Top 8 Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) for recruiters in 2024
If you're in charge of hiring for your organization, you know how important it is to find the right candidate for the job. One of the most effective ways to simplify your hiring process is by using an Applicant Tracking System (ATS).
An ATS is software that helps you speed up your recruitment process by reducing the manual drudgery that often plagues recruitment–tasks such as posting job openings, screening resumes, and scheduling interviews.
Whether you're a small agency that’s just starting out and is on the lookout for new tools or an internal hiring team that's been managing candidates in Microsoft Excel format (I hope not!), it's time to explore the best applicant tracking systems to consider using in 2024.
Evolution of Applicant Tracking Systems
Applicant Tracking Systems has come a long way since its inception in the 1990s. Initially, it was used to simply store resumes and track applicant information. However, with advancements in technology, ATSs have evolved to become an essential tool for talent management.
Today, an ATS can do much more than just store resumes. The modern versions can screen resumes, track candidates through the hiring process, and provide real-time insights into hiring metrics, not to mention all the new AI features like Smart candidate selection, automated emails, and one-click parsing from LinkedIn that seem to come out every week.
Key benefits for recruiters and hiring teams
An ATS offers several benefits for recruiters and hiring teams:
- Saving time: With an ATS, recruiters and hiring teams can automate many of the time-consuming tasks associated with the recruiting process. For example, an ATS can automatically screen resumes, send out interview invites, and for the more advanced ones, schedule interviews.
- Collaboration: An ATS allows recruitment teams to collaborate more effectively. Team members can leave notes on candidate profiles, compare resumes, segment talent pools, and even communicate with each other through the ATS (If you’re not a fan of Slack, that is).
- Enhancing employer branding: An ATS can help enhance your employer branding by providing a more professional candidate experience as candidates can apply for jobs directly through your ATS, receive automated email updates on their application status, and alert them to new roles that they may be interested in.
- Ensuring compliance: An ATS can help ensure compliance with hiring laws and regulations as it will track and store candidate information, and provide audit trails if needed.
Top features to look for in an ATS
When choosing an ATS for your recruitment needs, there are several key features that you should look out for.
Automation
The most important feature to look for in an ATS is its ability to automate as much of your work as possible–after all, who wants to do boring data entry tasks when you could be screening top job seekers? Consider the AI systems of an ATS for a better understanding of how/what it can automate.
Workflow customization
It’s also important that the ATS is customizable and lets you create custom stages for your unique hiring process and have workflows for you and/or your organization that can be customized.
Integration with job boards and HR software
Another important feature to look for in an ATS is its integration with job boards and HR software. Some ATSs can post job listings to multiple job boards with a single click, as well as the ability to integrate with popular HR software such as HRIS, payroll, and performance management systems.
When choosing an ATS, it’s worth making your decision on this feature alone–especially if you’re a delivery recruiter or an internal talent executive– as Applicant Tracking Systems that integrate with job boards will save you a significant amount of time.
User experience
Finally, it's important to consider the user experience design of the ATS. 80% of software users say that they’d be willing to pay extra for a better user experience–and rightfully so, after all, you’ll be investing almost every working hour using it.
The top 8 Applicant Tracking Systems for recruiters in 2024
When it comes to choosing the best ATS for your recruitment needs, it can be challenging to know where to start. Here are the top Applicant Tracking Systems you need to consider in 2024 to advance your recruiting and hiring.
Recruiterflow
Recruiterflow is an ATS that has an abundance of tools for recruiters to use to automate the hiring process. The platform lets you manage candidate pipelines in a mood-board fashion and has a Zapier-like feature that enables you to set triggers and automate mundane, repetitive work such as moving candidates through the hiring stage and AI-powered email responses.
Key feature: Email Intelligence algorithms that help you avoid bounces and spam filters.
Price: Price starts at $85 per month per user.
Ashby
Ashby is a comprehensive ATS and CRM solution that leverages data and advanced analytics to ease the hiring process. The platform segments different solutions for recruitment or internal hiring teams based on team size: 0-100 and 100+ and comes with a recruiting planner that enables you to track the hiring plan progress and forecast the amount of activity it will take to achieve success.
Key feature: Ashby Analytics, a data analytics add-on that can integrate with other ATSs to provide data-driven reporting and analytics.
Price: $300 per month total for 1-10 employees.
Greenhouse
Greenhouse is one of the most popular ATS solutions on the market. Its focus on the candidate experience makes it a top solution for hiring teams. With Greenhouse, you can customize your own career pages, job boards, and email templates. There’s also a feature that lets you send surveys to candidates to gather feedback on your recruiting process.
Key feature: A customizable job board landing page that acts as an extension to your website and automatically transmits applicant details to your ATS.
Price: Annual pricing starts at $6,500 for teams up to 10.
Polymer
Polymer is a quick, easy-to-use ATS platform that serves small to medium-sized hiring teams. It focuses on quick setup and integration and gives you basic, simple candidate management. The platform also allows you to create custom application forms and a job board subscription where candidates subscribe to get notified of new roles you’re recruiting.
Key feature: Polymer has a video feature that lets you make quick videos instead of boring, mundane job descriptions.
Price: It is $10 per new job posted, but has unlimited candidate parsing and tracking.
Bullhorn
Bullhorn is an all-in-one encompassing ATS and CRM software solution designed specifically for the recruiting industry. The platform enables you to focus on all aspects of your recruitment operation including sourcing, business development, and managing your agency with an abundance of features. You can also get better insights into how your team is performing with its activity tracker.
Key feature: A LinkedIn extension that allows you to gather candidate contact details and simply parse them straight to your ATS.
Price: Pricing starts at $199 per month.
BreezyHR
BreezyHR is an ATS that focuses on automating manual tasks for internal teams like job posts, advertising on job boards, interview scheduling & follow-ups. The platform offers robust candidate management and has a pre-screening questionnaire feature that automatically advances or disqualifies candidates based on their answers.
Key feature: Incognito apply–A feature that lets candidates apply to jobs while omitting their gender, age, and ethnicity from the form to eliminate bias from the hiring process.
Price: Free for Bootstrapped teams of 1-10 employees but with limited features such as limited candidate pools, positions, and no automation. The paid version starts at $157 per month.
JazzHR
JazzHR is a seamless ATS that allows recruiters to focus on customization, personal branding, and job posting on social platforms. Its capabilities include creating your own job page and careers website as well as integrating all your social media platforms to post a job on every channel with one click. It also has an enriched database of candidate profiles.
Key feature: A social media integration to help you find contact details of candidates and clients through their social media profiles.
Price: Starts at $39 per month
iSmartRecruit
iSmartRecruit is an ATS software that focuses on utilizing AI for recruitment firms. It offers a ton of AI-powered features such as advanced CV parsing, AI-based profile matching, chatbots, and a self-service portal for both clients and candidates.
Key feature: An AI tool that creates the ideal job/company for a candidate based on their resume, giving recruiters an idea of what clients to send them to.
Price: iSmartRecruit only offers custom pricing.
From the simplicity and affordability of Polymer to the LinkedIn integration feature of Bullhorn and the data-driven innovation of Ashby, each ATS has different features that accentuate different aspects of your recruitment business depending on your goals and what you want to optimize in your business and recruitment process.
So be sure to research your missing links and take advantage of as many free trials and demos as possible to see which shoe fits you best.
Start your search today.
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