Applicant tracking software (ATS) helps recruiting agencies manage candidate data, streamline recruitment operations, and create a highly efficient recruiting process. With the advancement in AI, the role of ATS has changed from being a system of record to a system of productivity. Choosing the best ATS for recruiting and staffing agencies is even more lucrative.
In this blog, we will explore why recruiting and staffing agencies need an ATS, how it can save time, increase productivity, and drive revenue outcomes effectively.
With so many options available, it is important to have a well-defined approach to choose the ATS. To help you get started, we’ve done the heavy lifting for you and created a list of the best applicant tracking software available in the market with the pros, cons, ratings, and pricing for each ATS option.
What to Look for in an Applicant Tracking Software (ATS)?
Most ATS today offer a host of features tailored to the needs of recruiting and staffing agencies. Here’s a simple checklist you can use to identify the software that meets your needs optimally.
Over the years, ATS has become an integral part of the recruitment process. The days of operating spreadsheets are gone and we are now in the age of AI. Most ATS talk about AI features, but in realit,y they are advanced automations. So, when it comes to features and advancements, you must understand if AI features are built on top of the existing system or natively integrated.
Ideally, an ATS should help recruiters source candidates effectively, manage pipelines, schedule interviews, and engage candidates better.
At the heart of any recruiting strategy is data. Outdated data means lost opportunities. An ATS system must have advanced analytics capabilities and reporting features. For example, Recruiterflow allows users to create custom dashboards which makes it easy to create reports that mimic the operational flow of your agency.
The fundamental idea of an ATS should be to reduce the number of tabs recruiters have to shift between to post a job, set up interviews, or even create workflows. An ideal ATS should offer integrations that work with your existing tools ensuring a seamless adoption.
Recruiting is a tricky business, and agencies invest a lot of money in subscriptions and tools to optimize their recruitment operations. So, when it comes to an ATS, the cost predictability is extremely important to avoid awkward conversations with the finance team. Most ATS platforms offer advanced features as add-ons. This makes it difficult to predict cost. When you are evaluating an ATS, don’t forget to understand the pricing plans in detail.
Most ATS platforms offer a training or onboarding module before recruiters can start using it. These are mandatory training modules that not only add to the cost but often end up being an inconvenience. An ATS platform should be intuitive and easy to use. Recruiterflow is known for its easy-to-use interface and has no training or onboarding modules. Recruiters can start using the platform from the first day.
Recruiterflow’s ATS & CRM Rated 4.8/5 on Capterra
Pricing: Plans start from $99/user/month.
LinkedIn Integration: Yes
Suitable for: Recruiting and staffing agencies of all sizes.
Recruiterflow is the best ATS for recruiting and staffing agencies. It offers an integrated ATS & CRM with AI features built right into every workflow. The platform offers a suite of AI agents, automations, and advanced reporting to drive revenue outcomes.
Recruiters can manage candidate pipelines, run multi-channel sequences, track deals, and collaborate with clients — all within a single unified system. At its core, Recruiterflow empowers recruiters to double their productivity and focus on what truly matters: closing candidates, not updating spreadsheets.
Recruiterflow provides a centralized platform to manage various applicant tracking functions. It allows users to design company career pages, post jobs directly on job boards and social media platforms, and source applicants in a single click. This integrated approach saves time and effort by eliminating the need for multiple tools or manual processes.
Advanced AI-features
Unlike most ATS systems, Recruiterflow has AI-features built into the platform. This gives users the ability to double their productivity and stay ahead of competition. For instance, agencies can use Recruiterflow for AI sourcing and candidate matching. In fact, there’s a suite of AI Agents that can be deployed easily. Recruiters can even create custom agents.
Recruiterflow automates repetitive recruiter tasks, such as calendar organization and extracting contact information from online candidate profiles. Recruiters spend most of their time in admin tasks taking the focus away from candidates. Recruiterflow ensures recruiters can focus on closures, not admin.
Also Read: How PAC Solutions Doubled Placement Rates Using Automations
The system offers virtual interview scorecards to track applicant ratings and evaluations. Recruiters and hiring managers can customize interview questions, provide guidance to interviewers, and record ratings and notes based on candidate skills.
Recruiterflow simplifies candidate sourcing by providing one-click access to potential candidates from popular job boards and professional networking platforms like LinkedIn, Github, AngelList, and Xing.
The Chrome extension allows recruiters to extract email addresses and contact candidates directly. It also provides customizable email templates, allowing recruiters to send personalized messages to candidates with ease.
Recruiterflow offers a simple drag-and-drop interface that makes pipeline management easier. Kanban view of the pipeline gives a visual view of the pipeline that makes identifying bottlenecks very easy.
Recruiterflow offers comprehensive analytics and reporting capabilities. Recruiters can generate reports on key recruiting metrics such as time-to-hire, source of hire, and candidate conversion rates and make data-driven decisions.
Recruiterflow has an integrated recruitment CRM software that helps recruiters manage their business development efforts effectively.
Customizable and flexible pricing
Recruiterflow offers flexible pricing plans to meet the needs of recruiting and staffing agencies. Recruiters can choose a plan that aligns best with their organization’s requirements.
G2 Rating: 4.0/5
Capterra Rating: 4.1/5
Pricing: Available upon request.
LinkedIn Integration: No
Suitable for: Staffing Agencies
Bullhorn ATS is a cloud-based recruiting software. Its advanced analytics features track your recruiting activity and transform it into actionable business insights with configurable reports tailored to your goals and KPIs.
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G2 Rating: 4.4/5
Capterra Rating: 4.4/5
Pricing: Plans start from $1.20/employee/month
LinkedIn Integration: Yes
Suitable for: Small and growing staffing and recruitment agencies
Freshteam stands out as a top-tier ATS solution available in the market. The platform presents an enduring free plan that accommodates the management of up to 50 employees. It encompasses three job postings, an employee directory, and time-off management functionalities.
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G2 Rating: 4.4/5
Capterra Rating: 4.4/5
LinkedIn Integration: Yes
Pricing: Plans start from $30/user/month.
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Zoho Recruit is a robust ATS and CRM software. It offers a user interface that is infinitely customizable, plus a free-forever version.
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G2 Rating: 4.5/5
Capterra Rating: 4.4/5
Pricing: Plans start from €199/month.
Recruitee is a recruitment software that helps recruiters in sourcing, automate recruiting, and evaluate candidates effectively. The platform’s easy-to-use. You can customize your dashboard and reports. It also allows you to curate and send talent assessments to candidates to evaluate their skills.
The software also comes with in-built scheduling features that effortlessly schedule interviews and notify every party involved of the interview durations.
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G2 Rating: 4.5/5
Capterra Rating: 4.6/5
LinkedIn Integration: Yes
Pricing: Available upon request.
BambooHR is a complete human resources information system (HRIS). It bundles features like payroll, time tracking, employee engagement, an applicant tracking system (ATS) into one platform.
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G2 Rating: 4.4/5
Capterra Rating: 4.3/5
LinkedIn Integration: Yes
Pricing: Plans start from $49/month.
JazzHR is powerful, user-friendly and affordable ATS & recruiting software.
Recruiters can create personalized messages and email templates. It also triggers real-time notifications on the latest activities of the candidates.
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G2 Rating: 4.4/5
Capterra Rating: 4.5/5
LinkedIn Integration: Yes
Pricing: Available upon request.
Greenhouse offers comprehensive support to organizations throughout the entirety of their recruitment journey. It simplifies hiring through automation and data analytics. Furthermore, it fosters collaborative efforts among team members, employs diverse candidate sourcing avenues, and constructs a candidate experience that cultivates the desire for future applications.
Moreover, Greenhouse assures compliance with GDPR, elevating its security and operational efficiency. The adept integration ecosystem seamlessly facilitates data exchange between Greenhouse and alternative HR systems.
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G2 Rating: 4.6/5
Capterra Rating: 4.4/5
LinkedIn Integration: Yes
Pricing: Plans start from $149/month.
Workable is an all-inclusive applicant tracking software that revolutionizes recruitment with advanced AI recruiting capabilities. With access to a vast pool of 400 million candidate profiles, Workable employs sophisticated algorithms to identify the most qualified candidates.
Moreover, the platform incorporates anonymized screening features to mitigate unconscious bias and promote fair recruiting decisions. Workable goes beyond traditional applicant tracking software by offering talent assessment tools, including scientifically backed cognitive and personality pre-employment tests, to ensure that candidates possess the necessary skills to excel.
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G2 Rating: 4.8/5
Capterra Rating: 4.9/5
LinkedIn Integration: Yes
Pricing: Available upon request.
Rippling is a comprehensive platform with tools for candidate searching, recruiting, and onboarding. It offers a simple ATS where recruiters can quickly publish open opportunities to every platform, from Indeed to LinkedIn, to build your candidate pipeline with the best talent.
You can set up custom recruiting workflows and processes and customize interview stages based on position, department, or seniority. You can also integrate Outlook, iCal, Google, and more to view people’s availability and schedule each interview stage quickly.
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G2 Rating: 4.4/5
Capterra Rating: 4.5/5
LinkedIn Integration: Yes
Pricing: Plans start from $157/month.
BreezyHR has emerged as a prominent player among the top applicant tracking systems in the field. Its forever-free plan sets it apart from most of its rivals. This encompasses boundless users and candidates, wide-reaching distribution to more than 50 job boards, and sophisticated résumé parsing capabilities. An upgrade to the Startup plan is required to access further enhancements such as background screening, candidate questionnaires, and adaptable workflows and stages.
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G2 Rating: 4.6/5
Capterra Rating: 4.6/5
LinkedIn Integration: Yes
Pricing: Available upon request.
Ceipal ATS is an AI-powered, end-to-end ATS software that accelerates candidate selection. Once you have updated the expected candidate qualifications, the platform scours every nook and corner of the internet and delivers hundreds of resumes of the relevant candidates.
You can skim through the resumes with the help of AI-powered candidate Analytics features which vividly outline the candidate’s skills, expertise, and personality types. With this information, you can contact the candidate who closely matches your expectations without your emails falling into the spam folders.
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G2 Rating: 4.7/5
Capterra Rating: 4.9/5
LinkedIn Integration: No
Pricing: Plans start from $85/user/month.
Recruit CRM is an end-to-end ATS software that assists recruiters in managing recruitment, clients, and candidates in a single platform. Its Chrome extension sources candidates directly from job posting platforms, and the parser instantly parses through the influx of resumes and pinpoints candidates with adept talents.
With the gathered information, you can effortlessly organize candidates in a simplified Kanban view. Here, you can schedule interviews, engage with clients, and recruit the perfect candidate.
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G2 Rating: 4.0/5
Capterra Rating: 4.1/5
Pricing: Available upon request.
Jobvite is an all-in-one solution that offers every tool necessary for talent acquisition. The platform provides flexible customization options for recruiters to configure dashboards and workflows to manage the recruitment life cycle effectively.
The platform also encompasses automation features that expedite recruitment procedures and enhance the chances of identifying ideal candidates.
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G2 Rating: 4.4/5
Capterra Rating: 4.6/5
Pricing: Plans start at $100/month.
Pyjama HR is an AI-based recruitment software that allows recruiters to automate the recruitment process for organizations and recruiters. This free applicant tracking software addresses recruiters’ pain points during the recruiting journey and offers simplified solutions but lacks personalization functionalities and assessment options.
From posting jobs on multiple platforms simultaneously in one click to filtering top candidates effortlessly with intelligent filters, Pyjama HR is the best solution for those involved in mass recruiting projects.
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AI Agents
AI agents are no longer good to have – they are a must-have for recruiting and staffing agencies. An AI applicant tracking system helps recruiters double their productivity and close more deals. AI Agents can better candidate sourcing, outreach, and engagement at scale.
Automated job posting
Most ATS integrates with multiple job boards that helps recruiters to post their job posts on multiple job boards in just a single click.
Email Automation
Modern ATS comes equipped with native email tools. Recruiters can send branded emails to potential candidates, prompting them to complete applications or providing updates on their application status.
Customized career pages
ATS provides tools to create attractive landing pages that showcase a company’s brand, mission, and culture, making job postings stand out.
Custom applications
Companies can create tailored job applications with specific fields, simplifying the process for applicants and ensuring data is formatted correctly.
Employee referral tools
ATS facilitates employee referrals by offering portals for employees to recommend candidates and track their progress in the recruitment process.
Resume Parsing
ATS automatically analyzes and organizes resumes, extracts relevant data and stores it in a database for easy access and tracking.
Applicant tracking
ATS enables recruiters to track candidate applications throughout the recruitment process, with customizable workflows and alerts for stakeholders.
Interview scheduling
ATS streamlines the management of interview scheduling by allowing recruiters to designate interview times and send invitations to candidates.
Candidate scoring
ATS provides a centralized platform for interviewers to leave notes and scores for candidates, helping to standardize evaluations and reduce bias.
Analytics report
ATS generates actionable insights by analyzing data points, such as the effectiveness of job boards and campaigns, time-to-hire metrics, and demographic characteristics of candidate pools.
Candidate Relationship Management
ATS offers communication features for recruiters to engage with candidates, ranging from email plugins to fully developed CRM-like functionality with profiles and engagement tracking.
Also, check our detailed blog on Questions to ask your ATS vendor.
If you are still unsure as to why you need applicant tracking software for your recruitment business.
An applicant tracking system (ATS) is a specialized software that companies and agencies utilize to facilitate the organization and monitoring of job applicants. Typical components of an ATS encompass applicant tracking, résumé parsing, automated correspondence, interview arrangement, candidate collaboration tools, and comprehensive analytics and reporting. An Applicant tracking system’s main objective is to streamline the entire recruitment process, thereby enhancing efficiency for recruiters.
Moreover, ATS aids companies in ensuring the conformity of their recruitment procedures with legal and industry mandates. Through the automation of recruitment processes, businesses can economize time and resources while securing the acquisition of optimal candidates for their workforce.
It provides a range of features and functionalities, including database management, filtering capabilities, and comprehensive tools, enabling businesses of all sizes to efficiently handle candidate tracking, organization, and analysis.
The Applicant Tracking System works by collecting and organizing resumes received through various channels, such as job boards or career websites. It parses and extracts relevant information from resumes, such as contact details and work experience, and stores it in a structured database. Recruiters can then search, filter, and sort candidates based on specific criteria, track their progress throughout the recruitment process, schedule interviews, and connect with them.
ATS saves money by streamlining the recruitment process, reducing manual effort and paperwork, and optimizing recruitment efforts. Thus, saving cost, time, and measures for recruiting firms.
Yes, ATS platforms offer integration capabilities with other recruitment systems, such as CRM, talent assessment tools, payroll software, background check software, or video interviewing tools. Recruiterflow has an inbuilt CRM and offers
While the job portal is a platform where recruiters can post job listings and candidates can search and apply for jobs, ATS is a software system designed to manage the entire recruitment process, from receiving applications to recruiting decisions.
Yes, there are free applicant tracking systems available, although their features and functionality may be limited. These free ATS options can facilitate basic recruitment and selection processes and are particularly useful for small businesses in their early stages. Nevertheless, as companies grow, they typically transition to paid ATS solutions in order to fully leverage the extensive features and capabilities offered.
According to a survey done by Zippia, 94% of recruiting agencies that use ATS systems report that the software has improved their hiring process.
Sagrika Jain