2024 Best Recruitment Marketing Platforms to Attract Top Talent

We can see why fast-growing companies in competitive industries like tech, automotive, and retail pick SmartDreamers out of several other tools in the market. One strong reason is its versatility. It’s likely you’ll find anything you need to execute your recruitment marketing strategies within this platform: Running job ads on Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Reddit, TikTok, and Instagram, career pages, email marketing campaigns, retargeting, and analytics—SmartDreamers houses them all in one place. Better yet, despite being multi-tasking as it is, this recruitment marketing suite is surprisingly easy to work with.

It’s no secret that creating ad text takes work, especially when you do multi-channel marketing, so we can imagine the sighs of relief coming from recruitment marketers as they see SmartDreamers introduce its AI content assistant.

There are two ways to get help from this AI as you launch a recruitment advertising campaign: either adding keywords to the campaign or selecting a job from your connected ATS. In our test, we went for the second option. Based on the job description and social channels we chose, the AI crafted the ad text for each platform. The more detailed guidelines we provided the AI, the better it got. Specifically, you can ask it to use a certain tone, change the text’s length, or even translate it into other languages. Not to mention, the availability of attentive customer service plays a big role in making everything go smoothly.

Unfortunately, unless you’re using SAP, Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, or SmartRecruiters as your ATS, some technical groundwork is required with your dedicated CSM (given you’re on either of the two higher-tiered plans of SmartDreamers) to integrate ATS data with this tool.

Though you mostly get what you pay for with SmartDreamers, we can’t help but be disappointed with the fact that the base plan doesn’t provide career pages—a typical feature offered by nearly any recruitment marketing option in this buyer guide. And, since SmartDreamers is entirely focused on recruitment marketing, you won’t find features like candidate sourcing and job matching (offered by Eightfold) or referral tools (as with Manatal).

AdsWizz, Renault, Genpact, and UiPath are some of SmartDreamers’ customers.

There are three pricing plans:

• Essential: Features include social media ads, analytics, landing and career pages, ATS integration, and a detailed Academy.
• Professional: Adds job board automation, advanced analytics, Google Analytics integration, A/B testing, custom forms, and multiple teams.‍
• Enterprise: Adds niche website automation, ATS reports integration, custom reporting, CV import automation, custom career pages, and a dedicated account team.

Manatal’s strengths as an SMB-focused recruitment solution quickly became apparent during our evaluation of the platform.

First is its affordability. With competitive pricing and a generous 14-day free trial, any team can easily explore Manatal. Navigating the software is dead simple so if you’re familiar with how an ATS functions, you’ll likely need minimal training to get used to Manatal. Read the self-help knowledge base, and you’ll be good to go. Organizing applicants is especially easy, thanks to the drag-and-drop-enabled pipelines.

Our research uncovered strong positive feedback about Manatal’s career sites from both hiring team members and candidates. The career pages used to support only English and Spanish, but they are now available in many more languages, including French, German, and Portuguese. You can tailor the company’s name, logo, URL, and application forms and turn on or off the referral program for each opening. You can even set up email automation to get in touch with referees and applicants after they refer candidates/apply.

As with other robust ATS and recruiting CRM, Manatal automates several steps in reaching, engaging, and following up with potential hires. The customization level is pretty good, with multiple options for variables and formats. Once the campaign is aired, Manatal starts tracking its overall performance and presents critical data points on its dashboard so users can have a quick look. However, pre-built email templates and email scheduling are what this recruitment tool is lacking, and unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like Manatal will act on them any time soon.

10,000+ organizations, including Unilever, Coca-Cola, Panasonic, Ogilvy, and Toyota, have used Manatal.

Manatal has four plans, including three with fixed prices. The detailed costs are as follows (annual bill):

• Professional: $15/user/month for 15 jobs, 10,000 candidates, unlimited guests.
• Enterprise: $35/user/month for unlimited jobs, candidates, and guests.‍
• Enterprise Plus: $55/user/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.

For us, the biggest plus about TalentLyft is its career site editor. Without any coding knowledge, you can singlehandedly design a good career site using drag-and-drop editor and text fields. Even better, the editor lets you build a complete multi-page multimedia website.

It's also pretty straightforward to create new job vacancies using this recruitment marketing software. You can choose which fields are optional or required, request resumes and cover letters, and even add screening questions.

Another cool feature is that TalenLyft’s recruitment workflows come with a set of triggers for each step you can tweak to meet yours. After setting up actions, you can just sit back and then watch the candidates move through the pipeline.

However, TalentLyft likely won’t live up to your expectations for its sourcing capabilities if you’re after deep learning algorithm searches and advanced filters for niched roles (e.g., tech, healthcare) like SeekOut or Loxo offer. Its sourcing is rather basic in comparison. But, if you are willing to look past that part for the sake of affordability, this software is worth looking at.

TalentLyft’s monthly pricing starts at $40.83 for two active jobs and packs quite a load of features: job board, reporting, branded career pages, chrome sourcing extension, and a referral tool. There’s personalized onboarding support to help you get started as well.

Unfortunately, we notice there have been multiple bad reviews from users about the technical glitches they encountered using TalentLyft, like emails sometimes going missing or the search function not always working.

KPMG, Raiffeisen Bank, and Erste Bank are some of TalentLyft’s customers.

TalentLyft offers two plans:

• Starter starts at $40.84 per month for two active jobs and includes features like job board syndication, interview kits, scorecards, reporting, branded career pages, unlimited users and pools, chrome sourcing extension, and an employee referral program.‍
• Pro starts at $82.50 per month for two active jobs and includes everything on the starter package plus workflow automation, a custom domain for your careers site, custom fields, multiple recruiting pipelines, and a dedicated account manager.

Users are allowed to change their plans based on their present needs and preferences. TalentLyft also offers a 14-day free trial.

For enterprise-level recruitment marketers, overlooking existing candidate pools can be a costly mistake. So we’re glad to see Eightfold has paid close attention to that when designing its recruiting CRM.

Eightfold talent CRM is more than a run-off-the-mill tool. Using this candidate relationship management tool, you can have targeted drip campaigns for specific segments of your talent pool scheduled and delivered within minutes and at scale.

The reporting dashboard provides real-time insights on how your engagement efforts have been working and is pretty easy to tweak as you’d like. Presented metrics are detailed but not overwhelming like with some other enterprise HR tech we’ve reviewed.

Beyond recruitment, we’d also highlight Eightfold’s skills development tools as we believe upskilling your workforce is equally as important as attracting new staff. Eightfold’s training plan and content can be tailored to employees' skill sets and interests. The mobile app is also very user-friendly—newly onboarded employees could easily find their way around the app with minimal or no prior instructions.

It’s no secret that Eightfold is more expensive than most of its competitors and is favored by corporations and staffing agencies with huge candidate databases. Unfortunately, though, a mobile app for recruiters and hiring managers is not available (the app we mentioned earlier is for employees to access their skills training).

While Eightfold’s career pages and built-in tools for internal engagement and talent mobility are undoubtedly helpful, we sympathize with those wishing the platform would offer solutions for programmatic job advertising and external outreach.

Eightfold’s client list includes prominent enterprises like TATA Communications, LG, Vodafone, Bayer, Chevron, and Morgan Stanley.

Eightfold's pricing plans are not disclosed on its website. Contact their Sales team for a custom quote.

Avature’s candidate engagement and career sites are among the most robust we’ve seen in the market.

Let’s begin with its career sites. Being on par with other robust ATS like Greenhouse and BambooHR, Avature’s career sites are mobile optimized and function as fully branded landing pages with content-rich multimedia microsites that are SEO-friendly from the get-go.

Similarly, inside the Avature landing page builder you can set up tailored event registration and talent community pages with a few clicks—no developer skills are needed. The ability to cater content to page visitors’ locations, preferred languages, and job search history truly elevates job seekers’ experience on the page.

Avature’s email marketing also deserves a mention. In addition to an ever-growing email template library, you have the freedom to build and manage it your way. If you’re familiar with email marketing tools like Mailchimp, you’ll find Avature’s engagement features a blessing. With powerful audience segmentation, scheduling features, condition-based actions, and A/B tests, you can easily experiment and find out which message works best for each candidate group.

That said, there are a few drawbacks to Avature. Like almost any other enterprise-focused recruiting CRM, Avature doesn’t publicize its pricing. This vendor also does not offer a free trial.

Considering the vast number of features the solution offers, you should also keep in mind that the platform's user interface is not the most intuitive.

Avature might not be the best bet in case you’re aiming for a recruitment marketing tool with great candidate assessment capabilities, either. The platform’s assessment feature is quickly catching up to other players in the space, but it still lags behind in terms of sophistication. Automated reference-checking is another element missing from the software.

Cisco, L'Oréal, Mondelez, Siemens, and Specsavers are some of Avature’s customers.

As with most enterprise-level solutions, pricing is not provided upfront by the vendor.

There are three main reasons why we think Symphony Talent truly takes the cake for self-optimizing advertising campaigns. First is that, before advertising any opening, the system always checks for relevant candidates in the existing database. This is a great help for large firms and enterprises to utilize their big talent pool.

The second reason lies in its proprietary machine learning. The AI is really smart at suggesting keywords and channels to target for each open job. It can even bid and budget based on the user’s targeted goals.

What impressed us most, though, was the sophisticated CSM behind co-monitoring and supporting each of the user’s advertising campaigns. Symphony Talent has built one of the best in-house expert advisor teams in the field. We emailed the team three times—early morning, lunchtime, and evening—and the response time was never longer than 30 minutes.

When it comes to candidate engagement, Symphony Talent reminds us of Phenom. With drag-and-drop workflow design, segmentations, and if/then logic, this tool makes reaching and engaging with hundreds of candidates with speed and authenticity a can-do.

Unfortunately, Symphony Talent’s reporting feature is pretty disappointing. The system can be slow when prompted to produce data and analytics on campaigns.

We should also warn you: Symphony Talent can be a bit pricey for small businesses. Designed with enterprise-level customers in mind, the software isn’t very flexible when it comes to its prices. CRM, assessments, and programmatic job advertisements—all of its tools are packed in one package, which leaves you with two options: buy everything or nothing.

Some of Symphony Talent’s customers include Mars, Advent Health, HP, Regis Corporation, and Dick's Sporting Goods.

Symphony Talent has custom pricing.

Phenom is best known for its dynamic career sites. We love that this is taking a page directly out of the best practices of eCommerce to drive more conversions. 

Try landing on a Phenom-made career site, and we’ll bet you will enjoy your time there as much as we did. It’s not just got an eye-catching design but was also fun to navigate. Algorithms analyze profiles and browsing history to ensure you only see content and jobs that matter to you.

Crafting a career site in Phenom is quite straightforward, especially when you can—and should—make use of templates the system has pre-built. There are plenty of them, and many have pretty designs.

Also worth checking out is Phenom’s chatbot. The conversational AI knows how to make people’s job searches easier. From suggesting jobs to answering FAQs and scheduling interviews, the chatbot delivers in a timely manner.

Phenom’s hiring event feature is on par with Yello and Beamery in terms of ease of use, but when it comes to user experience, it truly stands out thanks to the embedded chatbot. Booth reps and recruiters preserve a good amount of time for interviewing qualified candidates as the virtual assistant takes out the work of messaging individuals and arranging interviews.

Nevertheless, we think Phenom’s reporting and customer service could both be improved. The former can take several minutes, while the latter can take days. On a similar note, setting the tool up and running takes work and patience too. To be fair, though, this is not unusual for enterprise-centered recruitment tech.

Over 500 companies (mostly international enterprises), including Microsoft, Southwest, and Honeywell, have used PhenomPeople.

Pricing for Phenom is undisclosed.

We keep hearing great things from practitioners about Yello. This talent acquisition platform covers nearly everything you need to reach and nurture candidates: Interview scheduling, candidate resume reviews, email newsletters, and online content candidates can access for tips on career success.

It’s also pretty awesome to know you’re not on your own to figure out how to make the most out of all these tools since, right after onboarding, Yello will give each customer a designated candidate growth team. They are quite hands-on when it comes to strategizing, so make sure you make good use of them!

Just keep in mind that Yello is more about early-career talent acquisition, as campus event-based recruitment is the tool’s foundation. It’s not going to be a good investment to opt for this platform if your hiring focus is for niched and highly experienced talent.

Yello can assist with planning, promoting, hosting, and measuring campus events. From managing outreach to handling logistics, check-ins, and interview scheduling, there was literally nothing we could complain about as we tested each of these features out.

That said, we are not impressed by the current shape of Yello integration. The native integration options are limited to a very small number of ATS and HRIS, and API integrations, unfortunately, do not exist.

Another thing that troubles us about Yello is the way this platform sends emails to candidates. Instead of letting users choose to send emails from their email addresses like what many modern recruitment platforms offer, Yello’s email sender must be sent from its system’s email—it doesn’t look and feel very personalized, does it?

Hundreds of companies, such as Johnson & Johnson, eBay, and Adobe, have used Yello to attract and shortlist talent.

Pricing for Yello is custom per customer’s case.

Beamery is a new entrant into this market and one of the slickest solutions available. From career sites to engagement and hiring events, the platform not only looks the part but is also configurable to multiple devices and painless to navigate through, even for first-timers.

Another thing that makes Beamery stand out is that it doesn’t just stop at enabling users to build candidate pipelines for future hiring demand. It also automatically surfaces qualified talent right when you need it. As we were testing it, it provided great candidate suggestions as soon as we added a new opening to the system.

If campaign reporting is your priority, you’ll enjoy what Beamery has to offer. This feature shows you insightful, digestible insights into which campaigns converted best and which could be improved so you can optimize further.

The keen eyes among you will also notice that not so many vendors in this space can provide customers with a native hiring event tool, a good one at that, like Beamery.

Unfortunately, its sourcing capabilities disappoint us. The Boolean didn’t perform well when we checked it out (we got a handful of irrelevant profiles using it). We weren’t happy about the current shape of Beamery’s filters either. It would’ve been understandable if it lacked advanced filters like certifications for healthcare candidates or published papers and patents for academic sourcing. Yet, the platform lacks the basic—candidates’ years of experience.

Beamery published several customer testimonials you can access on its platform, yet it doesn’t reveal how many companies it has served.

Beamery's pricing is undisclosed because it will vary according to each company's needs.

A key factor in the success of any recruitment marketing strategy is its potential reach. And Loxo doesn’t disappoint with its database, which covers 1.2 billion people from a vast range of backgrounds—among the most extensive we’ve seen.

But it’s not just the built-in database that impressed us: Loxo’s AI sourcing is also very well-developed. In fact, we’ve heard of TAs opting for this software mainly for that.

The AI makes building pipelines and automating candidate outreach simple and effective. With a few clicks, you can bulk text, email, call, or even DM talent via LinkedIn using personalized content, while all engagement activities and performances are tracked automatically for analytics purposes.

We used to complain about how Loxo missed VoIP calling and personal candidate contact data: Both of these features are now available!

In terms of pricing, Loxo now has four plans (it used to have three back in 2023), and phew! Its freebie is still alive. At first glance, the Basic plan doesn’t seem to break the bank ($119 per seat per month). Yet, a heads up: lots of prominent features like talent insights, AI-niched sourcing (e.g., healthcare, tech), and candidate ranking are locked behind its custom tiers.

Loxo does offer a mobile app. However, you probably won’t be happy with it either. We gave it a try and were disappointed with how poor it was compared to the web version in terms of both functionality and performance.

13,000+ companies, including Bank of America, Trinity Health, and Lockheed Martin, have used Loxo.

Loxo has a free plan and three paid plans starting at $119 per user per month.