The Best Recruiting Software — 2023

An ATS is one of the main software purchases that an HR team will ever make. The same is ringing more true each day with the other more novel types of recruiting software, like HR chatbots and AI platforms. They’re important to get right because not only are you going to be working with them for a potentially long time, but they will also alter your chances of hiring the best people. 

That’s why we spend so much time researching each tool and its various use cases. While doing that and chatting with people that have used each solution in different ways, we’ve come across the main mistakes that HR practitioners make when choosing to work with a specific vendor: 

• Choosing a category from the start: If you’re here, you’re likely already circumventing this. But when most people think of recruiting software, they think immediately of a well-defined concept like an ATS, a career site builder, or perhaps even a chatbot. Bringing this pre-conceived notion of what you’re after too early in the buyer journey might lead to your team missing out on great opportunities. How sure are you that a chatbot is what you really need? Do you need that specific technology or are you simply looking for a better way to attract new hires? Wouldn’t certain tasks be better performed by other sorts of software
• ‍Short-term fixes vs. long-term needs: Tied to the first most common mistake, HR teams often get carried away trying to alleviate their daily pain points without drafting a plan for how the new solution can also improve other processes in the long run. The best bet is the one that’ll fix today’s problems with an eye towards the future. ‍
• Leaving out key players: This refers to two things: team members and other software tools. For the former, it’s important to make sure that every stakeholder within the hiring process is on board with the change and will be able to access and work with the new tool. For most companies, new hires aren’t just a preoccupation of the HR staff since that new employee's future teammates often get to interview him/her before a final decision is reached. As to the latter element mentioned, software tools, it’s very important to make sure that the new software will integrate nicely with the tools you’ll continue to use.

Naturally, the metrics presented above are also what will help you measure the Return On Investment on your recruitment software in the future. If you don’t do it already, being aware of these things will be crucial not just for the demo but for determining the success of your purchase later on. 

Also, measuring ROI in recruitment doesn’t just stop at the number of new hires and the time each one of them takes. You can also look for ways to evaluate the quality of the candidates, the diversity in your teams, other costs associated with hiring, and employee happiness or culture fit.

As to the dollar & cents aspect of the equation, the norm with recruitment and talent management software seems to be to keep it undisclosed until you request a demo. While we’ve made sure that these solutions are of varied prices to accommodate SMBs and large enterprises alike, we can’t reveal their starting prices if they don’t want us to. 

However, you can rest assured that nearly all of them offer a free demo and will base the pricing on the size of your company, so it’s very likely that you’ll find something that works for you among this selection. 

The only exceptions to the pricing question were myInterview and Frestheam. MyInterview is free forever if you only use it for one job opening, 2 users, and a maximum of 30 candidates. After that, it gets more robust and ranges from $39 to $259 per month (less with the yearly plan) unless your requirements reach the Enterprise level, which warrants a personalized quote. 

Now Freshteam, as with most HRMS, offers various plans and a free trial that takes seconds to sign up for. It’s free for up to 50 employees and the highest-priced plan is $250 per month.

For more free trials and completely free options, make sure to check out our guide on the best free recruiting software.

From the above list of the best recruiting software out there, you probably noticed that it’s not limited to one category. Instead, we spent hours selecting the best out of each landscape, whether you're after an AI recruiting tool, a standard ATS, an HR chatbot, or you simply want to improve your hiring processes in any way that’ll make sense for your team. 

Therefore, the key features to look out for in any recruitment tool will vary widely from one landscape to another. Let’s take a look at the main ones for each category: 

• Key Features from Applicant Tracking Systems
  

As one of the core pieces of talent acquisition software, the ATS acts primarily as a database for job applicants. In fact, many people view applicant tracking systems as synonymous with recruiting software since they can handle everything from receiving applications to hiring. For that reason, Applicant Tracking Systems often get compared to Customer Relationship Management systems, and straight-up referred to as Candidate Relationship Management software. 

Today’s modern applicant tracking system should have robust analytics, open APIs, a great candidate experience, employee referrals, and capabilities that help source/engage talent. There are literally hundreds of ATS’s out there, so if you’d like to read more about ATS’s alone, we wrote a buying guide about the best applicant tracking systems with more options, advice on how to think about ROI, pricing models, questions to ask on demos, and more.

• Key Features for AI Recruiting Tools
  

Artificial intelligence is permeating all of the software we use today, from Google's search algorithm to self-driving cars. However, some HR software vendors are leveraging this technology in more noteworthy ways. Not surprisingly, AI is also playing a major role in recruiting software, specifically in helping to source, schedule, and assess candidates in order to free up recruiter’s schedules and let them focus on more important tasks. Mainly, this is done through AI-powered features like 1-click sourcing, and the automation of certain tasks based on candidate behavior, like email outreach and applicant sorting. 

If you’d like to read more about other vendors in the AI Recruiting Software space, we wrote a buying guide about the best AI recruiting tools with more options, key use cases, pitfalls, and more. 

• Key Features for HR Chatbots
  

Recruiting chatbots are an exciting new category of HR Tech that allows recruiting teams to leverage the power of AI/NLP to take a lot of work off their plate. Specifically, most bots offered should be able to:

• Answer questions that applicants have when they are researching your company on your career site, in real-time. 
• Direct potential applicants to the right jobs and therefore increase the conversion rate on your career sites
• Schedule interviews
• Conduct initial screens
• Handle employee referrals
• Re-discover passive talent in your ATS, and more.
  

In essence, HR chatbots should be able to integrate seamlessly with your ATS, HRIS, or other software. A key feature to have is the ability to turn the chatbot on and off depending on the recruiter’s availability and willingness to chat with certain candidates. Some would also offer multilingual capabilities and be able to process mixed media like video and audio or even send documents like offer letters. 

Are you still curious about HR chatbots and would like to read about more vendors? We’ve recently written a buying guide about the top recruiting and HR chatbots in 2022. 

• Key Features for Video Interview Platforms
  

Video interview software was new about ten years ago, but there are still companies out there who haven’t started to leverage video interview platforms in their initial screens. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, companies that didn’t use this kind of software have simply shifted towards Zoom or Hangouts. However, the right video interview software can save recruiting teams a lot of time and effort in producing new hires. 

So what’s the main difference between using standard video conference software as opposed to something specifically made for the hiring process? While the answer to that question varies depending on each vendor, you’re mainly looking at automated scheduling, pre-recorded interviews, interview templates, and ATS integration. This alternative way of gathering candidate information may only be good for one stage of the recruiting process, but it can save your team a ton of time and energy. 

• Key Features for Candidate Sourcing Tools
  

Realistically, many of the best candidates are never in the market for a new job. Nowadays, however, the fact that we have many active pools of candidates thanks to work-focused social media sites like LinkedIn or Glassdoor has allowed for the rise of software tools that leverage these and other databases. 

The main idea of these solutions is to handle sourcing for teams in a time-saving manner. For that reason, the key features are smart filtering capabilities, AI-based recommendations, automated email outreach, and integrations with your ATS or other recruitment solution.

Since most of the best recruiting software out there doesn’t reveal a set price until after the demo, and not all of them offer free trials after, it’s even more important to approach the demo with a clear gameplan. You want to narrow down the use cases that are most important to you and your team and the questions that you need answers for. 

To do this, you can use the following list of questions as inspiration or download our excel organizer for free. 

• What are the key features I want to try out and validate?
• What expectations do we have for this software? What are the key things that it should help us achieve? 
• How will this solution fit into the rest of my tech stack and therefore what integrations do I need?
• How will others in the organization use this solution?
• How will this tool improve the experience of our applicants? 
• What are the things that would make me or my coworkers nervous about switching our current processes to this platform? 
• How is employee data kept safe if trusted to this vendor? 
• What conclusions can I start to make about the quality of customer support? Is there a help center? Are the support articles clear and easy to read? 
  

Similarly, since the final price is likely to vary depending on your requirements, it will really help the process if you and your team go to the demo with certain key numbers already available and verified, such as: 

• How many users you’ll need. 
• The average number of open positions/job postings
• The average number of applicants per week, month, year. 
• The usual length of the hiring process. 
• The average number of new hires per month, year. 
• An estimation/expectation of how these numbers should shift in the foreseeable future. 
• Other insights about your hiring activities, such as how often you hire for C-level or entry-level positions and everything in between, your multilingual and international necessities, etc.

All of the recruitment tools we’ve mentioned here are essentially cloud-based SaaS providers. Because of that, training will rarely be in person and you won’t require much in the way of starting to use it and connecting it to the rest of your HR stack. This is true especially of the vendors that are more narrowly focused on a single type of task, such as myInterview or VidCruiter with Video Interview software and Fetcher with AI. These tools can take minutes to sign up for and start using. After that, setting up fully is mostly a matter of how much data migration and integrations you need to do. 

Additionally, and especially in the ATS side of things, the implementation process will vary depending on factors such as the number of open jobs that’ll need to be created, the complexity of your recruiting process, and even the availability of engineering resources that you might have in-house. To guide you through this, most companies have some sort of Implementation Overview page, such as this one by Greenhouse. There, you should find specific answers to each question and links to video training or a support center.

What is recruiting software?

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 recruiting software?

The following are different types of recruiting software:

• Video interviewing
• Sourcing tools
• AI chatbot
• Virtual career fairs
• Recruiting CRMs
• Candidate assessment tools
• Recruiting ATSs

What are some recruiting software benefits?

Some benefits your company will see from using recruiting software include faster time-to-fill, high quality candidates, diversity hiring, and saved money.

Are there pitfalls when using recruiting software?

There are some pitfalls to avoid when choosing 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.

How much does recruiting software cost?

Some recruiting software is free or offers a free trial. Then, it can start at $39 per month all the way up to $249 per month depending on the solution.

As a last word of advice, our recommendation would be to first choose a category based on the vendors that we’ve briefly reviewed. Then, you can use some of the links we shared for more detailed buying guides on each landscape. From there, the natural next step would be to get demos with 2-3 vendors and arm yourself with the question guide we linked above, as well as defining the key metrics we outlined. 

Lastly, remember that most of these will not give you a set price until you’ve demoed the solution and explained your particular needs to them. That being said, there’s much more that counts other than price so this shouldn’t be the main aspect driving the decision. Whether you’re a staffing agency, a human resources head, or a small business owner looking into recruiting, we’re sure that one of these solutions may have what you’re looking for, or at least point you in the right direction. Best of luck!