As it’s usual with all of Zoho's product, Zoho Recruit is quite robust and feature-rich. It also has a free plan, which includes the ATS, and supports 26 different languages, allowing recruiters to cast a wide net.
Ratings
Ease of Use
Best For
Key Differentiator
Price
Free Trial
PROS
- 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 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.
Need Help? Talk to an HR Software Advisor!
Tell us more about your company & an HR Software Advisor will help you find the right software
Can a platform pack an Applicant Tracking System and a Candidate Relationship Management tool into a single hub? This is what the guys at Zoho set out to do with their recruiting product. Notably, this is only one of Zoho’s products that has become popular with many HR teams, along with Zoho People and Zoho Shifts. Zoho Recruit is only one of Zoho’s 50+ products helping businesses not only in recruitment but also in finances, sales, marketing, support, and collaboration.
That being said, Zoho Recruit is notable for being tailored to the needs of staffing agencies, internal HR teams (at big and small companies), and even freelance headhunters alike. At each of those use cases, and the many iterations therein, Zoho can source candidates from over 75 job boards and keep track of every touchpoint; from application to hire.
Typical talent acquisition tasks like email management, interview scheduling, and updating candidate’s status, can be automated. Although used by bigger companies, this is part of what has made Zoho Recruit popular with small companies and startups, where time is of the essence and maybe recruitment is a shared responsibility across roles.
Although we cover this in more detail on our pricing section, Zoho Recruit has always been a popular bet for its value too. Their free plan is good enough for small recruiting firms or freelancers focusing on one job opening, and it just keeps getting bigger after that.
To give you an idea, the Standard plan includes 250 active jobs, AI candidate matching, advanced analytics, automatic screenings and assessments, background checks, and assignment rules you can set up. A nice thing about their pricing is that popular modules like video interviews (one-way or live) are available as separately-priced add-ons. This ability to mix and match is something that has always made Zoho stand out. You can switch as you go, according to your needs. This is especially worth considering as their plans have evolved over the years to include the features that start making waves in the market.
We post a job, publish it on job boards, aggregate all applications from many boards, and then screen and select the best matches.
Create jobs in Zoho Recruit, then post on many job boards with no hassle of posting separately.
We bought Zoho Recruit to streamline the hiring process and use an ATS. We have been using it for 6+ months.
It is a useful aggregator for posting on multiple job boards, and we can gather all applicants in one place without having to jump from one site to another.
Ease of setup; they personally onboarded us with a live demo to create and publish the first job.
Need to post on multiple job boards and have bulk hiring.
We feel Zoho Recruit is evolving constantly.
Zoho Recruit is good for every organization that has requirements for bulk hiring.
Zoho Recruit is not good for small organizations with fewer than 10 employees.
We use Zoho Recruit daily to manage and organize all active selection processes. It allows us to track applicants, manage active sourcing efforts, and maintain a structured candidate database. We organize each stage of the recruitment process within the system, from initial screening to final placement.
- The client portal makes it easy to share candidates and updates with clients.
- It integrates with a large number of job boards for advertising open positions.
- The platform offers a high level of customization to adapt workflows and fields to our needs.
We needed an applicant tracking system for our recruitment agency to centralize and organize all hiring activities. At the time of purchase, Zoho Recruit was the only global ATS with a strong presence in Brazil, which was important for local support and market alignment.
The availability of a client portal was a decisive factor, since we regularly share candidates and updates with our clients. The pricing was competitive compared to other international solutions with similar features.
- The system has a steep learning curve for new users.
- There are too many settings, which can make configuration complex.
- The interface feels outdated, with a rigid and complicated layout.
Compared to other ATS platforms we evaluated, Zoho Recruit offers a stronger cost-benefit ratio for the features provided. The inclusion of a client portal is a key advantage for recruitment agencies, as not all competitors offer this functionality at a similar price point.
- Evaluate the cost-benefit ratio in relation to the features offered.
- Assess whether the platform’s functionality aligns with your specific needs, whether you are an internal HR team or a recruitment agency.
- Review which job boards and external platforms the ATS integrates with for job postings and sourcing.
The platform has evolved gradually, with more noticeable updates in recent years. New features and improvements have been introduced over time. The interface design, though, still feels outdated. The extensive configuration options remain a core characteristic of Zoho’s approach to building applications.
Zoho Recruit is good for recruitment agencies that need to manage multiple clients and share candidates through a client portal.
Companies that run a fully internal recruitment process and prefer not to use additional tools or external-facing features beyond a basic ATS won’t need a tool like Zoho Recruit.
We use Zoho Recruit to create job postings and publish them across job boards and social networks. The tool is used regularly to manage incoming applications and track candidates through the hiring process.
We have built a careers site using Zoho Recruit to attract applicants. It supports posting, distribution, and basic candidate management workflows. The platform serves as our primary ATS.
We like Zoho Recruit because it is easy to set up and customize. The initial setup and customization took less than 30 minutes.
We use Zoho Recruit to post open roles for our startup. The recruitment process was disorganized before implementation, and Zoho Recruit helped centralize and streamline job postings and candidate management. The tool allows us to publish jobs easily and manage applicants in one place.
After six months of use, it has improved how we engage with potential candidates. The platform has made recruiting more structured and manageable for our team.
Like other ATS platforms, the Zoho Recruit careers site is not fully integrated into web applications without redirecting users from the main site. It supports HTML, CSS, and JavaScript embeds, but only job postings appear through the embedded code. An independent careers site still needs to be built to provide a complete experience.
Zoho Recruit stands out for its strong compliance features. This is valuable due to data privacy and regulatory requirements.
Key buying criteria include available features, ease of use, and pricing limits. Buyers should evaluate whether the tool meets their functional needs without exceeding their budget.
Recruiters can now submit reviews for applicants. This information helps with faster decision-making and candidate evaluation.
Zoho Recruit works well for recruiting teams or individual users who want to post jobs quickly and manage applicants efficiently.
Zoho Recruit can be customized for most industries, and many organizations are likely to find it useful.
Manatal
Manatal
Zoho Recruit
Zoho Recruit
GoHire
GoHire
Tellent Recruitee
Tellent Recruitee
Teamtailor
Teamtailor
Those wanting a simpler tool sharply focused on certain parts of the recruitment process— for instance, video interviews or career site design— may find Zoho’s Recruits offering too general. Since they cover such a broad spectrum of needs, it can take them time to get the design up to modern standards, in some cases.
Bosch, Deloitte, Saint-Gobain, PWC, Allianz
- Automated candidate relationship workflows: Create custom workflows that send alerts and triggers at specific candidate touch points, ensuring you never miss an opportunity to connect with job seekers.
- Background screening: You won’t need an additional software for background checks, as Zoho Recruit has this as a built-in feature.
- Resume extractor: Use a Chrome plug-in to parse resumes from most websites.
- Resume parser mapping: Standardize parsed resumes to a structure preferred by your company.
- Parsing review: Review the parsed resume for inconsistencies.
- Client Portal: Your staffing agency can provide a portal for your clients to input their open roles, provide feedback on candidates up for review, and even make interview decisions.
Zoho Recruit also has capabilities for:
- Resume inboxes (get resumes from emails)
- Candidate import from documents
- Duplication checker
- Assessments and feedback
- Candidate management
- Interview scheduling
- Note taking tool
- Career site
Zoho Recruit integrates with the top products on several categories, for instance:
- Job boards: Indeed, Monster, CareerBuilder and over 70 more
- Recruiting: DaXtra, LinkMatch, Hiretual, SignalHire
- Background checks: Checkr, Verified First, HireRight
- Collaboration: Slack, Zoho Cliq, Zapier
- Social media: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter
Also, Zoho Recruit has open API capabilities and the Zapier integration; so you can integrate seamlessly with your tech stack.
For corporate HR and staffing agencies, Zoho Recruit provides plans with a 15-day free trial and a 45-day money-back guarantee. Here are the detailed pricing options for annual billing:
- Corporate HR can choose from three plans: Free, Standard ($25/month), and Enterprise ($50/month). Add-ons like Employee License ($10/month), Vendor Portal ($6/month), and Video Interview ($12/job opening) are available to paid plan users.
- Staffing firms have access to four plans: Free Forever, Standard ($25/month), Professional ($50/month), and Enterprise ($75/month). They can also add features like Video Interviews ($12/license/month) and Client Portal ($6/license/month) to their plans.
Zoho Recruit is ideal for startups and small to medium-sized companies across various industries.
Zoho Recruit’s most recent updates highlight a dual focus: building intelligence directly into candidate evaluation through Zoho’s own large language model, Zia, while also making efforts to improve user experience on everyday workflows.
- AI-Powered Assessments and Zia LLM: Recruiters can now generate ready-to-use assessments tailored to each role, with Zoho’s native AI model powering the process. The goal is fairness, consistency, and structured recruitment without the manual legwork.
- Profile Summary by Zia: Scanning resumes one at a time is giving way to instant AI summaries. With Zia’s help, recruiters can expect to save time and effort on shortlisting, as they can now view key candidate highlights in either bulleted or descriptive form.
- Numerical Rating in Interviewer Assessments: Candidate evaluation has gained more precision with a numerical rating system. Interviewers can score answers by number, set thresholds, and even switch between rating styles (star, thumbs-up, or numeric) with results converting automatically for consistency.
- Real-Time Notifications in Vendor Portal: Vendors now get instant alerts when jobs are shared or edited, notes are added, or candidate statuses change.
- Smarter Cooling-Off Periods: The cooling-off functionality has been extended to cover the Career Site, Vendor Portal, and Employee Referrals. Recruiters can set durations, trigger alerts, and ensure candidates and vendors enjoy a smoother process.
- Bulk Action Buttons: Custom buttons in List View allow teams to act on multiple records at once, such as candidates, jobs, or clients, from the toolbar.
- Custom Buttons and Links in Portals: Portals for candidates, clients, and vendors now support custom actions. Recruiters can design experiences where users trigger specific workflows themselves.
- CV-Library Integration: UK-based hiring is expected to become easier with this new integration, as it lets recruiters tap into millions of resumes, refine searches, and unlock CVs with credits within Zoho Recruit.
With the Zoho Recruit platform, you only need to set up a Zoho Recruit account to get started. After that, you can now post a job and start sourcing candidates.
For bigger teams, based on complexity of customer requirements and the amount of requested features, Zoho Recruit’s implementation time can vary widely, from a couple of weeks or even up to several months.
Customer support caters to new and existing customers who have questions about pricing, licenses, and other services. In addition, Zoho has offices worldwide, so you won’t have to worry about your concerns getting lost in an email inbox. Their support is typically handled on a 24/5 basis.
The Zoho story goes back to 1996, with the founding of AdventNet Inc. Back then, the company made a network management tool that was popular internationally, but mainly in the Japanese market. Then, in 2001, they launched Zoho CRM, which quickly became one of their best-selling apps.
Then, in 2005, the company caught up with the times and started offering cloud-based applications. They began with the Writer app, then Show (a presentation tool), Creator (custom application builder), and Zoho Sheets. It wasn’t long until they realized that there could be a Zoho tool for just about every kind of business app. If you’re curious, the Zoho ‘about page’ actually has an interactive timeline where you can see the evolution of the company year to year. Nowadays, Zoho has over 75 million users worldwide, several offices across the globe, and more than 50 products for marketing, finance, customer and tech support, team collaboration, and of course, HR and recruitment.
Company HQ
Austin, Texas and Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Number of Employees
13,000+
Year Founded
1996
Amount Raised
FAQ
About SSR
We spend hundreds of hours researching the best HR and recruiting software so you don’t have to. We never take money from vendors during our research phase and rely heavily on practitioners and experts to help us recommend the right software. However we may earn a small fee if you click on vendor links on this page.
