The Best Recruiting CRM Software Shortlist
After reviewing many different options, here’s my list of the best recruiting CRM systems on the market today, with detailed summaries below:
- 2. Manatal — Best recruiting CRM for organizing and analyzing recruiting efforts for multiple clients
- 5. PCRecruiter — Best recruiting CRM software for detailed candidate profiles & recruitment analytics
- 6. Recruiterflow — Best end-to-end recruiting CRM for staffing agencies wanting time-saving automations
- 8. SmartRecruiters — Best CRM system with recruitment marketing tools & special features for recruiting events
- 9. Cornerstone OnDemand — Best recruitment platform for internal candidate management, upward mobility and succession planning
- 10. Bullhorn — Best recruiting CRM with a robust LinkedIn integration for improved candidate sourcing
Finding a top-quality candidate can sometimes feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. On top of that, sometimes the candidate of your dreams isn't actually looking for work, or at least not yet. That's where recruiting candidate relationship management (CRM) software comes in to help.
If you're lost in a sea of candidates and need a little help, take a look at this list of the best recruiting CRM software for engaging top talent. Each option on the list has something unique to offer. As well, they'll help you improve your candidate outreach efforts and fill your job openings faster.
What is Recruiting CRM Software?
In a nutshell, a recruiting CRM is a suite of tools to manage candidate relationships over the long term. They're often used by recruiting firms or staffing agencies, as well as by in-house recruiters. They'll give you a way to identify top-ranking candidates, and a database to store them in for future use. They also use automations and sometimes artificial intelligence (AI) to keep candidates engaged.
Overviews of the 10 Best Recruiting CRM Software
Here’s a brief description of each recruitment CRM to showcase each tool’s best use case, some noteworthy features, and screenshots to give a snapshot of the user interface.
Trakstar
Best for end-to-end employee lifecycle management
Trakstar is a recruiting CRM software that gives organizations access to a large talent pool and facilitates communication with potential candidates throughout the hiring process. It helps HR teams quickly identify and analyze top talent, streamline their recruiting operations, and make more informed hiring decisions.
The software has an intuitive interface where recruiters and hiring managers can collaborate on resumes and track progress throughout recruitment, from initial outreach all the way through to new employee onboarding and talent management.
Users can search through hundreds of profiles to identify the best candidates for any given role, with filtering options like location, experience level, and education level, and candidate searches can be saved for quick future access. Built-in communication tools such as email templates and automated notifications help recruiters stay connected with their candidates and provide timely updates on job openings and other opportunities within the organization.
The software also offers powerful analytics capabilities with detailed reports on candidate performance metrics like time spent in interviews or tests taken by applicants. This helps recruiters better understand who will be successful in various roles based on data rather than opinion alone, ensuring that only qualified individuals are hired or promoted within their organization.
Trakstar integrates with popular job boards such as Indeed, allowing users to post job openings quickly and easily from one platform. It also has integrations for common workplace communication tools like Slack, Google Workspace, Zoom, and Office365, and has a PandaDoc integration for easy contract management.
Manatal
Best recruiting CRM for organizing and analyzing recruiting efforts for multiple clients
Manatal’s all-in-one recruitment CRM & ATS simplifies the recruitment process through job portal integrations, easy-to-manage talent pipelines, and AI-driven candidate recommendations. Their Chrome extension for LinkedIn makes it quick and easy to parse public information and add it to candidate profiles. From there, you can organize all your candidate applications into kanban-style boards for each position, and advance candidates to the next stage using their drag-and-drop pipeline feature.
Manatal’s recruitment CRM has specific features that are purpose-built for recruitment and staffing agencies. This includes tools to manage relationships with different clients you’re recruiting for, and reports that let you track placements and revenue generated per client as well.
To give you ultimate oversight of your team’s productivity, you can link revenues directly to jobs and clients, allowing you to measure your return on investment (ROI) for your team’s efforts on a per-client basis. As well, you can also grant clients access to a customizable external view of your Manatal system, making it easier to interact with them and keep them informed.
Manatal integrates with Office 365, Microsoft Outlook, LinkedIn, Gmail, Facebook, WhatsApp, Mailchimp, Zapier, and other platforms. They also have an open API to support additional custom integrations, plus a full-feature app for mobile recruiting.
Tracker
Best combined CRM + ATS tool with advanced automation and candidate engagement
Tracker’s combined ATS, CRM, and automation software includes a wide range of useful functions to help hiring teams stay organized and efficient, at scale.
Specific time-saving features within their CRM tool include: customizable templates for emails, letters, texts; personalized bulk email capabilities for up to 20,000 simultaneous emails; workflow automation tools for common tasks (think follow-ups, assigning tasks to your co-workers based on status changes, etc.); and dedicated extensions for LinkedIn, Outlook and Gmail.
Tracker also helps teams stay on track through their activity management and task board features, which are unlimited and completely customizable, including the ability to drag-and-drop items, check them off once complete, or assign them to fellow team members.
Competing against CRM giants like Salesforce and HubSpot, Tracker’s CRM also includes several advanced features to increase productivity even further. Not only does their CRM system track and link all types of candidate interactions into candidate profiles, they also allow you to set up your communications in advance—when you have time—and use their “send later” feature to roll them out whenever you’re ready.
On top of that, they have a voice-to-text feature where you can narrate your directions to Tracker without needing to type a thing. As well, their advanced Telephony features enable 2-way text communications with candidates (including text templates), plus their click-to-call ability followed by automatic call logging with call recording playback.
Tracker integrates with Gmail, LinkedIn, Microsoft 365, and Microsoft Outlook, as well as with other communication tools, social media platforms and popular job boards. They also have a full-feature mobile app for Android and iOS devices too.
Salesforce CRM
Best CRM software for its extended functionality through AppExchange
Salesforce is a cloud-based CRM platform that streamlines a company’s recruitment process, candidate tracking, and hiring process and improves the quality of candidates. It does this by automating HR tasks to reduce human error and speed up the processes involved. This solution is used by a wide range of companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies.
The CRM platform functions as an all-in-one software to meet the many needs a business can have, including prospect management, onboarding, and HR management. The cloud-based platform combines all client and candidate data in a single accessible dashboard powered by AI, automation, and personalization to customize the journey of suitable candidates. Salesforce empowers recruiters with a 360-degree view of both clients and candidates to offer value-added services to help move beyond the traditional sourcing approaches that many companies still use.
Should Salesforce prove to lack certain features that a particular company needs for its hiring process, it is possible to look for a specialized solution through Salesforce AppExchange. Several applicant tracking systems are available in the AppExchange that can be used to extend Salesforce’s native Customer 360 feature. Having the choice to simply stick with Salesforce’s functionalities or augment it using solutions built on Salesforce allows companies to have a flexible tool to continue using the platform instead of subscribing to a different software altogether.
PCRecruiter
Best recruiting CRM software for detailed candidate profiles & recruitment analytics
PCRecruiter is a CRM software that helps recruitment professionals source, track, and manage candidates throughout the hiring process. It helps users develop relationships with potential candidates, identify the best talent for open positions, and streamline communication and collaboration between team members. The software also automatically posts job openings on popular job boards like LinkedIn.
PCRecruiter lets users conduct comprehensive candidate searches based on resumes, keywords, and notes. Users can create profiles for potential candidates and track all their information in one place. This includes contact information, resumes, and responses. Users can define and automate workflows for various recruiting processes, and its drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to edit and manage candidate placements.
Their sequencing feature helps users track activity and monitor progress through metrics and charts, giving users insight into their client and candidate engagement activities. Users can view recruitment analytics in various visual presentations, including bubble charts, line graphs, and bar charts. They can generate, export, and share detailed reports in various formats with other team members.
Their email integrations allow users to synchronize contacts from other systems easily. PCRecruiter enforces standard security measures, ensuring that confidential data is always protected. Users can toggle on permissions and controls, letting them have complete control over who can access what type of documents.
Integrations are available through PCRecruiter's public API, or by connecting a paid Zapier account. They also have native integrations with Gmail, Microsoft Office, and Office 365, and a mobile app that users can access from anywhere.
Recruiterflow
Best end-to-end recruiting CRM for staffing agencies wanting time-saving automations
Recruiterflow is an applicant tracking & recruiting CRM software for ambitious recruiting & staffing firms. What makes Recruiterflow different from other ATS and recruiting CRM products, is their recruiting automation, simplicity, and ease of use. Recruiterflow helps you manage your candidate and client pipeline with visual, drag-and-drop kanban style boards, and post jobs on different job boards like Indeed and LinkedIn.
With Recruiterflow's email sequences, it's easier than ever for recruiters to reach out to candidates and clients quickly. However, the crown jewel of their platform is their cutting-edge recruiting automation, which creates a positive candidate experience and is one of the most advanced automations in the industry.
Recruiterflow's platform is simple and easy to use, requiring almost no training. You can also review your recruiting strategy and performance at all times using their real-time reporting.
Recruiterflow integrates with popular job boards and Zapier. You can also build your own custom apps or set up additional software integrations using their open APIs.
Act!
Best recruiting CRM for its offline and mobile access
Act! is an on-premise and cloud-based CRM and marketing automation platform developed by Swiftpage for small and midsize businesses. The software enables you to manage a robust central repository of information related to your clients, leads, opportunities, and prospective staff members.
Act! is available with cloud hosting or on-premise, and it’s capable of storing client and prospect interactions, activities, contact information, and account histories. It also provides marketing and sales automation to facilitate continuous business growth with better engagement, retention, and sales.
Apart from centralized contact information, Act! CRM also automates repetitive and time-consuming tasks, including various sales processes and the scheduling of certain marketing and recruiting tasks. This is meant to enhance productivity and operational efficiency.
The task and activity management module, in particular, can be useful in the recruiting process as it allows users to keep track of priority calls, applicant meetings, as well as daily activities and task lists to effectively manage the recruiting team’s time and effort.
SmartRecruiters
Best CRM system with recruitment marketing tools & special features for recruiting events
SmartRecruiters is a modern and flexible recruiting platform with end-to-end recruiting features, suitable for teams of any size, including enterprise-level organizations. Their recruiting CRM software, called SmartCRM, gives recruiting teams the tools they need to strengthen their employer brand, build a candidate pool of active and passive candidates, and nurture their interest through branded rule-based drip campaigns. Their recruiting software also includes a feature to discover qualified candidates inside of your organization too.
Their recruitment marketing tools make it easy to market your company presence at networking events and career fairs by building custom landing pages for each event. Another unique feature is their SmartRecruiters Field Recruiting App, which is tailored for recruiting events like job fairs and campus recruiting events. During the event, their app functions as a branded kiosk and can parse resume details directly into candidate profiles in real-time. You can also set up useful automation throughout your recruiting process to help you increase your recruiting outreach at scale. This makes them a great platform for high volume recruiting or organizations experiencing hyper growth.
SmartRecruiters integrates with 600+ software applications. On the off chance that you’re using tools that aren’t already in their app marketplace, their development team will integrate them into your system for no extra cost.
Pricing details for SmartRecruiters are available upon request. They also offer a free demo through their website.
Cornerstone OnDemand
Best recruitment platform for internal candidate management, upward mobility and succession planning
Cornerstone’s HCM (human capital management) platform includes a wide range of features, such as modules to support recruiting and onboarding, learning and development, performance management, engagement, and core HR data management.
Their CRM module helps manage the candidate experience with external, as well as internal candidates, since their system has tools for identifying existing employees who are ready for upward mobility in their career. Through their AI-generated career site, existing employees can easily compare job description competencies to where they currently are in their own development plans, helping them stay focused on the next step in their career.
Pricing details for Cornerstone are available upon request. They also offer a free demo through their website.
Bullhorn
Best recruiting CRM with a robust LinkedIn integration for improved candidate sourcing
Bullhorn’s recruitment CRM is designed to help recruiters manage their candidate relationships by relying on automations to create high-quality touch-points throughout the recruiting process. In tandem, their software also functions as an ATS, which makes it suitable for both individual recruiters or staffing agencies dealing with large volumes of candidates.
Their system cuts down on busywork by passively tracking all candidate communications through their integration with Gmail and Outlook. This means candidate records are automatically updated in real-time as you go about your email outreach. By automating these common admin functions, recruiters are enabled to speed up their hiring process and make placements faster.
Recruiting teams will also appreciate Bullhorn’s full-feature integration with LinkedIn Recruiter, a go-to source for qualified candidates. From LinkedIn, you can check if a candidate’s profile is already in your system, and if not, add it with a click. And, vice versa, from within Bullhorn, you can click a candidate record to pull up their LinkedIn profile information too (as shown above). Bullhorn’s CRM also works for mobile recruiting through their app for Android or iOS mobile devices.
Bullhorn has 100+ software integrations available through their Marketplace, including integrations with C-Suite Corp, Checkr, Crimcheck, eSkill, Indeed, Referoo, SkillCheck, SkillSurvey, Text-Em-All, Xref, and many others.
Pricing details for Bullhorn are available upon request. They also offer a free demo through their website.
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The 10 Best Recruiting CRM Software Comparison Chart
Here’s a comparison chart that summarizes basic details about each of my top recruiting CRM software selections. You can view pricing details and the availability of free trials or demos side-by-side to help you find the best software for your budget and business needs.
Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Trakstar Best for end-to-end employee lifecycle management | Free demo available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
2 | Manatal Best recruiting CRM for organizing and analyzing recruiting efforts for multiple clients | 14-day free trial | From $15/user/month | Visit Website |
3 | Tracker Best combined CRM + ATS tool with advanced automation and candidate engagement | Free demo available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
4 | Salesforce CRM Best CRM software for its extended functionality through AppExchange | 14-day free trial | From $25/user/month (billed annually) | Visit Website |
5 | PCRecruiter Best recruiting CRM software for detailed candidate profiles & recruitment analytics | Free demo available | From $85/user/month | Visit Website |
6 | Recruiterflow Best end-to-end recruiting CRM for staffing agencies wanting time-saving automations | 14-day free trial + free demo | From $85/user/month | Visit Website |
7 | Act! Best recruiting CRM for its offline and mobile access | 14-day free trial | From $30/user/month (billed annually) | Visit Website |
8 | SmartRecruiters Best CRM system with recruitment marketing tools & special features for recruiting events | Free demo available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
9 | Cornerstone OnDemand Best recruitment platform for internal candidate management, upward mobility and succession planning | Free demo available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
10 | Bullhorn Best recruiting CRM with a robust LinkedIn integration for improved candidate sourcing | Free demo available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
Other Options
Here are a few more worthwhile options that didn’t make the best recruiting CRM software list:
- Jobvite
Best all-in-one talent acquisition software to boost candidate engagement through video interviewing
- Gem
Best recruiting CRM software for targeted email campaigns and outreach analytics
- Eightfold AI
Best recruiting CRM for leveraging an AI-generated candidate selection processes
- Fetcher
Best recruitment CRM for automated email campaigns, diversity sourcing tools, and advanced metrics
- JobAdder
Best recruitment CRM + ATS with a useful competition-tracking tool
- ClearCompany
Best recruiting CRM software for posting to multiple job boards in minutes
- Zoho Recruit
Best recruiting CRM system for advanced recruitment automation tools
- Recruit CRM
Best recruiting CRM software for agencies wanting detailed team productivity reports
- JazzHR
Best recruiting CRM for standardizing your outreach to all qualified candidates
- CEIPAL
Best CRM + ATS platform for SMS (text) recruiting & DEI-focused talent acquisition
Selection Criteria for Recruiting CRM Software
I'm happy to explain my methodology in case you're wondering what criteria I used to prepare this top 10 list. To start things off, I created a long list of the most popular recruitment solutions on the market today. I then dug into each one to confirm that it possessed CRM capabilities, as well as other tools to address the entire recruiting process.
With a shorter list of recruiting tools in place, I then used my selection criteria below to compare each system in a standardized way. In addition, I drew on my previous experience assisting with recruiting to pinpoint the features that add the most value when dealing with large volumes of candidates.
Here's a summary of the main features I assessed to create this list:
Core Functionalities
Each time I dive into creating a new top 10 list, I always determine the core features I want to see first. That way I can make sure nothing critical is missing. As I set about evaluating and comparing many recruiting CRM systems, here are the core features I initially verified for each system to make it into my shortlist list:
- Basic tools to manage large volumes of candidate data effectively
- Career page integrations that simplify the application process for candidates
- The ability to store templates for key items like job postings, job descriptions, and many different types of emails (introductory, interview scheduling, reference check requests, etc.)
Key Features
In addition to the basic functionalities above, I also assessed the following key features to determine my final selections for the best recruitment CRM software:
- Talent pools: A roster of qualified candidates to draw from for future positions. This includes passive candidates who might not be actively looking for work, but who possess all the required skills for a particular job according to their candidate profile.
- Talent pipelines: Visualization tools that indicate where each candidate is within the recruiting process. It should cover all the typical recruitment phases: screening, interviews, skill assessment, background check, references, offer, etc.
- Workflow automations: Automations are the most valuable time-saving feature of recruiting CRMs. The best systems automate tedious tasks like interview scheduling, sending out reminders, prompting candidates for references, etc. Many systems also support automated nurture or drip campaigns to casually keep your connections in the loop for future opportunities.
- Reports, metrics, and analytics: Recruiting CRM systems fill up with data very fast. The best systems include built-in reports that show high-level productivity overviews and the success rates for individual recruiters in a staffing firm or recruiting agency.
- Collaborative hiring tools: Since recruiting CRMs are generally used the most by staffing firms or agencies, it’s important that they include solid tools for collaborative hiring. This includes the ability to leave notes for other team members in candidate profiles and tag them with @mentions. Also, they should be able to aggregate and track all communications within one central candidate profile. That way, all your team members are on the same page at all times.
Usability
I chose software that helps simplify and organize recruiting data into clearly organized visual pipelines and candidate profiles. I also assessed the structure of their features and menus, and how easy it is to make updates with one click. In my opinion, these are essential aspects of a user-friendly system.
User Interface
Even though a system's user interface (UI) does contribute significantly to their usability, I prefer to evaluate these characteristics separately. I selected systems with clean and colourful interfaces that make the software enjoyable to use for your human resources staff and candidates alike.
Mobile-Friendly Features
Mobile accessibility is important for both recruiters and candidates since 89% of job seekers use their mobile devices to search for open positions. It's even more important if you're sourcing candidates for an industry with mobile, field-based, or deskless workers. In that case, you'll want a recruiting CRM system that works on both Android and iOS devices to provide a better candidate experience. Key features I assessed include the ability to communicate directly with candidates via text messages (SMS), and the option to send mobile-friendly interview packets to candidates on the go.
Software Integrations
Integrations with other software systems will help you improve your overall productivity and work more efficiently. For recruitment CRM systems, key integrations include any other applicant tracking systems (ATS) or talent management tools you're already using. In addition, integrations with email communication programs, digital calendars, background-checking platforms, and e-signature software are a definite bonus too.
Pricing
While transparent pricing is always my preference, many recruiting CRM systems are priced according to the volume of job postings or system users. Therefore, it's important to request a quote that's tailored specifically to your unique business needs. This type of software is available under a monthly SaaS (software-as-a-service) agreement where you can expect to pay a per-user fee. The general price range you can expect for recruiting CRM software ranges between $15 - $85 per user, per month.
Recruiting CRM Software: FAQs
Do you have questions about what recruiting CRM software has to offer? These answers to frequently asked questions are a great place to start:
What is a recruiting CRM?
What does CRM stand for in recruiting software?
What is resume parsing?
Other Recruiting Software Reviews
There are many different types of recruiting software out there. The great news for you is, I've already done all the sleuthing for you. Here's a collection of some other top 10 suggestions for different recruiting software sub-types. I'm sure you'll find something that piques your interest further:
- Best Recruiting Software
- Recruitment Software for Small Businesses
- Enterprise Recruitment Software for High Volume Hiring
- AI Recruiting Software for High-Volume Sourcing
- Diversity Recruiting Software for DEI Hiring
- Recruitment Automation Software
- Recruitment Marketing Software for Hiring
- Cloud Recruitment Software for Hiring Teams
- Recruiting Database Software for Hiring Teams
- Staffing Software for Recruiting & Staffing
Other Resources for Recruiting Top Talent
Not sure if recruiting CRM software is the right fit for you? Perhaps what you actually need is better candidate sourcing software, or a tried and true applicant tracking system?
To round out your whole talent acquisition approach, I recommend taking a look at these other popular resources too:
- Candidate Sourcing Tips to Help you Find the Best Talent
- How to Write a Zinger Job Description
- How to Attract and Retain Top Talent Through the Employee Life Cycle
- Why and How to Create a Proper Talent Management Strategy
- 10 Key Recruiting Metrics to Focus On (And 12 Advanced)
- Recruitment Budgeting: Everything You Need to Know + Example
- Recruitment Marketing: What It Is and 10 Effective Tactics
What's Next?
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