Best Recruiting Software

Recruiting software, essential for modern HR landscapes, enables organizations to optimize talent acquisition processes. This category of tools simplifies and enhances the hiring lifecycle by automating key tasks such as job posting, candidate sourcing, and application tracking. Recruitment platforms often include advanced functionalities like resume parsing, automated communication systems, and detailed analytics, empowering HR professionals to make informed decisions quickly.

Key benefits of recruiting software include streamlined recruitment processes, reduced time-to-hire, and improved candidate experiences. These systems integrate seamlessly with other HR tools, increasing overall operational efficiency and helping businesses maintain a competitive edge in talent acquisition. Such integrations ensure a cohesive workflow, keeping all stakeholders in the hiring process well-informed and aligned with their goals.

Best Recruiting software at a glance:

Best Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS): Greenhouse
Best Onboarding Software: BambooHR
Best Recruitment Platforms Software: Ceipal ATS
Best Video Interviewing Software: Indeed Hiring Platform
Best Talent Assessment Software: The Predictive Index
Best Background Check Software: Checkr

These software solutions are ranked using an algorithm that calculates customer satisfaction and market presence based on reviews from our user community. For more information, please check out G2’s Research Scoring Methodology.

What is Recruiting Software?

Companies have a lot of talent to source, engage, and manage. Recruiting software, a subset of talent management software, facilitates the hiring and onboarding of new talent. This solution provides tools that create internal and external candidate pools, produce and distribute job postings, and include applicant tracking software (ATS), onboarding, and analytics. Essentially, recruiting software automates the entire hiring process—from candidate search to onboarding.

Products that provide recruiting functionality are often subsets of HR management suites or human resources information systems (HRIS). These solutions manage high-value HR functions, such as core HR, recruiting, performance management, and training eLearning software. While many recruiting products are integrated into HR suites, some are available as a standalone product.

When considering recruiting solutions, companies must take into account the comprehensive needs of their human resource teams. Products offering the best functionality for recruiting may not meet the needs of other functional areas, so it is very important that companies approach these suites with a strong understanding of their HR team’s goals. G2 Crowd classifies recruiting software into five categories: pre-employment screening, recruiting automation software, talent acquisition suites, video interviewing, and other recruiting software.

Key Benefits of Recruiting Software

Streamline the recruitment process to make applicant recruiting and tracking more efficient
Store and manage applicant information in one centralized location
Tailor application materials to improve the quality of applicant submissions
Post and distribute job postings to reach a greater number of candidates
Reduce time to higher for new employees
Improve communication with candidates and new hires

Why Use Recruiting Software?

Users can streamline the entire recruitment process with online recruitment software, making candidate recruiting and applicant tracking more efficient, as well as reduce time to hire new employees. Recruiters, HR personnel, and hiring managers are able to access one centralized database throughout the hiring process. Within this database, users can post and distribute job ads to reach a wide array candidates, store and manage all applicant information, and track each applicant throughout the entire hiring process. This central location improves communication among recruiters, HR personnel, hiring managers, candidates, and new hires.

Who Uses Recruiting Software?

Recruiters, HR personnel, and hiring managers employ recruiting software to manage the hiring process, from sourcing passive candidate to onboarding. Each individual company’s recruiting software needs will be dependent on the size of the business and its HR department, as well as the company’s current hiring needs.

In addition to recruiting agencies, every type of company and all company sizes—from small businesses (SMB) to enterprises—can benefit from implementing recruiting software. These solutions automate as many tasks as HR personnel need to help them recruit new hires effectively and quickly.

Enterprises often integrate recruiting solutions with other HR software and ERP systems. These companies regularly focus their efforts on both external and internal hiring, so internal job boards are a vital component of the software. Additional enterprise-sized solutions may include branded career pages, employee referral programs, and analytics tools.

Scalability is typically an important feature small businesses look for when researching software. A business must always be prepared for growth; SMBs need to find software that can support them as they expand. Additionally, some SMBs might want to consider recruiting software that provide free options. This will allow them to focus on the basic, essential recruiting features they need, manage their budget, and forgo the cost of those features that might be directed toward their larger counterparts.

Recruiting agencies need features that help them focus on sourcing passive and active candidates for their clients. These agencies are dealing with large pools of candidate information; a recruiting solution that provides large data storage capabilities is essential. Additionally, integration with CRM software will help recruiters store and manage their large candidate pools and their accompanying excesses of information.

Kinds of Recruiting Software

Pre-employment screening software – These recruiting solutions help companies screen candidates for hard and soft skills and are divided into background check, pre-employement testing, and reference check software.

Background check software – This pre-employment screening software provides recruiters and HR personnel with employment, education, criminal, and driving history checks and drug screening.

Pre-employment testing software – This pre-employment screening software lets companies integrate professionally developed pre-employment tests into their hiring processes.

Reference Check Software – This pre-employment screening software helps employers, hiring managers, and HR personnel contact candidates’ professional references quickly and effectively.

Recruiting automation software – This recruiting solutions equips recruiters and HR personnel with AI to identify qualified candidates, verify candidate contact information, and export full candidate profiles.

Talent acquisition suites software – This recruiting solution helps companies source passive and active candidates, screen resumes, and hire new employees via recruitment marketing, ATS, and employee onboarding solutions.

Recruitment marketing platforms – This talent acquisition solution helps internal recruiting teams attract and source job candidates to create their candidate pipeline.

Applicant tracking system (ATS) software – This solutions helps HR personnel collect, organize, and manage candidate information.

Onboarding software – This talent solution streamlines the onboarding process for new employees, the hiring manager, and HR personnel.

Video interviewing software – This recruiting solution makes the interview process easier, faster, and more convenient for both the interviewees and interviewers.

Recruiting Software Features

Recruitment marketing – Recruiting solutions post, manage, and track job postings across multiple channels.

Source passive and active candidates – Recruiting and ATS tools search broad candidate pools to recruit passive prospects and identify active talent.

Job postings – Recruitment solutions equip recruiters or HR personnel with the tools to post job descriptions and provide candidates access to apply within the software or on a company’s website.

Screening and assessments – Recruiting solutions provide functionality to quickly screen candidates’ qualifications and resumes manually and/or through predefined and custom testing methodologies.

Interview and offer management – Recruiting tools provide interview scheduling capabilities, sample interview questions, and offer templates.

Application tracking – Recruiting solutions provide tools to track and analyze the candidate pool throughout the hiring process.

Onboarding – Recruiting solutions track key steps throughout the onboarding process, including electronic onboarding forms.

Customization – Recruiting solutions allow administrators to customize the software to accommodate their unique processes. This customization may includes the ability to create custom objects, fields, rules, calculations, and views.

Cloud-based vs. client-server – Software vendors will provide either cloud-based or client-server solutions. Hosting a solution onsite can improve speed and security for your recruiting product, while choosing a cloud-based system allows for greater mobility and eliminates the need for expensive IT infrastructures.

Integration APIs – Recruiting software provides specifications for how the application communicates with other software. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) typically enable the integration of data, logic, and objects with other software applications.

Internationalization – Recruiting software enables users to view and transact business with the same content in multiple languages and currencies.

User, role, and access management – Recruiting solutions provide the ability to grant access to select data, features, and objects based on the users, user role, and groups.

Performance and reliability – Recruiting software is consistently available (uptime) and allows users to complete tasks quickly because they are not waiting for the software to respond to an action.

Reporting – Recruiting solutions enable reporting of all data contained within the system. Products typically contains standard reports as well as the ability to create ad-hoc reports.

Dashboard – Recruiting solutions provide an easy-to-read, often single-page, real-time user interface, showing a graphical presentation of the current status and historical trends of an organization’s key performance indicators (KPIs) which enable instantaneous and informed decisions to be made at a glance.

Trends Related to Recruiting Software

Data – Talent intelligence strategies are top of mind in the recruiting sphere. Not only is data being used to track, inform, and predict hiring outcomes, companies are employing analytics to increase retention, evaluate skills gaps, improve job offers, forecast candidate success, and compare talent metrics to competitors (just to name a few).

Artificial intelligence — Software vendors integrate AI to help recruiters automate the hiring process. AI-enriched software facilitates candidate sourcing; scheduling candidate interviews; and screening, engaging, and interviewing candidates. Recruiting solutions with AI capabilities also employ chatbots to ask and answer questions on a company’s behalf.

Improving diversity – Diversity is inextricably linked to company culture and the bottom line. Companies are beginning to prioritize diverse hiring practices that reflect the demographics of the talent pool at large, while simultaneously improving employee engagement, morale, and productivity. Recruiting software helps recruiters and HR personnel focus on diversifying their candidate pipelines.

Reducing bias – Skill assessments and job auditions help interviewers reduce bias by focusing on candidate skills and not the random personality traits that interviewers are naturally drawn to or repelled by. Online skill assessments evaluate a candidate’s potential cultural fit and measure soft skills that gauge them for traits such as teamwork. Meanwhile, job auditions are like a chef staging in a kitchen—they let companies determine how exactly each candidate would work within the company.

Social recruiting – Companies are investing in social media strategies that include social listening tools. Recruiters and HR personnel leverage social media platforms for advertising open positions, searching for passive candidates, and promoting job postings—and it’s working. Most candidates employ social media in their job searches—they read company reviews, learn about job listings on social media, and are often recruited via social media platforms. Recruiting and marketing solutions share many features such as targeted ads, customized hiring websites, and company promotional materials.

Candidate experience – More and more companies are focusing on the candidate experience and treating the candidate like a consumer. HR personnel are turning to online recruitment tools to improve the candidate experience during the recruitment process.

Talent relationship management (TRM) – TRM goes beyond the capabilities of candidate relationship management (CRM) software to not only create and manage relationships with candidates, but also engage contingent workers and current employees. This software focuses on building the talent network that includes engaging all current talent and possible new hires. This talent solution helps organizations focus on building and developing the internal talent pool.

Popular Recruiting Software Categories

Talent Acquisition Suites Software

Popular Talent Acquisition Suites products used by Recruiting professionals

Video Interviewing Software

Video interviewing software allows users to prescreen candidates and conduct interviews remotely. These tools can use live or recorded video to screen candidates who may not be able to travel to the interview site.

Popular Video Interviewing products used by Recruiting professionals