Recruiting Software
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Table of Contents
- Recruiting software comparison tables
- What is recruiting software?
- The best recruiting software vendors
- Recruiting software trends and features
- What to look for in enterprise, agency, and SMB recruiting software
- Choosing the best recruiting software
What is recruiting software?
Recruiting software is a category of human resources management (HRM) that handles the process of posting jobs and attracting top talent for vacant positions within a company. Recruiting streamlines the entire candidate search and hiring process to make it easier for organizations to add employees.
From posting jobs to reviewing resumes and interviewing candidates, recruiting software streamlines and automates the entire candidate search and hiring process. By eliminating paperwork and offering powerful resume and candidate search functions, the software makes it easier for organizations to find and hire employees.
However, nearly every HR software vendor offers recruiting features. With so many options available, choosing the best recruiting system is a daunting task. To simplify the buying process, this guide details the best recruiting software vendors, recruiting software trends and features, and what to look for in enterprise, agency, and smb recruiting software.
The best recruiting software vendors
| Enterprise | Medium-Sized | Small Business |
|---|---|---|
| iCIMS | ClearCompany | Workable |
| UltiPro | Jazz | BambooHR |
| Jobvite | JobAdder | RecruiterBox |
| Zoho Recruit | PCRecruiter | Breezy HR |
The recruiting software market
There’s no denying it: the recruiting process is time-consuming. Recruiters and hiring managers face resume overload. They sort, rank, and send applications to the correct person for review. Then managers collaborate with recruiters to screen, interview, and onboard qualified candidates. And along the way, everyone in the process must communicate with follow-up emails, internal messages, and offer letters.
It’s complex. It’s high volume. And losing track of candidates may mean losing a chance to hire the best employee for the opening, or diminishing the company’s hiring brand in the candidate marketplace.
Thankfully, the entire process has gone digital.
Companies have replaced dated systems and paper resumes with new technology that offers social media recruiting, online assessments, automatic workflows, and real time analytics. Now, recruiters can take a systematic approach to hiring. This not only saves time, energy, and resources, but leaves candidates with a pleasant brand experience as well.
Recruiting software can provide a platform for companies to improve their candidate experience levels. According to Careerbuilder, 81 percent of job seekers say that they want companies to communicate the status of their application more frequently and 51 percent said that the lack of communication was their number one frustration with the job search.
That same survey found that 78 percent of HR professionals found recruiting and HCM software improved the hiring process, although half of those respondents do not use an ATS or other recruiting software. Compare that with the Fortune 500, where 90 percent of companies employ recruiting software, according to Jobscan.
Hundreds of vendors now crowd this market with software that contains seemingly identical functionality. As yesterday’s cutting-edge features become today’s standard, differentiators like usability, customizations, analytics, and data management become increasingly important. TechnologyAdvice can help you cut through the noise and find a list of vendors that meet your needs. Click on the banner below to get your recommendations.
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Recruiting software trends and features
Recruiting software is the lynchpin to any company’s talent acquisition strategy. It provides a central location and database for all recruitment efforts. At the enterprise level, recruiting functionality is often offered as a module of an enterprise resource management (ERP) system, HR suite, financial management solution, or human capital management (HCM) system. These systems function as centralized databases for employee and customer data and provide analysis capabilities. Recruiting modules expand upon these features.
For smaller businesses, a recruiting software can be included in larger HR or ERP systems, or can be purchased as a standalone, best of breed system. Best of breed recruiting tools often communicate with other business software via direct integration or API.
Regardless of how a recruiting software is packaged, having a database for recruiting makes it easier to narrow the number of applicants by searching applications for specific candidate criteria. Hiring managers can save information to the database, customize their workflows, apply filters to searches, and ensure they comply with federal employment and anti-discrimination laws in a single software.
Functionality for most recruiting software is built around the following pillars:
- Workforce Planning: creating pools of internal and external candidates
- Sourcing: job posting management, advertising, social media promotion
- Candidate Acquisition: referrals, screening, assessments, and selection
- Applicant Tracking: interviewing, background checks, candidate communication
- Onboarding: meetings, orientation, training
- Analytics: reporting and metrics embedded throughout the system
HR teams should look for a collaborative system that aligns with a company’s internal hiring process and gives candidates a positive experience. Streamlining these functions increases efficiency by screening out unqualified applicants early in the process, reducing administrative burden across all functions, and providing analytics about the entire process.
With so many vendors to choose from, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. The following trends—and the features in our comparison charts at the top of the page—will help you differentiate vendors and choose the right provider for your business.
Cloud and SaaS solutions
Most HR software vendors are moving away from on-premise solutions, and recruiting solutions are no different. Companies are choosing to use cloud-based systems, rather than buy a one-time license and house a system and its database onsite. The software-as-a-service (SaaS) model means you pay a subscription fee per month or per year to use the software.
AI and automation
Many recruiting software systems add artificial intelligence and automation features to assist HR professionals in repetitive tasks. Tools use automation to parse resumes for job-related keywords the HR team sets. The software will then build pools of candidates based on shared skills and experience levels, removing unqualified candidates quickly. And because these tools scan databases for candidates, previously disqualified candidates can remain in the database. HR can then comb the database for qualified candidates to contact during reverse recruiting efforts where HR contacts previous applicants to match them with new job openings.
Integrations and suites
As the HR tech stack continues to grow, you must consider how your next recruiting software will integrate with your existing technology. If your company has existing HR systems, such as payroll software or a learning management system (LMS), then it’s important that any solution you choose integrates with them.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for an all-in-one system that handles other HR processes in addition to recruiting functionality, then you’ll need a vendor that offers a full HR suite like an HRIS or HCM system. We can help you figure out which system is best for you and take hours off your research process with fast, free recommendations. Fill out the form at the top of the page to get started.
Responding to low unemployment
Companies looking to grow their workforce despite low unemployment numbers have to get creative. In addition to passive recruiting, reverse recruiting, and internal recruitment efforts, companies in high-growth areas have turned to alternatives to the traditional methods of hiring best-skills-fit candidates. According to the 2019 trends report from Monster, more companies will start hiring based on candidate potential instead of proven skills. As low unemployment narrows the candidate fields across all industries, companies look to find candidates with track records of adaptability and learning behavior.
Recruitment marketing
In addition to alternative recruiting methods, some HR departments have turned to traditional marketing practices to attract qualified and interested candidates. HR departments use social media, online job boards, and in-person events alongside traditional methods to attract best-fit talent. These tools promote the company’s culture, benefits, and perks, and often suggest that interested candidates apply—even if the company doesn’t have a perfect-fit opening. Recruiting software often includes the ability to create careers websites, post to multiple job boards, post openings to social media platforms, and analyze the effectiveness of recruitment marketing efforts.
Social recruiting analytics
Social recruiting taps into the social media network of employees and other HR professionals to promote the company’s hiring brand. Companies post to social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to advertise open positions, interact with potential candidates, and search for passive candidates. Recruiting software that can import analytics from social media sites help HR personnel better understand where their social recruiting efforts make an impact and help the team refine their marketing practices.
Mobile recruiting
More and more individuals do business on their mobile phones, including applying to jobs. Recruiting companies have caught on, demanding mobile-friendly career sites and job boards. These tools include mobile-ready applications, forms, and messaging apps. Mobile-first recruiting tools attract and cater to candidates who may not have a personal computer outside of their smartphone.
What to look for in enterprise, agency, and SMB recruiting software
The solutions in this guide are divided into three categories: enterprise, agency, and small-to-medium business (SMB). However, SaaS deployments make modern software more flexible and scalable than ever before.
Though the core functions of all solutions in this niche are the same, there is additional functionality that different business sizes and types might look for. Let’s examine some of those differentiators below.
Enterprise recruiting software
HR or ERP systems that integrate with a recruiting software provide critical functionality for large organizations. In-house recruiters also need strong collaboration features that facilitate sharing applicant data and receiving feedback from hiring managers. Enterprises may also prefer a solution that offers a branded careers page, application portal, and an internal job board. These features facilitate internal hiring and employee referral programs. We’ve compared the top six enterprise recruiting platforms based on automation, analytics, recruitment marketing, and candidate assessments features.
Agency recruiting software
Recruiting agencies require many of the same features as enterprise businesses. However, since agencies fill positions for clients, they need additional financial functionality. Agencies store and search large amounts of data and need a recruiting system built to facilitate those needs. Agency recruiting systems should also include functions like advanced custom filtering and email integration. Furthermore, agencies require extra features to handle their client details, so they require customer relationship management (CRM) functionality.
SMB recruiting software
Though SMBs benefit from this technology in the same ways as their larger counterparts, they often need simpler and less expensive systems. Small-to-medium-sized businesses find it important to integrate with existing systems to make use of existing data. Growing companies will want a solution that scales along with their business. For very small businesses, many vendors offer free versions with limited functionality.
Choosing the best recruiting software
The first step to finding the right provider is to identify your goals and the must-have features that will support them. Pinpointing the reasons you’re seeking recruitment software will help you define your business goals and better navigate the market. Have a list of your must-have and “nice-to-have” features. This way, if you come across two comparable vendors that meet the mandatory criteria, you have a secondary elimination method. If you come across a software package missing one of your must-haves, then it’s an automatic deal breaker.
Next, examine vendor track records to find accreditations, case studies, and testimonials for customer service. These could be the determining factor between two similar vendors.
Then test drive each contender—via a demo or a free trial—before choosing a solution. You want to experience the software in action to make sure it suits your needs and isn’t masking subpar functionality behind great interfaces.
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- Which recruiting software solution is right for your business?
- Find out now