The Top 5 Best Recruitment CRM Software Options for 2023

“AI will take jobs away from all software engineers and IT professionals.” — if you hang around LinkedIn, you can come across many posts like this one.

But here’s the reality check. All you need to do is look into Indeed’s latest research on the best jobs in 2023. And the top 10 most demanded professions are primarily about the IT industry. Including the top 3, where each of them is on the rise:

• Full stack Developer
• Data Engineer
• Cloud Engineer

So, if you’re desperate to hire a full-stack developer, you’re competing with plenty of other business players! 

But fierce competition for top talent is not your only challenge. You must also:

• handle the pressure to make the hiring process quick
• ensure to make informed hiring decisions

And this is where Recruitment CRM software comes into play. Only with a candidate relationship management app you can streamline your entire recruiting process and successfully hire those IT gems!

But, as with every software, dozens of recruitment CRM systems exist. How to choose one?

This guide will dive deep into the top 5 Recruitment CRM software options for 2023, including key features and pricing plans.

 

Why 2023 is the Year to Invest in Recruitment CRM Software

Of course, we’re experiencing a recession, and the IT market is also taking hits. That leads to waves of layoffs, which raises cortisol levels. 

But it’s time for much better news. We’re seeing tech hiring back on the upward trajectory, with over 300000 job postings in the US in April alone.

And with businesses trying to adapt to the supersonic technological changes, the employment gains will likely continue.

It means much work for internal hiring teams and recruitment agencies, and yes — personally you. And to hire the best talent, you need a supreme recruiting CRM.

 

Increasing Efficiency in Talent Acquisition

Recruitment isn’t just about posting a job ad and waiting for job seekers to throw resumes at you like rose petals. It involves several time-consuming tasks, such as sourcing candidates, tracking applications, scheduling interviews, and managing communication.

Recruitment CRM software automates these routine tasks, saving you countless hours and recruiting efforts. 

It streamlines all recruitment activities, from sourcing and tracking candidates to onboarding, within a single platform. It eliminates the need to juggle multiple tools or manually update spreadsheets, allowing you to focus more on strategic tasks like building relationships with candidates and improving the quality of hires.

 

Upgrading Candidate Experience

You post some job ads, run video interviewing, send your offers, and voila! Your qualified candidates easily convert to new hires. 

If only it were that idyllic. In reality, a lot depends on the candidate’s experience. Especially when we talk about hunting for the most demanded A-players in the market. When something goes off in the hiring process, they will bounce.

On the other hand, if you ensure a seamless and engaging recruitment process that shows that you care, you’re much more likely to create a bond. 

Recruitment CRM software will help you with that. It all can go smoothly through personalized emails, text messages, and notifications. 

Think of recruiting software as a helpful memory-keeper. It holds onto all the past chats and meetings, so it’s a breeze for recruiters to keep things personal and steady throughout the hiring journey. Plus, shaping a warm and welcoming image as an employer can make folks more likely to say ‘yes’ to a job offer.

 

Data-Driven Decision Making

Instead of saying anything as cliche as “data is the new oil,” we will share a fun fact from our TRAFFIT playground. Four weeks after launching our beta version of new recruitment analytics, over 4,000 recruiters have generated their reports. This shows how crucial is an in-depth analysis for recruiting teams and human resources departments.

And the good news is, in 2023, you don’t have to bother your IT department or wait in a queue for your internal data science person to get your performance management straight. 

A first-class recruiting CRM software will guarantee a simple yet detailed analytical dashboard where you can track key metrics like:

• time to hire
• time to offer
• source of hire
• candidate engagement
• and more!

Monitoring those stats and connecting the dots will help you to understand what’s working and what needs to be added to your recruitment process. 

And once you know that, you can be more agile and allocate your recruiting efforts in the most efficient channels for future hiring campaigns.

 

Unpacking the Elite Five: Recruitment CRM Software Explored

OK, so we know what’s at stake — improved recruitment efficiency, better candidate experience, and drumming up the hiring results based on data-driven decisions. Those aspects should be on the radar for all recruiting teams and staffing agencies.

Now it’s time to walk through the best recruitment CRM software. Exploring dozens of platforms on your own would hijack many hours of your valuable time. So, to make things easier, we’ve shortlisted five recruiting CRM solutions for you.

 

TRAFFIT

Let’s kick it off with our own recruiting software. For almost ten years on the market, TRAFFIT has been consolidating its position as a thriving applicant tracking system. But this dynamic journey has led us to engineer an end-to-end hiring solution actively used by over 14,000 recruiters and hiring managers in more than 60 countries.

With TRAFFIT, you can effortlessly create and manage a searchable database of candidates while smoothly handling all your recruitment processes. Once it is up and running, it becomes your go-to recruiting hub, integrating seamlessly with your other tools through Zapier and API.

But that’s not all! TRAFFIT also comes with a handy recruiting CRM module built right in, making it a fantastic fit for staffing agencies and outsourcing companies.

Zoho Recruit

The second recruitment software on our list is Zoho Recruit, which is a part of Zoho’s ultra-comprehensive software hub. Zoho Recruit brings the capabilities of a high-caliber applicant tracking system and a recruiting CRM under one roof.

Enticing staffing agencies and internal HR teams, this platform breaks down their features into three buckets: attract & source, track & engage, and automate & hire. 

The middle part (track & engage) is their CRM heart and soul, enabling you to organize candidate data and the hiring pipeline and evaluate your job candidates.

JobAdder

With a 4.5 star rating on Capterra, here comes the third recruiting CRM software — JobAdder. This vendor has a slightly different way of segmenting their functions: Recruitment CRM, Recruitment Marketing, Applicant Tracking, Placement Management, and Recruitment Operations.

Similarly to Zoho Recruit or TRAFFIT, JobAdder is crystal clear about their two primary cohorts of users — recruiting agencies and internal hiring teams. 

What they feel confident about is the time & money-saving benefits for businesses using their recruiting software and a high user adoption rate.

Greenhouse

One of the first things you’ll notice when you hop on their website is the background colors that change as you scroll down the page. Another thing — it’s clear that this vendor holds diversity, equity, and inclusion in high regard.

But, a magnetic web design and business ethics aren’t the only positive sides of this recruiting software. Greenhouse entices businesses of all sizes with a platform that will help to get from chaos to an optimized and structured hiring process.

At the end of the day, the whole point of implementing an applicant tracking system or a recruiting CRM is all about hiring the right person and making it smooth.

Bullhorn

This recruiting software, indeed, wasn’t born yesterday. Do you remember what you were doing in 2000? Well, Bullhorn founders do because this was the beginning of their platform. 

With 23 years in the human resources industry, they’ve paved their way to merge the benefits and technical capabilities of an applicant tracking software with a recruiting CRM solution.

Apart from the recruiting toolkits, they come in with payments/billing and business intelligence solutions.

Like Greenhouse, Bullhorn doesn’t have transparent pricing or a free trial option on its page.

That’s the bird’s eye view of our five best recruiting CRM software solutions. Now, it’s time to dig in and know their key features, pros and cons, and pricing details.

 

TRAFFIT — Your Way to Attract and Hire Top Talent

Here’s what Katarzyna Szymiczek, talent acquisition manager at Leocode, says about our recruiting CRM system: “When choosing TRAFFIT, the most important point for us was a multifunctional system with a broad range of tools and possibilities. We improved internal communication with hiring managers, and recruitment got easier.”

Features

Attracting top talent

Here’s what you can expect from this application tracking system:

• Let your company’s unique culture shine and draw in top-notch talent by building custom career pages.
• Let candidates smoothly share their impressive skills and qualifications with easy-to-build application forms.
• Create clear and compelling job descriptions that help the right talent see their future in your roles.
• Spread your job postings across multiple job boards, giving you a wider reach and increasing the chances of finding that perfect match.
• Uncover hidden talent with TRAFFIT’s LinkedIn sourcing Chrome Extension, reaching out to passive candidates who may be the ideal addition to your team.
• Invite potential candidates to explore opportunities with your company through the Huntoo referral program, leveraging personal networks to discover your next great hire.
• Leave the manual work behind with our resume parsing feature, effortlessly updating candidate profiles and keeping your talent pool fresh, turning talent management into an enjoyable task.

Candidate management

Here you can:

• Dive into your talent pool for your next hire. Not only will this lower your hiring costs, but it will also significantly shorten the time you spend sourcing.
• Say hello to your ideal candidates by applying advanced filters and boolean search to find those who match your specific criteria.
• Automatically notify selected candidates about new opportunities in your company.
• Get a clear snapshot of your hiring journey with our pipeline view, helping you stay organized and on top of every step.
• Take control of your database organization with our flexible tags, talent categories, and custom fields, tailoring it to best suit your unique recruitment needs.

 

Team collaboration and automation flows

Now, let’s look at two significant aspects of each hiring process. First, it’s a team sport with hiring managers or clients of staffing agencies. Second, modern hiring means automation. That said, let’s see what you can pull this off with TRAFFIT:

• You don’t have to pay for additional seats for hiring managers. Here, you can send notifications, share applications, and gather valuable feedback to make the hiring process a team effort.
• Move a candidate to the next stage and let automated messages do the talking, keeping the candidate and hiring manager updated.
• Let the scheduler set up interviews, giving you one less thing to worry about.
• Keep candidates in the loop with our automated newsletters, sharing company updates and exciting opportunities.
• Seamlessly send data to your talent management system with the automated feature, ensuring all information is updated and at your fingertips.
• Streamline your communication with candidates, using automation for interview scheduling and adding video call links.
• Leave the task of multiposting and CV import to automation features, freeing up your time for selecting the right talent.

 

Advanced analytics

There’s always room for improvement in your future hiring. And the only way to deliver better results is by analyzing key metrics. With TRAFFIT’s analytics and reporting suite, you can keep your finger on the pulse and monitor:

• Time to offer
• Time to hire
• Time to reject
• Application sources breakdown
• Applications by jobs
• Application sources efficiency
• Job posting performance
• Rejections reasons breakdown
• and job boards publications breakdown.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Stellar candidate management: TRAFFIT shines when it comes to helping recruiters keep their candidate pool organized. It’s like your personal assistant for streamlining the recruitment process.
• Handy features: TRAFFIT comes packed with features that really do their part in lending a hand throughout the hiring process. It’s like a Swiss Army knife for recruitment!
• Top-notch customer support: Need help? No problem! TRAFFIT’s customer support team has earned high-fives all around for being super responsive and ready to tackle any questions or issues that pop up.
• Workflow wizardry: TRAFFIT isn’t just a tool—it’s your partner in crafting, teaching, and setting up workflows that boost your recruitment process’s efficiency. It’s all about making your workday a little bit easier!
• Consistency is key: With TRAFFIT, recruiters can make sure they’re delivering a smooth and consistent hiring process. It’s like having a blueprint for effective communication with all your candidates.

Cons:

• A little hiccup in search: Some users have noticed that when it comes to digging through the candidate database, TRAFFIT might need a bit of a nudge to get better at playing hide and seek with candidate information.
• No room on your device: TRAFFIT is a web-based application, so if you’re the type who loves downloading apps to your desktop or mobile, this might seem like a missing piece in your recruitment toolkit. But hey, at least it saves some storage space, right?

Pricing

One thing is for sure — this recruiting software won’t cost an arm and a leg. TRAFFIT’s pricing plans are friendly for small and mid-sized in-house teams and recruitment agencies (Pro and Elite plan) but also lean towards established enterprises (Custom plan).

The good thing is — you can try before you buy! The 14-day free trial option is right this way!

 

Zoho Recruit — organize your candidate data

Time to look under the hood of the second solution from our best recruiting CRM software selection. Here comes Zoho Recruit!

Features

Source and attract

With this set of proactive tools, you can:

• Simplify your candidate sourcing by creating a custom career page, and extend your reach to job seekers by showcasing your job openings on popular job boards, direct sourcing, and social media.
• Make your recruiting process more efficient with Source Boosters, Zoho Recruit’s proprietary candidate sourcing system, designed to save recruiters time and effort during their talent search.
• Take advantage of Employee Referrals, an effective method for attracting high-quality candidates who often fit your company’s culture and needs. This approach taps into the networks of your current employees, bringing trusted talent right to your doorstep and into your applicant tracking system.

Track and engage

This part is the cornerstone of every robust recruiting CRM software! By exploring Zoho Recruit, you can:

• Get a clear, comprehensive view of the recruiting process with the Hiring Pipeline feature, enabling hiring managers to stay organized and up-to-date with their progress in securing qualified candidates.
• Resume management features allow parsing multiple resumes, formatting them to align with the company’s brand, and seamlessly transferring candidate information into the recruiting CRM or client database.
• An intuitive candidate background screening tool offers the ability to make informed decisions, ensuring that each candidate considered is reliable and suitable for the company’s needs.
• With the built-in assessments feature, evaluating and rating applicants based on their skills and fit for the role becomes simpler.
• The video interviews feature facilitates face-to-face interactions, irrespective of distance, providing a more personal and engaging way to connect with potential hires.

Automate and hire

And the last package of tools of this recruiting CRM, combines the aspects of the last stage of the hiring process (offers and onboarding) and recruitment automation. Here’s a quick overview:

• The Automation feature takes care of routine tasks like sending follow-up emails or updating candidate records.
• The power of Artificial Intelligence works its charm to streamline processes such as resume parsing and candidate screening, making the selection of potential hires more efficient.
• With a simple click, talent acquisition pros can send offers, accelerating the hiring process and reducing the time-to-hire.
• The Onboarding feature provides a seamless transition from candidate to employee, allowing recruiters to manage the entire process from one convenient location.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Zoho Recruit offers a comprehensive recruiting software solution that simplifies the entire hiring process.
• The tool effectively streamlines job postings and job openings management, making it a breeze for HR teams.
• It organizes and manages candidate data, ensuring potential candidates stay on track.
• Zoho Recruit’s robust features are paired with a user-friendly interface, creating an efficient and intuitive experience for hiring professionals.
• The platform provides excellent support and regular updates, ensuring it stays at the forefront of recruitment technology.

Cons:

• Some users find the rigidity of Zoho’s tier structure limiting, as it doesn’t allow for the flexibility to choose only the needed features, which may increase costs for small businesses​.
• Some users have reported quality control issues with Zoho Recruit, leading to frequent error messages and the need to contact support for a resolution​​.
• Zoho Recruit has limited integrations with other tools, which some users find lacking compared to other recruiting software options​​.

Pricing

This recruiting CRM software comes with a more complex pricing logic. First, it has different tier plans for corporate HR departments (Free, Standard, Enterprise) and recruiting and staffing agencies (Forever Free, Standard, Professional, and Enterprise).

In both cases, there is a 15-day free trial available.

 

JobAdder — combine recruitment marketing with talent management

Remember JobAdder? This recruitment software blends applicant tracking with the capabilities of a recruitment marketing platform. Let’s see how it works!

Features

Recruitment CRM

It seems that recruiting firms are the core audience for this bundle of features, as its main focus is about business development opportunities. But it doesn’t end there. Here’s what you can do with it:

• Take control of business opportunities with features that allow for comprehensive management of opportunity records, the development pipeline, tasks, and assignees.
• Foster collaboration and build strong relationships with clients and hiring managers, ensuring a smooth and efficient recruitment process.
• Source and sort candidates with ease. Between maintaining a healthy talent pool, managing resumes, and matching candidates to the right roles, CRM becomes a vital tool in any successful recruitment strategy.

 

Recruitment marketing

The “recruitment marketing” term might sound a bit enigmatic, but it primarily comes down to job board ads:

• Crafting compelling job ads becomes simpler with access to various templates, scheduling tools, custom application forms, and screening questions designed to attract suitable candidates.
• Broadening your reach with integrations for job boards and social media platforms, ensuring your job postings get seen by a broad audience of potential candidates.
• Communication with candidates is streamlined through message templates, bulk messaging options, and SMS capabilities, keeping candidates informed and engaged throughout the recruitment process.

 

Applicant tracking

Yes, JobAdder is one of the recruiting software vendors that solve the applicant tracking system ATS vs. recruiting CRM software dilemma. With their ATS capabilities, you can:

• Manage applications easily using features that allow for thorough records, detailed employment profiles, call scripts for phone screening, and a comprehensive applicant dashboard.
• Streamline assessments with an integrated interview and task dashboard, an interview scorecard for standardized evaluations, a system for managing candidate submissions and feedback, and collaborative hiring features that promote teamwork in the selection process.

 

Pros and cons

Pros:

• JobAdder gets applause for its smooth transition process, making it easy for companies to switch from their existing applicant tracking systems.
• Users commend the exceptional customer service they receive from JobAdder’s team.
• JobAdder often comes out on top compared to other recruiting software solutions, like the Salesforce-based Bullhorn.
• The software allows users to have all candidate data, including notes, in one place, which enhances the recruitment marketing process.
• JobAdder’s mobile app receives positive feedback, allowing users to manage job postings and potential candidates on the go.

Cons:

• Some users need help tracking which candidates are assigned to which job, causing inconsistencies in the user interface.
• A few users struggle with uploading applications, which leads to time wastage.
• There have been instances of slow and sporadic response times from the support team, which can be frustrating in time-sensitive business environments.
• If users aren’t fully engaged in using the software, the generated reports can become meaningless, impacting the tracking of recruitment efforts​​.

 

Pricing

Unlike TRAFFIT and Zoho Recruit, JobAdder doesn’t have transparent pricing plans  (nor a free trial option), which can cause unnecessary friction when comparing it to other best recruiting CRM platforms.

Not only must you enter all your data to request the pricing, but you will also face a 30-minute discovery call and a follow-up demo.

Greenhouse — where recruiting CRM meets DEI

It’s a brand with a mission, and you can tell it right away. Good, but let’s check what this recruiting CRM software has to offer from a technical standpoint.

Features

Recruiting

Greenhouse has its secret sauce for sourcing, nurturing and hiring qualified candidates. And to handle that in a structured manner. Here, you’re about to:

• Expand your reach and engage top talent with job listings on multiple job boards and automated personalized outreach. This proactive approach can help enrich your talent pipelines and prepare you for future hiring needs.
• Foster collaborative hiring within your hiring team using features like mentions, shared application reviews, and job and offer approvals. This team-centric approach to the recruitment process can lead to more informed and successful hiring decisions.
• Establish a fair and equitable hiring process using a scorecard of key attributes for success in a role. This consistent evaluation of candidates ensures that the right skills, traits, and qualifications are assessed, leading to unbiased and fair hiring decisions.
• Bolster your employer branding with customizable career pages, email templates, and automated surveys to gather feedback. This interactive approach can significantly enhance your company’s image in the eyes of potential candidates.
• Leverage the power of advanced analytics to make data-driven decisions. With the insights this recruiting CRM software provides, you can make informed decisions that align with your company’s hiring strategies and goals.

Onboarding

Each successful recruitment process has a final touchdown — an employee onboarding program. With Greenhouse onboarding toolset, you open yourself a way to:

• Speed up the integration of new team members with an organized hub of valuable resources. The ability to introduce team members, share policies, and provide insight into the company culture can make this transition smoother.
• The recruiting software allows you to structure your onboarding process with automated tasks and reminders. You can configure an email flow that informs new hires about the next steps, reducing uncertainty and enhancing their initial experience.
• Complete administrative tasks quickly and efficiently. With this tool, you can ensure that information and paperwork get done on time. Set onboarding tasks specific to each job title, assign owners, and streamline the performance management process from day one.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Users have noted that it’s handy for seamless communication during a hiring process, especially during work-from-home days​.
• It has been praised for its success in job and candidate tracking​​.
• Reviewers have found it innovative with new features and upgrades and appreciate the clear product roadmap​​.
• Other recruiters highlighted this as the best way to collaborate on group interviews, with the option to submit feedback directly after the interview for the rest of the team to see​​.
• It offers a sound applicant tracking system that allows team leads to put up job posts and track all applicants coming in through it. It also provides a unique onboarding experience for applicants​​.

Cons:

• Some users had a negative experience with the company refusing to adjust an error​​.
• Managing different permissions can be confusing​.
• This recruiting software cannot search for similar candidates through resume matches​.
• Adding notes/feedback around a candidate’s interview performance is difficult in Greenhouse due to a lack of formatting options, like bullet points, in the text fields​.​

Pricing

Do you want to know how much this recruiting CRM solution costs? Not so fast. Like JobAdder, Greenhouse adds this level of friction to its potential customers by gating their pricing.

To know the details, feel free to enter all your credentials, go through a session with their expert and wait for the pricing details based on your business case. As the song goes, “Nobody said it was easy.”

 

Bullhorn — oldie but a goldie

It’s time for our last contestant in our best recruiting CRM software guide! Bullhorn has a long history in the recruiting software market. Do their features live up to current standards? Let’s find out!

Features

Applicant Tracking & Recruiting CRM system

Bullhorn is another living proof of concept that ATS and CRM are not separate entities. This vendor, in particular, brings a perspective of staffing firms to the table. So, if you’re operating in an agency, here’s what you can do:

• With applicant tracking features, centralize the management of candidates, jobs, shifts, and tasks to streamline the recruitment process. This cohesive approach can significantly improve team productivity and help fill job openings more efficiently.
• Enhance customer relationship management with a mobile CRM designed specifically for staffing firms. This tool can help close the loop between sales and recruiting, providing clear visibility into your client’s evolving business needs.
• The Email Integration feature allows for parsing in resumes, adding notes, and creating tasks directly from your Gmail or Outlook inbox. This seamless tracking of all emails in your Applicant Tracking System ensures that no vital communication falls through the cracks.
• Leveraging the patented Pulse technology, Relationship Intelligence tracks all email activity associated with a particular candidate record and updates that record in real-time. This provides a complete view of your candidate interactions and relationships, fostering better communication and more robust talent pipelines in your high volume recruiting process.

Automation

If you were to bet and be sure to win, you could confidently bet any money that recruitment CRM software will have automation functions. There are several things you can pull off with those tools:

• Simplify your recruitment tasks with a few clicks using this recruiting software, automating the busy work and allowing you to focus on managing candidates more efficiently.
• Schedule meetings and interviews quickly, making the often complex interview scheduling a breeze and ensuring a smooth, efficient process from start to finish.
• Personalize your communication with candidates via email, SMS, and Chatbot, helping to foster stronger candidate relationships and ensure a more engaging candidate experience.
• Gather intelligent insights that can guide your recruitment strategies and decisions, enhancing the effectiveness of your processes from candidate sourcing to video interviewing.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Bullhorn’s customer relationship management software offers automated data capture and customer insight technology, which helps companies engage candidates and win customers​​.
• It supports job postings on company websites and provides customizable application forms, streamlining the recruitment process​.
• The recruitment CRM software offers a unified platform that aligns the work of every department, individual, and role, promoting growth and a seamless candidate experience​​.
• Bullhorn supports resume management, allowing resumes to be uploaded in bulk and for contact information to be parsed, saving recruiters time and effort​.
• It offers reporting features on key recruiting metrics such as time-to-fill, aiding in evaluating recruitment performance and strategies​.

Cons:

• Some users have reported high costs when wanting to depart from the Bullhorn platform, including ransoms in the thousands and per-attachment fees​​.
• Bullhorn does not offer a free trial, which might deter some potential customers from experiencing its features first-hand before committing​​.
• There have been criticisms about the software lacking diversity recruiting solutions, which may limit its effectiveness in promoting a diverse and inclusive workforce​​.

Pricing

Bullhorn is another recruiting software that prefers keeping secrets from potential buyers. No official pricing page and no free trial option. Entering all your data in the pop-up can tell you what it will cost.

Wrapping Up: Choose Your Premier Recruitment CRM Software for 2023

That was a heck of a ride! We deeply explored the five best recruiting CRM software, including their features, pros and cons, and pricing plans.

This choice isn’t easy. So to pick your ideal recruitment CRM, you need to:

• Identify your business needs
• Evaluate features and pricing
• Consider their scalability and integrations

We bet you are 100% serious about handling your job openings and delivering results. Modern talent acquisition is not about — “Hey, let’s do some job posting on popular job boards.” It’s a way to manage candidates throughout the hiring process, where everything goes smoothly.

Yes, several features are important — free job boards, social media integration, recruitment marketing, customer relationship management, and many more.

But before you make your final call — try out your potential recruitment CRM. Does it have a free trial? TRAFFIT has one! Fourteen days should be more than enough to know whether or not it’s a perfect match!