in the hiring process
Free Recruitment Software Key Features
Here are the essential features you'll find in free recruiting software solutions. We'll also highlight any limitations each feature carries, so you get a clear picture of what to expect:
- Job Posting and Branded Careers Page: You can create and share job postings with your brand's touch. Keep in mind, there might be a cap on the number of active job posts and branding options.
- Talent Pool Building: You can save potential candidates for future hiring needs. However, free versions might have storage limits or fewer features to engage with these candidates later on.
- Candidate Sourcing: Some tools offer a Chrome extension to gather candidate details from platforms like LinkedIn and GitHub.
- Appointment Scheduling: You can schedule interviews, automate reminders, and personalize booking links. Just remember, these scheduling events might be designed for one-on-one interviews only, and panel or group interviews might not be fully supported.
- AI-Powered Features: You might get a taste of advanced AI-driven sourcing, filtering, recommendations, and engagement during trial periods. These features might not be available in the free version.
- Customer Support: Most free options provide live chat, online help documentation, and email ticket support. Our detailed reviews note the responsiveness of each vendor's customer support in this guide.
We've done the homework on each tool's details in the earlier section (namely detailed review of the best free recruiting software), so (re)take a look there to see how they match up with your organization's needs.
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. 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!
About Us
- Our goal at SSR is to help HR and recruiting teams to find and buy the right software for their needs.
- Our site is free to use as some vendors will pay us for web traffic.
- SSR lists all companies we feel are top vendors - not just those who pay us - in our comprehensive directories full of the advice needed to make the right purchase decision for your HR team.
