Published: Nov 14th, 2023

Finding the best talent is a make-or-break challenge for any organization. You need both candidate relationship management software (CRM) and applicant tracking software (ATS) tools to streamline your recruitment process, attract top candidates, then process them swiftly through your system. Choose the wrong tools and you'll waste time and money. You may even hire the wrong talent and damage your company’s ability to perform.

Take heart. We’ve done the deep analysis and testing to find the best recruitment software on the market. The options below are affordable, full-featured, and can help you build a strong recruitment pipeline. Whether you’re looking for a simple, cut-and-dry web-based tool or comprehensive recruiting software for a more robust talent acquisition drive, you’ll find the right hiring tool below.

Let’s dig into the best recruitment software on the shelf.

What is recruitment software?

Recruitment software is a tool that helps HR teams organize and optimize their hiring process. Common types of recruiting software are applicant tracking systems (ATS) to screen and track candidates, and a recruiting CRM to manage relationships with applicants as they move through the process.

CRM most often stands for customer relationship management, but in this case we can think of it as candidate relationship management. Recruitment CRMs go a bit further than ATS because they can automate the busywork that comes with large pools of job candidates and applicants. They can also eliminate manual data entry and improve your ability to engage directly with top talent.

How to choose the best recruitment software for your organization

Every firm’s hiring needs are a little different. Large companies can have large HR teams and extensive funding to underpin their hiring efforts. Others are lean SMBs or startups who want hiring software that can free up limited staff for higher-value tasks.

While company size and hiring goals can steer your choice of software, most of the tools below combine both an ATS to help track and screen job candidates and a CRM to create a smooth experience for both applicants and your HR team. Some, like JobFairX, add a virtual job fair and interviewing platform to put your entire recruitment funnel in one place.

The best recruitment software tools

Filtering through all the available recruiting software options can be daunting. To simplify your search, we’ve collected the best hiring software, filtered by features, pricing, and review scores.

1. JobFairX: Full virtual hiring platform

JobFairX is the leading recruitment software option for virtual job fairs. Hosting over 2,000 local events in 120+ markets across the U.S., thousands of companies use JobFairX to streamline their recruiting. You can join existing job fairs attended by hundreds of qualified job seekers, or host your own custom hiring events targeted toward niche skill sets and experience.

Employers can sign up for an event, view and manage resumes, add screener questions, and conduct informative virtual interviews via video, voice, or chat. Recruiters who use JobFairX report an average 27 job offers per job fair and a 98% satisfaction rate. JobFairX will even invite qualified candidates to your job fair.

More than 3,000 start-ups, Fortune 500 companies, and accredited universities nationwide rely on JobFairX’s custom hiring events.

2. JazzHR: Full-featured recruitment software

JazzHR is a scalable web-based recruiting software solution designed to support hiring projects for organizations from SMBs to startups to enterprise and every type of business in between. Designed for customizability by company, department, and position, plans start at an affordable $39 per month, with features for job posting, employee referral management, ATS, and document storage.

Plus and Pro plans boost the price significantly to $229 to $339 per month. For the extra cost, you’ll access ATS features like knockout questions and a workflow helper, plus tools for interviews and assessments, templates, reporting, compliance, and even onboarding help.

Satisfaction scores are high, at 92% from over 3,200 analyzed reviews from users and professional reviewers. Customer support is excellent, and the platform works seamlessly, with very few user complaints.

3. BambooHR: All-in-one HR software

BambooHR starts out as a full-featured web-based recruitment software tool, but continues after the hire as an all-in-one HR software for small and medium-sized businesses. The platform collects and manages candidate data and handles applicant tracking, onboarding, attendance, time tracking, document storage, culture management, and payroll management.

You can even work directly with an HR Project Manager to help transfer your organization’s data into the platform. And if you’re wondering about their after-the-sale support, BambooHR won a 2018 Stevie Award for customer service. This time-saving recruitment tracking software gets a sky-high 90% score from the 4,000+ professional reviewers and users we surveyed.

BambooHR pricing is linked to your workforce size at around $6 to $8 per employee per month.

4. Breezy HR: End-to-end recruiting software

Breezy HR is an end-to-end recruiting software solution designed to manage the entire hiring process. It lets employers create custom pipelines for different kinds of positions. Its ATS is easy to use, with collaborative features that let team members message, schedule, screen, score candidates, and tag each other for easy consensus-building.

This versatile job recruitment software solution uses a kanban-style board where HR teams can visually track each applicant’s location in the process. You’ll get your own branded career site, postings to 50+ job boards, automated emails, background checks, and dozens of other functions. Their Talent Search tool also lets you access millions of pre-built professional profiles.

Reviews are high, with over 4,200 users and professional reviewers adding up to an 88% overall score. The price is right too, with a fairly comprehensive free forever version, and costs ranging from $143 to $399 a month depending on your organization’s size and needs.

5. Workable: All-in-one recruiting software

Workable is an all-in-one recruiting software that lets HR teams source applicants from over 200 job posting sites. You can attract candidates with custom landing pages, then manage them with an ATS and easy interview scheduling.

AI recruiter technology sifts through publicly available data on 85 million candidates in 1.3 million jobs to surface the 50 best-fit candidates for your openings. The tool also integrates with dozens of other recruiting software options for sourcing, job advertising, referrals, background checks, and video interviews, for a full library of recruitment software tools.

Paid plans come with dedicated account manager, full analytics suite, GDPR compliance, and candidate surveys. Plans start at $99 per month, with a high 88% rating from 1,200+ users and professional reviewers.

6. Freshworks Freshteam: HR, ATS, and more

For a surprisingly low price, Freshworks Freshteam delivers tools for onboarding and offboarding, HR Reports, and a full HR platform with org charts, document management, and an employee portal. A free forever plan lets you publish up to three job postings, with a basic career site and email integration.

The free plan is refreshingly full-featured, with tools for team collaboration, email applications, employee referrals, and kanban boards for recruitment tracking. Paid plans start at $71 per month plus $1.20 per employee. For the extra cost, you can post more jobs and customize your career site, applicant forms, scorecards, and hiring pipelines.

As your business grows, Freshworks can add tools for customer service, sales, marketing, IT management, and digital HR. Over 1,100 users and pro reviewers give Freshteam an 85% satisfaction rating. Users particularly like the comprehensive free version and the online recruitment software platform’s ease of use.

7. iCIMS: Enterprise recruitment and ATS software

iCIMS primarily services commercial and large global employers in the retail, healthcare, manufacturing, finance, and insurance industries. Features are incredibly robust, with an ATS, background screening, CRM, chat, branding, customizable reports, email management, employee handbooks, interview management, and well over 100 other powerful features.

Users love the endless customization and relative ease of use. However, complaints of a steep learning curve keep overall review scores at an average of 85% from over 3,800 users and professional reviewers. All plans are costly, with custom pricing between $6,000 and $140,000 annually.

8. Yello: Talent acquisition software

Yello’s talent acquisition software makes it easy to build a diverse talent pipeline and a smooth candidate experience. Recently, Yello merged with Wayup’s recruitment software for diverse candidates. Now you can use this tool to search six million candidates from 7,000+ campuses across the country. It also offers logistics tracking, results tracking, and reporting.

Collaboration features let each recruiter see all candidate engagements, cutting out redundant comms. Users like this recruiting software tool’s handy segmentation filters, bulk email features, and data storage. Some of the workflows can be challenging, hence the average satisfaction score of 80% from 2,600+ reviews.

9. Criteria Corp: Assessment tool to evaluate candidates

Criteria Corp isn’t an ATS or CRM. Instead, it’s an assessment tool that HR managers use to assess job candidates, limiting bias and making the best decision based on the most relevant information.

Criteria Corp claims jaw-dropping results, including:

• 52% increase in hiring success rates.
• 29% greater productivity among new hires.
• 25% more revenue across the company.
• 40% less turnover.

Their assessments measure candidate aptitude, personality, emotional intelligence, and job skills. Industrial and organizational psychologists validate each assessment. You can browse and use pre-built assessments for over 1,100 job types, complete with score reports and a dedicated customer success manager.

Despite a sky-high 95% rating from 2,300+ users and pro reviewers, we put this tool last on our list because of its niche offering. Be warned that tests can be a bit long, discouraging some qualified applicants. They don’t publish prices, preferring custom quotes.

Ready to start using recruitment software?

Finding and attracting top talent has always been a challenge. The right recruiting software can free up time for your internal team and lower your sourcing, recruiting, and hiring costs. The best recruitment software companies deliver both an ATS to surface the best candidates and a CRM to move them smoothly through the system, helping you efficiently increase your growing talent pool.