11 Best Recruitment and Staffing Agency Software [2023]

If you’re on this page, chances are you either work for a staffing company or a third-party recruiting firm. Therefore, your goal is to source, interview, and hire the best talent for your client or organization.

However, recruiting is more than just finding and hiring candidates. Staffing agencies and recruiting teams have many more responsibilities that software can streamline. Here’s a list of use cases for recruiting agency solutions that span the entire process:

• Centralizing recruiting data: Most of the vendors on this page have CRM and ATS functionality. Therefore, you don’t need to constantly switch between systems to keep track of your recruiting and customer data.
• Building talent pipelines: Staffing software bookends the recruiting pipeline. It all starts with sourcing. The vendors on this page have powerful AI sourcing tools that bring new talent into the pipeline. Then, you have a CRM and ATS to nurture them along, whether active or passive, into becoming potential hires. If a candidate isn’t hired for an open position, they’ll still be kept warm in the database.
• Creating a better candidate experience: By keeping candidates happy, even if they don’t get the job, they will be open to future opportunities. A good recruitment software will give job seekers a great experience, from text updates to automated scheduling, making them feel like a valuable asset and not just another number.
• Streamlining recruitment processes: By having data touchstones across the recruiting process, it becomes easy to analyze recruiter shortcomings and candidate drop offs. All of our featured vendors have detailed analytics so you can take a deep dive into what’s working and what isn’t.
• Faster time-to-fill: Filling open roles in a pinch is easy when you focus on nurturing candidate relationships, especially if the candidate experience is great. Recruiting companies will see quick turnaround times thanks to hundreds of qualified candidates at their fingertips.
• Forecast future performance: Detailed data and analytics modules ensure that staffing companies and individual recruiters can track performance to see where they can improve.‍
• Recruiter management: Some of the solutions on this page even have timesheets, expense & commission tracking, and invoicing modules so you don’t need to buy another software just to manage your team.

The most important pitfall to avoid when using recruiting agency software is over-reliance. If you’re a recruiter, you likely got into the line of work because you like helping people. Technology is supposed to aid that process, not take it over. 

Candidate experience should be valued over everything else. If your only communication with a qualified candidate is through automated text messages, you’re probably not using your software correctly. Recruiting agency software will streamline the tedious tasks in your recruiting process. By doing so, it creates more time for you to directly interact with candidates. You’ll put more emphasis on building relationships and providing an enjoyable experience for job seekers.

When using recruiting agency software, you’re likely to get a few returns on investment.

Firstly, you’ll have access to larger talent pools. Some solutions have huge candidate pools already in-house for you. Others have AI sourcing tools that can pull data directly from social media and job boards. Either way, you’ll have access to tons of talent with the click of a button.

Consequently, you’ll see a faster time-to-fill. Having access to lots of candidates means you can nurture relationships with more people, creating a warm talent pipeline. A warm talent pipeline translates into quick transitions from job interest to hired. 

As an overall result, you’ll save valuable time and effort in your process. Through the use of AI sourcing, candidate relationship management, and data & analytics tracking, your recruiters will be better equipped to do their jobs. Gone are the days of tedious, time-consuming tasks. Recruiters can focus on what they do best— working with talent.

The software solutions on our shortlist are all priced on a per user per month basis. Expect to pay anywhere from about $20 per user per month on the low end to $75 per user per month on the high end. Additional features and implementation fees may apply as well.

Assuming you’re looking for the middle-of-the-road solution price wise, here’s a rough estimate of cost broken down by the number of users:

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Recruiting agency software is typically an end-to-end solution. This means it covers everything in the recruiting pipeline; sourcing, applying, screening, interviewing, offering, hiring, and onboarding. 

This means that when you purchase a recruiting software solution, you’re actually getting multiple tools in one. These usually include:

• Sourcing tools: AI-powered sourcing tools scan job boards and social media to deliver qualified candidates right to your system. Some software solutions take this a step further by grabbing that information and immediately creating candidate profiles in your system, ranking them amongst the rest of your talent pool. 
• Applicant Tracking System (ATS): Staffing software’s ATS operates similarly to an HR team’s ATS. However, there are a few reporting tweaks specifically tailored to staffing agencies. There are individual recruiter performance metrics, placement activity trackers, customizable goals,and KPIs reporting.
• Candidate Relationship Management (CRM): Staffing CRMs are comparable to a regular customer relationship management system but with more specific functionality towards recruiting agency use cases. Such specific functions include passive candidate tracking, recruiter workflows, and automated relationship management.
• Candidate assessment: Built-in assessment tools allow you to test job seekers right in your staffing platform. Doing so automatically filters out unworthy candidates, saving you time from numerous phone screens and interviews. Therefore you can focus on the top talent. Having assessments on your recruiting platform also means you trim the fat from your tech stack.
• Interview scheduling: Automatically schedule interviews, cutting down on back-and-forth emails to make job seekers’ and recruiters’ lives easier.
• E-signatures and background checks: Built-in screening tools simplify your tech stack, making collecting the documents you need much easier.
• Detailed reporting and analytics: With the dashboards and data you get from your candidates, you can forecast future hiring trends.
• AI and automation: Automation allows you to consistently engage talent with minimal effort. Little things such as text updates, automated email responses, and chatbots make the candidate feel like they are being constantly guided through the hiring process instead of waiting in limbo. ‍
• Timesheets, commission, and expense tracking: You might not even need another software vendor to track important back office information. Some solutions have it all in-house.

Here are some important questions to ask when demoing staffing software:

• Does your product integrate with my current tech stack?
• Can your product actually streamline my tech stack by having multiple functions under one roof?
• What modules of your ATS and CRM are tailored to the staffing industry specifically? 
• Are there onboarding and implementation fees? 
• What features do your customers get the most value out of? 
• How long does it take before your customers see ROI?
  

These are just some examples. Think about your specific use case, and build out specific questions from there.

What is recruitment agency software?

Recruitment agency software is any type of platform that helps recruitment agencies source, track, and interview potential hires for their clients.

What kinds of software are good for recruitment agencies?

Recruitment agencies will find many types of software useful, including applicant tracking systems, sourcing tools, candidate databases, CRMs, interview scheduling software, background check software, and timesheet, commission, and expense tracking.

How much does recruitment agency software cost?

Recruitment agency software can cost anywhere from about $20 per user per month to $75 per user per month on the high end.