Best Recruiting Software (Reviewed by Experts for Q4 2023)

VidCruiter goes beyond basic video interviewing to deliver a browser-based, end-to-end recruitment solution.

We love VidCruiter for its customizable and comprehensive software packages. The platform offers a full suite option: ATS, custom career sites, quick apply, interview scheduling, live interviewing, pre-recorded interviewing, automated reference checking, and virtual hiring events. It also lets users purchase modules one by one and then add more as needed.

From our first-hand experience, businesses with complex hiring processes will most likely benefit from VidCruiter's recruiting product.

Though the software’s implementation is not the fastest (depending on the level of user customization requirements) and its pricing is not the cheapest, our research indicates that the platform’s customers are highly satisfied and very loyal. Hundreds have been with VidCruiter for years, love the product, and plan to stay put.

Lionsgate, Samsung, US Foods.

The pricing of VidCruiter’s solutions is not disclosed on their website. Contact VidCruiter’s Sales team for a custom price quote.

Out of the 50+ different options we have tested in this domain, Fetcher is among the best recruiting software for finding passive candidates and kicking off conversations.

Fetcher offers exactly the kind of personal touch you'd want as a TA/sourcer: It doesn't just throw algorithms at you but gets real people behind the scenes finessing their AI to ensure every candidate they send your way is tailor-made to fit your job specs.

Our dive into Fetcher’s candidate sourcing started with filling in our criteria. (Alternatively, if you've got a job description handy, simply adding your job description would work too). Two days later, the first batch of candidates landed. Though the first round didn’t hit the bullseye, with some overqualified profiles in the mix, we couldn't help but notice the improvement in the subsequent round, and the fact that it happened over two nights.

Fetcher has made that happen by using our given feedback on candidates to train their AI and validate the AI’s search results before presenting them to us. Compared to traditional corporate interactions with staffing agencies that typically charge 15-30% per placement with a 1-2 week turnaround, Fetcher’s approach feels fresh and is an equally good, if not better, alternative.

We liked the generous feature suite that this recruiting software offers to all users. Regardless of the plan you choose, you get access to their dedicated support, Chrome extension (with the capability to discover up to 10,000 additional emails), personalized email templates, unlimited outbound emails, unlimited re-engagement campaigns, and both native and API integrations.

However, we find Fetcher to be a little disappointing when it comes to approaching active job seekers: no built-in job board postings, no career websites, no onboarding. And, truth be told, when stacked against SeekOut—a solid rival in the passive candidate space—Fetcher's pricing is significantly higher and less inflexible, with the cheapest plan starting at $12,000 annually and no options for monthly billing.

Fetcher is used by over 500 companies, including CarGurus, Andela, and Magnite.

Fetcher offers 3 lead-based pricing packages:

• Fetcher Growth: $12,000 USD annually for 3,000 Fetcher-sourced candidates.
• Fetcher Growth+: $15,000 USD annually for 4,000 Fetcher-sourced candidates.
• Fetcher Premium: $20,000 USD annually for 5,000 Fetcher-sourced candidates.

All packages include Chrome extension access (up to 10,000 additional emails discovered), personalized email templates, unlimited outbound emails and re-engagement campaigns, and integrations.

Greenhouse is one of the top names in recruiting software. Though their product is mainly an ATS, it packs more solutions for structured hiring and candidate experience. Hence, some teams use it as a combination of a comprehensive ATS and a CRM. The well-structured dashboard keeps us informed about essential tasks, including application reviews, interviews, team progress, and links to Greenhouse features for easy access.

Job creation in Greenhouse is simple, especially with pre-built templates. While it's not the tool's standout feature, the customization options deserve recognition. With Greenhouse, we have full control over our hiring workflow, and the customization process is straightforward and entirely user-driven. No IT knowledge or customer support is needed, thanks to the intuitive drag-and-drop workflow. We can tailor the number of stages, their names, purposes, and evaluation criteria, assign responsible team members, and define roles and access levels. This high level of customization is part of what sets Greenhouse apart from other products we demoed.

Furthermore, Greenhouse impresses with its extensive integration capabilities, offering over 360 native integrations for effortless connectivity. While we can’t test all the integrations out for you, we tried some most common ones (Slack, Gmail, Calendly) and found it all ran pretty smoothly.

Nearly 4,000 companies, including Casana, Momentive, and Anaplan.

Greenhouse offers three pricing plans based on team size. A one-year prepaid subscription is the standard contract, but discounts are available for longer terms.

ClearCompany is a seasoned player in the recruiting and talent management tech space, having been in the business since 2004 and stands. Given its wealth of experience, we had some pretty high expectations when testing out its recruitment software.

Those demanding a one-stop-shop for managing the entire employee lifecycle should definitely give ClearCompany a try. The recruitment suite covers everything from applicant tracking and text recruiting to onboarding, employee engagement, and performance management. Not only can it serve you in your recruitment needs but managing and retaining your hires—you’re killing three, not two birds, with one stone here.

Another aspect we had to test out was ClearCompany’s customer support—low scores here are a potential deal-breaker for enterprises when considering recruitment software. The good news: the support knew what they were doing. They had been very responsive to our questions. When we asked: “Could we purchase just your ATS and text recruiting first?”, the vendor was happy to accommodate. No doubt this flexibility has helped them maintain a solid group of loyal customers.

Regarding ClearCompany’s user interface, although we don’t think it is terrible, when seeing it side by side with competing options like Greenhouse and Pinpoint, it is indeed less stylish, and slow at times.

The most disappointing part about ClearCompany was its searching and reporting capabilities. As the vendor has presented itself as an end-to-end recruiting software, we had high hopes for how it handles these aspects. However, we couldn’t use phone or email to search for candidates, and ClearCompany’s reporting really only covers the basics. It hardly meets the level of customization and detail enterprises would expect from their recruiting software, unfortunately.

2,000+ organizations, including Fujifilm, the Salvation Army, and the Supreme Court for the State of Arizona.

ClearCompany does not disclose pricing details. Contact their sales team for more information.

With Pinpoint, on any plan you choose, you receive unlimited job postings and team member capabilities. In other words, you get to post as many jobs as you want and have as many members access Pinpoint as you wish, but your bill won’t go up, not even one penny. However, this alone isn’t what makes this recruiting automation software so unique. In addition to that generous offering of user seats and active job postings, the platform wowed us with its ability to connect with over 100 HR tools.

Who doesn’t love flexibility when it comes to designing their hiring process? From custom workflows and email templates to fields and reports, Pinpoint gave us no reasons to criticize it on this point but appreciating how simple it was to make the system work in our way.

If top-notch customer support is a must-have when selecting recruitment software, you’ll be delighted to add Pinpoint to your list of potential purchases. When we dropped the support team a morning email, expecting a reply in the afternoon at the earliest, Pinpoint took us by surprise by replying in under two minutes. It’s even serious when saying it offers customers unlimited training.

In terms of design, we asked a friend who 1) has never used Pinpoint and 2) has no IT background to navigate the platform to estimate the user-friendliness of the platform. Their eyebrows didn’t wrinkle once, and a stunning career website was born in under ten minutes. Testing how job applicants would feel navigating this website, we opened it on both our Chrome browser and phone. Not only did it look great, but it also functioned smoothly. It even supported several languages!

Moreover, it’s just nice to see the platform roll out regular new product updates. Candidate surveys for feedback collection and notifications for employee users about new job openings for referrals signal how serious Pinpoint is when it comes to constantly improving its products.

However, it’s a real shame to realize the tool, which doesn’t charge a single penny for adding more users and job posts, does charge for its employee onboarding module. Considering Pinpoint’s pricing, which typically starts around $7,200, we would find it difficult to recommend it to a budget-minded team. Lastly, if you require a recruiting solution with exhaustive sourcing capabilities or something built specifically for staffing agencies, there are better options than this software.

Jersey Electricity, JT Group, Coinshare, BDO Greenlight.

Pinpoint has two pricing plans:

• Growth is the starting plan, with up to 20 active jobs at one time.
• Enterprise adds more features along with unlimited active jobs.
• While Pinpoint pricing is only given via demos, our research indicates that it can cost around $7,200 annually.

A key aspect of Recruiterbox is that it can grow with your company. Small companies are able to set it up in as little as 90 minutes, and many keep using it even as their hiring needs skyrocket. The reason for that is that they have a solid feature list that also includes workflows, letting hiring managers automate certain tasks. 

Recruiterbox is also very mindful of remote teams, so they make collaboration through their platform much easier by having notes and insights about candidates available in the same place. It also lets you organize your team into hiring teams or fewer profiles as need be. 

Recruiterbox is favored by companies like Olark, Couchsurfing, Lonely Planet, and Untappd.

Makita, Couchsurfing, Lonely Planet, Untappd

Recruiterbox is priced on a per employee per month basis, starting at an annual minimum of $3499.

Eightfold captivated us with its seamless integration of talent acquisition, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I), and onboarding processes, all within a consolidated platform.

The power of Eightfold becomes apparent when candidates land on its AI-driven career sites. Here, they can quickly upload their resume, and the AI responds with instant job recommendations tailored to their unique experience and potential. What struck us even more was the platform's next step—it doesn't just provide recommendations but also relevant content and introductions to current employees. For those who aren't quite ready to apply, there's an option to join a company's talent network to stay in the loop about future job opportunities.

Another thing about Eightfold that really excited us was how seamlessly one can source candidates directly from an ATS using the recruiting software’s artificial intelligence. The AI compiles candidate profile data from career sites, Eightfold's extension, and previous candidates’ information to recommend excellent fits for new roles. Anonymous screening and equal opportunity algorithms are also there to ensure recommendations are made based on candidate qualifications.

The native recruiting CRM is another valuable component of Eightfold. This tool lets you utilize Eightfold's AI to select the right audience for targeted campaigns and communicate with them via email and SMS. As expected from an enterprise-oriented HR tech, Eightfold’s reporting didn’t disappoint us. Head to the Insights tab and you’ll gain access to diversity analytics for detailed insights into your hiring processes. Plus, this data is updated daily so you can quickly spot any potential unequal outcomes.

However, we were left frustrated by loading times between different dashboards and reports. Unlike some other tools, such as SeekOut, there's no pre-built talent pool—the candidate database is drawn from your ATS, career sites, and applications from recruiting events and current employees.

While we can’t escape the fact that Eightfold is quite pricey, we’re really impressed with the overall quality of the platform. Trained on an extensive database—1.5 million skill sets and 1.5 billion worker profiles in 20 languages, Eightfold's AI surpasses mere keyword matching. It identifies the precise skills needed for a job in a specific industry and level—something you cannot find in cheaper yet less experienced AI recruiting software like HizeEZ and Manatal.

Eightfold serves notable enterprises such as Vodafone, TATA Bayer, and Morgan Stanley.

Reach out to Eightfold's Sales team for a personalized quote.

SeekOut earns our trust for being particularly helpful when it comes to multi-channel sourcing, and for constantly getting better each time we revisit it. The recruiting software’s talent pool now provides users with access to a vast database of over 800 million candidate profiles (and counting!). The search capabilities have also become more powerful, with filter options including work history, keywords, education, skills, and locations—not only by country but specific states in the U.S.

Companies seeking talent in niche sectors like tech and healthcare will find SeekOut super handy. Besides the advanced filtering, they're equipped with a robust AI trained to source talent directly from sites like GitHub. However, speaking as someone who's worked to hunt talent worldwide, it's quite a letdown to see that the talent pool is limited to within the United States.

Not every recruiting software pays as much attention to internal talent as SeekOut does. SeekOut Grow provides insights into existing employee profiles and identifies internal candidates suitable for open roles or new projects. If I was still working in recruitment, I wouldn’t miss the chance to onboard this product and pair it with an ATS. It’d be a powerhouse for talent mobilization for sure!

SeekOut’s custom support didn’t let us down either. There’s live chat support during the week (we tested it, they were fast!), plus email and a dedicated customer success manager for certain plans, so it’s rare to be left frustrated with their support team.

However, despite the undeniable time-saving benefits its newly introduced ChatGPT-powered SeekOut Assist offers to recruiters—the AI can generate targeted searches, suggest matches, and craft personalized messages based on job descriptions and candidate profiles—we expected a more sophisticated built-in AI, like what we’ve seen on PhenomPeople and EightFold.

SeekOut’s integrations also left something to be desired. While SeekOut worked well when we connected it with Greenhouse, it wasn’t as smooth with Phenom and Gem. And heads up, there's a cap of 500 candidate contacts per month, but you can bump it up for a fee.

1000+ organizations, including VMware, Salesforce, and Merck have used SeekOut for managing and recruiting talent.

SeekOut has three different plans with pricing undisclosed:

• Premium: Access 441M+ candidates, diversity sourcing, people insights, contact info for 500 candidates/month, export 5,000 profiles/month.
• Premium Tech: All Premium features + specialized tools for sourcing tech talent.‍‍
• SeekOut Expert: For engineering and life sciences hiring.