Find the best applicant tracking systems for startups to enterprises, featuring automation, customization, and advanced candidate management tools. Compare top ATS platforms like Workable, Greenhouse, and Breezy HR to streamline hiring and enhance team efficiency.
By Brad Nakase, Attorney
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A fresh job posting opens the floodgates, and you must be prepared for the barrage of applicants that may come in. Because it can be difficult to sift through a large number of applications to identify the most qualified candidates, the organization where I work uses an ATS (applicant tracking system) to ensure that its talent acquisition process is as efficient as possible.
I looked into several applicant tracking systems, evaluating them whenever possible and talking to people who use them on a daily basis to assist you choose the ideal option for your place.
Fortunately, there are many excellent solutions available, some of which offer special features that will make your applicant tracking process more efficient.
It’s time to look at the many applicant tracking systems available, regardless of whether you are an established business that has been handling job applicants on a spreadsheet or a startup that is just expanding from its original members. Although ATS solutions have significantly improved in recent years, each ATS must have a few characteristics in order to be worth your time (and the time of your applicants).
This is what we had been watching out for:
These factors, along with my in-depth research and testing of available applicant tracking systems, helped me choose nine applications that will support a top-notch hiring and applicant monitoring procedure.
Workable Pros
Workable Cons
It seemed obvious that Workable would be on this list when I was given a guided tour of the candidate sourcing function when I initially opened it.
With the use of the sophisticated People Search function, users may look up almost any information about an applicant to find them, including address, education, and past employment title. The selection committee should be able to quickly identify an applicant as long as they can recall one piece of information about them.
With a huge candidate pool, this functionality is especially beneficial for large enterprises. The HR officer and Founder of nerDigital, Max Shak, notes that “People Search is also very helpful for small and medium-sized companies that need an easy and efficient recruitment procedure without substantial customization.”
Numerous candidate sorting and filtering options, such as creation & disqualification dates, which are considerably more than I believe most teams would require, enhance Workable’s search feature. Similar to a lot of other application tracking systems, you may filter by people’s personalized tags. Also impressive to me was the summary of the candidate’s details that appears before you click on them. It includes information about their location, pipeline stage, and previous positions they have applied for, along with some specifics about their employment history.
In addition to its applicant tracking attributes, Workable offers a number of additional cutting-edge features, such as AI-powered features and reliable visual report generation. For instance, I was genuinely amazed at the outcome when it used AI to create comprehensive job descriptions based on a job title. Although it was a bit of a boilerplate, it is still a good time-saver for job description material that doesn’t require an hour or more of time to produce.
Workable is quite user-friendly in general. A few tabs, such as the activity flow and the view of applicants for a certain job, were a bit hectic and overpowering for me, though. Teams might eventually adjust to these viewpoints, I’m sure.
Workable pricing: The Starter plan costs $149 per month and is invoiced on a monthly basis.
Pros
Cons
Free plans are available on very few applicant tracking systems, and those that do tend to have jump-scare-like interfaces or lack many crucial functions. The Bootstrap plan from Breezy HR defies this tendency.
The majority of the essential elements of an applicant tracking system (ATS) are included in the free plan, such as an extensive applicant tracking interface, bespoke applications, integrations with well-known job boards like Indeed and LinkedIn, and unlimited users.
Out of all these features, the Candidates tab pleased me the most. Seeing every candidate’s pipeline state was simple with a dragging and dropping Kanban view. Along with seeing aggregated reviewer input from scorecards, I could also discuss candidates with peers.
Additionally, it has a user-friendly and comparatively simple UI. Upon initially launching the application, I was presented with an introductory video and a tutorial bot that walked me through key aspects of the user experience.
Breezy HR additionally provides a customizable branded job site where candidates can submit job applications, even with its no-cost plan. I’m not a programmer, but the ability to add JavaScript and CSS gives people who are more comfortable with code almost limitless customization options. Standard templates are available on the platform for non-programmers to build upon.
Breezy HR pricing: The Bootstrap plan is free for one job posting; the Startup plan costs $157 per month and is invoiced annually.
Pros
Cons
Pinpoint is the platform that might make a hiring specialist’s job more pleasurable. First of all, the site is beautiful and easy to use. Although almost all of the features are combined into the menu bar on the left, it is well-arranged and simple to use.
With Pinpoint’s highly customizable candidate tracking interface, you can rearrange candidate widgets to build views that are convenient for you and display the information you require to assess each prospect. You may even use its candidate comparison function to view two prospects side by side and contrast their evaluations and applications.
Additionally, you can design as many hiring processes as you like, with a maximum of 25 steps per workflow. I don’t think many companies will need to build numerous 25-stage funnels for their available positions, so I thought this was a bit excessive, but I am not one to gripe about the idea of “unlimited.”
Pinpoint’s dedication to addressing bias is one recurrent feature that distinguishes it as a premium service. Pinpoint provides “equality monitoring” insights in addition to conventional reporting (which, I should say, has lovely and easy-to-read graphs) that lets you see candidate demographic data and applicant experience indicators to enhance workplace diversity and general satisfaction.
In order to prevent name bias, Pinpoint also provides anonymous screening, a function that substitutes random fruits, vegetables, and colors for candidate names. Additionally, this function obscures demographic data that may be biased, such as gender and ethnicity, in applications.
Pinpoint pricing: Customized.
Pros
Cons
With a range of cloud-based products, including its applicant tracking system, Zoho Recruit, Zoho is a popular choice. For teams who are already ardent Zoho supporters, it’s a good choice because it seamlessly connects with every other software in the Zoho environment.
The integrated AI assistant is one feature that makes Zoho unique. This assistant, called Zia, assesses each applicant’s suitability for the position or positions they applied for by analyzing their information and comparing it to the job specifications. It’s a good way to rapidly exclude applicants with insufficient experience or to closely monitor those who stand out.
Beyond just saving time, Zoho’s sophisticated automation tools also impressed me. For instance, you can set up a webhook, issue a rejection email, and change the candidate’s position to rejected after they are denied. Furthermore, these steps don’t have to be taken right away; you can plan them for a few days once the candidate is turned down.
Each of these is in addition to the normal ATS functions, which include creating a candidate assessment, creating a career site, and fully customizing job listings.
The interface is the main drawback of the app, which is true of almost all other apps in the Zoho ecosystem. It feels antiquated, many features are obscured by tabs and take numerous clicks to reach, and the interface’s text is difficult to read. However, all of that is compensated for by the price point and the sophisticated features.
Zoho Recruit pricing: $25 per user per month, payable annually, with the Standard plan; free under the Forever free version
Pros
Cons
For a number of reasons, the greenhouse caught my attention. It seems tidy, well-structured, and user-friendly, based on my initial impression. The more I examined its aspects, the more fascinated I grew.
I examined a number of ATS programs, and Greenhouse presented a few of the best reports. Along with offering more than 40 ready-made reports that highlight various crucial granular information, such as pipeline history & candidate level by source, it also lets you create your own reports that include visualizations of the data.
Every job dashboard also displays statistics along with a color-coded donut chart that illustrates the caliber of job applicants from each source. This facilitates the process of determining the best sources of candidates and allocating your job posting money appropriately.
And it’s not simply its reporting that makes Greenhouse unique. It makes sharing jobs on well-known job boards and social media easier and has more than 500 integration options. Customers who have access to CRM may also use it to automatically find the best mailing address for someone who is online and put them in the relevant campaign pool, which will start the appropriately customized email sequences.
Greenhouse pricing: Customized.
Pros
Cons
Honestly, I thought, “That’s it?” when I saw the majority of ATS software incorporated into all-inclusive HR packages. Most cut back on a lot of applicant monitoring and candidate sourcing tools in order to give other HR departments priority.
When it comes to connecting an applicant tracking system (ATS) with other HR products, such as payroll, benefits, time-off management, employee records, and onboarding and offboarding, BambooHR performs admirably, despite its flaws.
The Candidates tab was the area I liked best. A brief overview of each candidate’s most important details, including contact details, status, rating, the most recent email sent, and more, was supplied, along with filters to help you browse through the applicants. Additionally, once you’ve found and hired new applicants, it’s simple to integrate them into your payroll system, onboarding process, and other features—all within the same app—because BambooHR is a complete HR software package rather than just an applicant tracking system.
OneStop Northwest creator Dylan J. Cleppe claims that BambooHR finds a balance between being too simple and satisfying the thorough tracking requirements of HR departments. His team’s productivity increased by 30% with the aid of BambooHR’s application monitoring features and auto follow-ups.
A number of distinct customization choices are also provided by BambooHR. For instance, I managed to outline specific information about applicants that colleagues could view while omitting other private details. Additionally, I could make unique candidate pools to arrange applicants and link them to customized email sequences.
BambooHR pricing: Customized
Pros
Cons
As soon as I noticed that JazzHR had a high user-friendliness & ease of use rating, my level of inspection inevitably increased. However, after evaluating the tool and contrasting it with several ATS platforms, I completely concurred with that assessment—for small and mid-sized companies on limited funds, that is.
JazzHR outperforms its class, enabling lean HR departments to follow suit. It achieves the perfect combination of price, automation, and user-friendly features. Kayla Colbert, Siege Media’s talent acquisition specialist, concurs. “In terms of personalization, you’re getting a lot for your money, and the support staff is quite helpful and prompt.” However, because of its absence of multiple-factor authentication, poor loading times, and restricted screening choices, it is less appropriate for businesses with intricate, enterprise-level employment procedures.
Several user-friendly features that I didn’t discover in numerous other applications are included in the platform; I can imagine these capabilities greatly simplifying the work of HR teams.
When establishing a fresh post, for instance, a dynamic tutorial will inform you of all the fields that need to be filled out before proceeding to the next step. Additionally, this functionality detects if you use one of the several job description themes on the platform and neglect to change a bracketed placeholder. The phrase “Dear {Initial Name}” is the only thing that would make me wish to discard an email.
When candidates moved on to the next phase of a pipeline, I found that many additional capabilities, like job assignments, email automation, and interview scheduling, were simple to use. The system also makes it simple to access consolidated candidate data and internal team communications, and it provides an easy-to-use careers page designer. It’s even possible to keep discussions private by limiting access to messages and participation to particular team members.
On top of it all, the platform lets you “watch” top applicants, keeping them on some kind of “quick pick” list, and editing an employment posting’s meta tag for search engine optimization. These are capabilities I was unable to locate in any of the other apps I evaluated.
JazzHR price: Hero plans start at $75 per month and are invoiced annually.
Pros
Cons
Even while Lever refers to itself as a “talent relationship administration” platform, it is really an applicant tracking system. And it’s an excellent one.
The goal of the Lever Nurture function is to establish rapport with possible applicants by means of tailored automated outreach initiatives. This enables you to use a variety of communication techniques to establish rapport with applicants prior to hiring them.
Your hiring teams and prospects will have an amazing experience thanks to Lever’s user-friendly dashboards, which provide you with a performance summary and actionable data.
All things considered, Lever is an excellent applicant tracking system (ATS) that excels at managing candidates owing to its intuitive design. Lever is a great option if you’re searching for an applicant tracking system that will help you establish trusting relationships with prospects and give your hiring team an outstanding experience.
Lever pricing: Customized
Pros
Cons
Ashby is the latest ATS on the list, having been founded in 2018. Don’t be fooled by its youth, though. This all-in-one hiring platform has grown rapidly to become a dominant force in the field.
Ashby combines scheduling, sourcing, application tracking, and dashboard data into a single platform. An AI helper that is particularly useful for creating searches, pipeline visualizations, customizable warnings, and organized hiring processes are some of Ashby’s additional capabilities.
Even though Ashby remains a relatively new product, it has advanced significantly due to user feedback, consistently introducing new features and enhancements. For high-growth businesses looking for a comprehensive and flexible recruiting solution, Ashby is a potential option because of its dedication to innovation & customer satisfaction.
You want the recruitment team’s job to be easier with a good applicant tracking system. Offering adaptability to fit your current workflow, an easy-to-use interface that keeps your team concentrated on the important tasks, and time-saving solutions are all part of this.
Of course, you can use an applicant tracking system (ATS) to find the top folks. It is crucial that your system interfaces with all of the HR tools you use because you need more than simply an applicant tracking system to effectively fill your vacant positions.
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