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The 17 Best Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) in 2024

The best ATS software - tried and tested by our HR experts. Get pricing details and pros & cons, plus perspectives from professionals who use applicant tracking systems every day.

Phil Strazzulla
Written by
Phil Strazzulla
HR Tech Expert, Harvard MBA, Software Enthusiast
We are a reader supported site with strict editorial standards, clicks may earn a fee which supports our testing. Learn More
Last Updated: Apr 15, 2024
TOP
ATS for teams that need a best in class solution
Greenhouse
4.5
Popularity Score
4.4
User Score
4.6
Product  Score
Visit Website
TOP
ATS for teams that need a best in class solution
Greenhouse
4.5
Popularity Score
4.4
User Score
4.6
Product  Score
Learn More
TOP
A best in class ATS for SMB to enterprise
Pinpoint
4.6
Popularity Score
4.4
User Score
4.5
Product  Score
Visit Website
TOP
A best in class ATS for SMB to enterprise
Pinpoint
4.6
Popularity Score
4.4
User Score
4.5
Product  Score
Learn More
TOP
ATS + HRIS all in one suite
BambooHR
4.6
Popularity Score
4.5
User Score
4.4
Product  Score
Visit Website
TOP
ATS + HRIS all in one suite
BambooHR
4.6
Popularity Score
4.5
User Score
4.4
Product  Score
Learn More
Over 3 million HR leaders trust our advice

Introduction to Applicant Tracking Systems

An ATS, or Applicant Tracking System, is software that automates the recruitment and hiring process. For companies that hire more than 20 employees a year, an ATS is an essential tool. Whether you’re here because your business is experiencing a growth spurt or you need to replace a legacy solution that’s slowing you down, you’ve come to the right place!

We've been researching ATSs since 2018 and update this article regularly. But we offer more than just research. Our writers have led recruiting operations and PeopleOps across industries. We combine our direct, hands-on experience with rigorous research, product demos, user reviews, and the input of impartial, third-party experts to provide consistent, reliable, and helpful advice for you.

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Best Applicant Tracking Systems

Greenhouse

: ATS for teams that need a best in class solution

Pinpoint

: A best in class ATS for SMB to enterprise

BambooHR

: ATS + HRIS all in one suite

Recruitee

: User-Friendly ATS for SMBs

ClearCompany

: Talent Management suite & ATS

Ashby

: ATS with Powerful Analytics

Manatal

: AI-Based ATS for SMBs

Lever

: All-in-One ATS & CRM Powerhouse

VidCruiter

: ATS & Video Interviewing in One

Rippling

: Intelligent ATS within world-classHRIS

Spark Hire

: Collaboration-focused ATS

Trakstar Hire

: Top ATS for SMBs

Avature

: Customizable ATS & CRM

JazzHR

: Affordable ATS for SMBs

iCIMS

: Enterprise ATS & Talent Cloud

Teamtailor

: ATS & Great Employer Branding

SmartRecruiters

: Excellent ATS for Enterprise

Our Criteria: Here's How We Chose The Best Applicant Tracking Systems

To create and update our list of the best ATSs, each month, we participate in product demos, gather user and expert feedback, and leverage in-house knowledge. We assess each product's performance on core functions, including job post distribution, candidate screening, interview scheduling, and analytics/reporting.

We evaluate products for the most essential components of a top-notch ATS, like intuitive UX/UI and automation that can be tailored to individual TA team’s needs. Another fundamental feature is integration capacity that supports both core HR ops like HRIS and point solutions like video interviews and skills assessment. Here's a bit more on each of these:

  • UX/UI: Your TA team and talent pool will spend a lot of time using this tool, so our criteria include stringent requirements for UIFor example, posting a job should take less than 30 seconds, syndicating this job to job boards should be a simple push of a button, and viewing applicants should be as intuitive as using Trello.
  • Candidate Experience: We evaluate for features that enhance the candidate experience, like personalized communication, easy interview scheduling, and self-service portals for application status updates. Your TA team is your public relations team, so it is critical to equip them with tech to ensure your reputation among all candidates, regardless of your hire or no-hire decision, shows up on Glassdoor in a positive light.
  • Integration and Compatibility: The goal is to have seamless data exchange and workflow, so we assess each platform’s ability to integrate with other tools in an average HR ecosystem, like HRIS orCRM,. Limited integrations can be a massive drag on ROI: manually entering data or downloading CSVs just to upload them to your ATS is suboptimal at best.

To address the needs of companies of any size, we've included a few all-in-one solutions. In our experience, companies with lean HR/TA teams and fewer than 500 employees are better off with a platform that combines HRIS, ATS, CRM (and sometimes even payroll!) rather than trying to juggle numerous point solutions.

For more information on our methodology, read this article on how we evaluate HR tech vendors.

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Compare the Best Applicant Tracking Systems

Popularity Score
Best for
Key Differentiator
Pricing
Free Trial
Customers
Users Score
Product Score

Greenhouse

Most Popular
4.5
Midsize and large teams focused on collaborative hiring
Feature-loaded ATS with onboarding component
Custom Pricing
No
6,500+ companies
4.4
4.6

Pinpoint

Most Popular
4.6
Teams conscious of candidate experience
Transparent pricing and great customer service
Starts at $600/month
Yes
300+ companies
4.4
4.5

BambooHR

Most Popular
4.6
Hybrid and remote teams with high volume hiring needs
ATS built for volume hiring nested in popular HR suite
Custom Pricing
Yes
30,000+
4.5
4.4

Recruitee

Most Popular
4.2
The best fit is small and medium-sized businesses
Leverages internal resources for collaboration
Starts at $269/month
Yes
5000+ customers
4.4
4.5

ClearCompany

Most Popular
4.0
Enterprise-size with 1,000-10,000 employees
Best for enterprise, stand-alone ATS works well for mid-size
Custom Pricing
No
2,400+ companies
4.5
4.3

Ashby

Most Popular
4.0
SMBs with rapid growth and any orgs hiring consistently
ATS with CRM maintains and nurtures talent pools
Starts at $300/mo
Yes
1,000+ companies
4.4
4.1

Manatal

Most Popular
4.5
Small and mid-sized teams wanting affordable AI tech
Cost-effective and AI-equipped
Starts at $15/mo
Yes
10,000+ companies
4.8
4.9

Lever

Most Popular
4.0
Teams focused on maintaining talent pools
A single platform for ATS and CRM integration
Custom Pricing
No
5,000+ companies
4.3
4.3

VidCruiter

Most Popular
4.6
Large companies hiring 100+ people annually
Has video interviews, ATS, and Quick Apply
Custom Pricing
No
100,000+ users
4.7
4.8

Rippling

Most Popular
4.2
Organizations looking for a comprehensive ATS + HR suite
Very scalable solution, well-suited for growing teams
Starts at $8/employee/month
No
2,000+
4.2
4.1

Spark Hire

Most Popular
4.4
Small and mid-sized teams building headcount
Strong on collaboration and automation.
Starts at $225 / mo
Yes
6,000+ companies
4.8
4.8

Trakstar Hire

Most Popular
4.0
Medium-sized companies optimizing for efficiency
Offer management tools, like e-signature, are built in
Custom pricing
Yes
3000+ customers
4.3
4.1

Avature

Most Popular
4.1
Enterprise-scale companies exclusively
Combined ATS and CRM to improve user experience
Custom Pricing
Yes
1,900+ companies
4.4
4.2

JazzHR

Most Popular
4.5
Startups and SMBs hiring frewer than 500 per year
Tailormade for SMBs
Starts at $49/month
Yes
9000+ companies
4.3
4.5

iCIMS

Most Popular
4.0
Global enterprises and recruiting agencies
Extra large scale can manage up to 50k candidates
Custom Pricing
No
4,000+ companies
3.9
4.0

Teamtailor

Most Popular
4.0
Startups and SMBs building brand alongside headcount
ATS with great employer branding
Custom Pricing
Yes
7,000+ customers
4.3
4.1

SmartRecruiters

Most Popular
4.0
Mid to large-sized companies wanting an all-in-one HR tool
Candidate assessment, skill testing, and offer management
Custom Pricing
Yes
5,000+ companies
4.2
4.0
Phil Strazzulla
HR Tech Expert, Harvard MBA, Software Enthusiast

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Detailed Reviews of the Best Applicant Tracking Systems

Greenhouse

Visit Website
Greenhouse
Learn More
Popularity Score
4.5 / 5
User Score
4.4 / 5
Product Score
4.6 / 5

Why we picked Greenhouse

Greenhouse is a feature-rich ATS best suited for midsize and large teams. In addition to advanced scheduling, workflow customization, and numerous seamless HRIS integrations, the platform also includes a well-liked onboarding feature.

PROS

  • Onboarding module to ease the transition from candidate to new hire.
  • 300+ integrations with third-party solutions for numerous people ops needs.
  • Collaboration-enabling features distribute the hiring workload across multiple stakeholders. 
  • Customization options are plentiful, and template workflows are convenient.
  • Greenhouse's onboarding feature is built and executed well. New hires transition smoothly from candidate to employee.
  • iOS and Android apps work well for recruiters on the go. Users can review applications, schedule interviews, view candidates' profiles, and more.
  • 450+ third-party integrations.

CONS

  • Undisclosed prices, no free trial.
  • The reporting feature can be challenging to navigate.
  • Cost-prohibitive for budget-conscious teams.
  • A full focus on ATS and onboarding means it lacks core HR features.
  • Greenhouse’s pricing is undisclosed, and they do not offer a trial version.
  • Some users note that reporting customization is quite limited and difficult to navigate.
  • In-person/live support could be improved.
Screenshot of Greenhouse Applicant Tracking System Showing Jobs and Their Status

Greenhouse Review

Our editorial team has always had good things to say about Greenhouse. Several of us have used it extensively as members and leaders of TA teams, and our sentiments align with most of the users who tested the product for us: it’s easy to use, and it saves time.

The dashboard is reflective of the product’s name: greenhouse. It’s visually appealing and offers a clear view of the collection of candidates that need attention. The whole hiring team can see the upcoming interviews, applications to review, and task status overviews.

In our most recent experience using an updated version, we were impressed with the developments in the “interview kit”. The standardization of the interview process is a massive help in combating bias. Clear-cut qualification criteria for each interview stage result in employee confidence in decision-making and valuable insights for process improvement.

We like the pre-built templates for creating and posting jobs. We found that even users with minimal familiarity can post a job in about one minute.

For experienced users who have created their own hiring workflow, this task is reduced to seconds. Even the process of creating custom workflows is a drag-and-drop, super-streamlined affair.

Our writers with professional experience using this tool report that once you’re familiar with it, it basically runs itself. That’s an exaggeration, of course, but the sentiment stands: Greenhouse is a popular ATS because the product meets the needs of actual recruiting teams (and writers who used to be recruiters!).

With more than 300 partners, chances are good that they can connect you with any tool or service you need, and with their well-established place among top HR tech tools, you can count on a smooth, well-supported integration. However, some businesses prefer the simplicity and security of an all-in-one platform, which Greenhouse is not. There’s no right or wrong choice here, but we encourage you to evaluate what is right for your team carefully.

Greenhouse Customers

HubSpot, DoorDash, Dropbox, Wayfair.

Greenhouse Pricing

Pricing is unavailable online, but we found some information through our network.

Greenhouse offers tiered plans, and the pricing is based on the company’s total headcount.

  • Essential: Core features and one event.
  • Advanced: Everything from Essential, plus custom reporting, scalable workflows, and ten events.
  • Expert: Everything from Advanced, plus upgraded CRM, enhanced security, developer sandbox, DEI feature set, and unlimited events.

The standard contract is a one-year prepaid subscription, and discounts are available for two and three-year prepaid agreements.

Best For

Midsize to large enterprises who are ready to invest in the full feature set of a top-notch ATS platform.

Greenhouse in action
Reviewer's Rating
7/10

I primarily use Greenhouse to hire for tech/engineering positions. I find that its system is user-friendly. I am able to quickly find key statistics for stakeholders upon request. I enjoy the platform's talent outreach capabilities as I am able to track/trace outreach pre and post-hire. Greenhouse also allows me to communicate effectively with candidates without the need for extra messaging.

What do you like about this tool?
  • Greenhouse is user-friendly.
  • Greenhouse customer service is exceptional.
  • Greenhouse will custom-create lists for every step of the process.
Why did your organization buy this tool, and how long have you used it for?

Greenhouse was introduced to me in 2014 as an affordable startup option to compete with larger (HRIS) software. I have used and implemented this software with several clients over the years. Greenhouse has been especially effective in streamlining recruitment processes and training for new HR hires as its system has grown increasingly user-friendly. I have noticed a trend among my clients that companies that search for data-driven talent have an easier time using Greenhouse.

What do you dislike about this tool?
  • I have occasionally experienced issues with bulk imports.
  • Greenhouse sometimes does not pick up keywords.
  • It takes time to understand the system.
How is this tool different than their competitors?

Greenhouse has been a consistent and affordable option in comparison to ADP or Trinet. I enjoy the Greenhouse interface more overall.

What Instructions should people think about when buying this type of tool?

Does your team have experience in training an HRIS system to be intuitive? Are you clear on your hiring expectations before investing in a system of this kind?

How has this tool changed or evolved over time to meet users needs?

Greenhouse's customer service has evolved tremendously. I find that they are very efficient.

What specific type of user or organization is this tool very good for?

Tech-focused with a high talent pool.

What specific type of user or organization would this tool not be a good fit for?

Companies without a need for hiring extensively.

Pinpoint

Visit Website
Pinpoint
Learn More
Popularity Score
4.6 / 5
User Score
4.4 / 5
Product Score
4.5 / 5

Why we picked Pinpoint

A lot of ATS platforms don’t deliver on their claim to be user-focused, but Pinpoint does. With a sophisticated, sleek look and an intuitive interface, they clearly know great software is a mix of form and function.

PROS

  • Best in class automations that will save your recruiting team time.
  • Highly customizable and values collaborative hiring.
  • Unlimited jobs and team members in all of its plans.
  • Career site builder helps teams find and convert the right talent.
  • Pinpoint is an agile ATS that is highly customizable and values collaborative hiring.
  • It’s got a simple and transparent pricing structure.
  • Pinpoint offers unlimited jobs and team members in all of its plans.
  • Their customer service team is highly praised by users.
  • The career site builder is very robust, allowing teams to attract and convert the right talent.
  • There are over 100 HR software integrations to choose from, and Pinpoint’s team is adding 3-5 every month.

CONS

  • The employee onboarding module costs extra
  • Cost prohibitive for budget-conscious teams
  • No free version or free trial offer
  • The employee onboarding module does cost extra.
  • It isn’t the best fit if you’re looking for the cheapest ATS.
  • There isn’t a free trial or free version at this time.
Screenshot of Pinpoint Applicant Tracking System Showing Latest Jobs and Candidates by Stage

Pinpoint Review

The career site builder is a big hit with our team, especially for our writers and editors with extensive experience on TA teams. They emphasized that the need to stand out among other companies is one of the most critical tasks they faced as recruiters, and this unique approach was compelling. 

We found the site builder feature to be so intuitive that a first-time user could complete the setup for a custom site in about 30 minutes. 

This ease of use is no coincidence: Pinpoint is known for its emphasis on user experience, so the visual clarity and sequential logic of workflows were designed with care. 

Users report attentive customer support via email, chat, or phone. 

The platform also considers the experience of employees who make referrals by offering a low-friction process. An automated email is sent to current employees informing them about open positions. The message includes a link to share with their network, and the platform keeps track of the referrals they have made so far. 

With an open API and more than 100 built-in integrations, Pinpoint plays well with others. However, bespoke integration is available exclusively for Enterprise plan users.

Pinpoint Customers

CoinShares, Pathways Global, Grant Thornton, Icario, Pivot Energy.

Pinpoint Pricing

  • Pinpoint pricing starts at $600 monthly when billed annually.
  • Enterprise features, such as multi-page career sites, multi-lingual support, custom integrations, and help on data migrations, start at $1,200 per month.
  • Discounts are available for startups with fewer than 50 headcount.

Best For

This ATS is best for in-house recruitment teams filling at least 30 openings annually, especially those with a strong, user-centric mentality.

Pinpoint in action
Reviewer's Rating
9/10

We use Pinpoint daily, it's an ATS, so it does the typical things an ATS does. This includes, creating career pages on our corporate website that explains some basics about Article, and allows a candidate to decide if they’d they feel they’d be aligned to working with us.

On the career site, all the open jobs are visible for potential candidates to see. They can then decide to apply, upload a resume and fill in some basic info. On our side of the ATS, we create the jobs that are posted - designing the interview flows, application questions, and scorecards, then advertising them to the selected job boards.

We use Pinpoint to evaluate the viability of applicants, referrals, and candidates we source, being a single point of truth. Once candidates are selected to proceed, we use Pinpoint to move through the interview process, giving the hiring manager visibility into the hiring process.

For candidates, we use Pinpoint to schedule and communicate with candidates, who are selected for this process, but also to reject those candidates who are not. There is a lot more of course but this is a basic walk-through, and I’d assume if you’re reading this, you have a good idea of what an ATS does.

What do you like about this tool?

They're an ATS that is ascending, and not coasting on reputation; they've continuing to evolve, with new useful features, and integrations quickly rolling out.
Overall, I’d argue that Pinpoint puts candidates first, with easy applications and great branded communication. Adding to this, candidate-centric design is the built-in self-scheduling for interviews, and including a candidate NPS score - this is key to letting my team and I understand the candidate experience.

The new automation feature they launched where you can create rejection emails based on application questions has saved my team a lot of time by not having to screen candidates who do not meet minimal requirements, currently, this is about 29% of applications. We have been creating custom rejection emails for each automation, this allows the candidate to know specifically why they were rejected, and if they answered the application incorrectly by mistake, allow them to reapply.

I’m also a fan of their pronoun feature, which allows candidates to share their preferred pronouns. Little touches can make a huge difference when building inclusive hiring practices.

They continue to have fantastic support and as a partner, they really care about my team and our success. Adding to this are the people they hire, who are really great and it makes interacting with them so much easier.

With less talk/hype and more substance, you can tell they focus on the product and customers, not on the hype marketing machine jumping on whatever the trendy topic is.

Why did your organization buy this tool, and how long have you used it for?

We have used Pinpoint for 2+ years now, with a TA team that was quickly growing (we’d have over 20 users at peak). As an organization, we had just started hyperscaling, and we end up growing over 3x in under 18 months.

As we started on this journey, I quickly found that the ATS we were using, couldn’t keep it up. It was, designed for SMBs and smaller recruitment teams. One of the biggest pain points was it lacked the ability to reject candidates through an anonymous email, instead, when candidates were rejected it came from each recruiter's email - given the volume of applicants, this solution was not feasible and would lead to a poor candidate experience.

Additionally, the previous ATS ecosystem was small and wasn’t growing quickly, and it lacked the ability to build a career site out of the box.

We also needed the ATS to be easy to use, not just for the recruiters, but also, for the number of new hiring managers who would quickly need to understand how to use the ATS. This made the case to look replace the old ATS clear, we made a scorecard and started to evaluate our ATS options, ultimately landing on Pinpoint.

What do you dislike about this tool?
  • Some of the UI/UX could be improved, particularly when you're screening large volumes of candidates, minor but it would be helpful.
  • Because it lacks a deep integration into LinkedIn, we need to use LinkedIn’s “job wrapping” feature.
  • The newer automation feature is really powerful, however, setting them up requires too many clicks, it’s not a huge deal, but it could be made smoother.
How is this tool different than their competitors?

Much easier application process than most ATSs, making it very candidate friendly. Overall, they nail the mid-market really well, with enough features, integrations, and reporting, but they’re not hard to use and overly cumbersome compared to big ‘enterprisey’ ATSs.

What Instructions should people think about when buying this type of tool?

When selecting an ATS I’m a proponent of using the following ranking:

  1. Candidate experience, regardless of the market, the best talent will always have options, if the application experience and communication experience is poor, they’ll choose to work elsewhere
  2. Recruiter experience since they use the tool the most. If they don’t like it, or it’s overly complex they’re going to work around it, rather than through it
  3. Hiring manager experience, will they log in, and actually use it
  4. Support, if I have an issue will it get resolved?
  5. Ecosystem/ integrations, an ATS should not do everything, rather it’s the hub to connect point solutions with
How has this tool changed or evolved over time to meet users needs?
  • I'm a huge fan of how they rolled out candidate pronouns, allowing candidates to share their preferred pronouns when applying.
  • Multiple new integrations have been launched.
  • Much faster page loading response times from when we first rolled it out.
What specific type of user or organization is this tool very good for?

Mid-sized to enterprise organizations.

What specific type of user or organization would this tool not be a good fit for?

I'm not sure. Maybe small companies that don't have a dedicated HR team.

BambooHR

Visit Website
BambooHR
Learn More
Popularity Score
4.6 / 5
User Score
4.5 / 5
Product Score
4.4 / 5

Why we picked BambooHR

We love how this ATS operates within Bamboo’s larger HR Suite. We found seamless workflows between the ATS and other core HR features. The simplicity makes for ease of use, and helps ensure compliance.

PROS

  • This is one of the few solutions that allow you to do month to month pricing, a nice option to have!
  • Free 7-day trials are available (and you can definitely extend these another week or so if needed).
  • The mobile app works well and offers built-in application review, communication, and collaboration features.
  • They have a ridiculously fast response time on customer success queries, less than 2 minutes in our experience.
  • Flexible packaging and custom pricing is the way they roll. You can pick out one or two packages and pick other modules as add-ons based on your needs. 
  • Very simple and straightforward tool, easy to use.

CONS

  • If you go over your allotted time for customer support, you will pay extra.
  • Customer support availability is restricted to U.S. business hours, potentially causing delays in addressing urgent concerns for international users.
  • Certain modules like time tracking, performance management, and surveys are only accessible as add-ons, requiring additional investment if you want more HR functionality.
  • Payroll is only available for US-based employees 
  • Customer support is only offered during US business hours.
  • Some modules like time tracking, performance management, and surveys are only available as add-ons.
Screenshot of BambooHR Applicant Tracking System Showing Onboarding Task, Monthly Headcount, Vacation

BambooHR Review

We’ve led TA teams, so we know the pressures growing orgs face. The fast pace can result in hasty decisions, which lead to problems down the road in terms of efficiency and compliance. 

This ATS, built into the Bamboo suite, gets around the problem of siloed employee data. On top of this, we were also impressed with some specific features. 

We used the app version on Android and iOS devices and found it easy to navigate workflows like posting jobs, viewing resumes, communicating with candidates and hiring managers, and scheduling. We know that if you’re a recruiter, your job probably has you on the run, so the well-built app is a big plus. 

The cloud-based web version was also impressive. We were guided through each step of a standard hiring process without any confusion, and we found it easy to customize workflows when we tested the simplicity of creating our own. Ease of access to other elements of the suite highlights one of the biggest advantages: not only is it easier to be productive when all employee data is in one place, but it’s also much safer if you don’t have to move information across platforms manually. It’s more secure and less prone to human error.

BambooHR Customers

Among the 30,000+ companies who use BambooHR are names like Quora, Universal Group, Reddit, Asana, Change.org, University of Maryland, Grammarly, Stance, Postmates, Wistia, the Jacksonville Jaguars, and ZipRecruiter.

BambooHR Pricing

BambooHR pricing is based on a per employee per month (PEPM) model. There is a minimum charge of $3,000, that usually starts to increase once you hit 25 employees.

In general, we've seen companies pay as low as $8 PEPM, but $12-14 PEPM is a good range (assuming you are using the full HRIS with a few modules).

Best For

BambooHR is a great pick for SMBs who want an all in one suite that can take care of the entire employee lifecycle. If you're just looking for an ATS, there may be better standalone options.  But, if you are <500 employees, you are generally going to want an all in one anyways.

BambooHR in action
Reviewer's Rating
8/10

BambooHR is an essential part of our workflow at the office. We use BambooHR on a daily basis for reducing manual paperwork and quickly tracking employee information. BambooHR helps to ensure that our manager and team members are up-to-date on records such as shift changes, vacation requests, and job roles. This helps make hiring and onboarding new employees easy, fast, and efficient. BambooHR also allows us to easily track employee performance reviews and keep tabs on employee attendance. Its comprehensive search capabilities enable us to quickly find important documents when needed. BambooHR has been an invaluable tool for improving overall workplace organization and productivity, helping us run our business with fewer manual processes efficiently and effectively.

What do you like about this tool?
  1. BambooHR is an incredibly user-friendly HR platform that has made it easier than ever to manage employee data.
  2. it makes onboarding new employees a breeze, allowing us to quickly and accurately collect important documents with just a few clicks.
  3. The powerful analytics BambooHR provides are also great for keeping tabs on performance, compensation, and attendance.
Why did your organization buy this tool, and how long have you used it for?

We chose BambooHR as our Human Resources software because of its expansive, easy-to-use capabilities. We wanted to automate HR processes and initially used Zoho but we found a problem integrating Zoho to meet our expectations since Zoho requires knowledge of IT. BambooHR allows us to easily manage employee timesheets, track new hire onboarding processes, create interactive checklists, and track performance goals with ease. We have been using BambooHR for almost two years now and have seen a great ROI. BambooHR has moved our HR processes into the 21st century and enabled us to make changes quickly while keeping track of valuable data that would have taken us significantly longer to include manually.

What do you dislike about this tool?
  1. BambooHR does not offer a significant number of options when it comes to customizing your dashboard or user profiles.
  2. BambooHR lacks many advanced reporting features.
  3. BambooHR does not currently offer the ability to track vacation hours for individual employees.
How is this tool different than their competitors?

Its strong suite of features make it stand out from similar tools. BambooHR simplifies the onboarding process by helping to manage employee data, providing an effective way to track hours and attendance, or designing custom workflows for tasks like vacation requests. What I particularly appreciate about BambooHR is its ability to create employee reports that are fast, intuitive, and easy to use. BambooHR also integrates seamlessly with other software such as payroll, benefits management, and mailing services. Overall in comparison to other HR tools available today, BambooHR stands above many of them. Its intuitive design and robust functionality make it my preferred choice for managing my HR processes; it gives me everything I need in one place without any hassle.

What Instructions should people think about when buying this type of tool?

When considering BambooHR as the right software solution for your business, there are several key criteria to consider. Thoughtful evaluation of factors such as cost and implementation time frame should be taken into account to make BambooHR fits into your business plans and operations. Additionally, it’s important to understand BambooHR's functionality and its capacity for automation to guarantee you’re getting the most out of the software in terms of streamlining tasks and increasing efficiency.

How has this tool changed or evolved over time to meet users needs?

By consistently listening to customer feedback, BambooHR continues to evolve and grow along with its users' needs. BambooHR now provides software solutions that allow companies to streamline their mundane, yet essential HR processes like record-keeping, onboarding, and more. BambooHR has also added more robust analytics and reporting functionality to offer real-time visibility into human capital metrics.

What specific type of user or organization is this tool very good for?

BambooHR is an incredibly valuable tool for businesses of all sizes looking to streamline their HR processes. It makes it simple to store employee information, set access permissions, and track important past and present data. From small independent businesses just getting started with their HR needs, to large organizations that have much more complicated paperwork requirements. because the software offers a high range of features and prices that can fit any type of business.

What specific type of user or organization would this tool not be a good fit for?

BambooHR may not be suitable for certain users and organizations due to its specialization in Human Resources. BambooHR’s core focus is streamlining the payroll, hiring, performance reviews, and goals-tracking processes for medium-sized businesses. As such, BambooHR may not be the ideal choice for companies that prioritize a large range of features outside of conventional HR setup or are unwilling to invest time into learning the platform’s unique services. BambooHR also does not have an international presence, so global organizations looking for a comprehensive HR system may need to look elsewhere.

Recruitee

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Recruitee
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Popularity Score
4.2 / 5
User Score
4.4 / 5
Product Score
4.5 / 5

Why we picked Recruitee

Recruitee emphasizes user experience and collaboration, and we’ve seen firsthand how much impact these two factors can have on recruitment efficiency and effectiveness. Coupled with other solid product choices and month-to-month pricing, this platform is an excellent option for SMBs.

PROS

  • Transparent, month-to-month pricing and unlimited seats. 
  • Features that control for bias in interviewing.
  • Built-in AI to job descriptions to target ideal candidates.
  • Pro: Recruitee is highly rated by customers for its ease of use. The majority of them are able to implement and get on with the software without much hassle. 
  • Pro: Recruitee features a customizable, kanban-like recruiting pipeline. Companies can add as many stages as needed to the pipeline and move candidates easily as they progress through the stages. 
  • Pro: Recruitee incorporates some measures to reduce hiring bias. For example, you can adjust the permission level for your interviewers and prevent them from seeing the scores each of them are assigning to the same candidate. This way, they won’t be influenced by each other's evaluations.

CONS

  • Recruitee relies on third-party integrations for some essential functions like skill assessments, onboarding, video interviewing, and e-signatures.
  • Our user researchers ran into data accuracy issues with the reporting function.
  • Some users noted Recruitee’s support team was hard to reach.
  • Con: Several functions that are advertised on Recruitee’s feature list, including skill assessments, onboarding, video interviewing, and e-signatures are not actually built into Recruitee and are only possible through integration with third-party tools, which can be misleading to potential users, especially if it’s their first ATS. 
  • Con: Several users noted that the Recruitee’s reporting function is limited and at times, doesn’t retrieve data accurately. 
  • Con: Several users have complained about Recruitee’s support team being slow in responding, and at times, not able to solve issues. 
  • Con: For a product that’s geared towards SMBs, it lacks a free plan that businesses who are just getting started with ATSs can use for as long as they need, without any time constraints. We list this as a con as several solutions in this space do offer free-forever plans and similar feature sets as Recruitee, which puts it slightly behind the competition to users.
Screenshot of Recruitee ATS Software Showing Active Talent Pool

Recruitee Review

Recruitee knows SMBs and designed a tool for this market. The most apparent SMB/ bottom-line-focused elements are transparent pricing, month-to-month options, and unlimited seats. There is no mystery there: SMBs tend to be budget-conscious.

However, what might be less obvious is what a small TA team can accomplish with unlimited seats, user-focused design, and factors that facilitate collaboration. Recruitee’s feature set represents a clever strategic insight: if the tool is easy to use and designed to distribute the workload among everyone involved in the interview process, the result will be increased efficiency and effectiveness.

We’ve seen it firsthand (several writers here have backgrounds in SMB recruitment), and our user research has confirmed it.

When we test-drove the tool, we were disappointed to note the absence of some features we consider standard. Video interviews, skills assessment, offer management, and onboarding are ubiquitous in modern ATSs, but none are built into the platform.

Recrutiee leans into integrations with Recruitee Marketplace, a collection of preferred third-party tools prepped for ease of integration.

There’s no right or wrong when it comes to built-in vs. add-on. It’s a matter of personal preference and what works best for your business. For those who prefer add-ons, Recruitee is a great choice: you’ll find what you need, and the integration process will be seamless.

Recruitee Customers

Vice, Greenpeace, Autodesk, Tide, Mollie

Recruitee Pricing

Recruitee offers tiered and custom plans based on the number of active jobs and other particular needs. The three tiers are:

  • Start starts at $199 per month
  • Grow starts at $249 per month
  • Optimize has custom pricing.

Best For

Budget-conscious orgs who prefer customized feature sets over all-in-ones and SMBs and who want to leverage the power of collaboration to boost the effectiveness of TA efforts.

Recruitee in action
Reviewer's Rating
8/10
  • We use Recruitee as an Application Tracking System on a daily basis.
  • We have five job openings right now, and each one of them has distinct pipelines, responsibilities, and workflows.
What do you like about this tool?
  • Email tracking. All emails are tracked within the tool, making it easy to manage and understand all communications made by our employees and applicants.
  • Questionnaires. We can create custom questionnaires and send them to applicants. Their answers are collected and kept automatically on their profiles.
  • Interview scheduling. It's easy to send a link to users so they can schedule their interview directly within the app.
Why did your organization buy this tool, and how long have you used it for?

We've been looking for an ATS (Application Tracking System) for a long time, and we've been using Recruitee for about 3 years. As a small game development studio, handling the dozens of applications we receive daily takes time. By using Recruitee, we're able to properly categorize, evaluate and keep records for every applicant.

What do you dislike about this tool?
  • Pricing. It's one of the most expensive ATS in its category.
  • It's not trivial to change the pipeline steps. If we could change the pipeline steps directly on the pipeline screen, it would be awesome.
  • Mobile application is still far from ideal, and has some bugs.
How is this tool different than their competitors?
  • We've tried many other ATS systems, but Recruitee was the best I could find in this price range.
  • The best parts of it are the application workflow and how easy is to keep all information we have on an applicant on his profile.
What Instructions should people think about when buying this type of tool?

I recommend keeping an eye on how the communication between the applicants is handled within the app. When trying ATS tools, make sure to apply with another email so you can evaluate the whole pipeline.

How has this tool changed or evolved over time to meet users needs?

The tool hasn't changed significantly over the last 3 years, so I can't speak a lot about this.

What specific type of user or organization is this tool very good for?

It fits companies that need to be more efficient in it's hiring processes, normally larger than 20 people.

What specific type of user or organization would this tool not be a good fit for?

Budget is an issue, so if you have a really small company with a tight budget, you might need another solution.

ClearCompany

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ClearCompany
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Popularity Score
4 / 5
User Score
4.5 / 5
Product Score
4.3 / 5

Why we picked ClearCompany

Launched in 2004, ClearCompany is an established platform that has kept pace with leading-edge HR tech. During our hands-on evaluation of the ATS, we found a comprehensive set of “talent management” features assembled into a logical and seamless workflow recruiting teams need.

PROS

  • Multiple pricing options and add-on features.
  • Intuitive UI across multiple HR modules.
  • Numerous reports of a smooth implementation and attentive customer support.
  • ClearCompany offers a host of HR solutions that work well with another. You can choose the solution you need or combine them all to have a comprehensive talent management platform in your stack. 
  • The majority of users find ClearCompany’s interface to be quite intuitive and easy to navigate. 
  • Many users have highly rated ClearCompany’s support team for speed and quality of response. Several users have also reported a smooth implementation experience.

CONS

  • Undisclosed pricing, no free trials.
  • Some users felt underwhelmed by the customization options of the reporting feature. 
  • The candidate search function is reported to be somewhat unreliable.
  • No mobile apps.
  • ClearCompany’s pricing is not readily available on their website. You also can’t create a trial account on your own from the website and have to go through the sales team for more info. 
  • Some users felt that the reporting feature is limited in customizations.
  • According to a few users, the candidate search function doesn’t always bring up the correct candidate(s) and could use some improvement.
  • ClearCompany doesn’t currently have a mobile app, but the platform is well optimized for mobile use both for hiring managers and candidates.
Screenshot of Clear Company Applicant Tracking System Showing Team Goals and ATS Features

ClearCompany Review

ClearCompany is a talent management suite with an ATS feature that can be purchased as a stand-alone product or as part of the comprehensive HR tech toolset. Numerous configurations and pricing options are available so companies can create a plan that meets their needs and suits their budget.

We review all types of HR tech, but our team has a lot to say about ATSs. In fact, during our in-house evaluation, we found that several of us had extensive professional experience using this platform in previous positions. The consensus: the ATS works best within ClearCompany’s suite, but it is a super-solid ATS on its own.

Some standouts include the user interface, uniquely modern for a company founded in 2004. We were specifically impressed with the onboarding workflows that transitioned candidates into new hires in just a few clicks.

ClearCompany Customers

Mitsubishi Electric, Chick-fil-A, Goodwill, Axiom Bank, Bios, FlixBrewHouse, and Halco.

ClearCompany Pricing

The software has custom pricing. Quotes are based on company size and customizations.

Best For

Large-size organizations with a budget that can cover paying for the whole suite are the best fit, but the ATS alone is excellent for mid-size teams.

ClearCompany in action
Reviewer's Rating
10/10

An organization can choose the cadence at which they require employees to set new goals and make progress reports. Whenever I finish a goal, I login and mark my goal complete. Only employees connected to that goal can see my progress, notes I have added regarding that goal, and if that goal has been completed. It is very quick and easy to create a new goal or make an update. I would say I login about once or more a month. But another company may only require employees to login at year end during performance review time. It is up to how the company uses the software.

What do you like about this tool?

Easy to use and navigate for anyone including those technologically challenged. Easy to set up a performance review from the backend perspective. Lastly, I like how an entry level employee can see how their goals are vertically integrated into the top goals/company's strategic plan. I believe this visibility helps all employees understand the end goal better and that they are an important part of a bigger goal.

Why did your organization buy this tool, and how long have you used it for?

I have used ClearCompany for less than a year and am happy with the ease of the product. Our company was looking for a performance review system that was more integrated and connected to our strategic plan. Our company bought ClearCompany because of the many features, advantages, and benefits the product offered over our past performance review provider. One key benefit was the platform provides transparency on the progress of an individual's goal(s) and the team's goals. The organization as a whole can see goals the top executives set for the term and how each contributor's goals vertically connect to supporting those top goals.

What do you dislike about this tool?

I did not care for the performance review builder where they use job descriptions from a prebuilt template. I thought the template was incomplete and lacking in descriptions of job functions/responsibilities. Also, if an organization's goal is to build individual performance reviews for each position, using this software may be very time consuming. This software is better for a standard template review process for groups of employees. Building the review template is not quick because it takes time to learn how to build it first.

How is this tool different than their competitors?

The visibility into a company's goals and others goals is different (and nice). Employees can congratulate others and make comments when their peer's goals are achieved, which is different and a positive employee engagement tool. There is the capability to create more customized performance reviews, if willing to put in the time. There is also the capability to "set it and forget" when creating a performance review. The system will notify an employee/manager when it is time for their review.

What Instructions should people think about when buying this type of tool?

A company should identify their needs first. They might not need this comprehensive performance management tool. They should think about what is currently working and what is not working. I suggest making a list with 1. must haves, 2. would likes, and 3. I wish. This list will guide the buying decision.

How has this tool changed or evolved over time to meet users needs?

They planned to build out the job description feature more.

What specific type of user or organization is this tool very good for?

An organization where it is critical to the business that everyone in the organization (from the bottom up) knows and understands the company's goals and who is responsible for each subgoal.

What specific type of user or organization would this tool not be a good fit for?

A business that does not like their strategic plan to be known. Or, a business that does not create a strategic plan.

Ashby

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Ashby
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Popularity Score
4 / 5
User Score
4.4 / 5
Product Score
4.1 / 5

Why we picked Ashby

Ashby offers the entire TA tech stack: ATS, CRM/Sourcing, Scheduling, and Analytics—an excellent recruiting solution for fast-growing companies.

PROS

  • Analytics dashboard with crucial statistics on all aspects of your hiring process.
  • Flexibility and ability to customize across almost all aspects of the platform.
  • Consolidated ATS, CRM, Scheduling, and Analytics.
  • Fast data migrations, no setup fees.
  • Your TA team can have one system that truly has best-in-class options for ATS, CRM, Scheduling, and Analytics.
  • Flexibility and ability to customize across almost all aspects of the platform
  • Their analytics dashboard is great to understand weaknesses in your hiring process, conducting capacity planning, or determining which teams are running suboptimal hiring processes.

CONS

  • This is a powerful product, and understanding all the different features can take some time.
  • No multi-lingual support.
  • Your company must use G Suite in order to make the most of Ashby
  • No multi-lingual support
  • This is a powerful product, and it can take a bit of time to understand all the different features

Ashby Review

Ashby is an all-in-one TA solution that combines your recruiting CRM, ATS, sourcing, scheduling, and analytics into one platform.

We recently met with Ashby’s to look at recent product developments, and what stood out is how easy they have made it to re-engage with former applicants. If our experience working in recruitment positions has taught us anything, it is that efficiency is essential.

We see it like this: you’re wasting time and effort if you don’t maintain a connection with former candidates because these folks are primed, familiar, and pre-vetted members of your talent pool.

Some are “silver medalists” or applicants who made it to the offer stage, and others may possess a unique skill or trait that your current team is lacking. Ashby can create custom attributes to filter your talent pool, so you’ll never lose touch with “good fit, bad timing” candidates.

We would recommend this ATS to TA teams seeking powerful reporting capabilities. Ashby’s reports are highly customizable, track all data points throughout your hiring process in real-time, and are easy on the eye.

We also noticed that Ashby has consistently worked hard to improve its product based on user feedback. Check out their blog page, and you’ll see that the ATS literally rolls out new features every month.

Regarding implementation, it takes SMBs a few days and larger organizations 6-8 weeks to get Ashby up and running. The ATS doesn’t charge for data migrations and system setup, and according to our research, Ashby’s customer support and success teams have been immensely helpful in making the switch a seamless experience.

Ashby Customers

1,000+ customers, including Quora, Deel, and Ramp.

Ashby Pricing

Ashby offers two core plans for its All-in-One platform and a 3rd option for connecting Ashby Analytics to your existing ATS.

  • All-In-One Foundations: Ranges from $300/month to $900/month depending on company size. 10% discount for annual commitments and emerging market pricing available.
  • All-In-One Plus: Contact for a quote.
  • Ashby Analytics for your existing ATS: Contact for a quote.

Best For

Ashby works for early-stage startups, SMBs, and large enterprises, but those who make the most of this recruiting software are companies at the hyper-growth stage.

Ashby in action
Reviewer's Rating
6/10

I use it daily as an ATS. It holds candidate information from resumes to interview scorecards. I also use it to help schedule interviews.

What do you like about this tool?

They are affordable. They integrate with other platforms. It is affordable to add new team members. It is easy to set up recruiting steps and scorecards.

Why did your organization buy this tool, and how long have you used it for?

It is less expensive than Greenhouse. It is a good starter tool for seed companies or companies with low hiring needs. We used it for 1 year.

What do you dislike about this tool?

The ability to schedule candidates can be a little challenging. I worry if it will be possible to pull the information from Ashby to another ATS if we change it. Most candidates are not familiar with it, so you have to explain how it works from the candidate's side. It can be difficult to onboard managers to use it.

How is this tool different than their competitors?

It is affordable and you can start with a small package. I prefer this option because I am the only recruiter and the team is about 10, so we don't need 1000 seats.

What Instructions should people think about when buying this type of tool?

When you scale you might lose your data if they are not able to transfer the data. You are limited on recruiter data. It is a tool that most recruiters have never used, so you will have to train all recruiters on the system.

How has this tool changed or evolved over time to meet users needs?

I think they have not evolved much.

What specific type of user or organization is this tool very good for?

Seed Startups to Small Startups

What specific type of user or organization would this tool not be a good fit for?

Enterprise-sized companies

Manatal

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Manatal
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Popularity Score
4.5 / 5
User Score
4.8 / 5
Product Score
4.9 / 5

Why we picked Manatal

Manatal made our top ATS list because it's budget-friendly, AI-equipped, and offers transparent pricing—no need to call a sales rep just for a ballpark figure.

PROS

  • Among the most affordable ATS options in the market.
  • Offers a 14-day free trial.
  • Easy to use with drag-and-drop enabled pipelines.
  • Native AI-based recommendations feature.
  • Web-based, so it works on multiple devices.
  • Free data migration from your existing hiring software.
  • Transparent and flexible pricing.
  • Manatal is quite affordable and offers a 15-day free trial for users to test it out before making commitments.
  • Manatal is fairly easy to use. It features drag-and-drop enabled pipelines for candidate organization.
  • Manatal’s AI-based recommendations feature can save hiring managers quite a bit of time. It’s able to scan job descriptions then search a users talent pool and bring up candidates most suited for the job.

CONS

  • The AI recommendations feature only works well in English.
  • There are no free plans.
  • ADP and Zapier integrations are restricted to top-tier plans.
  • Boolean Search and Advanced Search cannot be used together.
  • The AI recommendations feature works best with resumes that are in English, and doesn’t work as accurately with other languages according to several users’ feedback. Several users have also complained about Manatal’s interface only being available in English and that career pages cannot be published in languages other than English and Spanish. 
  • Manatal doesn’t offer a free plan. We mention this as a con as several SMB-geared ATSs do offer a free-forever verison, and that puts Manatal slightly behind competition. 
  • Manatal doesn’t offer prebuilt integration modules. They do have an open API that allows users to plug in third-party products and custom tools, but that required a bit more time and technical knowledge to accomplish. It’s also worth mentioning that only Custom plan customers can access Manatal’s API and Zapier integration. Customers on the Professional and Enterprise plan cannot.
  • Users can search for candidates via Boolean Search or Advanced Search, but cannot combine the two search methods together. E.g users cannot use the Boolean search operators (AND, OR and NOT) within Manatal’s Advanced Search tab.
Screenshot of Manatal Applicant Tracking System Showing Candidate Applications Received on Their ATS portal

Manatal Review

Manatal has earned a spot on our top ATS list. As HR professionals, we understand the importance of finding the right talent efficiently, and Manatal has proven to be a valuable tool in this regard.

The first on our thumbs-up list: it’s budget-friendly. We appreciate the transparency in pricing, as there is no need to go through the hassle of contacting a sales just to get a ballpark figure. The platform offers a 14-day free trial.

Using Manatal was straightforward, thanks to its user-friendly interface and the convenience of drag-and-drop-enabled pipelines. The AI-based recommendations feature is a time-saver. It compares job descriptions' language to skills listed by individuals in the talent pool.

Manatal is web-based, so it is compatible with multiple devices. The ability to migrate data from our existing hiring software was also a welcome feature that made for a smooth transition. Additionally, they recently started offering free, live training webinars.

We encountered a few limitations during our evaluation. The AI recommendation feature does not operate well in languages other than English, and Manatal lacks a free version. Integration is limited, and ADP and Zapier integrations are restricted to top-tier plans.

Manatal Customers

Unilever, Coca-Cola, Panasonic, Ogilvy, Toyota.

Manatal Pricing

Manatal has four plans. When billed annually:

  • Professional: This plan costs $15 per user per month for up to 15 jobs per account and 10,000 candidates. Customers on this plan can add unlimited guests.
  • Enterprise: This plan costs $35 per user per month for unlimited jobs per account and unlimited candidates and guests.‍
  • Enterprise Plus: This plan costs $55 per user per month and includes all Enterprise features, user groups, open API access, SSO log-in, priority support, and access to Beta features.
  • Custom: Pricing upon request. It is tailored for larger businesses requiring advanced functionalities and support.

Best For

Manatal is well-suited for companies of different sizes representing many industries but narrowed down to one, it’s SMBs who can use the 14-day free trial to explore the product before they buy.

Manatal in action
Reviewer's Rating
7/10

I used Manatal for creating webpages to attract candidates, posting jobs to multiple job boards and social media platforms from one location, and tracking candidates through the screening process. It facilitated communication and scheduling for team members involved in hiring, ensuring everyone was informed and coordinated. The analytics and reports feature was instrumental in evaluating hiring timelines and identifying the most effective sources for candidates. This functionality allowed us to refine our recruitment strategy and make informed decisions on where to invest in promoting positions.

What do you like about this tool?

The coordination of the hiring process among team members was significantly improved, reducing miscommunications and the hassle of scheduling. Manatal's candidate tracking and database features prevented delays in the recruitment stages and helped us avoid losing good candidates to human error.

The ability to create company showcase web pages was invaluable in attracting sought-after candidates for challenging positions. Additionally, the access to detailed reports and data supported our decision-making with evidence, optimizing our recruitment budget and strategies.

Why did your organization buy this tool, and how long have you used it for?

We adopted Manatal to address challenges in managing a high volume of recruiting, especially for hard-to-fill positions with lengthy recruitment processes. We found it difficult to efficiently find the right candidates, and the coordination of the recruitment process was hard, resulting in missed tasks and delays. Additionally, we sought a better way to showcase our company as an attractive place to work, as traditional job postings were insufficient. We experienced loss of good candidates due to protracted processes or confusion over contact points and screening stages. Manatal offered a solution to better coordinate hiring efforts, track candidate progress, and enhance our attractiveness to potential applicants. I personally have used it for about a year.

What do you dislike about this tool?

Some team members found the interface unintuitive, with key features like email templates being hard to locate. The lack of a standalone mobile app initially was a limitation (not anymore), and certain functionalities, such as self-scheduling for candidates and enhancing the focus on candidate relationship management, needed further development for a better candidate experience.

How is this tool different than their competitors?

Manatal holds its ground as a competitive tool in the recruitment software market, offering a comprehensive set of features. However, it required a steeper learning curve compared to other tools I have used, although it also provided superior customer service, which added value to our experience.

What Instructions should people think about when buying this type of tool?

Prospective buyers should weigh the cost against their specific needs. If your organization does not engage in frequent hiring or if the existing team efficiently manages recruitment, this tool might exceed your requirements. However, for businesses with high recruitment volumes and a collaborative hiring process, Manatal could streamline operations, enhance your company's appeal to candidates, and potentially lead to more successful hires.

How has this tool changed or evolved over time to meet users needs?

Manatal has made significant improvements, including the development of a mobile app and enhancements to its user interface to be more intuitive. The dashboard has been upgraded for easier navigation, reflecting the company's commitment to evolving in line with user feedback.

What specific type of user or organization is this tool very good for?

Manatal is ideally suited for small to medium-sized companies engaged in frequent hiring. It is particularly beneficial for organizations with collaborative hiring processes and those needing to attract high-demand candidates through compelling career pages.

What specific type of user or organization would this tool not be a good fit for?

For small businesses with minimal hiring needs, Manatal may not be cost-effective due to underutilization of its features. Conversely, very large companies requiring extensive customization and complex recruitment workflows might find Manatal's capabilities too basic for their needs.

Lever

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Lever
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Popularity Score
4 / 5
User Score
4.3 / 5
Product Score
4.3 / 5

Why we picked Lever

We like Lever’s focus on engaging passive candidates. Candidate nurturing is a critical recruiting strategy that deserves the spotlight it’s been given with this platform. In addition to solid product decisions, the execution is excellent. Put more simply, Lever put together a collection of well-thought-out features, and they’ve succeeded in making them all work together.

PROS

  • The simple interface is easy to use and requires little training or experience.
  • A unified recruiting platform combines elements of ATS and CRM. 
  • Diverse external sourcing channels and low-friction internal referral process. 
  • According to most users, Lever's UI is very intuitive and easy to learn.  
  • Lever combines the capabilities of an ATS and a CRM into a single platform that not only supports your current hiring needs but allows you to actively engage and nurture prospective qualified candidates for future roles.
  • Lever takes diversity hiring into consideration with Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) surveys that help you collect diversity data from applicants, sourced candidates, and referrals regardless of whether they applied to an open position or not.
  • Lever provides role-based visual analytics with over 20 key TA metrics in its basic TRM package.

CONS

  • Undisclosed pricing and no free plan or trial version.
  • 3rd party integrations in place of features that could be built in.
  • No mobile apps.
  • Lever doesn't disclose their pricing on their website. Interested users are also not able to create trial accounts on their own. 
  • The platform doesn’t have features for background or reference checking but they do integrate with third-party solutions that specialize in those checks. 
  • Lever currently lacks a mobile app, but the platform is optimized for mobile use.
Screenshot of Lever Applicant Tracking System Showing Job Applications Received in Customer Success Department

Lever Review

From our collective in-house experience, we know that the right approach to recruiting is full-cycle. Lever leans into the CRM mentality with functions that attend to potential candidates, current candidates, and (ideally) current employees who used to be candidates.

This may seem like an obvious strategy, but it’s genuinely (and surprisingly!) unique among ATS platforms.

Users can source candidates from multiple channels, including numerous career sites, social media, and internal referrals. Connecting with potential hires is streamlined with automated workflows that include the sophisticated nurture campaigns mentioned above. Regardless of where they end up in the hiring pipeline, these campaigns keep talent engaged with your company.

The video interview integration with Zoom stands out. In addition to synchronizing seamlessly with scheduling features, it allows for customization of interview type between live, structured, and asynchronous, or some mix of the two.

Another highlight is the range of industries and company sizes that Lever can serve. This platform works for any user with consistent hiring needs, whether a tiny but rapidly growing tech start-up or an established business in a field with high turnover rates (think retail or hospitality).

Our testers found some shortcomings in line with other reviews you might read: resume parsing, and report generation features could be improved.

Lever Customers

Lever is used by over 5,000 companies, including Netflix, Shopify, Eventbrite, Cirque du Soliel, and Reddit.

Lever Pricing

Lever offers custom pricing, so users must contact Lever for quotes.

Best For

Excellent for any org that needs to maintain a connection and easy access to a particular candidate pool, including tech startups, healthcare, and retail.

Lever in action
Reviewer's Rating
10/10

For specific projects, I utilize Lever daily to coordinate the hiring process for my team. Lever lets me quickly post job openings on multiple job boards at once, while also keeping track of applications and schedules. Lever helps me stay on top of follow-up tasks with applicants and keep organized during the onboarding process. Lever's candidate sourcing tools help me source. It enables me to quickly create customizable pipelines and align the workflow for my hiring team. My favorite is that Lever's comprehensive reporting dashboards provide me with information regarding our recruitment process.

What do you like about this tool?

1. The tool is incredibly user-friendly and is optimized for collaboration and communication, both internally and externally.

2. It has an intuitive dashboard that makes it easy to manage and track applicants’ progress throughout the recruitment process.

3. The tool has powerful filters and search capabilities, making it easy to qualify job seekers quickly and accurately.

4. Lever has many automation capabilities, including interview scheduling, email campaigns, and even candidate sourcing.

Why did your organization buy this tool, and how long have you used it for?

We chose Lever because of its user-friendly interface. It has the ability to easily track, maintain, and analyze all hiring data. The different tools also help streamline the entire hiring process. Lever's reporting capabilities also provide insight into sourcing efforts. This enables us to identify areas for improvement. The archive tool is also great for keeping a pool of talent.

What do you dislike about this tool?

1. Price, may not be affordable for every company.

2. Many tools are useless for a very small business.

3. The interface might look boring to some people.

How is this tool different than their competitors?

It is more user-friendly. Everything is tracked in the same place. The system begins to become intuitive as the project goes on. It integrates with other platforms, such as LinkedIn.

What Instructions should people think about when buying this type of tool?

1. Do you need all of the tools? 2. Will you be hiring continuously, or only for a few roles?

How has this tool changed or evolved over time to meet users needs?

Yes - the interface became more user-friendly, and it becomes more intuitive as it "learns" about the types of candidates you approve.

What specific type of user or organization is this tool very good for?

Corporation or large recruiting agency

What specific type of user or organization would this tool not be a good fit for?

Small Businesses, people who are not hiring for several roles a year.

VidCruiter

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VidCruiter
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Popularity Score
4.6 / 5
User Score
4.7 / 5
Product Score
4.8 / 5

Why we picked VidCruiter

VidCruiter is known chiefly for video interviews, but the platform also offers a solid ATS solution and Quick Apply, a hit feature with both TA teams and candidates.

PROS

  • VidCruiter can be fully customized to meet specific recruiting needs.
  • Easy to use for both job seekers and recruiters.
  • Works on all devices. No app installation is needed.
  • Quick Apply feature lets candidates apply directly from Indeed and LinkedIn and auto-syncs the candidate's info to the user’s existing ATS.
  • Dedicated client success manager, 24/7 applicant support,  phone, email, and live chat.
  • Scalable and customizable — users pay for what they need and can purchase more features as they grow.
  • Robust pre-recorded and live video interviewing with advanced automation.
  • Browser-based, so it works across devices without installing apps.
  • Available for recruiters in eight languages and supports job seekers in dozens more.
  • 24/7 live agent support, assigned account manager, and on-demand training.

CONS

  • Some users reported that implementation was time-consuming
  • Advanced search and technical skills testing features within the assessment module leave room for improvement.
  • There is no trial version, and no price is listed on their site.
  • Screenshots of VidCruiter (one of the best ATS software) Showing Different Features of their ATS
  • Because the product is feature-rich and highly customizable, the implementation phase can be time-consuming.
  • Advanced search and technical skills testing features within the assessment module leave room for improvement.
  • No free or trial version.
  • Undisclosed pricing.
Screenshots of VidCruiter (one of the best ATS software) Showing Different Features of their ATS

VidCruiter Review

VidCruiter has been a significant player in the video interviewing software market for years, but the platform is less well-known for its ATS. However, our research proves the ATS is robust enough to be listed among other top vendors in the space.

The platform balances the needs of those on both sides of the interview pipeline. TA teams are well-equipped with highly customizable features like job posting, pre-screening, interview scheduling, and real-time reports, and applicants are met with a user experience that was clearly designed with them in mind.

For a glimpse of team culture, vision, and values, users can build a custom career site that delivers a branded digital experience to candidates. The site editor is simple to use, and in our in-house testing, we managed to set everything up without help from the IT or VidCruiter support team. One feature of note: when a candidate accesses a career page supported by VidCruiter, the platform automatically generates recommendations for jobs available near them.

Quick Apply benefits both employers and candidates. With this feature, TA teams can rev up the hiring process without implementing a new ATS, so it’s perfect for teams on a budget. It is also helpful for those counting down the hours left on an ATS contract they don’t plan to renew. The platform offers job seekers the convenience of applying directly from portals such as LinkedIn and Indeed.

VidCruiter Customers

VidCruiter is used by over 100,000 recruiters, including Lowe’s, Lionsgate, Samsung, Bears, US Foods, and the United Nations.

VidCruiter Pricing

The price varies based on company specifications, so contacting the vendor directly for a quote is best.

Best For

VidCruiter is a perfect ATS for large companies (U.S.-based and otherwise) hiring 100+ people annually. At the same time, the VidCruiter Quick Apply tool is an excellent pick for smaller companies that want to streamline their hiring process without going separate ways with their current ATS.

VidCruiter in action
Reviewer's Rating
8/10

Our team uses the software for both live and pre-recorded interviews with candidates. For the most part, we use the pre-recorded function with candidates, allowing them to record themselves answering questions that we have predetermined for their interview. Following their interview, our team spends one day a week, going through all of the applicants that had recorded an interview to be able to quickly make decisions on who we would advance to the next round.

Additionally, within the system, we leveraged a custom rating scale to provide a consistent experience when reading candidates. This really helped our team when considering applicants and measuring them all against the same criteria.

What do you like about this tool?

1. Overall, the ability to offer both live and recorded interviews.

2. The cost of the offering was very reasonable compared to its competitors.

3. The customer service you are able to receive from them when needed on demand is wonderful. They’re very responsive usually within a matter of just a couple of minutes.

Why did your organization buy this tool, and how long have you used it for?

My organization was looking for a way to screen applicants for an initial interview in an effective and efficient manner. Knowing that, we started exploring options for video interviewing both pre-recorded and live.

Through our research, we identified VidCruiter as an option and ultimately was the one that we implemented. We added their software during the pandemic and have used it since. It’s been a great help, and really reduced our screening times through recorded interviews as we have been doing a large amount of hiring.

What do you dislike about this tool?

1. The company is based out of the country, which was not a preference of our organization for security and compliance reasons.

2. Overall, the functionality of the system, as a whole, was a bit more limited than some of its competitor's offerings.

3. The branding of the offering was a little outdated, and wasn’t as modern as some of the alternative options we considered.

How is this tool different than their competitors?

Overall, their offering is reasonably priced software that can be used to accomplish the goal of conducting live or recorded interviews with candidates. 

Many of the other offerings were much more expensive than what we were able to pay. It’s easy to use and the responsiveness of the customer service team is exactly what we needed. Some of the alternatives had much longer wait times in comparison, which we didn’t want to deal with.

It allows us to accomplish exactly what we need without paying a high price and without making our process super complicated for candidates, which we appreciate.

What Instructions should people think about when buying this type of tool?

Overall, really determine at the start what you need a software for to help your process. If you are only needing it for basic functions, like conducting a live or recorded interview with candidates, you may find that there are some vendors that offer functionality way beyond that, which may be more than you need.

As a result, this means the price tag of those offerings could be significantly higher, more than you can justify, or are willing to pay. Once you’ve identified what you need and can pay, it really helps narrow down the list of vendors that you can move forward with.

How has this tool changed or evolved over time to meet users needs?

One of the biggest improvements our organization has experienced in working with them is that they built integrations with other systems that now make our process really smooth.

For example, we utilize Workday for our HRIS and their software integrates smoothly. This wasn’t something we had at the beginning of our experience as a customer, but now have it and it’s really helped become a seamless transition from one software to the next.

What specific type of user or organization is this tool very good for?

Great for an organization that doesn’t need all the bells and whistles, but that needs an offering that can do basic functionality like live and recorded interviews with candidates. So ideally, the best fit would be for a small or medium size organization.

If you are a large organization, you likely want more personalized branding, a modern look and feel, and a more robust offering than what they can offer.

What specific type of user or organization would this tool not be a good fit for?

Very large organizations that want robust functionality, customization, and all the bells and whistles of a product offering. Their product has all the standard functionality that you may want out of an offering, but it is pretty foundational rather than an offering that goes over and above what you would normally need.

Rippling

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Rippling
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Popularity Score
4.2 / 5
User Score
4.2 / 5
Product Score
4.1 / 5

Why we picked Rippling

Rippling is known for its uniformly solid platform, so after test-driving their newly updated ATS module, we weren’t surprised to discover it’s intuitive to use, intelligently built, and succinctly integrated with their HRIS environment.

PROS

  • The transition from candidate to employee is nearly seamless, with minimal manual data transfer.
  • Mobile app for recruiters on the move.
  • Candidate-friendly with no account creation required.
  • Intuitive UI and intelligent workflows.
  • Job board integration.
  • All-in-one platform for employee management + PEO services offered, and even a suite of other IT products 
  • With 500 integrations, it’s very likely that they integrate with other key tools from your tech stack.
  • Operates globally with any currency
  • Workflow automation
  • Analytics opportunities
  • Provides a holistic view of company outflows—headcount costs included

CONS

  • Not offered as a standalone product
  • US-centric but globally focused-updates are in the pipeline.
  • Users report occasional issues with the mobile apps.
  • Some users report that customization options are limited.
  • Total buy-in to Rippling is essential 
  • Very SMB-oriented, in case you’re a larger company. 
  • New features tend to be buggy in ways that tech teams are not accustomed to fixing

Rippling Review

Ripplings ATS offers intelligent, intuitive workflows built into dozens of features and automation.

Typically, when an HRIS adds an ATS to their suite, it’s a half-hearted afterthought. Many are perfunctory, underpowered, and easily out-classed, even by mediocre standalone ATS platforms.

But Rippling has built a reputation based on solid product choices, and this one is no exception.

Their ATS is fully built out and offers a feature set that would be a viable standalone product if it weren’t so nicely intertwined with the rest of the Rippling platform.

Based on what’s included, it is clear that they’ve considered the candidate's experience. Little touches, like text messages to connect with candidates, show they know that personal preferences matter.

Another nod to the candidate experience (and what you can learn from it) is the abundant, customizable, anonymous surveys. Rippling recognizes the connection between their public reputation and their candidate experience.

Even with all these candidate-focused features, Rippling hasn’t lost touch with the needs of the people who will use their product most: busy TA/HR teams hiring for SMBs and startups.

Though demand generation is still on the roadmap, elements of their recruiting feature are laudable. It automatically integrates job boards like LinkedIn, Monster, and Zip Recruiter.

Finally, mobile access is a nice touch for busy recruiters, and their open API partnerships with vendors outside their platform leave little to be desired.

For years, companies have had to choose between the superior performance of standalone ATS solutions and the efficiency and security of all-in-one platforms. With Rippling’s ATS, companies who chose the all-in-one solution no longer have to rely on an external ATS.

Rippling Customers

Bank of America, Motorola, Citigroup, Inc., Dwell, Superhuman, Expensify, Checkr

Rippling Pricing

Rippling pricing starts at $8 per user per month for HR Unity, but the ATS is made available on a higher tier plan (HR Cloud) with undisclosed pricing.

Best For

Though the platform itself and the ATS module are used most by companies with 25 to 150 employees, it can support the needs of much larger teams.

Rippling in action
Reviewer's Rating
10/10

We use Rippling for single sign on, benefits admin, FSA/HSA, time and attendance tracking, PTO requests and more. We also use Rippling for payroll, onboarding/offboarding, compliance and tax, IT device management and more.

What do you like about this tool?

Rippling is a one stop shop for our employees. We enjoy the ease and flexibility of the tool. It is also highly customizable to our needs. Payroll processing is straightforward. It takes care of all the compliance, reporting and tax matters we have. The customer support is exceptional and I always get to speak with a real agent when I have a question.

Why did your organization buy this tool, and how long have you used it for?

To bring a single source of truth and information hub to the company, we implemented Rippling. We've had Rippling in place since January of 2022. We wanted a tool that supports single sign on, benefits admin, time and attendance tracking, PTO requests and more. We also use Rippling for payroll, onboarding/offboarding, compliance and tax, IT device management and more.

What do you dislike about this tool?

Paying for workflows was a surprise. In order to create custom workflows or approvals you have to upgrade your package.

How is this tool different than their competitors?

Rippling truly offers everything you might need. You can pick and choose the features and services you'd like to have, which I appreciate. As a smaller business, we don't need every feature, but we use quite a few and we are very satisfied with what they offer. They also integrate with several other tools which makes it easy to keep all of your platforms connected and speaking to one another.

What Instructions should people think about when buying this type of tool?

What are you trying to solve for your company? Make a list of ways an HRIS could simplify your life, for employees, managers and HR. Look at what tools you currently use and see if Rippling could replace those. Or if those tools could integrate with Rippling.

How has this tool changed or evolved over time to meet users needs?

They add new capabilities all the time. They now have a global payroll feature so you could pay all of your contractors and employees from one place. They have headcount planning features now. They also offer compensation banding.

What specific type of user or organization is this tool very good for?

Rippling is good for companies of all sizes and stages. It could be used to manage a team of 15 or a team of 50,000. It is flexible and customizable. I can't think of a company Rippling wouldn't be good for.

What specific type of user or organization would this tool not be a good fit for?

Spark Hire

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Spark Hire
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Popularity Score
4.4 / 5
User Score
4.8 / 5
Product Score
4.8 / 5

Why we picked Spark Hire

Spark Hire has packed a massive framework for analytics into a program that looks very simple. The product is easy to navigate and appeals to hiring managers with scarce time and attention.

PROS

  • Data analysis dashboard and features are top-tier. 
  • Efficiency-focused elements, like one-way video interviews, are great for busy TA teams.
  • Collaboration is enabled by features that offer pipeline transparency to multiple stakeholders.
  • Data analysis dashboard and features are top-tier. 
  • Efficiency-focused elements, like one-way video interviews, are great for busy TA teams.
  • Collaboration is enabled by features that offer pipeline transparency to multiple stakeholders.

CONS

  • No free trial version.
  • Some users require more customization than what is offered. 
  • No caption or translation features in video limits access for some candidates
  • No free trial version.
  • Some users require more customization than what is offered. 
  • No caption or translation features in video limits access for some candidates

Spark Hire Review

Spark Hire enables truly collaborative hiring, and that's no easy task. All top-tier ATSs are equal parts powerful and pleasant to use. Spark Hire goes beyond that by providing features that appeal to the entire hiring team, encouraging collaboration across roles, and, ultimately, better hires.

One feature that demonstrates this is the interviewing interface, which provides an impressive amount of context at a glance. Without shuffling papers or trying to manage a dozen open tabs, the candidate’s info, including their position in the pipeline, is organized thoughtfully in a single dashboard. The interviewers can directly add their thoughts and impressions to the platform in real-time.

We asked our colleagues with the most recruiting experience to weigh in, and they were most impressed with the analytics dashboard. Spark Hire stands out, with notable strengths in data quantity and quality. For example, if a candidate withdraws from the process, it records the point on the pipeline at which they dropped out. This may seem obvious, but it’s a rare find.

Recruiting Empowerment was also emphasized during our demo. Our writers are all familiar with the relentless dedication it takes for TA teams to keep their heads above water, so we know the value of seamless automation. This ATS knows where digital assistance can help and where a human touch is needed.

Spark Hire Customers

6000+ including Fiverr, Monday.com, Sodastream, Vimeo, KPMG

Spark Hire Pricing

Spark Hire’s ATS pricing starts at $250/month.

Best For

Spark Hire is the right tool for small and medium-sized companies. The platform is made to grow alongside scaling companies, but small teams holding steady with a minimal headcount are likely to pay for features they don’t use.

Spark Hire in action
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Trakstar Hire

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Trakstar Hire
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Popularity Score
4 / 5
User Score
4.3 / 5
Product Score
4.1 / 5

Why we picked Trakstar Hire

Trakstar Hire is highly customizable. The ATS provides a single plan that includes all its features without limits, making it an excellent choice for mid-sized businesses.

PROS

  • Highly customizable workflows that make navigating the hiring process easy.
  • Unlimited job posts.
  • Management must-haves are built-in, letting users create offer letters and collect e-signatures without integrating with other tools.
  • Trakstar Hire’s recruitment workflows are highly customizable. You can edit them as needed to reflect your company’s hiring process. 
  • You can post as many jobs as needed with Trakstar Hire without any limitation. 
  • Trakstar Hire has offer management tools built-in. Users can create offer letters and collect e-signatures within Trakstar Hire without needing to integrate it with third-party tools.

CONS

  • Limited integration options with third-party HRIS and payroll solutions.
  • All-or-none plan: customers may pay for features they don’t use.
  • No free trials. Undisclosed pricing.
  • Trakstar Hire has limited integration options with third-party HRIS and payroll solutions. 
  • Several users have complained about being unable to sort candidates and search results in an order other than displayed.
  • Trakstar Hire isn’t a scalable platform; they have a single plan, all features included, which means customers may end up paying for features that they don’t need. 
  • Trakstar doesn’t publically list their pricing nor allows visitors to create trial accounts directly from the website, which is unusual for a software solution aimed at mid-market companies.
Screenshot of Trackstar Hire (one of the best Applicant Tracking System) Showing Tasks on ATS Dashboard

Trakstar Hire Review

Trakstar Hire (formally RecruiterBox) is a web-based ATS for midsize companies. Our experience navigating the platform was quite positive. The platform supports unlimited job posting on multiple job boards and social media sites. Users can sponsor those listings for maximum visibility and receive resumes through customizable application forms.

We especially liked that customizing the workflow takes just a few clicks. They’ve done a great job balancing ease of navigation with numerous features and configurations available.

Trakstar Hire’s automation stood out as we tested the tool. Once resumes are in, the platform parser automatically extracts candidates’ details and creates profiles in seconds.

The offer management feature is well-made. We especially liked the offer letter templates that were ready to send after just a few tweaks for personalization: end-to-end, we created a mock template in less than 5 minutes. It also manages e-signatures without third-party integration.

However, when the need arises to connect to a third party, Trakstar Hire’s integration abilities are a relative letdown.

They have covered some of the critical basics with the following apps: Namely, BambooHR, Slack, Checkr, QuickBooks, PandaDoc, G Suite, and Outlook/Office 365 Calendar, but we hope more integrations are in the works!

Trakstar Hire Customers

Makita, Couchsurfing, Lonely Planet, Untappd, Quality Ironworks.

Trakstar Hire Pricing

Trakstar Hire has one plan that includes all of its features without any limits. The pricing is custom, depending on the headcount.

Best For

Trakstar Hire’s current feature set and pricing structure makes it best suited for medium-sized businesses that hire regularly.

Trakstar Hire in action
Reviewer's Rating
8/10

We use Trakstar Hire for tracking applicants, compliance, job postings, record keeping of applicants, central database for info sharing internally with hiring managers and hiring teams. HR staff can also easily communicate with employees.

What do you like about this tool?

I like that it is intuitive and easy to use. The fact that it's an all-in-one database that houses compliance, record keeping, communication internally and externally, is a real winner and very helpful.

Why did your organization buy this tool, and how long have you used it for?

We were looking for a tool that solves recruiting related compliance. It also needed to include storage capability. Sharing internally was a factor. Another was intuitiveness and ease of use. Compatibility with our performance appraisals was a plus as well.

What do you dislike about this tool?

I dislike that you have to download documents when you only need to view them. It would be nice to be able to just have it open in a new window. There are a few other glitches like this that I wish the company would address.

How is this tool different than their competitors?
What Instructions should people think about when buying this type of tool?

For people that are trying to solve many things with an applicant tracking tool, an all-in-one system like Trakstar is a really nice perk to hav

How has this tool changed or evolved over time to meet users needs?

They do facelifts to their interface pretty regularly.

What specific type of user or organization is this tool very good for?

HR people will love this tool, and organizations that hire in teams would find it very helpful

What specific type of user or organization would this tool not be a good fit for?

I don't think anyone would hate this tool but it probably would be less broadly used if only HR people use it and not anyone else in the company

Avature

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Avature
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Popularity Score
4.1 / 5
User Score
4.4 / 5
Product Score
4.2 / 5

Why we picked Avature

We’re big fans of customized workflows and attention to user experience, and Avature’s platform is a blend of ATS and CRM that strikes the right balance between both.

PROS

  • A full-fledged ATS with built-in video interviewing, management features, and onboarding solutions.
  • It also has a CRM, allowing TA teams to increase candidate engagement and plan for future hiring.
  • Avature leverages AI with talent matching and candidate ranking.
  • The recruiter mobile app supports offline use.
  • Avature’s solution is quite comprehensive. They have a full-fledged ATS with built-in video interviewing, offer management and onboarding solutions. They also have a CRM, allowing TA teams to amp up candidate engagement and plan for future hiring. 
  • Avature leverages artificial intelligence with features of automatic talent matching and candidate ranking. 
  • Avature comes with a recruiter mobile app that allows key stakeholders to perform several recruiting tasks while on the go. The app also supports offline use, and syncs with the system the next time it’s connected to the Internet.

CONS

  • Undisclosed pricing. No free trials.
  • The UI can be confusing and takes some time to get used to.
  • The assessment feature is quite elemental compared to other similar platforms.
  • It lacks a built-in reference-checking feature, so users must pay for and integrate third-party solutions.
  • Avature’s pricing is not readily available on their website. They also do not offer a free trial.
  • Several users noted that the UI isn’t intuitive and takes some time to get used to.
  • Avature’s assessment feature is quite basic and isn’t built out enough compared to point solutions in that space. So if you want to test the skills and cultural fitness of candidates, you’d need a third-party solution.
  • Avature doesn’t have an automated reference checking feature built-in. The platform does integrate with third-party solutions that facilitate reference checking, but you’ll have to purchase those solutions too separately.
Screenshot of Avanture Applicant Tracking System Dashboard Showing Active Jobs and New Candidates

Avature Review

The Avature platform allows users to customize dashboards set up automated workflows, and leverage the power of an all-in-one ATS + CRM.

We got some hands-on experience with the tool, so we asked our colleagues with the most recruiting experience to test the limits of its purported customizability.

The results? This tool is easy to tailor to your company’s processes and goals. During our test run, we quickly built unique recruiting workflows for individual roles or entire departments.

The platform operates through a no-code interface that allows non-technical users to modify the system (with lots of permissions in place). While this level of detail may be overkill for smaller organizations with simple needs,

This is a premium tool for large teams. Those that operate at a global enterprise scale will get the most out of Avature.

Avature Customers

More than 6,500 companies use Avature. This includes Shell, Cisco, L'Oréal, Mondelez, Siemens, and KPMG.

Avature Pricing

Avature pricing is custom, so contact their team for a quote.

Best For

Avature best serves enterprise-scale companies, especially those that operate across international borders.

Avature in action
Reviewer's Rating
7/10

Applicant tracking and onboarding.

What do you like about this tool?
  • All in one and easy-to-use ATS
  • Seamless integration with other platforms.
  • Great customer service.
Why did your organization buy this tool, and how long have you used it for?

When I worked for EY, we used it along with Taleo. Avature functioned well as a candidate repository and applicant tracking tool. Personally, the UI could be better (it took too many steps to complete a simple task).

What do you dislike about this tool?
  • The UI makes it hard to navigate menu items. It takes too long to complete a simple onboarding.
  • The system went down a lot causing delays and disruptions in workflow.
  • Avature’s service offerings didn’t wow me like a Workday or SAP SuccessFactors
How is this tool different than their competitors?

I didn’t notice much of a difference. The one thing that I really liked was it integrated with Taleo which EY used for onboarding candidates

What Instructions should people think about when buying this type of tool?
  • Functionality: can it be customized to optimize your workflow?
  • Cost-effectiveness: is it worth all the additional bells and whistles?
How has this tool changed or evolved over time to meet users needs?
What specific type of user or organization is this tool very good for?

Avature fits both an everyday recruiter/HR professional and its platform can be utilized by any sized business.

What specific type of user or organization would this tool not be a good fit for?

A mom-and-pop shop wouldn’t benefit from Avature.

JazzHR

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JazzHR
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Popularity Score
4.5 / 5
User Score
4.3 / 5
Product Score
4.5 / 5

Why we picked JazzHR

This platform is built with the small business in mind. When testing it, our writers were impressed at how easy it was to set up and use “out of the box,” which is a clear sign of its simplicity, attention to user experience, and understanding of the down-to-business mentality of most SMBs.

PROS

  • Affordable pricing, no user limit, and a 21-day free trial. 
  • Built-in features for offer management, including templates and DIY options.  
  • Emphasis on automation for those in the pipeline shows dedication to candidate experience.
  • JazzHR is quite affordable and doesn’t place any limits on the number of users added. It also offers free, 21-day trials that anyone can sign up for. 
  • JazzHR has built-in features for offer management. You can choose from existing offer letter templates or create your own and share them with successful candidates
  • You can automate triggers for candidates to be automatically notified via email when their application has moved a stage further in the hiring process. Several other email responses can be automated.

CONS

  • No free version for orgs with minimal needs.
  • A few users thought reports could be more customizable and easier to create.
  • No mobile apps.
  • Some users reported a learning curve with JazzHR's UI and that it took them some time to get used to it
  • For a product geared towards SMBs, it lacks a free plan. We mention this as a con since other SMB-geared recruiting products do offer free-forever versions, which puts JazzHR slightly behind the competition.
  • Several users have mentioned that the reporting feature is difficult to use with very little room for report customizations. 
  • JazzHR currently lacks a mobile app, and the browser version isn’t well-optimized for mobile use.
Screenshot of JazzHR ATS Showing Candidates on Their ATS dashboard

JazzHR Review

We like how simple it is to post and syndicate jobs across portals, and we love the upfront pricing on the website. Many customers start with JazzHR’s lowest-cost plan, and as their needs expand beyond basic features, they often upgrade incrementally. Being able to select features as needed keeps spending under control.

Because they do not offer mobile apps, our product testing included a considerable amount of time with our phones in hand, navigating the mobile web environment. We were impressed with how well it could manage the tasks a recruiter does on the go, like sending out a quick reply in the 15 seconds you have before your next meeting.

However, at least among our in-house recruiter veterans, the consensus was that complex tasks should be saved for the desktop version.

One of our writers shared this real-world story from a former job with a tiny company: they signed up for a free payroll software trial before they were actually ready to buy. They used the software for a couple of weeks just to get a sense of the basics of how to run payroll; then, they ended their relationship with the company.

Of course, we don't recommend this - but we know how hard it is to run an SMB. So, along with JazzHR, which we DO recommend, we suggest getting creative with your professional development!

JazzHR Customers

JazzHR is used by over 6,500 businesses, including the Seattle Seahawks, L'Occitane En Provence, TED Conferences LLC, and Chick-fil-A.

JazzHR Pricing

JazzHR has three plans. When paid annually:

  • Hero costs $49 per month.
  • Plus costs $239 per month.
  • Pro costs $359 per month.

Best For

JazzHR is built for organizations with 5 to 500 employees and works exceptionally well for TA teams with little to no experience.

JazzHR in action
Reviewer's Rating
10/10

I use JazzHR as my interview guide and to share my feedback with other key parties. When I launch the interview guide it will guide me through great questions to ask and allow me to type in their responses and rate what I thought about their response. When you interview dozens of people, your feedback begins to run together after a while. I like that the guide also gives me some direction and consistency in the interview process. I don't have to try to guess what questions to ask and ensure I'm being fair. I also use JazzHR to send offer letters and allow the applicants to e-sign. This makes tracking the hiring process so much easier than completing it manually.

What do you like about this tool?

I like how user friendly it is. I like that you can make offers within the software and track the status of them (have they opened it, have they signed it etc). I like that you are able to see the history of applicants so you know if they have applied previously or at other properties of your organization.

Why did your organization buy this tool, and how long have you used it for?

We bought JazzHR as a means to streamline our hiring process. We had so many hands in the pot, without solid communication and it was a mess! JazzHR is a one stop shop for the hiring process. The interview guide allows you to view questions to ask, and actually provide the answer you were given so that when you are meeting to discuss applicants you can simply pull up the interview notes in a seamless way. You no longer have to wonder who the candidate spoke to, what the feedback was, or even if they've applied previously. You can vote on applicants as a team to get the consensus of who the ideal candidate will be. I have personally used JazzHR for 2 years.

What do you dislike about this tool?

I truly do not have any cons for JazzHR.

How is this tool different than their competitors?
What Instructions should people think about when buying this type of tool?

Ideal criteria would be ease of access, workflow logistics, is it ideal for my organization size\type. You want your software program to be able to sustain the task at hand. Can you reach someone for support when needed? Do you have 24 hour support? If not, how long do you wait? How long would my ROI take? How quickly can a user complete the process from start to finish? These are all things to consider when buying these types of products.

How has this tool changed or evolved over time to meet users needs?

They have sped up the hiring process via JazzHR. Now you can post to dozens of job boards in one click just like that! They have replaced the outdated system of hiring that once existed.

What specific type of user or organization is this tool very good for?

Property Management is the area I have used it. We have to hire for over 200 apartment communities. Corporate offices for sure. Large Businesses, Mid size businesses, small businesses.

What specific type of user or organization would this tool not be a good fit for?

None really. Even small offices could benefit from JazzHR because it is cost effective. They have plans as low as $49\month, which would likely be affordable for even the smallest businesses. Even if you are a one man operation, you can use JazzHR to keep up with your notes on applicants.

iCIMS

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iCIMS
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Popularity Score
4 / 5
User Score
3.9 / 5
Product Score
4 / 5

Why we picked iCIMS

iCIMS, is a massive, global presence serving large companies with high-volume talent managemt needs, so isurprise it operates in more than 70 languages. Still, we are impressed with the attention to user needs demonstrated by the massive toolset.

PROS

  • A powerful recruiting solution that can handle high-volume hiring of up to 50,000 candidates.
  • The reporting feature is robust and retrieves data accurately.
  • iCIMS is constantly expanding its roster of integrations with third-party products. Currently, 300+ and rising, including Workday, SAP, SuccessFactors, ADP, Oracle, and UKG.
  • iCIMS is a powerful recruiting solution that can handle high volume hiring of up to 50,000 candidates.
  • The platform is constantly evolving through developments and acquisitions, giving users more features.
  • The reporting feature is robust and retrieves data accurately. 
  • iCIMS has a growing marketplace of over 300 integrations with third-party products.

CONS

  • The UI is complex and dated compared to other cloud-based recruiting products.
  • Customer support is sometimes slow and only available by phone or ticket—no live chat support.
  • Though packing many features, it lacks automated reference checking.
  • No transparent pricing and no free trial.
  • The cost of implementation and integration is relatively high compared to other recruiting solutions.
  • A significant number of users complained about the UI’s complexity and that it looks dated compared to other cloud-based recruiting products.
  • Customer support is slow at times and only available through phone and by creating a support ticket online - no live chat support yet 
  • The platform packs an overwhelming amount of features yet still lacks some useful capabilities such as automated reference checking.
  • No transparent pricing or free trials, and according to several users, the cost of implementation as well as integrations is high compared to other recruiting solutions.  
Screenshot of iCIMS Applicant Tracking System Showing Candidate Scores, Hiring Manager Feedback and Job Report

iCIMS Review

iCIMS ATS is feature-rich and well-suited for large, multilingual organizations and high-volume agencies. Users can create custom-branded career sites, employee-generated testimonial videos, and personalized email or text campaigns through the platform.

In addition to externally-focused features,iCIMS facilitates users in promoting existing employees through internal mobility programs. This is especially relevant in the context of enterprise scale, as is their global support and industry versatility. This platform is used by businesses operating in healthcare, manufacturing, technology, retail, and more.

The takeaway from our demo and hands-on testing is that although this tool offers an astonishing number of features, it’s somewhat difficult to operate. This is reflected in user reviews, too. Remember that our writers scrutinize HR tech all day, so we tend to be sticklers for good design and intuitive UI. However, for some, no sacrifice is represented using a tool that looks and feels a little clunky.

iCIMS Customers

iCIMS has over 4,000 customers, including Ulta, Target, Microsoft, PwC, Uber, and UPS.

iCIMS Pricing

Pricing is undisclosed – custom quotes only.

Best For

iCIMS is best for global enterprises and recruiting agencies with high-volume hiring needs.

iCIMS in action
Reviewer's Rating
2/10

We used iCIMS daily for tracking communication with applicants and posting roles on multiple job boards. The key workflows we used were for the hiring process, automating outreach, and onboarding.

What do you like about this tool?
  • I enjoy the number of job boards available and integrations.
  • I also like their reporting tools.
  • I liked the company portal customization options.
Why did your organization buy this tool, and how long have you used it for?

We decided to switch to iCIMS for a more robust applicant tracking system. However, we only used it for a few months because the customer support was horrible and the system itself was very complex and not easy to use.

What do you dislike about this tool?
  • I dislike the clunky, overwhelming design.
  • I also do not recommend their customer support.
  • The setup of workflows is also complicated and it is not common sense to find options on the platform.
How is this tool different than their competitors?

I prefer other options as iCIMS is not user-friendly in my opinion.

What Instructions should people think about when buying this type of tool?

The need for reporting tools. The customization options. The integrations.

How has this tool changed or evolved over time to meet users needs?

It has not changed.

What specific type of user or organization is this tool very good for?

A large corporation.

What specific type of user or organization would this tool not be a good fit for?

A small organization

Teamtailor

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Teamtailor
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Popularity Score
4 / 5
User Score
4.3 / 5
Product Score
4.1 / 5

Why we picked Teamtailor

Known for ease of use and exceptional customer service, this platform is excellent for startups and SMBs looking to create custom career pages that make a strong impression on candidates. It supports anonymous hiring and internal referral programs and streamlines nurture campaigns to meet current and future hiring needs.

PROS

  • iOS and Android apps.
  • Simple and quick drag-and-drop features to build custom sites.
  • Features anonymous recruitment and EEO surveys to support DEI.
  • Responsive and knowledgeable customer support team.
  • Free trial and unlimited job postings, candidates, and seats for all plans.
  • Teamtailor’s ATS comes with a robust career site builder that’s also easy to use. It works with drag and drop - no coding knowledge necessary.
  • Teamtailor backs several features that support diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI), including anonymous hiring, equal employment opportunity (EEO) surveys, etc..
  • ‍Teamtailor is highly rated for their ease-of-use. It’s quite simple to post and promote jobs through their platform.
  • ‍There is really in-depth and intuitive help documentation for this solution

CONS

  • The analytics function could be more customizable.
  • Limited to ATS-specific features with no tie-ins to other core-HR functions. 
  • The customization and video interview features are limited.
  • Undisclosed pricing.
  • Teamtailor’s analytics are good, but enterprise clients need to use BI Connectors to build the reporting they need.  Right now, you can’t sport data from the system.  This is particularly important for companies with 500+ employees, or those who have many different locations or franchises.
  • ‍Analytics doesn’t allow recruiters to see their cost per hire, which is a really impactful metric
  • ‍While they offer integrations with HRIS, onboarding, etc - they have focused on just being a really good ATS now.
  • There are predefined user access levels, but you cannot define your own user access levels which is important, especially for the largest companies.
Screenshot of Teamtailor Applicant Tracking System Showing My Jobs, To Do List and Other Updates.

Teamtailor Review

Teamtailor stands out for its affordability and built-in employer branding features. This makes it an excellent fit for startups and SMBs trying to build their brand and headcount.

Most small teams need some help making themselves stand out to attract talent. There are countless approaches to this, but we like in-house custom career sites because they serve two essential purposes: they introduce the brand and can be fine-tuned to appeal to the talent demographic you’re hoping to hire. That is a win/win without allocating funds to marketing!

When assessing the platform, we especially liked the drag-and-drop features. Specifically, we were impressed with how quickly we could mock up a career site using super-intuitive workflows. It took less than five minutes from start to finish. That’s not bad for someone with zero technical experience!

The free trial is also a highlight, and we were impressed with the simplicity of setting up a nurture campaign to keep the talent tool engaged.

Some users experienced technical hiccups with integration, but most reported that customer support was able to address the issue quickly.

Teamtailor Customers

Kry, Goodbye Kansas, Vitamin Well, Ponsse, Daniel Wellington.

Teamtailor Pricing

Teamtailor’s pricing is custom-based on business size and requirements, but users report a base plan of around $3,000 annually.

Best For

Teamtailor works best for startups and SMBs (50-400 employees) that need a straightforward ATS coupled with employer branding functions.

Teamtailor in action
Reviewer's Rating
7/10

The main use for Teamtailor has been to add a careers website to my organization which allows me to externally advertise and manage open vacancies in the most engaging way possible.

I also use it for existing team bios, which do a good job of attracting prospective candidates, as it allows them to get an understanding of what kind of people we hire. Employees can create their own bios, and can even add gifs to make it a little more engaging!

On the backend of the system, I am able to track and monitor traffic to each job vacancy (external and internal) I have open, all in one place in a sales pipeline-like view, which allows me to drag and drop candidates along the process from application, review, interview to offer stage.

What do you like about this tool?

User experience is great; it's fun, modern, and engaging. It has a real Gen Z energy, which is attractive!

It's a really quick and easy way of adding a careers page and ATS, there is no need to build anything manually - which is a huge money and time saver!

It brings personality to your business by enabling you to showcase your team.

Why did your organization buy this tool, and how long have you used it for?

We were looking for a tool that was an ATS as well as a way of attracting candidates and maximizing our employer brand. If you're looking to add a careers page to your website, Teamtailor is a brilliant way of doing this in a quick, easy, and effective way. Teamtailor can bring personality to your organization by allowing you to showcase your existing team members to prospective candidates, with personal bios and even Instagram-esque stories. I've used Teamtailor for the last couple of years.

What do you dislike about this tool?

Overall Teamtailor is an excellent platform, but its functionality can be quite simple at times. For example, there is an interview kit tool with scorecards, but the customization here is quite minimal and limited to interview questions. It would be great to see an addition to add role-specific tasks.

How is this tool different than their competitors?

Other ATS tools are quite frankly, boring. Teamtailor is engaging, modern, and attractive - it's straightforward in its set-up, meaning that anyone can use it. Whereas, other tools on the market are complicated, plain, and jargon-heavy.

What Instructions should people think about when buying this type of tool?

As with most HR tools, I think businesses should first consider whether they have the internal resources to implement and maintain Teamtailor, that being said, it is one of the least high-maintenance ATS software on the market.

Businesses should also consider whether or not they already have a careers page, as even if they want the ATS, the careers page will come with it and could serve as a duplicate, so that's also something I would suggest checking before committing.

How has this tool changed or evolved over time to meet users needs?

Teamtailor has evolved to meet users' needs, particularly in terms of enabling integrations with platforms like Bob, DocuSign, and even Snapchat.

What specific type of user or organization is this tool very good for?

Teamtailor is great for in-house recruitment teams and hiring managers, and would suit a small to medium business, as well as a business at enterprise level (over 1000 employees).

What specific type of user or organization would this tool not be a good fit for?

Teamtailor isn't a great option if the business isn't hiring.

SmartRecruiters

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SmartRecruiters
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Popularity Score
4 / 5
User Score
4.2 / 5
Product Score
4 / 5

Why we picked SmartRecruiters

Encompassing solutions beyond the standard candidate sourcing, assessment, and engagement features, SmartRecruiter is an enterprise-grade talent acquisition suite that provides native collaboration and AI-driven functionality.

PROS

  • Candidate assessment, skill testing, and offer management are built-in, so need for add-ons or integrations.
  • Enables easy posting to multiple job boards, integrating social media tools, and facilitating internal recruits.
  • Friendly with mobile devices.
  • SmartRecruiters has a built-in candidate assessment and skill testing module that allows you to predict cultural fit, future performance and retention, without needing to integrate third-party solutions. 
  • SmartRecruiters provides features for offer management. You can create offer letter templates, share them with successful applicants, and collect their e-signatures from any device using SmartRecruiters’ DocuSign integration.
  • Speaking of integrations, SmartRecruiters has pre-built integrations with over 500 HR solutions and job boards. You can also ask SmartRecruiters’ team to build additional integrations for you if it doesn’t integrate with products in your tech stack.

CONS

  • Undisclosed pricing.
  • No free trials.
  • Users have reported a steep learning curve and that the UI takes time to get used to.
  • Features like candidate filtering, report customizations, and KPI tracking are limited.
  • SmartRecruiters’ pricing isn’t transparent. Interested users have to go through the sales team to receive a quote. Users are also not able to create trial accounts on their own. 
  • Users have reported a steep learning curve and that the UI takes time to get used to. Some users have also reported that the system can be slow and glitches at times.
  • The reporting feature doesn’t always retrieve data accurately. Some users have also complained that report customizations and KPI tracking capabilities are limited.
  • Candidate filtering is quite limited. As it stands, only basic options such as degree, location, gender etc are provided.
Screenshot of SmartRecruiters Applicant Tracking System Showing Candidate Applications and Their Status

SmartRecruiters Review

SmartRecruiters ATS is built to serve mid-size and large businesses. The platform allows you to cast a wide net with customizable career pages, targeted ad campaigns, and job post distribution to multiple job boards. It also provides features for candidate assessment and offer management.

One unique fact our evaluation uncovered is that SmartRecruiters encourages customer feedback and rapidly integrates suggestions into the product. That’s an excellent reputation to have, and it’s in keeping with a key element of their business model: SmartRecruiters aims to enable their customers to attract talent. It follows that they would want direct feedback from their users on how to do that best.

The downside of this platform applies mostly to smaller businesses. It’s not cheap, and the scope of its feature set means that it’s complex to set up and use. These factors are less relevant to larger businesses, which are more likely to use all the features and have time and money to spare for integration and implementation.

SmartRecruiters Customers

More than 5,000 companies, including Ikea, Visa, LinkedIn, Equinox, and Skechers

SmartRecruiters Pricing

SmartRecruiters ATS has custom pricing, and so do the other products of the system.

Best For

SmartRecruiters works best for medium and large-sized businesses.

SmartRecruiters in action
Reviewer's Rating
9/10

As a recruiter in my organization, I rely on SmartRecruiters to handle the complete recruitment process from beginning to end. One of the key features of SmartRecruiters is the ability to post job openings on various job boards in a matter of a few clicks. Once the job gets posted, I can manage the entire hiring process from within the platform, including scheduling and conducting phone interviews, reviewing resumes and applications, and moving candidates through different stages. of the hiring process such as scheduling in-person interviews.

As the hiring process progresses, SmartRecruiters provides a dashboard view that allows me to track the status of each candidate, from initial application through to hiring. When a candidate has been selected for a position, SmartRecruiters also make it easy to generate and send offer letters directly from the platform.

Overall, SmartRecruiters has proven to be an invaluable tool for managing the recruitment process efficiently, keeping track of candidate information, and ensuring that the hiring process is smooth and streamlined.

What do you like about this tool?

I like SmartRecruiters as it offers a comprehensive and integrated platform for recruitment needs, which helps in streaming the hiring process. The user interface is intuitive and straightforward, allowing users to quickly navigate and access different functionalities.

One of the key benefits is its ability to connect with leading national job portals, which widens the pool of potential candidates and increases the chances of finding the right fit for a position.

Moreover, the platform offers a centralized candidate database, allowing recruiters like me to easily manage and maintain candidate information throughout the hiring process. The lifecycle management feature makes it easier to track a candidate's progress from the initial application to hiring, reducing the risk of overlooking any important steps.

Another amazing feature of this tool is its ability to draft and present offers within the platforms, making it more convenient to manage the hiring process from start to finish.

Overall in my opinion, SmartRecruiters offers a user-friendly, efficient, and integrated recruitment solution that can benefit both recruiters and candidates.

Why did your organization buy this tool, and how long have you used it for?

Our organization used SmartRecruiters to make the hiring process easier and better. SmartRecruiters is an HRIS that helps our organization post multiple job openings, keep a track of people who have applied to those jobs and keep a track of the whole hiring process.

With the help of this tool, HR managers and recruiters were able to save time and effort by posting job openings in many job portals at one time without having to go to different portals and post jobs one by one.

The tool also helps the HR team move candidates through different stages of the hiring process, so they can see who is the most qualified for the open job positions and make good decisions. The tool can also show different reports about the hiring process, like how many people have applied, so the organization can see how to make it better.

Our organization has been using this tool for almost one year and being used by different people in the organization, like managers, HR heads, recruiters, and senior management without any hassle.

What do you dislike about this tool?

SmartRecruiters doesn't allow integration with many applications, and their support team is not very responsive and is unwilling to make changes. They seem content with their current clients, as many big companies are already using their product and their support team is not willing to work on the new changes requested by the users.

How is this tool different than their competitors?

SmartRecruiters stands out from other recruitment software by providing a platform that is easy to use and can be linked with both big and small job portals. It also offers a database that makes it easy to keep track of potential hires. With these features, SmartRecruiters can help recruiters save time and resources, making the hiring process more efficient. SmartRecruiters' ability to connect with various job portals and organize candidate data sets it apart from other recruitment software.

What Instructions should people think about when buying this type of tool?
  • Before buying recruitment software like SmartRecruiters, there are some important things to consider.
  • Firstly, think about how many people will use the tool and which industry they work in. This affects which features will be most helpful.
  • Secondly, check whether your team is skilled enough to use the tool, as some tools are harder to learn than others.
  • Finally, think about how long you will need the tool. SmartRecruiters offers discounts for yearly models, so that might be worth considering.
  • By keeping these things in mind, you can choose the right recruitment software for your needs.
How has this tool changed or evolved over time to meet users needs?

SmartRecruiters has improved over time to meet the needs of their users. They have done this by adding new job portals, especially local job portals that are popular in different countries. They have also made their platform more affordable by offering discounts with yearly plans. Finally, they are working on integrating new applications into their platform, which will make it more versatile. By doing all this, SmartRecruiters is able to better meet the changing needs of its users.

What specific type of user or organization is this tool very good for?

SmartRecruiters is good for IT and Software companies, or any company where employees use technology for sourcing and recruitment process.

What specific type of user or organization would this tool not be a good fit for?

SmartRecruiters should not be used for organizations where employees do not use technology for the recruitment process like Warehouse and Distribution companies.

What are the Benefits of an Applicant Tracking System?

An ATS's primary benefit is optimizing your hiring process by allowing your talent acquisition team to increase their efficiency through streamlined workflows versus using spreadsheets. These tools can also be quite impactful. Our applicant tracking system statistics blog shows that 94% of recruiters believe using ATS software has positively impacted their company's hiring processes.

Features like employer branding, analytics, customized workflows, and many others play a part in the optimization process.

  • Employer Branding: A top ATS will help your organization create and manage a custom career site to help your company stand out. Whether you work from a template or create your own from scratch, your career site can attract top talent by showcasing your best features, and with integrations with networks like LinkedIn, reaching an audience is easy.  A custom career site offers an unparalleled employer branding opportunity, whether it’s culture, job perks, company mission, or core values.
  • Talent Pools: The best ATS software can save time and money by maintaining already-sourced candidates. If you maintain occasional contact with a pool of qualified candidates, your recruiting process doesn’t start from zero each time you open a new role.
  • Hiring Managers and Employees: Rather than relying exclusively on your HR/TA teams for recruiting, the best ATS software will also include your hiring managers and employees as part of the process. Referrals, feedback on job candidates, and social media can all be leveraged to fill open positions.
  • Hiring and Onboarding: An ATS can do more than streamline recruiting; it can work wonders for onboarding. A good first impression sets the stage for employee engagement and, ultimately, retention, so it’s critical to make the onboarding process onboarding employee-focused, timely, and effective.
  • Analytics: An effective hiring process is data-driven. Your ATS dashboard can make your team more effective, process-focused, and efficient. With good ATS software, recruiter productivity, cost per hire, cost for job boards, cost for paid media, time to hire, and numerous other points of interest will be available at your fingertips.
  • Cloud-Based Solution: As shocking as it seems, some HR teams still aren't taking advantage of cloud-based architecture. Generally speaking, a cloud-based platform's cost and product benefits outweigh the edge case uses for on-site hosting.
  • Customized Workflows: With the right ATS, your TA team can custom-build a recruiting process that perfectly fits your needs. Bespoke workflows can result in highly efficient and effective hiring, so look for an ATS that can customize and automate tasks like application processing, screening, and collecting feedback. Customized workflows are especially helpful for companies hiring from very different candidate pools. If, for example, your team is hiring both truck drivers and software engineers, you can bet these workflows won’t be interchangeable.

If you’ve come this far, you're clearly serious about buying a new ATS. Let’s keep that momentum going! Feel free to talk to one of our HR Tech Advisors about what system you should look at.

You can also check out our ATS buying organizer spreadsheet, made in-house with Google Sheets and hard-won TA know-how. It offers a basic framework, and numerous resources, including our popular sample demo questions. You can simply download it or use it in Google Sheets. We hope it’s helpful!

If you're a small business looking to streamline your hiring process, our guide on the best ATS for small businesses is an essential read.

Pro Tips on Applicant Tracking Systems

How To Choose The Best ATS System for Your Business?

This article mainly covers product specifics, but the advice in this section takes on big-picture considerations.

  • Buy More than Applicant Tracking: Look for applicant tracking software with as many features as you can afford and will use. An ATS that can schedule interviews, manage employee referrals, and parse resumes will lighten the load on your HR/TA team, leading to increased efficiency. According to Zach Larson, “The ATS should make it simple for the HR team to identify trends and be a strategic partner for the business.” The value of a strategic perspective from your HR team is well worth the cost of a feature-rich ATS.
  • Get the Inside Scoop on Your Hiring Process: Talk to your hiring managers, employees, and recruiters to understand what weaknesses they see in your hiring process. Buying a new ATS should involve all stakeholders across a given employer.
  • Think Long Term: This is a tool you’ll use for several years, so consider possible futures. While investing in a system to meet your current needs is important, trying to anticipate the future is critical given how hard these tools are to replace over time (migrating tons of candidate data, different workflows for different types of job recs, etc). Beyond the capacity for the platform to scale up as you grow, Tracie Marie suggests buyers should pay attention to the company’s “continued efforts for improved resume parsing, integration capabilities, and enhanced video interviewing capabilities.” Many platforms offer each of these features to some extent, but be sure to assess their commitment to developing them.
  • Understand the Roadmap: It’s important to understand a company’s product roadmap, how impactful those features will be, and the company’s track record of delivering on that roadmap. Ask the sales rep specific questions relevant to your business needs. A sales rep may not know the answers here, but they can get a flavor from their colleagues in Product. You can also see glimmers of where they are going in their content marketing/blog. Pushing the importance of candidate experience and employer branding? They will probably have a very refined career site builder.
  • Focus on Individual Features: Understanding the intricacies of one ATS can be daunting, but comparing and contrasting dozens of features offered by products on your shortlist can be overwhelming. We advise taking a step back to evaluate precisely what you need. Once you have created a list of ten or so, pick three to five must-have features to refine your choices. Some examples of must-haves we've seen are: native API-driven integration with employee onboarding module in HRIS, relevant job board integrations, and automated candidate communications.
  • Look at ROI: Historically, ATSs were thought to manage only two functions: workflow management and legal compliance. But modern applicant tracking systems do much more. They can drive ROI through talent sourcing and recruitment marketing (job post distribution, and smart distribution via programmatic ad buying) capabilities, they often integrate seamlessly with other HR Tech, and they lighten the load for your HR/TA teams.

Simply put, a best-in-class ATS can drive value from employer branding to employee onboarding. This is an especially critical point (and investment opportunity!) for companies that want a competitive edge in tight labor markets.

What is the ROI of a Top ATS system?

Build a case for your new purchase. Our ROI guide will help you to build a robust business case to get the budget you need.

It covers:

  • Subscription fees and one-off costs
  • Increases in recruiter productivity
  • Changes in the hiring funnel
  • Decreases in time to fill

We highly recommend you watch the video to understand best how to use this spreadsheet! It's a bit complex, but the video will help you understand it.

ATS Pricing Models

Here's a simplified overview of the most common pricing models. Each establishes a price based on a “per unit of X” model.

For a more in-depth look, check out this guide to ATS pricing.

  • Per hires, job postings, or applicants: We like this “use more, pay more” model because it’s straightforward with a 1:1 ratio between use and cost. The value you get from an ATS system is clearly greater when you hire more, so a company that hires 200 people each year should pay less than one that hires 2,000.
  • Per number of employees: Some ATS software charges are based on your headcount. In this case, “use more, pay more” applies to employees who can participate in the recruiting and hiring process. The premise is that candidates hired from referrals (often via social shares) tend to close quickly and have low rates of attrition.
  • Per seat: Some ATS platforms charge based on the number of people using the software, which can make the choice tricky because admin access needs tend to change over time. This model is often chosen by small teams that hire slowly.
  • Per features: When an ATS offers features that exceed the typical functionality of an ATS, they often base the cost on those features. Products like these straddle the line between ATS and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). CRM software (not to be confused with a CEM) is built to handle much more than hiring. Far more robust than a typical ATS, a CRM includes features like a large-scale analytics package.

Pro Tips:

  1. Beware of hidden costs! ATSs sometimes charge for integrations with the HRIS software you already use. This kind of unexpected expense could drastically increase your annual spending.
  2. Prices are negotiable! Ask for a startup discount, or find the wiggle room in a multi-year contract. Learn how to navigate this space: get a legal perspective on multi year contract negotiation, or check out our guide on how to get the best possible price on HR tech.

How Much Do Applicant Tracking Systems Cost?

Here are some guidelines on pricing based on company headcount. This information is intended to help you get a general sense of ATS pricing. Keep in mind that ATSs come in all shapes and budget sizes. Here we provide mid-range samples for reference.

Where did we get this data? It was (partially) from people like you! To help HR teams better understand their options, we crowdsource data on ATS pricing.

Our short, anonymous survey only takes about two minutes to complete, and anyone participating will be given access to the entire data set. Click here to help out the community!

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES ESTIMATED ANNUAL COST
0-100 $2,500
100-250 $10,000
250-500 $15,000
500-1,000 $22,500
1,000-5,000 $50,000
>5,000 $125,00+

What Are the Key Features of a Top ATS?

  • Open API: Almost without exception, the top ATSs are built with robust, open APIs and a substantial network in their “partner ecosystem”.

An open API (Application Programming Interface for the over-achievers among us) connects the ATS platform to the software you’re already using. You should aim for seamless integration, meaning the ATS should be ready to interface (connect to, plug in to, play nice with) with whatever software you use for hiring.

Because it’s a major selling point, “open API” should be easy to find on their site. Look for “partner ecosystem” to understand how easy your integration (connection process) will be. In this case, partners refers to two products made by different companies that can partner because of their open APIs.

For the tech-averse whose comfort level is not quite at the “let’s discuss APIs” level, here is a piece of advice: keep asking questions. If a vendor doesn’t have time to help you understand their product from the ground up, they are probably the wrong vendor.

  • Video interviews: Virtual meetings save time and can substantially increase the number of candidates you assess.  Look for platforms with built-in video interview modules or those that can integrate with one of the top video interview platforms.
  • Sourcing: The top ATSs include dynamic features like Google Chrome extensions that allow you to source candidates directly from the web. You’ll also find databases of job seekers that you can query for specific skills and outreach tools that will enable you to build sequences that engage candidates through email and texting.
  • CRM (Candidate Relationship Management): Because it’s an essential talent management feature, CRM is a popular type of software available as a stand-alone system and a feature you’ll find included in many ATS platforms.

The CRM feature nurtures your relationship with your entire job-seeker ecosystem, whether active or passive. It helps your TA keep leads warm by setting reminders to ping individual candidates (“silver medalists”) or to check in periodically with larger candidate pools. Structured communications and automated workflows help maintain good relationships and free up your TA team’s time.

  • Blind Screening: This is an effective method used to control for hiring bias, which is a foundational element of all D&I initiatives. ATSs with a blind screening feature obscure the candidates' names, photos, addresses, and other demographic identifiers to prevent assessments based on non-relevant characteristics.
  • Employer Branding and Career Site: Modern applicant tracking systems are built with the candidate's experience in mind. Making a good first impression is critical, so top ATSs include features to build and maintain a bespoke career site. With a bit of help from your marketing team, your ATS can create a distinctive, bespoke, on-brand career site.
  • Data and Analytics: Any ATS worth its salt has a basic analytics dashboard. The best (and often the most expensive)  ATSs also incorporate a powerful analytics engine to make light work of your heaviest statistical loads. Before you buy, be sure your needs can be met with what the tool can do.
    Consider your relationship with internal and external stakeholders as you evaluate this feature. When called upon to demonstrate the efficacy of your hiring process, your ATS can be your source of truth.
  • Interview Scheduling: ATS software that is focused on recruitment automation will include scheduling for everything from phone screens to final-round interviews. This can save your HR coordinators a ton of time (and endless scheduling errors!) and may even mean you can redeploy talent towards more strategic roles such as full-cycle recruiting.
  • Offer Letters: Automated distribution of offer letters is a standard ATS feature. Most platforms offer templates that can easily be customized for each offer presented to each potential hire.
  • Onboarding:  An onboarding feature helps ensure that the transition from candidate to colleague is as smooth as possible. Few ATSs offer onboarding features because this process is so dissimilar to the core functions of the platform. That said, if the ATS you’re looking at doesn’t offer one, it should at least integrate with software that can handle the onboarding process.

The above features are highly specific and intended to help buyers and decision-makers make swift, categorical decisions. However, some critical aspects of ATS performance and functionality can’t be summed up so easily.

Our guest expert, Zach Larson suggests buyers consider the following three basic elements: First, consider how well the product will respond to market challenges. Second, estimate the quality of candidates based on the ATSs sourcing methods, and, last but not least, involve your TA team in the process. Your internal stakeholders must be on board with your choice.

ATS System Vendor Demo Questions

Essential questions for vendors:

  • Is there a bi-directional API to share information between this system and my HRIS?
  • How does this ATS help my recruiting efforts beyond capturing candidate information? For example, will it allow me to pipeline candidates, source, boost referrals, etc.?
  • How does this system improve the candidate experience?
  • What is your partner strategy, and do I have to pay to integrate my other recruiting tools?
  • What metrics do you focus on to prove the effectiveness of this solution, and where can I see these in my analytics dashboard?
  • Can I speak to my future customer service rep about implementation and how exactly your organization will be involved?
  • Walk me through the candidate experience.
  • Can I store candidate profiles in this system in a way that is searchable for future candidate sourcing?
  • Walk me through how recruiters post jobs, vet applicants, and leave feedback.
  • How do employees outside of HR interact with this ATS?
  • Do you have social recruiting capabilities?
  • We use {{XYZ indispensable recruiting tool}}, do you integrate with it? If yes, how?
  • What is the onboarding process after we buy this solution? Ask for specific steps and who in your org needs to be involved.

If this isn’t enough, we have compiled more than 300 questions to ask vendors while shopping for an ATS.

This sizable collection is the result of approaching the buying process from many angles. This cross-functional array includes questions recruiters should ask, questions for hiring managers, questions for accounting, and more.

300+ is obviously too many questions, but we recommend you use the list for its educational value: it will help you get your bearings, and you can take a handful with you on your first few product demonstrations.

Checkout our Free ATS Buying Course - All Done Via Email

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About ATS

More Advise On Selecting The Best Applicant Tracking System For Your Use Case

  • Understand your business: Understand your business: Identify the specific needs your ATS needs to meet. For example, a Global Fortune 500 company requires a hefty enterprise solution supporting multiple languages, transcontinental jurisdictions, global payroll, etc. These features would be a waste of money for a U.S.-based SMB wanting to bump up its headcount by 30 people by the end of Q2. The right solution for the SMB (some ATSs cater to SMBs) would be wrong for a five person startup whose needs can be met with the least expensive, most bare-bones tool available, like a free ATS.
  • Create a shortlist: You can use our reviews or other sites like G2 or Capterra to determine which ATS vendors you want to look at. You may also want to ask peers at similar companies what solutions they're using.
  • Ask for live demonstrations: When you have narrowed your list down to five or so options, make a date with their sales team for a live product demonstration.
  • Come prepared: Show up with questions and be ready to take excellent notes. Ask them to describe the implementation process. Ask for details about integrations between the software they’re selling and your current HR tech stack.

Be sure you get an end-to-end demonstration of key workflows that your team will use frequently, like posting jobs, scheduling interviews, etc.

  • Get internal stakeholder buy-in: The apparent benefit of cross-department input is matching your ATS tool with your hiring needs. But there’s more: those involved in the selection will be more invested in the ATS implementation process, and, most importantly, your budget will only be approved if you have achieved buy-in from those who oversee spending.

HR teams generally focus on skills that do not involve presenting a business case to a CFO. If you’re unsure of yourself, use this simple formula to prepare a short presentation.

Be sure to cover three core points:

  1. Why this is an important purchase 
  2. How it will impact their lives 
  3. How it will impact your organization

Include examples specific to your business and be ready to provide some numbers.

  • Finalize your vendor: Finalize your vendor: After you've done all the demos and seen your shortlist in action, it’s time to narrow your list down to one.

Before you move forward, ask yourself if the people you interacted with are people you want to work with. Human factors and checklist items are equally important, so remember how you were treated throughout the process. You should feel you can trust the person on the other side of this transaction. If you have doubts, consider reevaluating.

  • Negotiate the price: Any price can be negotiated. When settling on a price, hold the position that you should always get compensated for giving something up. For example, if you give up flexibility by signing a longer contract, you should get a price break.

Pro Tip: Buy software at the end of the month or quarter as you can get good deals at this time.

  • Implement like a pro: Follow your account manager's advice. They are economically incentivized to help you succeed. In fact, their bonus depends on it!
  • Reflect: After a big project like this, set aside time to evaluate your process and outcomes. What surprised you? What went well? What could be improved? Take it all in, document it, and try to do it better next time.

What Is The Difference Between An ATS And An HRIS?

An ATS (applicant tracking system) is the core operating software for your recruiting team that deals with hiring records. In contrast, your HRIS (Human Resource Information System) is the core operating system of your human resources team and deals with employee records.

Why Is An ATS Used In Recruitment?‍

An ATS is used in recruitment to make the end-to-end hiring process easier. ATSs were initially designed for large corporations managing thousands of job applications every week. The use of software dedicated to specific purposes has become part of our everyday lives, and so has the ubiquity of the ATS in small and medium businesses. Teams of all sizes, with various hiring needs, can benefit from a tool that increases efficiency by streamlining tasks.

How Do Applicant Tracking Systems Work?

Applicant tracking systems act as a liaison between an employer and an applicant. Once an application is submitted, the ATS extracts and stores the candidate’s work experience, education, and contact information in a database. HR teams use the database to review applications, communicate with applicants, schedule interviews, and sometimes administer skills tests.

How To Buy The Best ATS System?

  • Know your needs: Get clear on the specific needs your ATS must satisfy. Meet with vendors and watch demos only after you are absolutely sure of your current ATS requirements and confident of your future forecast. Don’t agree to anything less (or more) than exactly what you need.
  • Two-for-one ROI analysis: Anyone who’s ever fallen flat in the CFO’s office knows this analysis is crucial for getting buy-in from internal stakeholders. However, being CFO-ready with an ROI report offers some additional assets you may not have considered.

First, the process will refine your thoughts on why and how an ATS is an essential purchase for your team, which will lead to more clarity on which features to prioritize.

Second, your model can become something of a journal. If you revisit your analysis periodically, it can serve as a record of where you were right and wrong, and this reflection will help refine how you think about allocating a budget for future decisions.

  • Consider the context: Modern ATSs come with standard features that were once unimaginable or at least completely out of reach for all but the biggest and most successful companies. The evolution of the ATS has a paradoxical twist: as the sophistication of ATS platforms has increased, the cost has decreased.

This means that capabilities like sourcing, CRM, talent re-discovery, and even  top-rate analytics capabilities are readily available to most.

The catch? It’s a complicated landscape with hundreds of vendors and thousands of feature options.

Another twist? After reading this article you’re essentially an expert now!

About Us

  • Our goal at SSR is to help HR and recruiting teams to find and buy the right software for their needs.
  • Our site is free to use as some vendors will pay us for web traffic.
  • SSR lists all companies we feel are top vendors - not just those who pay us - in our comprehensive directories full of the advice needed to make the right purchase decision for your HR team.

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