Sourcing, interviewing and hiring a large volume of candidates can be a challenge. With open positions attracting dozens, if not hundreds of candidates, it is not surprising that you are finding it difficult to find your needle in the haystack.
Enter recruiting automation – the gift from the recruiter gods. Although still in its infancy, automation in the recruiting industry is ready to change the way the game is played. If you’re not already using software to cut down on the tedious grunt work that makes up a recruiter’s life, you are already falling behind.
There is no need to read every resume, talk to every candidate or send ten emails back and forth just to schedule a single interview. Automation can solve all of these challenges plus a few you didn’t even know you had.
This guide lists the most useful recruiter automation apps, software, and services currently on the market to help your team find the tools that will unlock your full potential.
The top 11 recruiting automation tools
If you’re looking for the cream of the crop, here are my picks for the top option in each category from the 45 tools reviewed below.
- The best chatbot for recruiters: XOR
- The best software for screening resumes: Lever
- The best tool for automating interview scheduling: Spark Hire
- The best ATS software for recruiters: Recruiterflow
- The best software for easy recruitment marketing automation: Manatal
- The best CRM for candidate nurturing: Recruit CRM
- The best pre-hiring assessment automation software: Harver
- The best tool to automate background checks: GoodHire
- The best platform for social recruiting automation: Hootsuite
- The best tool for automating job advertising: Joveo
- The best platform for candidate rediscovery and ranking: HiredScore
Our criteria: How we picked the best recruiting automation software
Talent Hero has worked exclusively with recruiting firms and staffing agencies since our founding in 2016. In other words, we know what talent acquisition professionals need to run and grow their business, and we drew on that knowledge when creating this list of top automation software.
We considered a few key factors when comparing and ranking recruiting automation tools:
- User-friendly interface – The ultimate goal of recruiting automation software is to save time and optimize your processes–and that won’t happen if your team can’t navigate the interface or find the features they need. That’s why we looked for tools that are quick to learn, intuitive to navigate, and easy to use.
- Range of features – Programs that can tackle multiple tasks help to further streamline your operations by reducing the number of software programs your team needs to juggle. We ranked tools with multiple functions or features higher to help recruiters find software that can maximize their efficiency.
- Customization – Every organization has its own unique needs. Programs that deliver customizable dashboards, reports, and other features can better adapt to your team’s priorities and mission, helping you to solve the specific challenges your company faces.
- Robust integration options – Some automation software can consolidate multiple functions in one platform, eliminating the need for other software. In many cases, however, you’ll still need a program that works well with the other systems and tools your organization uses.
- Value – It’s worth investing in software that will optimize your processes, but that doesn’t mean you want to throw money away. The tools included on this list have features and functionality that justify their price tag.
The 45 best recruitment automation tools at a glance
The full list: 45 helpful tools to automate your recruiting
Chatbots
These are the top 3 chatbots for HR teams and recruiters to engage with candidates. If you’re looking for more options, check out our list of the best chatbots for hiring.
XOR
XOR is a recruiting platform focused on hourly and blue-collar workers, though their chatbot and AI-driven platform certainly isn’t limited to those roles. XOR’s automation allows recruiters to choose when they want to initiate automated sequences for screening, scheduling and nurturing. If a candidate isn’t qualified, they get alternative job openings recommended to them and are notified when future jobs are posted. XOR also schedules interviews by integrating your calendar and automating messages to candidates that enable them to select available times.
Pricing: Based on the number of interviews
- Starts at $699 for 500 interviews per month
- Highest tier is $2,499 for up to 3,000 interviews per month
Pros
- Conversational AI screens and scores candidates
- 35+ integrations
- End-to-end automation, from sourcing through interview scheduling
- Automated inbound and outbound communication
- Easy to setup and customize chatbot feature
- Responsive customer support team
Cons
- May need some scripting and adjustment to give proper responses
- Longer and more complex setup than other similar programs
Olivia by Paradox
https://www.paradox.ai/author/olivia
Olivia is an ideal chatbot for those with high-volume hiring needs. It can engage with your candidates through the web, mobile platforms, or social channels. Using AI and NLP (natural language processing), Olivia promises to be the front-end on all your candidate communications and to answer every question your candidates might have. She can intelligently provide next steps and route “green light” candidates right to recruiters, while handling all scheduling coordination.
Pricing: Starts from $1,000 per month
Pros
- Improves the candidate experience to drive higher engagement and retention
- Create conversational career sites with built-in AI chatbot
- Intuitive interface is simple to navigate even for those with limited ATS experience
- Mobile-first design
- Automates administrative tasks like sending reminders and scheduling interviews
- Easy integrations with popular ATS and job boards
Cons
- Limited customization options
- Can struggle to handle complex or nuanced queries
Taira by MyInterview
MyInterview is a video interviewing platform, popular for its features like customizable branding, ATS integrations, and AI-driven smart shortlisting. Their chatbot, Taira, is a powerful virtual talent acquisition specialist that can engage your candidates while accomplishing tasks like screening, shortlisting, and scheduling. Its value comes from both its ability to automate time-consuming tasks and its friendly, natural conversational style.
Pricing: Starts at $59 per month
Pros
- Sophisticated candidate screening
- Conversational and friendly responses ideal for driving candidate engagement
- Very user-friendly interface
- Fully SOC2 and ISO compliant
- Free version available
Cons
- Customer support is only available through text chat (no phone support)
- Doesn’t integrate with some popular HR software (such as BambooHR)
Resume screening
You’ll see resume screening capabilities on the feature lists for many of the tools on this list across categories, but that doesn’t mean all of these programs are equally powerful and functional. Here are the top 4 systems for automating your resume screening. If you’re looking for more options, you can check the full list here.
Lever
Considered one of the top recruiting tools, Lever is an end-to-end recruitment platform with features such as one-click sourcing, two-way email sync, and @-mentions that you will not find in many of their competitors. As a resume screening system, it is an excellent choice for companies with high-volume hiring needs. The dashboard includes a resume database with sophisticated automation and talent analytics features, making it easy to compare candidates on the qualifications and traits that matter most to your business.
Pricing: Available upon request
Pros
- Automates several common recruiting tasks to streamline the hiring process
- Easy to use with comprehensive Lever University training and help features
- Integrated interview scheduling and planning tools
- Simple onboarding with little training needed to get started
- Over 350 third-party integrations
- 14-day free trial available
Cons
- Some users report difficulty getting in touch with customer support
- Limited customization of users and reports
CVViZ
https://cvviz.com/product/resume-screening/
CVViZ’s resume screening software screens resumes contextually, learning from your hiring process to identify better candidates. After resume screening, CVViZ ranks candidates in real-time. Its screening system goes beyond keyword matching, using AI to learn from your hiring process and provide contextual comparisons so you can identify the best candidates quickly.
Pricing
- $99 per month for starter (5 active jobs)
- $159 per month for basic (10 active jobs)
- $259 per month for standard (20 active jobs)
- $499 per month for pro (50 active jobs)
Pros
- Provides insights to optimize your recruitment process
- Includes access to over 2,000 sites for candidate sourcing, including passive candidates
- Continuously learns from your selection process to improve its ranking and screening
- Intuitive to navigate with an easy, fast setup process
- Easy to integrate with your company website
- Responsive customer support
- 14-day free trial available
Cons
- Mobile experience is lacking
- Doesn’t include pre-assessment tests
BreezyHR
BreezyHR earned rave reviews and built a loyal user base almost as soon as it was founded in 2014. Now that it’s been around for a few years, it’s known as one of the best ATS platforms for its amazing customer support, smooth UI and end-to-end functionality. Overall, it’s a great example of how you build recruiter software that actually inspires you to do your job.
Pricing
- Bootstrap: Free (1 position or pool)
- Startup: $157/month
- Growth: $273/month
- Business: $439/month
Pros
- Excellent option for small to mid-sized companies
- Create customizable applicant pipelines
- Simple and intuitive setup, even for those who have never used an ATS
- Seamless integration with popular recruiting platforms
- Responsive account team
Cons
- Reporting functionality can be limited
- Some features are lacking, such as candidate sorting and references
Clear Company
Clear Company is an end-to-end talent management platform that integrates data-driven and AI-enhanced tools. Their modular platform includes tools for every stage of the employee journey, from sourcing and screening candidates through onboarding and performance management. Their ATS allows recruiters to create structured blueprints for sourcing and evaluating candidates, prioritizing them based on their fitness for the role. In addition, the AI assistant streamlines the communication process, with automated outreach and job posting to save time in sourcing and sorting applicants.
Pricing: Available upon request
Pros
- Provides a seamless applicant experience
- Integrated text recruiting and video interviewing features
- Automated interview scheduling
- Good value for the features and capabilities
- Excellent customer service and support
Cons
- Limited features for bulk messaging
- Reports require more manual input than is ideal
Interview scheduling
Using a system for no-touch interview scheduling is one of the easiest ways to streamline your recruitment process. There are several systems that give you this capability, many of which also integrate with popular calendar and scheduling apps. Along with the top 4 options listed here, you can see a full list of the best interview scheduling tools in this post.
Spark Hire
Spark Hire has a full range of video tools to help you optimize your interview process including one-way interviews, interview evaluation, interview scheduling and a mobile app. All of their pricing plans include unlimited video interviews, both live and one-way, as well as interview scheduling and ratings.
Pricing
- Lite: $149 per month (up to 50 employees, 1 job at a time)
- Pro: $299 per month (up to 200 employees, 5 jobs at a time)
- Growth: $499 per month (up to 500 employees, 10 jobs at a time)
- Enterprise: Custom pricing (500+ employees, unlimited jobs)
Pros
- Google Chrome extension for sending interview requests
- Collaborative decision-making and selection tools
- Easy to use for both recruiters and candidates
- Robust interview customization options
- Available and responsive 24/7 customer service
- Free trial is available
Cons
- Reference request tool can be clunky to use
- Doesn’t integrate with some popular ATS platforms
Calendly
Loved by its users for its simplicity and rock-solid integration with all popular calendars, the free version of Calendly will be sufficient for many recruiters who want a simple scheduling tool that reduces back-and-forth emails. The paid version can be integrated with additional tools you might use such as GoToMeeting and many CRMs.
Pricing
- Free (1 calendar)
- Standard: $10 per seat per month
- Teams: $16 per seat per month
- Enterprise: $15K per year
Pros
- Free tier is fully featured
- Highly customizable on the backend side
- Very intuitive interface
- Easy to add to a website for automatic booking
- Integrates seamlessly with most calendars and virtual meeting products
Cons
- Can be cumbersome to schedule across time zones
- Limited customization options for website integration
GoodTime.io
GoodTime.io automates interview scheduling while providing a better candidate experience from the first touchpoint. It is said to decrease unconscious bias in the hiring process and match the right interviewers to your candidates. With this tool, you can improve your interviewing process and access the data you need to forecast hiring.
Pricing: Available upon request
Pros
- Automates 90% of interview management tasks in addition to scheduling
- Easy to see status of multiple candidates at once through the dashboard
- Bulk scheduling feature
- Works well when scheduling across time zones
- Helpful and available customer support
Cons
- Some users report bugs after updates
- Limited data and reporting features
Comeet
https://www.comeet.com/interview/
Comeet uses heavy doses of automation to lighten the workload of scheduling, delegating, reserving and following up. They promise to eliminate coordination pain by automating email templates, centralizing information and data, integrating Outlook and Gmail, streamlining room reservations and sending personalized bulk messages.
Pricing: starts at $300 per month
Pros
- Automated workflows and notifications
- Integrated calendars, including Google calendar and Office365
- Built-in screening questionnaires and recruiting reports
- Transparent and easy collaboration with multiple team members
- Almost no learning curve for new users
Cons
- Can be difficult to modify candidates
- Customization options may not be sufficient for complex recruitment needs
Applicant tracking (ATS)
The sheer variety of high-quality applicant tracking systems on the market can make choosing the best option for your team a challenge. If you’re looking for more options, take a look at our full list of the best ATS platforms.
Recruiterflow
Recruiterflow is an applicant tracking and CRM software for recruiting and staffing agencies. With Recruiterflow’s automation engine, you get a marketing automation software but built for recruiting. Users can create advanced rules to automate actions to deliver a better candidate experience, maintain pipelines and nurture their top candidates. Users can also track their candidate pipelines, post jobs and run email sequences on Recruiterflow.
Pricing
- Base: $99 per month per user
- Pro: $109 per month per user
- Advanced: $129 per month per user
Pros
- Designed specifically for staffing and recruiting agencies
- Both self-serve and live chat customer service and support options
- Recipes allow for easy automation of manual tasks
- Feature rich and highly customizable
- Excellent value for the price
- 14-day free trial available
Cons
- Some limitations with messaging integration
- No mobile app
Trakstar Hire
Formerly Recruiterbox and now part of the Trakstar platform, Trakstar Hire is the definition of a modern ATS. It features a fully web-based platform that has an intuitive and simple interface. In addition, it has many features for sourcing (customizable career sites, one-click job posting, auto-creation of candidate profiles) and interviewing (calendar integrations, candidate email templates, auto-responders) that are not always found in even the most up-to-date applicant tracking systems.
Pricing: Starts at $250 per month
Pros
- Wide variety of options for candidate engagement and follow-up
- Top notch customer service
- Flexible and adaptable
- Strong data analytics features
- Intuitive tracking across all stages of the recruitment process
Cons
- Some users find the interface too busy
- Could be better at communicating updates and changes to the platform
Workable
Workable is noted for its full feature set, easy learning curve, top notch customer support and a new sourcing tool called People Search. Their suite of products uses proprietary AI to automate time-consuming tasks like sourcing, screening, and communicating with candidates, and offers seamless integration with all the major job boards. Pricing for Standard and Premier plans is based on the size of your team, with the lowest prices available for teams of 20 or fewer.
Pricing
- Starter: $189 per month (up to 20 employees, 2 active jobs)
- Standard: starts at $313 per month (unlimited active jobs)
- Premier: starts at $628 per month (unlimited active jobs plus hiring plan)
Pros
- Manage and view multiple jobs on a single dashboard
- Easy to move candidates through stages of the hiring pipeline
- Excellent team collaboration tools
- Good variety of email templates and communication automation features
- Proactive and responsive customer service team
- Intuitive interface is easy to learn, use, and navigate
- 14-day free trial available
Cons
- Can be tricky to connect to Outlook calendars
- Sometimes runs slowly after an update
Greenhouse
Lauded for its intuitive user interface and beautiful design, Greenhouse.io receives consistently positive reviews by everyone who adopts it. In addition, they have an iOS and Android app that lets you use it on the go. Pricing for Greenhouse is dependent on the number of employees and is available on request.
Pricing: Available upon request
Pros
- Integrates easily with other systems like LinkedIn, DocuSign, Outlook, and many others
- Handle all aspects of hiring from sourcing through onboarding in one platform
- Scalable workflows let the software grow with your business
- Good customization options for candidate profiles
- Fast and easy application and interview scheduling processes for candidates
- Excellent reporting tools
Cons
- Boolean string and search function could be improved
- The extent of customization options can be overwhelming for some new users
Recruitee
Known for their incredible customer service (their founder replies to emails on Sundays!), Recruitee takes collaborative hiring to the next level: everyone in your team from the least tech-savvy to the most nerdy can work on hiring together with this cloud-based ATS. In addition, Recruitee provides beautiful careers sites for your employer brand, candidate-friendly application forms that you can fully tweak and world class sourcing tools.
Pricing
- Start: $199 per month (5 job slots)
- Grow: $249 per month (unlimited job slots)
- Optimize: Pricing on request
Pros
- Transparent collaboration and communication features
- Intuitive to use, even for beginners to recruiting software
- Robust reports section for easy access to helpful data
- Helpful and responsive customer support team
- Can try it for free for 18 days (no credit card required)
Cons
- Prone to lagging, especially after updates
- Doesn’t integrate well with some popular CRMs
Recruitment marketing
Tools that automate your recruitment marketing can be a game changer for hiring teams and staffing agencies, helping you attract more candidates to fill jobs in less time. These are our top 4 tools for recruitment marketing automation. If you’re looking for more options, you’ll find them on this blog post of the best recruitment marketing automation platforms.
Manatal
Manatal aims to transform the way businesses recruit talent. This AI-driven recruitment software is made with recruiting firms and HR teams in mind, designed to help them source and hire the right people faster with features like automatic LinkedIn profile extraction, centralized sourcing from over 2,500 job boards, and no-code personalized career pages.
Pricing
- Professional: $15 per user per month (up to 15 jobs)
- Enterprise: $35 per user per month (unlimited jobs)
- Enterprise Plus: $55 per month (unlimited jobs plus advanced reports and user groups)
- Custom plans available on request
Pros
- Excellent value for the features and functions
- Easy setup requires minimal orientation to get started
- Useful integrations and Chrome extensions
- Strong internal collaboration features
- Helpful AI-driven recommendations feature
- 14-day free trial
Cons
- Social media AI tool can be glitchy and clunky to use
- Interface isn’t as intuitive for recruiters who work with multiple clients
PowerToFly
https://powertofly.com/employers
PowerToFly’s mission is to help organizations build diverse teams through a suite of products to find, attract, hire, and nurture candidates from a variety of backgrounds. Their end-to-end platform includes an unconscious bias hiring toolkit, easy employer branding through a customizable company page, and access to an extensive pool of diverse talent, with a sophisticated search algorithm you can use to scour it for the right people.
Pricing: starts at $9,900 per year
Pros
- All-in-one suite to meet your DEIB hiring goals
- Built-in unconscious bias toolkit
- Comes with analytics insights dashboard and unlimited job postings
- Flexible support team works with users to provide personalized solutions to problems
- Comprehensive administrative dashboard to review applicants
Cons
- Some profiles in their network are underdeveloped
- Availability of talent isn’t consistent across geographic regions
Radancy
This global SaaS platform aims to help employers and staffing agencies optimize and simplify their talent acquisition. Their multifaceted, automated process makes it easy to increase the visibility of your job postings and educate candidates about your open roles, making use of data to personalize applicant experiences and capture more talent for your pipeline.
Pricing: Available upon request
Pros
- Ideal for data-oriented recruitment teams
- Broad range of features for both new talent marketing and employee referral tracking
- Offers social management and employer brand development services
- Customer service is responsive to requests and feedback
- Programmatic job advertising is effective at attracting more candidates
Cons
- Contracts often require a lengthy commitment
- Can take a while for new users to fully get to know the program
Firefish
https://www.firefishsoftware.com/
Firefish is a UK-based recruitment CRM that uses a data-driven approach to help recruiting firms maximize their revenue. Top features of their platform include real-time analytics, customized workflows, and automation of the more tedious manual recruitment processes. For recruitment marketing, their Job Board Multiposter is a stand-out feature, letting you post to leading job boards from right in your CRM with a single click.
Pricing: 3 plans (Basic, Professional, and Enterprise), pricing available upon request
Pros
- Global reach and multiple country recruitment is ideal for international agencies
- Built-in LinkedIn candidate parsing through Chrome extension
- Real-time industry benchmarking
- Integrated up-to-date compliance controls
- Generative AI system writes engaging job posts in seconds
Cons
- Higher cost than many other platforms
- System can sometimes have slow loading times
Candidate nurturing (CRM)
Candidate relationship management (CRM) systems allow hiring teams to better connect with and manage talent at every stage of the process, even when they’re not under active consideration. This makes them invaluable tools–and, unsurprisingly, there are a lot of options out there tailored to different organizations and hiring needs. You’ll find more choices beyond the top-rated ones below in our full list of CRM systems.
Recruit CRM
With Recruit CRM, recruiters can do pretty much everything including sourcing candidates, sending emails, setting up interviews, collecting updated CVs, parsing resumes and collecting feedback from clients. It also has a built-in CRM, automatic job board posting and boolean search.
Pricing
- Pro: $85 per user per month
- Business: $125 per user per month
- Enterprise: $165 per user per month
Pros
- End-to-end system designed for executive search and recruitment firms
- Very reasonable pricing for the functions it offers
- Dedicated and responsive support team
- Dynamic and user-friendly layout is easy to tailor to your workflow
- Integrates seamlessly with a range of tools and sites, including LinkedIn, Slack, and Outlook
Cons
- Reports section could be improved
- No option for automated text engagement with candidates
Bullhorn
A staple of the ATS market, Bullhorn has many enterprise customers and large recruitment agencies as customers. It has many fans among those who use it on a daily basis but note that the price point is definitely geared towards larger customers.
Pricing: 4 plan levels (Team, Corporate, Enterprise, and Enterprise Plus), pricing available upon request
Pros
- Streamline your workflow with an ATS and CRM all in one platform
- Strong candidate engagement automation options
- Robust candidate management features, including resume parsing and pipeline tracking
- Easy customization of jobs and candidate profiles
- Wide range of integrations
Cons
- Complexity of the program can give it a steep learning curve
- System can be prone to occasional lags or slow loading
Avature
https://www.avature.net/candidate-relationship-management/
Avature helps you nurture candidates with short, mid and long-term engagement strategies to grow your relationships with them. Avature workflows can include condition-based actions that keep automatic communications personalized and relevant. It also lets you build, share, reuse, and manage a library of fully branded and customizable email templates that can be combined with fine-tuned segmentation for relevant campaigns.
Pricing: Available upon request
Pros
- Top choice for data-driven recruiters and teams with complex hiring needs
- Flexible platform is easy to customize it to your needs
- Seamless workflow automation
- Support team takes a collaborative approach to resolving questions and issues
- Excellent reporting features
Cons
- Extensive features can take a while to fully learn
- Connecting with support can sometimes be slow
iCIMS Nurture
https://www.icims.com/products/talent-cloud-applications/candidate-relationship-management/
With iCIMS Nurture, you can see who’s hot or cold with candidate activity that’s automatically tracked and logged. You’ll also know who’s most interested so recruiters can prioritize their outreach. You can engage new candidates – and re-engage passive ones – with targeted, automated messaging that builds relationships through frequency. This creates a pipeline of active leads that iCIMS promises will fill open positions faster.
Pricing: Available upon request
Pros
- User-friendly and straightforward interface once you get used to the program
- Customizable workflows let you tailor the interface to your needs
- Wide variety of useful integrations
- Add-on features like TextRecruit expand the ways you can engage with candidates
- Quick response from the customer service team
- Platform is mobile-friendly
Cons
- Can take some time and effort to learn how to use the program effectively
- Costs more than many similar programs
Pre-employment assessments
There are many types of assessments you can give to candidates to verify their skills and traits, and the options for platforms that administer these assessments are just as broad. You’ll find more options in our post of the best pre-employment assessments if the four top-rated options below don’t meet your needs.
Harver
Harver provides your team with validated data and enables them to hire bias-free, while automating laborious repeatable tasks to help you focus on things that require personal attention. Harver comes equipped with 15 customizable assessment modules. From culture fit and cognitive ability, to personality and multitasking, it automatically ranks candidates based on job-fit and assessment performance, using its matching technology that promises to translate results into actionable data.
Pricing: Starts at $5,000 per year
Pros
- Simple to add new applicants and send assessments to candidates
- Great tools to match candidates to roles
- Made specifically for volume hiring
- Interviewing, reference checking, and assessments all in one
- Well-researched and science-backed assessments provide accurate information
- Doesn’t require a strong internet connection to use
Cons
- Can sometimes take a while to access test results
- Mobile interface can be cumbersome
Cappfinity
https://cappfinity.com/our-products/skills-framework/
Cappfinity develops a data-informed picture of the most important skills profile required for your role and company. Then, every candidate takes a simple and fun online assessment, receiving automated customized feedback on their impact skills. Candidates are assessed across behavioral, cognitive, and technical skills, while the results of these assessments are sent to your team in a way that’s clear and engaging, so you can make better data-driven hiring decisions.
Pricing: Available upon request
Pros
- Bulk invites option is ideal for volume hiring
- Integrated video interview platform
- Simple and effective data dashboards
- Digital job simulation gives candidates a preview of their role
- Assessment tests are interesting and engaging for candidates
- Host online engagement events in their Virtual Assessment Center
Cons
- Can take new users some time to learn its full range of features
- Price can be high for smaller organizations
Toggl Hire
Toggl Hire is a full-funnel solution providing a skills-based hiring funnel. Their pre-built smart tests stack soft and hard skills into one job-specific skills assessment for you, while async video interviews promise real human interaction at scale. Toggl Hire claims to automatically shortlist its highest-scoring, skills-match candidates while assessing candidates on job-specific skills and cutting your time-to-hire by 86%. Apart from providing complete flexibility to their users with custom tests and branding, they also state that 90% of candidates love taking their tests, even if they don’t get the job, improving the candidate experience.
Pricing
- Free (up to 3 candidates)
- Basic: $20 per month (up to 20 candidates)
- Premium: $75 per month (up to 45 candidates)
- Business: $469 per month (unlimited candidates)
Pros
- Very easy to set up and use
- Friendly and responsive support team
- Pre-made question library is more useful than with other platforms
- Wide variety of customization options for non-technical assessments
- Candidates report the tests are engaging, fast, and easy to take
Cons
- Limited customization options for tech and coding skills
- Security features are limited on the free tier
Prevue
Prevue promises to provide valid, accurate, and reliable tests that will help you predict an employee’s future behavior. Their Screen-Fit product automatically screens and organizes candidates based on job fit and culture fit, and Team-Fit compares temperaments between teammates to promote group success.
Pricing: Two tiers (Standard and Premium), pricing available upon request
Pros
- Assesses across multiple metrics (aptitude, motivation, and personality)
- Tests are backed by psychological research and industry benchmarking
- Results are intuitive and accurate
- Easy to tailor the tested skills for each job search
- Detailed reports on candidates’ skills and culture fit
Cons
- Dashboards aren’t as user-friendly as other platforms
- Limited control to adjust settings of user accounts and types
Background checks
Automating your background checks lets you do your due diligence to research candidates without investing a ton of time in the process. Here are the four top-rated programs. You can check our full list of the best background check automation tools if you’re looking for more options.
GoodHire
GoodHire offers a quick way to set up an account and automate many common workflows that would normally take up your time. Your GoodHire dashboard provides at-a-glance results and status updates, and your candidates can view their results in the same mobile-optimized format available to you. GoodHire has a modern API and is pre-integrated with the ATS/HRIS tools you already use. The platform searches, organizes, and processes billions of records per year, promising advanced data engineering, compliance filters, and continual manual reviews.
Pricing
- Basic+: $29.99 per check
- Essential: $54.99 per check
- Professional: $79.99 per check
- Custom pricing available for companies that run more than 10 checks per year
Pros
- Clean, modern user interface is easy to learn and navigate
- Prebuilt integrations with most ATS software
- Great value for the money
- Mobile-friendly
- Built-in compliance and security features
Cons
- No custom integrations beyond their pre-built options
- No multilingual support
Mitratech AssureHire
https://mitratech.com/products/assurehire/
AssureHire offers technology and automation in a fast end-to-end screening experience, with data retrieval, mobile candidate experiences, direct line callable account managers, single sign on and ATS/HRIS/ERP system integrations. AssureHire is dedicated to data privacy and regulations such as the EEOC, FCRA and GDPR.
Pricing: Available upon request
Pros
- 98% of tests completed in under 30 hours
- Accurate and thorough results
- Start a background check in minutes
- Ongoing post-hire alerts and screening
- Seamless and secure candidate experience
Cons
- Drug screening results can be slow
- Customer service can be slow to respond
Checkr
Checkr claims to be the only background check company using artificial intelligence and machine learning to make hiring more inclusive and more efficient. Checkr offers features like progressive screenings, which allows you to skip unnecessary screenings for candidates you disqualified early in the screening process. Checkr also surfaces only the results based on criteria you selected as relevant to the position you’re feeling, creating a bigger, more optimized talent pool.
Pricing
- Basic+: $29.99 per check
- Essential: $54.99 per check
- Professional: $79.99 per check
Individual drug tests, criminal history checks, Department of Transportation checks, and verifications are also available ($8-$60 per check/test)
Pros
- Can pay for and run only the specific background checks you need
- Results are usually very fast (often within 48 hours)
- Easy to set up and conduct checks
- Provides comprehensive and accurate information on candidates
- Simple to use from the candidate’s side
- Integrates with many ATS and CRM platforms
Cons
- Notifications and alerts are limited and inconsistent
- Some users report long delays in responses from customer support
Good Egg
https://www.foleyservices.com/goodegg
Good Egg’s Screening Continuum promises to be a faster, smarter approach to screening that looks at every part of a candidate’s career, to not only show you where they’ve been, but also where they’re headed, helping you hire smarter, and mitigate risk at every step. Good Egg offers ongoing monitoring of social media, criminal record checks, drug use, and motor vehicle records can bring issues to light before they escalate into problems.
Pricing: 3 tiers (Starter, Professional, Enterprise), pricing available upon request
Pros
- Wide range of check, verification, and monitoring options
- Integrated into a platform that streamlines the onboarding process
- Results are clear and easy to interpret
- Scheduling checks is fast and easy
- Compliance solutions and data monitoring
- Accredited by the Professional Background Screening Association (PBSA)
Cons
- Can be more challenging to use from the candidate side
- Pricing can be steep for more involved or complex checks
Social recruiting
Social media has become a powerful recruiting tool, and automation software lets hiring teams and recruiters unlock its full potential without investing a ton of time. You’ll find the top-rated options below, or you can click here to see the full list.
Hootsuite
HootSuite lets you keep your social presence active 24/7 by automatically scheduling hundreds of social media posts across your social accounts. You can track your performance and share meaningful insights with your team using customizable reports.
Pricing
- Professional: $99 per month (1 user, 10 accounts)
- Team: $249 per month (3 users, 20 accounts)
- Enterprise: custom pricing
Pros
- Easily schedule and manage posts across multiple networks
- See all social media data and reports in a single dashboard
- AI-driven suggestions for content, themes, and other improvements
- Excellent tutorials and knowledge resources
- 30-day free trial available
Cons
- Missing some smaller social media platforms such as Mastodon
- Limited flexibility for editing video content in the app
SeekOut
SeekOut is one of many recruiting tools for sourcing passive candidates, with a database of over 100 M US professionals. Their search engine can handle complicated queries and find fresh candidates using a combination of AI and over 20 filters. You can also get email addresses for candidates in one click and export profiles in bulk to integrate with your existing workflow.
Pricing: Available upon request
Pros
- Helpful for finding specialized, niche, or diverse talent
- Advanced search features and Power Filters speed up social media sourcing
- Sources talent from multiple places, including LinkedIn and GitHub
- Multiple options and methods to search for candidates
- People Analytics feature provides helpful candidate insights
Cons
- Email messaging tool can be a bit clunky
- Can’t always find contact information for candidates depending on where they’re sourced
CareerArc Social Recruiting
https://www.careerarc.com/social-recruiting/
CareerArc’s suite of social and mobile applications help deliver the right first impression to any candidate with time-saving automation tools, real-time reporting, and one-on-one account managers. CareerArc distributes your jobs to the largest combined networks of social, mobile and web platforms. Their SaaS solution automates online and social job sharing to boost the volume of qualified applicants.
Pricing: Starts from $10,000 (details available upon request)
Pros
- Customer service team is responsive and helpful
- Nice range of automation features to streamline and simplify social recruiting efforts
- Full customization control over campaigns
- Comprehensive dashboard for reports and campaign management
- Integrated employer branding features
Cons
- Can be challenging for new users to find the features they need
- Only works with the major platforms (Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, and LinkedIn)
LinkedIn Recruiter
https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/recruiter
LinkedIn Recruiter is a platform for finding, connecting with, and managing candidates within LinkedIn. It surfaces quality candidates and member signals so you can prioritize candidates most open to hearing from you. Their smart suggestions create a stronger search with recommended skills, locations and titles for your role. Instead of re-creating searches for every role, you can use saved searches and alerts for candidates open to new opportunities, and get notified when top candidates update their LinkedIn profile.
Pricing: Available upon request
Pros
- Particularly useful for connecting with passive candidates
- Helps with both lead generation and market research
- Collaboration tools let you organize and share candidates across the team
- Customizable templates and bulk actions for engaging with candidates
- Create customized job posts to target qualified applicants
- Integrates with most ATS and CRM systems
Cons
- Cost is high compared to similar services
- Lacking some direct messaging features, such as read receipts or Whatsapp integration
Job advertising
Posting job ads can be time-consuming and tedious, which makes it an excellent contender for automation. The tools below are the top-rated options for doing so, and you’ll find more tools in our list of the best job advertising automation software.
Joveo
Joveo is an agnostic job advertising platform, showing results across all publishers and all jobs, allowing for more informed and better decisions. It offers customized dashboards, configurable click tracking and reports, and an overview of spends and performance by every publisher. Joveo has a suite of features called Mojo that allows media buyers to do away with the day-to-day tasks. Instead, they can program the software to make bid and budget optimizations.
Pricing: Available upon request
Pros
- AI-driven programmatic job advertising with MOJO pro
- Manage social, search, and display ads in one place
- Built-in candidate engagement platform
- Excellent features to boost candidate engagement
- Features to track and optimize your recruitment marketing and job postings
- Dedicated support team is responsive to customer needs
Cons
- Can take some time and training to learn the full features and capabilities of the platform
- Cost may be prohibitive for smaller companies
Appcast
Appcast helps you to post jobs across 10,000+ job boards and social sites to drive more active and passive candidates to your open jobs. They also let you set rules to stop spending money on candidates you don’t need.
Pricing: Usage-based (starts from $1)
Pros
- Fully automated system
- Programmatic job advertising across their broad, proprietary network
- Manage all recruitment marketing in one place, including both print and digital ads
- Custom media strategies based on your hiring needs
- Access to robust data for optimizing future campaigns
Cons
- Can be challenging to control spending per job
- Less useful for high-level or niche roles
Veritone Hire Programmatic (pandoIQ)
https://pandologic.com/solutions/programmatic-advertising-pandoiq/
Veritone Hire (formerly pandoIQ) is a programmatic job advertising platform that automates and optimizes job advertising spend. The platform features AI-enabled algorithms that use over 48 job attributes and more than 200 billion historical job performance data points to predict the optimal job advertising campaign. Proprietary algorithms fully-automate and optimize decision making during every stage of the job advertising process from job classification and targeted distribution to budget allocation and dynamic CPC bidding across an employer’s diverse job categories.
Pricing: Available upon request
Pros
- Quickly post jobs to multiple boards
- Data-driven listings target the right boards for your job type
- Provides predictive performance benchmarks based on your requirements
- Intelligently automates and optimizes job ad spend
- Integrated chatbot and candidate management through PandoSelect
- Easily integrates with existing websites and systems
Cons
- Limited control over the timeline of job post cycling
- Doesn’t screen or filter out low-quality leads and resumes
Recruitics
Recruitcs is an AI-powered, end-to-end talent acquisition platform. For job advertising, it offers a consolidated data dashboard and makes optimizing job advertising campaigns easier. It is focused on improving conversion rates, reducing overspend and increasing exposure.
Pricing: Available upon request
Pros
- Omnichannel programmatic campaigns
- Continuous optimization using AI and machine learning
- Strong talent analytics and real-time data, including visual analytics
- Rules-based performance and budget management
- Knowledgeable and responsive support team
Cons
- Can be pricey for low-volume hiring
- No option to break down data by job board
SmartJobs
https://www.smartrecruiters.com/recruiting-software/smartjobs/
SmartJobs is a job advertising platform that claims to use programmatic technology to reach the right candidates. With SmartJobs, you can boost your ad presence across job boards, niche sites, blogs, social sites, industry sites, and geo-specific sites with programmatic advertising. They automatically allocate budget towards channels, bringing in quality candidates and offering you transparency around job advertising spend, while letting you manage campaigns in real time from a centralized dashboard powered by sourcing analytics.
Pricing: Based on a percentage of your advertising budget (details available upon request)
Pros
- Straightforward process to create jobs, campaigns, and profiles
- Automatically adjusts spend based on performance and changes in your pipeline
- Ideal for high volume hiring and hyper-growth organizations
- Full reporting and analytics from post through hire
- Dedicated account management and experienced customer service team
Cons
- Some manual management is still required to sort and review candidates
- Pricing may be high for smaller agencies with limited budgets
Candidate rediscovery/ranking
Any company that wants to build and maintain an effective talent pipeline can benefit from adding candidate rediscovery and ranking tools to their toolbox. The four options below are the cream of the crop, and you can see more options in our full list here.
HiredScore
HiredScore leverages the power of artificial intelligence to deliver hiring efficiencies, enhance talent mobility, and help large companies enable data-driven human resources. This platform helps you identify your best candidates with unbiased, real-time prioritization, and proactively surfaces past candidates and employees for new jobs. HiredScore’s AI for hiring proactively mitigates bias and understands cross-industry job and candidate types.
Pricing: Available upon request
Pros
- Feature-rich and flexible program
- Designed to minimize bias and promote hiring diversity
- Centralized dashboard provides helpful insights and is intuitive to navigate
- Integrates easily with a wide variety of recruiting and business software
- Timely response to customer support issues
- Robust customization and configuration options
Cons
- System can have lags or outages, particularly during maintenance or updates
- Fetch feature is prone to delivering over-qualified candidates
SmoothHiring
SmoothHiring’s network automatically broadcasts your job description to many top job boards, increasing the number of candidates applying for your job. Its patented job-fit technology instantly identifies which applicants match your needs, reducing the time you spend going through candidates.
Pricing
- Candidate Fit Package: $299 per job
- Standard Job Posting Package: $399 per job
- LinkedIn Job Posting Package: $599 per job
Pros
- Effective automated assessment saves time in the screening process
- Scientific, data-based ranking of candidates
- Excellent analytic reports and data on candidates
- Easy to customize job ads and candidate rankings
- Customer service team responds quickly to issues
Cons
- Isn’t always effective at sourcing a high number of candidates for roles
- Potential hires can be slow to populate in their system
Param
Param allows you to rediscover past applicants from your ATS who would be a “best-fit” for currently open roles. The tool also helps you target, engage and hire these candidates, and uses AI to automate the screening process and improve the candidate experience while reducing the time to fill for jobs.
Pricing: Available upon request
Pros
- Employee-friendly platform is easy to use and navigate
- Efficient candidate tracking and AI-powered search
- One-click job broadcasting
- Smart conversations for faster, better interactions with candidates that get more responses
- 14-day free trial
Cons
- Reporting features are somewhat limited
- Templates require manual editing to use
HireEZ
HireEZ’s AI engine will screen applicants based on your hiring project’s candidate persona with no manual effort or unconscious bias involved. HireEZ’s method for initial screening will rank all candidates/applicants inside a project. You can easily integrate your ATS or CRM with HireEZ, then import stale past applicant profiles through a file upload or direct API. HireEZ uses data fusion technology to refresh past applicant profiles with data from across the entire open web. Refreshed profiles are added to your talent pool, and its AI sourcing surfaces best-fit past applicants for your open roles.
Pricing: Available upon request
Pros
- Efficient workflow automation features and automatic candidate matching
- Strong analytics for making data-driven hiring decisions
- Automated multi-channel outreach
- Provides access to over 1 billion candidate profiles
- Integrates smoothly into your existing tech stack
Cons
- Price may be too high for smaller businesses
- Some users report issues with bounced emails to candidates sent through the system
Do you need recruiting automation software?
The time-saving features of a recruitment automation tool can be a benefit to anyone who employs other people, from small businesses and startups to global corporations. That said, while there are a handful of free options, the most useful options do come with a cost. Deciding whether the benefits of these tools are worth the financial investment can be a trickier question to answer.
Recruitment automation tools are most often used in HR departments, recruiting firms, and staffing agencies–organizations that need to source and hire candidates frequently. They tend to be most beneficial for companies that have one of the following talent needs:
- High-volume recruitment – Companies that frequently have multiple positions to fill will often see the biggest efficiency gains from recruitment automation.
- DE&I goals – Using recruitment automation software is one way to ensure your hiring process is objective and standardized. This can help to reduce the impact of unconscious bias to help you meet your diversity and inclusion goals.
- Immediate or time-sensitive hiring needs – Automation accelerates the recruitment process, which often means you’re able to find and hire the right candidate faster.
- Critical or specialized roles – Recruiting tools leverage technology like AI and machine learning to source a high volume of candidates from diverse sources, in addition to automated, personalized communication that improves the candidate experience. Combined, these features streamline the process of hiring into difficult to fill roles, like executive leadership positions or niche jobs that require a specific combination of skills.
If any of those are challenges you face in your organization, then it could be the right time to invest in recruitment automation software.
How to choose the right recruitment automation software
Once you decide that you’ll benefit from investing in hiring tools, how do you decide which ones are the best fit for your needs? As you can see from the list above, there are a wide variety of options out there, and what works for one company may not be the best fit for another.
The first step to choosing the right tool is deciding exactly what you need it to do. Ask yourself questions like:
- What aspect of the recruitment process does the team spend the most time on currently?
- Are there any bottlenecks or other issues with the current recruiting process that software could help to address?
- What is the biggest hiring challenge the organization faces on a regular basis?
- What other technology do we already use for recruitment? Is it effective?
- What will our hiring needs and goals be in the next year? In the next 5 years?
- What changes to the current recruiting process would improve the candidate experience?
As you answer those questions, you’ll start to get a clearer picture of exactly what you need from recruitment software and can narrow your options accordingly. In some cases, the best software will be obvious. Other times, you’ll still have several good options to choose from and will need to dig a bit deeper to decide which one to try.
You can compare recruiting software on several different metrics. Here are some of the factors you may want to consider when you’re deciding which automation tool is the best fit for your team.
Budget and cost
The price of recruitment automation software can be anywhere from $0 to $10,000 or more. While more expensive programs often offer more features, that doesn’t mean they’re inherently better for every team. The frequency and volume of your hiring, along with your overall budget, can help you find the right software at the right price.
Features and capabilities
This is another place that software options show a lot of variety. Some programs have a tight focus on one function, like [name a few]. Others are multi-faceted, like [examples, mention one that also includes onboarding/employee management]. An all-in-one program can be beneficial for HR departments, letting you track employee journeys from start to finish all in one platform, but for other companies this will be more features than they need. Deciding which functions you need, which would be nice to have, and which you want to avoid can help you home in on the correct platform.
Usability and interface
All the high-tech features in the world won’t help you if your team can’t figure out how to use them. More complex tools often have more capabilities but come with a correspondingly steep learning curve that will require more time and training to master. Reading user reviews of the software you’re considering can help you determine whether the software will be easy for your team to learn, navigate, and use.
Customizability
Some recruiting software offers a singular experience. Others are more flexible, allowing you to tailor the dashboards, reports, interface, and other features to match your specific processes and workflow.
Integrations
If you already use technology for aspects of the recruiting process–and want to keep using it alongside your new tool–choosing software that integrates seamlessly with your existing systems can save you a lot of hassle and streamline your hiring process even further.
Customer support
Technology glitches can be frustrating, undoing all of those efficiency gains you were trying to get by using automation software. A program with reliable customer support that’s available when you need it can save you the headaches and frustration of trying to troubleshoot them on your own.
Scalability
When you invest in new software, you don’t just want to think about your needs today but also what they’re likely to be in the future. A program that allows you to add more advanced features or higher hiring volume down the line can grow with your company.
FAQs
What are recruitment automation tools?
In brief, these are software programs and platforms that automate aspects of the recruiting process so that hiring teams and recruiters can fill roles faster. There are a wide variety of different tools out there which offer a similar array of features. Some focus on a specific aspect of the process, like sourcing candidates, screening resumes, scheduling interviews, or managing communication. Other tools can handle multiple aspects of the hiring process or offer all-in-one functionality.
How does recruitment automation software work?
Most often, these programs make use of artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to perform tasks that in the past were done manually. This could range from handling data entry tasks like creating candidate profiles based on their social media pages, to syncing with your company’s calendars to automatically schedule interviews, to chatbots that evaluate candidates in a conversational way.
What are the benefits of using recruitment automation software?
The biggest benefit of these tools is their ability to streamline and speed up the hiring process. By automating time-consuming tasks, they give hiring teams and recruiters more time to engage with their top applicants and get the right people into roles faster. These tools can also often help make better hiring decisions by providing deeper data-driven insights into their fitness for the role, or by sourcing candidates more broadly than a human recruiter is able to.
What are the downsides of using recruitment automation tools?
The biggest potential drawback for most organizations is the cost. The price of recruiting automation tools varies widely. Depending on the size of your organization and your recruitment needs, it may be far more expensive than hiring using traditional processes. There is also the potential for over-reliance on technology. It’s important to remember that even the best-developed algorithm isn’t always perfect, so automated systems still need some degree of oversight from human hiring teams to perform at their best.
How do I measure the ROI of recruiting automation software?
Measuring the ROI of an automation tool after you’ve implemented it is relatively straightforward. Determine which areas you wanted it to make an impact then analyze metrics like your time to hire and cost per hire, comparing your figures from before implementation to your current numbers.
For those who want to demonstrate the potential ROI of a new program in order to get buy-in, it’s often best to take a systematic approach. Start by determining your objectives for the implementation and establish specific metric-based goals that you expect the software will help you to meet. From there, you can review your current data, make estimates for how the new tool will impact your operations, and conduct a cost-benefit analysis. Be as specific as you can with this. The more detail you include when assessing the potential value of a new tool, the more likely you will be to get buy-in from leadership and key stakeholders for it.
Can recruiting automation tools improve hiring diversity?
Yes, this is one of the potential advantages of using recruitment automation software. The algorithms used by these programs to screen and sort resumes use consistent criteria to evaluate candidates, based on data about their skills and experience. Many programs also include features like pre-hiring skill assessments, anonymized resumes, or bias analysis for job descriptions and recruitment materials, which can further improve the diversity and inclusivity of your hiring process.
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