17 Best Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) in 2024
- Published:
- Updated: November 21, 2024
Managing the flow of job applications and hiring decisions can be strenuous and chaotic, even for the most well-oiled recruiting teams. As companies scale, human resources (HR) software specialized for hiring operations becomes increasingly vital to building a high-quality workforce and keeping businesses agile.
Modern software like applicant tracking systems (ATS) helps transform HR processes and improve hiring by automating complex tasks, managing the continuous flow of job posting and application management, and consolidating related workflows.
In this article, we will explain ATS and its benefits, tell you about the best options on the market today, and discuss best practices for choosing the right ATS for your business.
What are the best application tracking systems?
iCIMS Talent Cloud: Best for improving efficiency
HROne: Best for candidate experience
Workday HCM: Best for transparency and visibility
BambooHR: Best for growing companies
Zoho Recruit: Best for workflow optimization
Breezy HR: Best integrations
Greenhouse: Best for DEI-minded hiring
Lever: Best for small teams
Recruitee: Best for recruiting collaboration
JobDiva: Best for process acceleration
Workable: Best client support
Jazz HR: Best for quick implementation
Bullhorn ATS: Best for enterprise staffing companies
Recruit CRM: Best for recruiting agencies
Ceipal ATS: Best for job marketing
Manatal: Best for smaller budgets
Pinpoint: Best for applicant engagement
What Is an Applicant Tracking System?
An applicant tracking system (or ATS) is an enterprise software commonly used by human resources teams to automate and manage the hiring process. From posting jobs on company websites and external job boards to reviewing applications and scheduling interviews, an ATS is a recruiter’s lifeline.
Some of the most common features of applicant tracking systems include job posting, career page creation, applicant tracking, candidate communication, and analytics and reporting tools. Many ATS even include employee onboarding features to cover the entire hiring process from start to finish. Alternatively, some full-scale HR software includes these ATS features and tools that assist in other HR operations.
Key Features of an Applicant Tracking System
Here are the key features of an ATS:
- Create and distribute job postings: one of the core functions of a quality ATS is facilitating the job posting process. ATS solutions include tools that allow teams to create job listings and post them to internal career pages and popular job boards like Indeed and Linkedin. Many applicant tracking systems connect to niche job boards to reach applicants with uniquely specialized skill sets.
- Resume sourcing and parsing: An ATS typically includes tools for automatically extracting, organizing, and storing critical information from candidate resumes. With these tools, the most well-suited applicants can be flagged for recruiters to review and assess, saving time and ensuring that the best-suited candidates are considered for each open position.
- Candidate scheduling and screening: Scheduling and screening tools streamline the recruiting process by automating screening operations and removing ineligible or underqualified candidates from consideration. Once the final contenders are selected, automated communication and scheduling tools facilitate hiring by getting interviews on recruiter dockets without risking scheduling mix-ups or miscommunications.
- Candidate communication and relationship management: ATS solutions often include communication and relationship management tools to centralize all information about candidates and records of any contact between individual applicants and HR employees. These tools improve the candidate experience by eliminating the potential for confusing, redundant, or unnecessary communication and help recruiters keep track of their talent pipelines.
- Collaboration tools: Efficient collaboration is essential to the success of dynamic hiring teams. ATS collaboration tools facilitate internal and external communication, feedback collection, and task management to help teams optimize hiring decisions and make hiring more efficient.
- Reporting on key hiring metrics: As with most modern business software, robust analytics and reporting tools are key components of a high-quality ATS. These tools analyze hiring data to help teams understand the state of their hiring operations and make informed decisions about improvement. Some commonly tracked metrics include time to hire, applicants per opening, application conversion rate, cost per hire, and candidate experience.
- Compliance management: Every organization is required to adhere to specific legal regulations and industry best practices related to hiring. From privacy protection, to equal opportunity decision-making, ATS compliance tools help recruiting teams engage in ethical hiring practices and safeguard their organizations from legal risks or penalties.
Benefits of Applicant Tracking Systems
The benefits ATS software brings to hiring teams have resounding company-wide impacts. Here are the most critical business benefits an ATS brings to an organization:
- Streamlined recruitment process: Applicant tracking systems automate traditionally manual tasks like job posting, resume reviewing, and interview scheduling. Hiring workflow automation streamlines the hiring process and frees up the recruiter’s time to focus on the most urgent and pressing tasks. This streamlining process keeps businesses running smoothly and ensures consistency and transparency across hiring operations.
- Improved candidate experience: By accelerating the hiring process and eliminating scheduling errors and candidate mismatches, ATS software ensures that applicants feel their time and energy spent interacting with a company is worthwhile. This creates the foundation for a positive relationship from first contact and makes it more likely that qualified applicants who receive offers accept them.
- Automated candidate communication: Many ATS automate call and interview scheduling and standardize communications with applicants. This not only prevents scheduling and communication errors but it creates consistency, increases engagement, and ensures that all applicants receive a follow-up message whether or not they are chosen to be hired.
- Enhanced hiring efficiency: By centralizing data, streamlining and automating critical recruiting tasks, and producing data-based hiring insights, ATS makes every hiring process more efficient. This efficiency reduces time to hire and cost per hire.
- Data-driven hiring decisions: ATS software centralizes data, providing hiring teams with robust analytics to optimize hiring decisions. These insights allow recruiters to pick the most qualified candidates and avoid biases as they make hiring decisions. They also provide visibility into hiring metrics like time-to-hire, offer acceptance rates, and candidate experience data that teams can use to improve the hiring process continually.
- Scalability for growing companies: Many of the features that come standard with applicant tracking systems allow growing organizations to scale up the hiring process to high volumes. By automating job posting, resume screening, candidate communications, and interview scheduling, ATS software streamlines hiring operations and allows recruiting teams to hire as many high-quality employees as their growing organization needs.
Best ATS for Enterprises
These ATS systems are best for enterprise companies with many internal end-users, including HR and recruiting roles, people manager roles, and candidates:
1. iCIMS Talent Cloud
- G2 rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars
- Pricing: Starts at $1700 per month
iCIMS Talent Cloud is a comprehensive, AI-powered recruitment software that includes an enterprise applicant tracking system. This solution includes an intelligent, centralized data platform for AI-based decision-making, an extensive integrations marketplace, and highly customizable tools to help hiring teams manage the recruiting process in the way that works best for their organization. This solution also includes CRM for applicant relationship management and onboarding to ease recruits into their new roles.
iCIMS Talent Cloud is a versatile recruiting platform that works well for organizations with high hiring volumes or a specialized workforce. iCIMS also prioritizes security and has committed to providing responsible and ethical AI tools that provide privacy and transparency, and leave the ultimate decisions to be made by humans.
Key features:
- Automated scheduling
- Candidate management
- iCIMS Copilot GenAI-powered recruiting assistant
- Employee Onboarding
2. HROne
- G2 rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars
- Pricing: Contact HROne for a quote on a custom plan including recruiting tools
HROne is an India-based human resources management system (HRMS) aimed at managing and improving internal HR operations, including core HR functions, recruiting, workforce management, and payroll. This solution’s ATS and recruiting features help hiring teams delegate tasks, source candidates, manage job postings and applications, and carry out candidate transitions.
This solution is designed for mobile-first enterprise-level talent management, making it remarkably simple to handle recruiting tasks on the go. This solution includes a variety of plans with different features, as well as a la carte add-ons like HROne AI, WhatsApp and Teams bots, and payroll outsourcing. HROne updates products bimonthly and provides thorough support to ensure high adoption rates. It also includes a social expression platform for global HR leaders to connect.
Key features:
- JD Master for automated job description writing
- Candidate experience and applicant management tools
- Mobile app
- Full suite of HR management tools
3. Workday HCM
- G2 rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
- Pricing: Contact Workday for a custom quote
Workday HCM is a human capital management (HCM) system that includes Workday Recruiting – a recruiting management application that integrates with its other tools geared toward workforce planning and analytics. Workday’s ATS and Recruiting tools are bolstered by equitable AI and machine learning-driven job recommendations and data-driven decision-making.
Workday HCM includes tools for targeted candidate engagement and marketing, collaborative recruiting, and bulk document processing to make high-volume hiring more efficient. Targeted candidate engagement tools allow teams to build customized campaigns and landing pages strengthened by engagement insights for maximum efficacy. Workforce’s Hiredscore AI creates intelligent workflows and smart action alerts to keep applicants moving through the pipeline and optimizing hiring outcomes.
Key features:
- Candidate engagement and marketing
- Centralized recruiting hub
- Equitable AI- and machine learning-driven job recommendations
- Integrates with the full Workday HCM platform, including Workday Candidate Engagement
Best ATS for SMBs and Startups
4. Bamboo HR
- G2 rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
- Pricing: Contact bambooHr for a free quote
Bamboo HR is an all-in-one HR management program that includes high-powered ATS and onboarding tools to help recruiters find, hire, and acclimate fresh talent. BambooHR specializes in candidate experience, with automated communications, customizable templates, and collaboration tools that streamline engagements and make hiring more efficient.
The Bamboo HR recruiting platform can be used on desktop or mobile and paired with its onboarding and e-signature tools to streamline the hiring process. This solution has proven to work well for companies of all sizes, including Soundcloud, Postmates, and ZipRecruiter, and is focused on speed and efficiency for maximum scalability.
Key features:
- Easy multi-channel job posting tools
- BambooHR Hiring app for iOS and Android
- Recruiting insights and analytics
- Part of a full HR suite
5. Zoho Recruit
- G2 rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
- Pricing: Standard plan starts at $25 per user per month, billed annually – a limited free plan is also available.
Zoho Recruit is a centralized platform that combines the power of an ATS and CRM. This recruiting solution includes tools for building customized career sites to attract high-quality candidates while enabling teams to post jobs simultaneously to over fifty popular job boards. It also has employee referral tools and customizable candidate profiles to optimize applicant management.
This recruiting tool also includes AI features like resume review to streamline candidate evaluation. Zoho Recruit’s remote interviewing features make it easy for recruiters to connect with potential hires from anywhere.
Key features:
- Candidate sourcing
- AI recruitment tools
- Background screenings
- Onboarding tools
6. Breezy HR
- G2 rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
- Pricing: Bootstrap plan is free forever for up to 10 employees
Breezy HR is a versatile HR management tool that helps teams attract and hire quality employees. This tool allows recruiters to post jobs across more than 50 job boards including Indeed, Zip-Recruiter, and LinkedIn as well as more niche sites tailored to specific industries. This solution also features career site builders with options for diversity and inclusion-focused recruiting efforts alongside automated candidate screening, communications, scheduling, and feedback.
This easy-to-use tool allows recruiters to build mobile-optimized career sites and post to popular job boards with ease to cut down on hiring time. Breezy HR’s ATS also includes a mobile app and robust customer support for improved recruiter and candidate experience.
Key features:
- Drag-and-drop pipeline management
- HR & recruiting template library
- Custom Career Sites, Breezy Widget for internal careers pages
- Mobile App
Best ATS for Growth and Mid-Sized companies
These ATS systems are ideal for companies that are quickly scaling like mid-size growth and startup companies.
7. Greenhouse
- G2 rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
- Pricing: Contact Greenhouse for a personalized quote
The Greenhouse ATS and hiring platform includes features to facilitate every stage of the recruiting process, from sourcing to onboarding. This software includes powerful tools for automated talent sourcing and candidate engagement and connects to over 1000 job boards to connect with promising candidates. It also allows users to create unique careers pages with customizable branding, and share jobs to social media from the application.
Bolstered by robust people analytics, this solution is proven to be effective for early-stage, scaling, and full enterprise organizations. However, it is particularly effective for helping mid-size companies grow.
Key features:
- Interview kits
- Equitable hiring tools
- DE&I hiring goals
- Applicant experience tools
8. Lever
G2 rating: 4.3 out of 5 stars
Pricing: Contact Lever for a custom price quote
Lever by Employ is a recruiting software focused on making hiring scaleable. Lever combines an ATS with robust candidate relationship management tools for powerful process optimization and helps organizations scale workflows while decreasing time-to-hire. This solution includes automated candidate sourcing, customizable workflows, and hundreds of integrations to keep pipelines moving and improving.
Lever also includes out-of-the-box analytics to provide hiring teams with intelligent insights to drive performance and help recruiters make process improvements for improved business outcomes. Trusted by successful companies like Netflix, KPMG, and Eventbrite, this software is an effective hiring optimization tool that helps teams source, engage, and hire high-quality candidates.
Key features:
Automated sourcing
Workflow and process configuration
Intelligent recommendations
Pipeline and sourcing dashboards
9. Recruitee
- G2 rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
- Pricing: Starts at $249 per month for 5 job slots and unlimited users – a free 18-day trial is available
Recruitee by Tellent is a collaborative software focused on task automation and customizability. This solution helps recruiting teams organize and streamline processes with automated tasks, easy-to-use templates, and collaboration tools. It allows users to create custom dashboards for maximum process optimization and improvement.
Its customizable pipelines and workflow templates are easy to use, minimizing time-to-adoption and helping recruiters get to work faster. Integrations like email templates, quick evaluations, and pre-fab screening questions help hiring processes keep moving. Recruitee integrates with over 100 apps, and is trusted by over 150,000 global users, making it a proven solution for effective candidate management.
Key features:
- No-code career site editor
- Applicant management tools
- Smart job campaigns
- Custom hiring reporting
10. JobDiva
- G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars
- Pricing: Contact JobDiva for a custom quote
JobDiva is an all-in-one recruiting software that works well for mid-sized companies and staffing agencies. This tool has award-winning ATS features and CRM, onboarding, and financial tools for holistic HR management. This AI-powered tool includes a patent-protected recruiting engine, and over 150 integrations making it a versatile, customizable recruiting solution for mid-sized companies.
JobDiva harnesses AI models like OpenAI and Google Gemini in combination with proprietary tools to automate tasks, and provide additional features like chatbots, sentiment analysis, and data extraction. Trusted by over 40,000 users, this solution is proven to help companies increase productivity, performance, and revenue through effective and streamlined hiring processes.
Key features:
- Social sourcing
- Career Page configuration
- Patent-pended recruiting engine
- Automated resume parsing
11. Workable
- G2 rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars
- Pricing: Starter Plan for up to 20 employees starts at $149 per month
Workable is an HR platform that includes tools for improving hiring, employee data, time tracking, and payroll from a centralized dashboard. Its features include passive candidate sourcing, posting to over two hundred job boards, and employee referral tools with a gamified reward system. It also includes an applicant CRM and evaluation tools to empower data-driven decisions and standardize hiring criteria for maximum growth.
This comprehensive platform incorporates AI for candidate screening and has self-service tools that allow candidates to book their own interviews easily. Workable also includes customizable templates and workflow tools for offer management. This tool’s versatility and extensive recruiting tools make it a great choice for mid-sized companies.
Key features:
- Passive candidate sourcing
- AI-assisted applicant screening
- Self-service interview scheduling
- Careers page builder
12. JazzHR
- G2 rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
- Pricing: Hero plan starts at $75 per month, a free trial is available.
JazzHR by Employ is a people-first ATS for smaller and growing businesses, trusted by companies like Pure Barre. This solution includes automated hiring tools and flexible settings to help recruiters do their job more quickly and effectively. Its job posting tools include mobile-friendly job boards, posting to external boards, and customizable job application templates to meet the unique needs of recruiters.
Automation and powerful reporting tools make it easy for teams to attract and hire top talent to keep business moving. This tool integrates directly with leading HR software to keep recruiters working efficiently and is affordable enough for small businesses.
Key features:
- Job posting & syndication
- Candidate texting
- Advanced visual reporting
- All-access customer support
Best ATS for Staffing Companies
These ATS platforms are suitable for staffing companies undergoing digital transformation of their recruiting and hiring processes.
13. Bullhorn ATS
- G2 rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
- Pricing: Contact Bullhorn to request a pricing quote
Bullhorn ATS is a modern recruiting software that empowers recruiting agencies to boost sales, optimize operations, and make faster, high-quality job placements from a centralized system. Bullhorn has unique solutions for organizations in different growth phases. It is powerful enough to be trusted by some of the world’s largest staffing firms including Vaco, Airswift, and CHG Healthcare.
Bullhorn ATS’ platform is highly configurable and has an API to maximize integration with custom and third-party applications and data. It is also SOC 1&2 certified and undergoes annual third-party risk assessments to ensure maximum security.
Key features:
- Bullhorn AI
- Talent experience platform
- Automated candidate matching
- Recruiting gamification
14. Recruit CRM
- G2 rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars
- Pricing: Pro plan starts at $100 per user per month
Recruit CRM combines ATS and CRM tools designed to help recruiting firms manage job postings and communications with candidates, clients, and other communications from a centralized platform. This solution features a robust AI resume parser and a Kanban view for sales and recruiting to make hiring a breeze. Recruit CRM also integrates with thousands of applications, offers robust analytics, and offers 24/7 support to facilitate high-volume hiring activities.
This user-friendly tool includes mobile and desktop apps, with in-app messaging on its desktop app for easy user adoption. Its incorporation of GPT4 makes its text generation superior to other tools and makes Recruit CRM a valuable tool for staffing companies.
Key features:
- Candidate hotlists
- Workflow automation
- AI resume parsing and candidate matching
- Round-the-clock customer service
15. Ceipal ATS
- G2 rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars
- Pricing: Plans start at $24 per user per month
Ceipal is a powerful staffing tool with robust recruitment management solutions powered by AI. Ceipal integrates with over 50 job boards and VMS portals and allows users to set up AI-driven passive candidate sourcing to grow talent pools and attract top-tier candidates. Its candidate engagement tools allow teams to send mass emails and manage internal and external recruiting conversations from a centralized recruitment center.
Ceipal’s candidate assessments provide a well-rounded interpretation of applicants’ qualifications, learning styles, and workplace values, empowering users to make highly informed hiring decisions. Ceipal also offers onboarding tools as well as vendor and workforce management software, diversity hiring tools, and a suite of healthcare staffing solutions.
Key features:
- Integrated Job Boards
- AI-driven candidate sourcing, matching, and ranking
- Centralized communications center
- Versatile job marketing tools
16. Manatal
- G2 rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars.
- Pricing: Professional plan starts at $15 per user per month, charged annually – A 14-day free trial is available
Manatal is a dedicated recruiting software that works well for staffing agencies as well as in-house hiring teams. This solution has a simple and intuitive UI, AI-powered job description tools, and customizable career pages to help recruiters quickly bring in the right applicants. It has a customizable pipeline with a Kanban board for easy candidate management and features automatic candidate profile enrichment which can add information from the web like a profile photo and social media links without requiring an arduous search. Accompanying its AI and automation tools are powerful compliance measures to ensure recruiting processes meet all necessary compliance regulations.
Capable of hiring high candidate volumes, this solution is effective for larger organizations like staffing companies and is used by recruiting teams at large companies like Ogilvy, Hertz, and Deloitte.
Key features:
- Expansive job board access
- AI-powered candidate recommendations
- Kanban board
- Automatic candidate profile enrichment
17. Pinpoint
G2 rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars.
Pricing: Growth plan starts at $600 per month, paid annually
Pinpoint is an easy-to-use ATS trusted by talent acquisition and AR teams at leading organizations like New York Public Library, L’Occitane, and Franklin Electric. This solution is designed to optimize the experience of recruiters, hirers, and candidates through beautiful design and easy-to-use tools.
This standalone ATS includes tools for creating custom career pages, quick and easy job posting, and employee referral tools to attract high-quality candidates. It also includes useful applicant management features like candidate scoring with custom scorecards, easy team collaboration, and communications templates. Pinpoint plans also include unlimited access to customer support to ensure recruiters can access the help they need, the moment they need it.
Key features:
Job requisition and talent pool management
Candidate communication management
Advanced reporting
New hire onboarding tools
How to Choose the Right ATS
With the extensive variety of recruiting software on the market, choosing the right ATS solution can be challenging. Here are some key factors to consider when selecting an applicant tracking system for your company:
- Hiring and recruiting needs: As a starting point for your search, consider your organization’s size, existing hiring processes, and anticipated growth. Make note of current hiring problems to be solved, including communication difficulties, inefficient workflows, or convoluted applicant tracking that an applicant tracking system might solve.
- ATS customizations: Depending on the needs of your company, you may seek out solutions with specific job board connections, career page builders, or customizable workflows. Many ATS solutions are available in various packages or with a la carte options. The features you eventually select should align with your recruiting needs and budget.
- Stand-alone ATS or add-on HCM module: Consider your existing HR tech stack, and determine whether you need to invest in a stand-alone applicant tracking system or add a recruiting module to your existing HR software solution.
- Integration with HCM and core HR technology stack: When comparing potential ATS solutions, consider how each platform integrates with your team’s tech stack. Choose a solution that integrates well with your existing HCM system, website editing tools, and L&D software if possible.
- Ease of use and ATS UI: User-friendliness is always essential when choosing new workplace technology. Consider the range of your HR team’s tech-savviness and support features when selecting the best ATS for your company.
- Training and support services from ATS vendor: Note customer support services offered by your ATS provider. Ask about working hours, support channels, and average response times, and choose a level of support that your team requires and will actually use. Additional add-ons include ATS implementation support and additional end-user training to drive ATS adoption.
- ATS vendor’s pricing model and cost: Ultimately, your software budget dictates your investment in new workplace software. Communicate the importance of your new hiring solution with business leaders and internal stakeholders and seek out a solution that provides the most value for the cost.
Whatfix enables HR teams to maximize ATS end-user adoption and ROI with in-app guidance, on-demand support, and analytics.
With Whatfix DAP, create contextual in-app experiences that guide different end-users through your ATS to reduce friction and ensure hiring process governance. Use Tours and Task Lists to accelerate time-to-proficiency and drive end-user adoption. Flows and Smart Tips provide additional guidance and hiring compliance on complex workflows or infrequently done tasks. Self Help connects to your HR and hiring SOPs and ATS workflow documentation, providing a searchable help center that overlays your ATS UI.
Whatfix Product Analytics enables hiring teams and staffing companies to track how end-users engage with the platform, benchmark core time-to-completion KPIs, and identify areas of friction. Use Journeys and Funnels to spot where dropoffs are occurring in your process or what’s causing confusion and compare groups of users with Cohorts. Use these insights to take a data-driven approach to improve your ATS workflows and ultimately achieve your hiring and recruiting business outcomes.
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