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15 best applicant tracking system tools in 2024 

Discover applicant tracking software tools that can help you attract, retain, and manage high-quality candidates.

Table of contents
Corus entertainment layoffs
The fall of the tech unemployment rate
Intel's financial restructuring
Google layoffs
Randstad and Monster partnership
SHRM dropped the Talent Trends Report
Operam education group acquisition
Klarna's AI-altered hiring strategy
NVIDIA becomes the world's most valuable company
Wells Fargo fires ‘Mouse Jigglers’
The Josh Bersin Company launches Galileo AI assistant
Recruitment Agency Expo 2024
Microsoft faces backlash over DEI team layoffs
5 trends to look forward to for the rest of 2024

Having been in the hiring scene for over a decade, I know first-hand that finding the best applicant tracking systems can truly make a difference. 

The right ATS can streamline your outreach and engagement workflows, enable data-driven hiring decisions, and transform recruitment into a strategic business function.

To help you out, I've rigorously tested 15 systems for their features, ease of use, and value for pricing. 

These tools really stood out to me. 

Keep reading to find the right one for your business.

Why trust my review?

With over 10 years in the recruiting industry and through my experience of building Kula ATS, I strongly believe that recruitment has shifted to play a more strategic role for organizational growth. 

This is unlike in the yesteryears—hiring was merely seen as a staffing function and candidate experiences were an afterthought. 

However, with expectations changing at both ends of the hiring table, I believe recruiters need a tool, which is a one-stop shop for all things needed for recruitment.  I firmly believe the best ATS tools are systems that do more than track hiring statuses. 

They must leverage automation and AI to help recruiters enhance candidate experiences, improve employer branding, and streamline workflows.

So, using my experiences as a recruiter and keeping in line with expectations of the modern HR, I have meticulously vetted 15 best ATS tools out of the array of choices that exist in the market.

Best applicant tracking systems at a glance

Best for Stand-out feature Pricing
Kula ATS All-in-one ATS for modern recruiting teams Interview intelligence and inbuilt AI tools Custom
Pinpoint Candidate experience Extensive customization features From $600/month billed annually
Manatal Budget-friendliness Recruitment compliance tools From $15/user/month
GoHire Small and medium-sized businesses Extensive templates for emails and job descriptions From £58/user/ month billed annually
Recruitee Team collaboration Syndicated job posting From £199 per month for unlimited users
Workable Handling duplicate applications Advanced people search From $149 per month
Greenhouse High-volume hiring Robust analytics Custom
Ashby Data-driven hiring Headcount planning tools From $300/month for 1-10 employees
BambooHR Onboarding new hires Employee management features Custom
Lever User-friendliness Candidate nurturing templates Custom
Zoho Recruit Recruitment agencies Free version available From $25/user/month
Freshservice Growing businesses Departmental workforce templates From $19/user/ month billed annually
Smartrecruiters AI recruitment Conversational AI and text recruiting Custom
Loxo Talent sourcing and outreach campaigns Extensive talent database From $199/user/month
Gem ATS Automated sequences Ethical AI for messages, queries, and search filters Custom

Finding the best ATS software: 15 top picks and expert insights

1. Kula ATS - best all-in-one solution for modern recruiting teams

Naturally, I’d put the home team on top. 

However there's more to Kula ATS than meets the eye. At Kula, we’ve developed an all-in-one applicant tracking system. You can create seamless workflows using AI and automations and free up your recruitment teams to focus on core functions across the hiring pipeline.

Why Kula ATS stands out: When doing my due diligence to build Kula, I found that most ATS solutions in the market were tailored for record-keeping purposes—like a project management tool but for HR. Kula ATS ensures that recruiters can glide through the hiring pipeline with AI-enabled interview intelligence, visual workflow builders, and automated candidate scoring features.

With our AI recruitment software, recruiters and hiring managers can discover the right candidate through advanced search features, which integrate with resume databases. Kula ATS has an automatic resume parsing feature, which allows you to upload and screen resumes in bulk. 

Moreover, you can quickly post job openings on 100+ job boards and social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter without juggling across different applications. Kula ATS also supports Google Jobs Search integration to access maximum exposure for all job postings. Export candidate profiles from LinkedIn and sync all in-mail exchanges with candidate data. 

Best Kula ATS features

  • Visual workflow builder: Streamline recruitment and minimize manual work by allowing users to design and implement complex workflows such as candidate sourcing and screening sequences, feedback collection and evaluation, and candidate engagement sequences.
  • AI-enabled Interview intelligence: Use the AI-assisted notetaker and intelligent summaries to get accurate interview details and scrutinize candidates faster and more accurately.
  • AI candidate scoring: Focus on the top 5% of qualified candidates instead of wasting time sifting through numerous resumes. The candidate scoring feature makes your hiring data-driven and eliminates hiring bias, enhancing the right candidate-role fit. 
  • Out-of-the-box career site builder: Create a career site in just a few clicks—without any coding knowledge. Draft high-converting landing pages using SEO tactics to drive organic traffic.
  • CRM and outbound prospecting: Increase response rates from passive candidates by automating the prospecting flows across email, text, and LinkedIn. Its recruitment CRM enables multi-channel automation that saves you from manual grunt work. 
  • Scheduling: Save time by scheduling interviews and providing self-scheduled links so candidates can book a time. Kula ATS also enables you to automate Slack notifications and calendar invitations.

Pros

  • Built for mid-size businesses and enterprises, it enhances the hiring team’s productivity
  • Enhances passive employee referrals
  • AI-powered features for job descriptions, interview coaching, and note-taking

Cons 

  • The pricing structure is not transparent

2. Pinpoint - best for enhancing candidate experience

I picked Pinpoint’s ATS due to one reason: the scalability it offers for small and medium-sized enterprises. From my extensive experience, I can safely conclude the ATS software can help one-man HR teams and agencies save time and improve candidate engagement throughout the recruitment process.

Why Pinpoint stands out:  I was impressed by Pinpoint’s customization. This ATS  allows you to tailor the tool to your specific needs regardless of your industry. Pinpoint offers features such as a heavily customizable career-site builder, anonymized hiring functions to promote diversity and inclusion.

I believe Pinpoint’s built-in automation can help recruiters streamline workflows from candidate's communication to interview scheduling. You can alert candidates as they move to new stages. 

Best Pinpoint features 

  • Multilingual candidate experience: Pinpoint offers candidate emails, career sites, and application forms in multiple languages. This applicant tracking system is used to hire candidates across different geographical locations. 
  • Career site builder: We consider Pinpoint’s career site builder one of its noteworthy features because it allows us to showcase our company’s core values. We could add other details, such as interview prep info and career paths, to turn visitors into candidates. 
  • Employer onboarding: Pinpoint's onboarding workflows and automation features allow new hires to transition quickly into the company. 
  • Job distribution: Pinpoint empowers you to post jobs across multiple job boards and social platforms to improve your candidate sourcing efforts without wasting time. 

Pros 

  • Attentive customer support across phone, email, and chat 
  • Highly intuitive and user-friendly platform 
  • Unlimited jobs and team members across pricing plans 

Cons 

  • No free trial or version 
  • Extra costs for employee onboarding module 
  • Limited third-party integrations 

Pricing: $600 per month 

No free trial or version 

G2 Rating: 4.6 

3. Manatal - best ATS software for budget-friendliness

I like how Manatal uses AI to suggest candidates, and enrich their profiles, generate job descriptions, cutting out the monotony of repetitive tasks. Also, Manatal enables you to browse across 20+ social and public platforms to enrich candidate data. I also like how 

Why Manatal stands out: Manatal includes a robust customer relationship management (CRM) system, a career page builder, and a drag-and-drop recruitment workflow builder to automate the recruitment process. Manatal also offers a Chrome extension to capture and store candidate data.

Best Manatal features

  • Advanced AI recruitment: Manatal provides automated candidate recommendations based on job description and candidate profile. We liked the automated candidate scoring system that helps screen candidates. 
  • Candidate tracking: This applicant tracking software enables you to create custom job pipelines, customizable candidate profiles, and custom views. With Manatal, you can enhance your recruitment process and tailor your activities to suit your hiring needs. 
  • Elaborate candidate sourcing: This software includes a LinkedIn recruiter sourcing extension, customizable career pages, and integrations across thousands of job channels. 
  • Performance management: Manatal allows you access to detailed performance reports that can help you track the progress of your hiring team against the core KPIs. We enjoy its gamified structure that makes granular insights visible, helping you enforce your hiring strategies better. 

Pros 

  • It is considered a more affordable option 
  • Intuitive interface that requires little or no support 
  • Impressive candidate search features 

Cons 

  • Customization options can be more intuitive
  • Insufficient automation for candidate engagement

Pricing: Starts at $15/user monthly 

G2 Rating: 4.8 

4. GoHire - Best ATS for small and medium-sized businesses

GoHire empowers startups, SMBs to source, manage, and recruit top talent without relying on purely manual actions. I found features such as bulk actions and tags super useful. Be it managing recruitment operations or tracking the progress of thousands of applicants, you can do all that in a single window without expensive add-ons or integrations.

Why GoHire stands out: I liked how GoHire’s core functionalities span across recruitment marketing, candidate management, and employer branding. Notably, it includes a 1-click job posting feature.  This allows posting across multiple job boards effortlessly. Plus, it provides over 700 job description templates. GoHire also enhances the candidate experience through its branded career pages and job listing widget.

Best GoHire Features

  • Recruitment marketing: GoHire helps you publicize new job openings to attract qualified candidates with its candidate search features, social media integrations, and automatic posting on Google for jobs.
  • Candidate screening: We were able to scrutinize candidates thoroughly through questionnaires, custom evaluation templates, and rating features for job seekers.
  • Video interview scheduling: With a single click, you can organize interviews for hundreds of applicants while considering the availability of your hiring team members and candidates. Scheduling interviews with GoHire enables you to sync your calendar to avoid setting up conflicting events among recruiting teams.
  • Automated workflows: GoHire supports automated messaging, bulk actions, and personalization placeholders to enhance candidate engagement. We like that this ATS software integrates easily with Zapier and Slack to help you track your hiring processes on a single platform.

Pros

  • Clean layout and interface design
  • Provides multiple templates for emails and job descriptions
  • Centralizes various aspects of the hiring process

Cons

  • The integrations are limited
  • Small businesses can find the pricing structure expensive compared to its counterparts

Pricing: Starts at £58/user/month billed annually 

Free trial available 

G2 rating: 3.3 

5. Recruitee - best for team collaboration

Recruitee’s applicant tracking system facilitates collaboration. I liked how the ATS has functionalities to involve your team members and in-house talent acquisition teams in the hiring process. For example, I can easily share candidate information, and team notes to increase collaboration and transparency. Recruitee enables you to enhance sourcing efforts, gain comprehensive evaluations, and make feedback-driven decisions without bias.

Why Recruitee stands out: Recruitee claims that its robust features can save up to 12 hours a week and structure the recruitment process to suit your organization’s needs. With Recruitee, you can find potential candidates across over 1,450 paid and free job boards. It offers a CareersHub feature where you can display job listings with little to no technical knowledge.

During the interview stage, Recruitee becomes particularly valuable.  You can access screening questions and schedule interviews seamlessly, thanks to integrations with popular video interviewing tools. Additionally, it lets us store candidate information in talent pools to communicate future openings, so that you need not always reach out to unaware applicants each time. 

Best Recruitee features 

  • Customizable pipelines: I was impressed with its Kanban-style visualization that makes creating pipelines with custom views, filters, and stages easier. This gives you a more holistic view of the recruitment process. It also enables you to automate emails, evaluation requests, and other manual functions, allowing you to focus better.
  • Chrome extension sourcing: This extension allows you to add candidate data to your existing data from platforms like GitHub, Dribbble, and Xing to the applicant tracking system.
  • ReferralsHub: You can easily gain more employee referrals using Recruitee to expand your talent pool, reach more qualified candidates, and increase employee involvement in the hiring process.
  • Robust integrations: Recruitee can connect to over 120 applications already in your tech stack. Instead of moving across various platforms, Recruitee helps you to meet your core hiring needs within a single platform.

Pros

  • Solid collaboration tools
  • Impressive automation features
  • Dedicated customer success team

Cons

  • No candidate matching feature
  • Reports have to be customized by users 

Pricing: Start at £199 per month for unlimited users 

Free trial available 

G2 rating: 4.5 

5. Workable - best for handling duplicate applications

Workable is a versatile and powerful applicant tracking system designed to streamline recruitment for all businesses of all sizes. Workable allows you to access 400+ million candidate profiles based on the criteria of your hiring needs. With this recruitment software, leverage AI-powered candidate recommendations to help you find your ideal candidates.

Why Workable stands out: Workable enables you to post jobs across 200 free and paid job boards to attract more job seekers. This applicant tracking system uses an automated targeted outreach structure to reach thousands of top applicants and save time evaluating candidates. Workable features a referral portal that enables you to tap into your employee network for your next best hire.

Using this recruiting software makes collaborating in hiring teams seamless because it facilitates candidate profile sharing so everyone involved can drop their feedback and comments. You can find offer letter templates, e-signatures, and approval workflows that enable you to onboard faster.

Best Workable features 

  • Anonymized screening: This software tool helps you eliminate unconscious bias when reviewing candidate information so every applicant has an equal opportunity to get the job. 
  • Advanced reporting and analytics: You can access automated reports based on the recruitment metrics you're tracking. With Workable, you can integrate your best power BI tools to create deeper reports of your hiring activities. 
  • Employee data management: Beyond the recruiting stage, I used Workable to create custom employee profiles that can be edited. It also has an employee directory that makes filtering options when searching for any employee easy. 
  • Job requisition and budgeting workflow: Workable is a centralized workspace that helps you keep stakeholders updated for requisition approval and budgeting management. 

Pros 

  • Easy to navigate the platform 
  • Emphasizes diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) 
  • Connects with LinkedIn Recruiter 

Cons 

  • Inability to mass review new applicants at once 
  • It is not a fully functional HRIS 

Pricing: $149 per month 

Free trial available

G2 rating: 4.6 

7. Greenhouse - best ATS software for high-volume hiring

Very few ATS solutions like Greenhouse (and Kula ATS) can meet the high-volume hiring needs of enterprises. Particularly, its scalable workflow allows organizations to manage the complexities and volumes of high-volume hiring, ensuring no candidate is overlooked. It allows you to take a personalized approach to hiring, from managing resumes to providing timely internal and external communication with applicants. 

Why Greenhouse ATS stands out: This recruiting software makes it easy to post new job openings across 1000+ job boards to reach more candidates. You can easily manage your bulk email outreaches by automating and personalizing your message. 

Right from the Greenhouse platform, you can make direct social posts and build a branded career page to make a deep impression on applicants. This recruitment software helps you to expand your employee network through referral programs and internal job boards. 

Best Greenhouse features 

  • Robust analytics: This applicant tracking system helps you make sense of candidate and employee data to make informed decisions. I was able to gain access to over 40 pre-built reports based on set criteria while filtering through for more streamlined results. 
  • Scalable workflows: Through its task automation and bulk candidate management features, Greenhouse allows you to create scalable workflows to eliminate grunt work. These workflows are easily customizable to suit the complexity of your organization’s hiring needs. 
  • Flexible integrations: Greenhouse is easily one of the best applicant tracking solutions with the most relevant integrations. With over 500 applications you can sync to Greenhouse, it helps you keep your major operations in one place. 
  • Structured onboarding: With this recruiting software, you can set milestones for new hires and track their 30-day onboarding goals to ensure they easily integrate into the system. You can use the resources hub on Greenhouse to help new employees find all they need for a great start. 

Pros 

  • Inclusive and flexible interviewing tools 
  • Integrates with tools for background checks and candidate assessment 
  • Enhances team collaboration and

Cons 

  • Steep learning curve 
  • Customizing reports can be difficult

Pricing: Available upon request 

No free trial  

G2 rating: 4.4 

8. Ashby - best ATS software for data-driven hiring

Often, ATS platforms are limited by native capabilities and require you to rely on multiple add-ons to improve your hiring process. However, Ashby on the other hand provides a singular tool to cater to your needs. Ashby features a CRM, applicant tracking software, scheduling tools, and powerful analytics - all on one platform.

What makes Ashby stand out: One feature that caught my attention was how easily you could record and reach out to past applicants using Ashby. With this applicant tracking software, you can build your talent pool and access highly qualified candidates once you have a new job opening.

It has a thorough analytics and reporting system to review and measure any aspect of your hiring funnel. Ashby makes it seamless for hiring teams to present core recruitment metrics to stakeholders in an easily digestible manner.

Best Ashby features 

  • Impressive candidate sourcing: This recruitment software is designed with its one-click sourcing feature to generate a diverse hiring pipeline cutting across different backgrounds.
  • Customizable interview scheduling: With Ashby, I generated a Calendly-like link that showed the availability of our interview panel while also providing candidates with self-scheduling options. When scheduling interviews, Ashby makes it easy for you to track everyone’s availability. 
  • Candidate management system: With this applicant tracking system, you can prevent your relationship with candidates from going stale. At a single glance, you can identify active candidates, automate specific tasks, and move to the next stage faster. 
  • Advanced automation: Ashby enables you to automate the sending of email sequences, assessments, questionnaires, and scheduling links. This can improve the candidate experience and reduce time spent throughout the hiring process. 

Pros

  • Candidate experience surveys 
  • Enables headcount planning 
  • Built-in e-signature to send offers and custom documents 

Cons 

  • No live chat support 
  • Requires a longer time to implement fully

Pricing: Starts at $300 per month for 1-10 employees 

No free trial 

G2 rating: 4.7 

9. BambooHR - best for onboarding new hires

BambooHR is a household name in the world of recruitment. I really cannot build a top 15 ATS list, without mentioning BambooHR. It helps manage hiring functions, benefits administration, employee management, and performance monitoring. It is also a Human Resource Information System (HRIS) that allows SMBs to manage their HR needs, especially when there is limited HR personnel.

Why BambooHR stands out: BambooHR is one of the few applicant tracking systems with an offboarding feature that allows you to collect company property and deactivate system access. While most ATS solutions focus on talent acquisition and retention, BambooHR offers a critical feature in hiring processes. 

This recruiting software has performance management features to help you identify top performers within your workforce and inform your decisions to fill the talent gap. It is useful for goal setting and progress monitoring to identify how your employees are doing their tasks. 

Best BambooHR features 

  • Employee management: This tool enables you to manage employee data in a single platform so employees can manage their profiles personally. This feature makes it easy to make regular updates without relying on HR personnel. 
  • Benefits tracking: Although this feature requires more manual entry from you, it streamlines administering benefits to your employees. 
  • Time off management: BambooHR allows employees to request paid time off on desktop or mobile devices. This tool helps you calculate the number of vacation and sick days an employee is entitled to based on your organization’s policy. 
  • Mobile app functionality: A separate mobile app named BambooHR hiring allows you to manage candidate pipelines and make quick status checks as candidates advance in the hiring process. It is a pared-down version of the browser interface that helps you track candidate communications and ratings. 

Pros 

  • Built-in approval workflows 
  • Offers employee self-service tools
  • Multiple customizable templates 

Cons 

  • Limited reporting for applicant tracking system 
  • No automated candidate matching 
  • Designed primarily for the US workforce 

Pricing: Available upon request 

Free trial available 

G2 rating: 4.4 

10. Lever - best ATS for user-friendliness

Lever is one of the leading tools that talent acquisition and recruiting agencies use to improve candidate pipeline and spark authentic relationships with candidates. 

Why Lever stands out: Lever ATS has one of the most intuitive designs and a lower learning curve. 

With its CRM capabilities, you can increase your sourcing efforts across different platforms and enhance candidate nurturing activities, especially for passive candidates. Its resume parsing feature helps you review candidate information faster while providing collaboration tools to help you drop feedback.

Best Lever features 

  • Candidate nurturing capabilities: Every hiring manager wants to regularly add qualified candidates to the talent pool for future purposes. Lever provides pre-set nurture templates and campaign messaging that can be tested to find the right fit. 
  • Relevant integrations: Lever currently has over 300 integrations to save you the stress of setting custom APIs. These integrations cover candidate assessment, background checks, communication, job boards, and HRIS software. 
  • Talent pipeline management: This recruiting software gives you a holistic view of each candidate as they advance through the hiring funnel. It also keeps all team members updated about the progress toward actualizing hiring strategies. 
  • Automation features: Lever enables you to create triggers that assign applicants to the right recruiter. This software also develops workflows based on predetermined criteria to help candidates advance appropriately. 

Pros 

  • Responsive and personable support team 
  • Impressive job posting templates 
  • Easy to track referrals  

Cons 

  • Scheduling panel interviews can be tough 
  • No task reminder feature 
  • Bland career page design 

Pricing: Available upon request 

No free trial 

G2 rating: 4.4 

11. Zoho Recruit- best ATS software for recruitment agencies

Zoho Recruit is a hugely popular tool. It is an easy choice for companies that heavily invest in Zoho's tech stack. Zoho Recruit streamlines many aspects of recruitment processes, from candidate sourcing to the onboarding stage. As one of the tools of Zoho Corporation, this applicant tracking system integrates with over 50 in-house tools, including accounting, marketing, sales, and many more.

Why Zoho Recruit stands out: You can get the best out of Zoho Recruit by integrating with tools within the same ecosystem. For example, users of Zoho calendar, Zoho mail and Zoho sites, can integrate the Zoho recruit ATS  to respectively streamline interview scheduling, communication and connect the ATS to career sites as well. Additionally, once the candidate’s details are in Zoho Recruit, Zia, the AI assistant, automatically reviews the candidate's information against job requirements and provides a compatibility rating. This helps in quickly identifying the most suitable candidates for further evaluation.

In addition to these capabilities,the tool performs the basic functions of categorizing candidates based on where they are in their hiring pipeline. Its analytics and reporting features also help you identify areas in your recruitment process that need extra effort. 

Zoho Recruit also offers performance management tools and employee surveys that assist you in gauging their commitment to the organization. 

Best Zoho Recruit features 

  • Compensation management: Zoho Recruit integrates with internal tools such as Zoho Payroll and Zoho Books. This way, you can easily manage time off, payroll calculations, bonus payments, and digital paystubs. 
  • Real-time feedback tools: This recruitment tool enhances team collaboration by enabling peer-to-peer feedback and feedback from hiring managers. It leverages a 360-degree feedback model that allows everyone in the organization to evaluate their performance.
  • Compliance tracking: This software allows you to track the legal compliance of your recruiting process to ensure equal employment opportunities. Its integration with Checkr also takes this feature to the next level. 

Pros 

  • Transparent pricing structure 
  • 45-day money-back guarantee 
  • Provides customizable workflows 

Cons 

  • No 24/7 customer support 
  • The mobile app is weak and provides limited features 

Pricing: Starts at $25/user monthly 

Free version and trial available 

G2 rating: 4.4 

12. Freshservice (formerly Freshteam) - best for growing businesses

This cloud-based solution lets you handle hiring, time off, onboarding, and employee data in a single platform. It automates repetitive tasks by advancing candidates who meet preset criteria and helping you archive unselected candidates. 

Why Freshservice stands out: It provides candidate sourcing features that help you post jobs across social media, job boards, and via emails in a few clicks. Freshservice gives access to over 100 job description templates to create job postings quickly. 

Best Freshservice features  

  • Interview scheduling: This applicant tracking system provides prep kits for interviewers to prepare better. Freshservice helps you notify the key stakeholders when the interview is scheduled while syncing their calendars to the ATS platform. 
  • Candidate onboarding: With this applicant tracking tool, recruiters and hiring managers can make onboarding new hires less hectic. Freshservice provides custom checklists to provide a clear overview of the onboarding process. 
  • Employee directory: This software enhances employee experience by allowing you to create different workspaces based on specific departments to safeguard employee data. It also has departmental workforce templates designed to make the process faster. 

Pros 

  • Integrates easily with all Freshworks tools
  • The job posting feature is easy to use 
  • Highly customizable 

Cons 

  • Only top tier plan allows for unlimited job postings  
  • Customer support takes a long to respond 

Pricing: Starts at $19/user/month, billed annually 

21-day free trial and a free version for 3 job postings 

G2 rating: 4.4 

13. SmartRecruiters - leading AI recruitment software

Source

SmartRecruiters is a comprehensive recruitment tool with an applicant tracking system, CRM, referral management capabilities, onboarding tools, and advanced tools designed to empower hiring teams. 

Why SmartRecruiters stands out: With this SmartAssistant, modern hiring teams can instantly screen resumes and identify top talent without manual processes. Regardless of the volume of your applicants, this software helps you match candidate profiles to the open roles and scores them, but you have to be careful to maintain the human touch in recruiting. 

This applicant tracking system also features SmartPal, a conversational AI that helps you automate FAQs for candidates and coordinate the recruiter's interview calendar. With this feature, you can improve candidate experience and increase response time due to SmartPal’s 24/7 availability.

Best SmartRecruiters features 

  • Recruitment marketing: SmartRecruit allows you to source candidates across over 300 job boards and social media platforms in a single click. You can also track post-to-hire performance to eliminate guesswork when attracting candidates.
  • Text recruiting: I enjoyed this software’s unique feature that helps you leverage SMS and WhatsApp to build a diverse candidate pool globally. It boosts your conversion rate and automates interview invitations within your candidate’s personal space. SmartRecruiters provides a central inbox that manages email, SMS, and WhatsApp communications. 
  • Dedicated career site: SmartRecruiters enables you to build an SEO-optimized career site and create a lasting impression on your candidates through your employer brand. 

Pros

  • Automates the complete recruitment process 
  • Provides unique AI and text recruiting features 
  • Top-notch customer account management and support team 

Cons 

  • It takes a long time to set up scorecards. 
  • This tool relies heavily on keyword matching, making you miss some high-quality candidates. 

Pricing: Available upon request 

No free trial

G2 rating: 4.3 

14. Loxo - best for talent sourcing and outreach campaigns

Source

Loxo boasts a talent database of over 1.2 billion candidates across 100+ data sources. It also provides access to candidate profiles based on specific niches such as tech, healthcare, software engineering, and life sciences. 

Why Loxo stands out: Loxo Outreach enables multi-channel campaigns that span email, SMS, LinkedIn InMails, and even voice calls to reach candidates faster. With a single click, you can fetch the specific details of a particular candidate to navigate better. 

This applicant tracking system uses Outreach GPT to generate AI email content and customize it to your needs. Pre-built templates also help you design and streamline engagement campaigns. 

Best Loxo features 

  • AI talent intelligence: Loxo goes beyond the regular ATS features to provide a talent intelligence platform with a sales CRM for recruiters, as well as sourcing tools, outreach, and reporting tools to manage your workflows. 
  • Customizable dashboards: This applicant tracking system provides detailed reports of all the activities within the CRM. You can customize the dashboard based on your hiring goals to gain a deeper insight into the needed information. 
  • An extensive network of job sites: I accessed Loxo Boost that boasts of 30,000 job sites to help you reach a diverse talent pool by prioritizing sites based on specific roles and industries. Its AI features help you find the best results to reach your ideal candidates faster. 
  • Google Chrome extension: This applicant tracking system relies heavily on its extension to gather, search, and organize candidate and client information. Without installing this extension, your sign-up process is considered incomplete. 

Pros 

  • The free plan provides unlimited used seats and jobs 
  • Robust candidate data enrichment features 
  • AI is integrated into the site architecture 

Cons 

  • Poor mobile functionality for iOS and Android 
  • Requires multiple add-ons, which makes pricing complicated 

Pricing: Starts at 119/user monthly 

Free version available 

G2 rating: 4.7 

15. Gem - best ATS software for automated sequences

Over the years I've seen firsthand how critical efficient talent management software is for scaling hiring processes. That's why I feel Gem can be such a game changer. It harnesses the power of data and automated sequences to dramatically accelerate our hiring speed. Gem also features a highly intuitive dashboard that offers a comprehensive overview of our candidate communications, including key milestones and career developments.

Why Gem ATS stands out: Gem’s automated outreach capabilities are formidable. It enables us to engage with both passive and active candidates and meticulously craft email sequences. Through this, you can ensure job listings gain substantial visibility across over 25,000 job boards. that seamlessly engage passive and active candidates through email sequences.

Gem ATS allows you to leverage Boolean search, advanced filters, and resume highlights to identify top candidates faster. Its interactive dashboards visualize the candidate pipeline to identify bottlenecks and spur immediate action. 

Best Gem ATS features 

  • Interview scheduling: I liked Gem ATS because you can optimize interviews based on time zones, availability, and preferences. Candidates can also use the self-scheduling capability to gain flexibility while hiring teams can access rescheduling automation to avoid friction. 
  • Talent marketing: Gem ATS enables you to implement your recruiting strategies as they cut across career sites, manage events landing pages, and nurture talent communities. This way, you can achieve consistent messaging and effortlessly attract top-tier talent. 
  • Full-funnel analytics: This applicant tracking system helps you create highly appealing information reports. It visualizes every step and provides hiring forecasting features designed to assist you in identifying hiring trends and meeting headcount goals. 

Pros 

  • Ethical AI for generating queries and messages and gaining search filters to boost response rate 
  • Straightforward navigation bars that improve user experience 
  • Impressive integrations 

Cons

  • Provides no advanced features to handle bounced emails 
  • Limited provision for background checks and assessments 

Pricing: Available on request

Free trial available 

G2 rating: 4.8

How to choose the best applicant tracking software

You must consider key factors before investing in an ATS software to avoid making the wrong choice. They include: 

  • Company size and needs

A recruitment tool that can be a great investment for large companies can deliver lesser value for the investment for a small business because of the difference in hiring needs. For startups or small businesses, it is best to settle for a budget-friendly option with advanced features that can compensate for your inadequate number of HR professionals. 

However, a large enterprise has frequent and mass hiring needs, which require powerful applicant tracking system features and customization capabilities that can help save time. 

  • Recruitment volume

High-volume hiring requires a candidate tracking tool to manage large amounts of data effectively. This is where features such as bulk email communications, automated workflows, and resume parsing become relevant. You also want recruiting software that helps you keep up with hiring trends. 

  • User-friendliness

The best applicant tracking systems are user-friendly, helping avoid confusion and lack of productivity in your operations. You need applicant tracking software that will help you boost hiring efficiency and reduce time and costs. You can increase product adoption among your team members to get effective outcomes. 

  • Budget

Implementing candidate tracking software into your organization can be expensive, but it's a worthy investment if you're a large enterprise. You must also consider the tool's billing structure and the number of users it accommodates. 

  • Integrations and compatibility 

Recruiters and hiring managers need a platform that can help manage all crucial information in a single platform. You need applicant-tracking software that integrates easily with other HR applications and communication tools to help you streamline your operations. It can help you reduce errors, save time, and provide important information to help you make informed decisions. 

Eliminate repetitive tasks and free up recruiter bandwidth with Kula ATS 

We’ve built an innovative tool that assists you in focusing on the human side of recruiting while helping you save time and improve candidate quality and experience. It is an applicant tracking system designed to make recruiting easier, and its standout features cover both inbound and outbound recruiting. 

Book a demo today to avoid switching between multiple tools. 

How does an applicant tracking system work? 

An ATS software helps you gather data from third-party sources and categorize them based on your needed information. It allows you to remove applicants with resumes and experiences not aligned with the job requirements. This recruitment tool makes it easy to identify high performers and fill the talent gap within your organization.

Why do most employers use applicant tracking systems?

Employers use applicant tracking systems to post new openings across different job boards and to source for candidates using specific keywords. It is also useful for tracking candidate statuses to see who they advance throughout the hiring process. With candidate tracking systems, employers can automate key tasks and handle thousands of applicants within a short time.

Do applicant tracking systems read PDF files?

The best applicant tracking systems can read PDF files and resumes to make sense of the data. However, if the PDF is formatted wrongly or the resume has design elements, it can become tough to derive accurate data from the document.

What types of companies use an ATS?

Applicant tracking software is ideal for companies of all sizes as long as there's a need to hire new staff. Small-medium-sized businesses, large organizations, government agencies, non-profit organizations, recruiting agencies, and staffing firms looking to streamline their hiring process can use ATS software. Even the best applicant tracking systems of healthcare businesses are necessary to manage the high recruiting demands within the sector.

Is an ATS worth it for a small business?

Small businesses can use an applicant tracking tool to save costs on administrative tasks related to HR and staffing needs. ATS software also provides an avenue for small businesses to remain organized, track data, and attract quality candidates regardless of company size. It is a means for small businesses to level the playing field and reach top talent even with a lesser budget than large corporations.

Achuthanand Tanjore Ravi

Co-founder and CEO

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