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With so many different talent acquisition software solutions available, figuring out which is right for you is tough. You know you want to optimize the recruitment process for your company, making it more efficient and effective—but now need to figure out which tool is best. In this post, I'll help make your choice easy, sharing my personal experiences using dozens of different talent acquisition tools with teams of all sizes, with my picks of the best talent acquisition software overall.

What is Talent Acquisition Software?

Talent acquisition software is a digital tool designed to assist organizations in efficiently finding and hiring suitable candidates. It encompasses functionalities for job posting, applicant tracking, candidate sourcing, resume screening, and communication management.

The purpose is to streamline the recruitment process, from initial candidate attraction to final selection, by automating and organizing key tasks. It enables recruiters to manage large volumes of applicants, enhances candidate engagement, and provides insights for data-driven hiring decisions.

Overviews of the 10 Best Talent Acquisition Software

Here’s a brief description of each top 10 talent acquisition software to showcase each tool’s best use case, their noteworthy features, and some pros and cons. Keep reading to find additional bonus picks at the bottom of the list.

Best talent acquisition software for automated candidate engagement

  • 14-day free trial + free demo
  • Pricing upon request
Visit Website
Rating: 4.4/5

Teamtailor is an all-in-one talent acquisition software designed to support companies in attracting, managing, and hiring top talent. It offers a suite of features such as job posting, candidate management, AI, team collaboration, and analytics, which make the recruiting process more efficient and engaging for both companies and candidates.

I like Teamtailor's Employer Branding feature, which allows you to create a customizable career site to effectively convey your company culture and values, while their Candidate Experience Management tool ensures smooth interactions with candidates through automated responses and personalized communication.

Teamtailor Standout Features and Integrations

Several unique features make Teamtailor stand out, including AI suggestions for better candidate matching, customizable hiring flows to suit different organizational needs, candidate chat for real-time communication, and personalized notifications to keep both recruiters and candidates informed.

Additionally, Teamtailor provides reporting and analytics to help recruiters understand recruitment metrics and make informed decisions, and offers integration capabilities with various HR systems, job boards, and social media to maintain a connected workflow.

Integrations are available with a variety of tools to support the recruitment process, including Aon's Talent Assessment, BambooHR, DocuSign, LinkedIn, Monster, SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting, Slack, Google Workspace, Microsoft Outlook, Zapier, Facebook Jobs, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Vimeo.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Extensive customization options for career sites boost employer branding
  • Powerful automation tools save time and reduce manual tasks
  • User-friendly interface enhances the recruitment process

Cons:

  • Learning curve to maximizing all features
  • Limited customization in certain templates

Best talent acquisition software for automated outreach sequences

  • Free demo available
  • Pricing upon request
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Rating: 4.6/5

Fetcher is a full-service recruiting platform that helps businesses attract, engage, and retain stellar candidates with automated outreach sequences. 

The software enables talent acquisition specialists to plan step-by-step outreach campaigns to engage candidates that fit the employer’s brand. Every step of the process is customizable, and recruiters can use automated triggers to deliver the sequence at the right time, allowing them to secure candidate interviews. 

Fetcher’s candidate database helps HR teams save time when looking for new hires. Recruiters can identify potential fits based on keywords and descriptors, so they can skip over LinkedIn searches and contact the candidate via email directly from the app. Thanks to its automation features and the candidate database, Fetcher is a top recruiting software for small and medium businesses or staffing agencies that want to amplify the power of their talent acquisition team. 

Fetcher Standout Features and Integrations

Features include diversity hiring, automation, applicant tracking, analytics, a candidate sourcing tool, and interview scheduling. 

Integrations are natively available with multiple solutions, including Google Suite, Greenhouse, Microsoft Outlook, Recruitee, SAP SuccessFactors, Slack, and Teamtailor. 

Fetcher Plans and Pricing

Fetcher offers custom pricing upon request, as well as a free demo. 

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Candidate curation feature
  • Automated outreach
  • Great candidate search filters

Cons:

  • Cannot edit contact cards after you add them to searches
  • Reporting could be more granular

Best talent acquisition software for sourcing and hiring hourly workers

  • Free demo available
  • Pricing upon request
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Rating: 4/5

TalentReef is a talent acquisition platform that's designed to streamline the hiring process, from job posting to onboarding. It's a pretty comprehensive tool that covers everything you need to attract, hire, and onboard new employees, with a particular focus on helping teams manage high-volume hiring for location-based, hourly roles.

Their platform includes several features that provide a positive candidate experience, including their conversational AI chatbot, a text-to-apply feature, two-way texting abilities, and social recruiting tools. Recruiters can also save a lot of time thanks to their automated workflows for common tasks like scheduling interviews and sending follow-up communications to candidates.

TalentReef Standout Features and Integrations

One standout feature of TalentReef is its robust job posting feature. You can post jobs to multiple job boards with a single click, which saves a ton of time. Then there's the applicant tracking system, which shows you at a glance where each candidate is in the process, without needing to drill into candidate records extensively.

TalentReef also includes an onboarding feature for hired candidates, which automates a lot of the required paperwork for getting a new hire onboard.

Integrations are available with payroll systems, candidate assessment tools, background check providers, and learning management systems, though individual platforms are not specified.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Includes mobile-friendly features
  • Specifically designed for sourcing hourly workers
  • Includes numerous time-saving automations

Cons:

  • Pricing details are not transparent
  • May not be suitable for hiring salaried workers

Best talent acquisition software for recruiting and onboarding

  • Free demo available
  • Pricing upon request
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Rating: 4.6/5

ClearCompany is a talent acquisition software that provides recruiters with an all-in-one solution for finding and managing the best talent available, while centralizing their entire recruitment process.

ClearCompany offers a full suite of products designed to make recruiting easier and more efficient. Its applicant tracking system (ATS) allows employers to post jobs on their website or other job boards and track applicants through the hiring process. You can create job descriptions and postings, manage incoming applications, conduct interviews, and onboard new hires.

Recruiters can easily search for candidates based on criteria such as experience level, skillset, or location. It also has automated workflow tools that allow them to quickly identify qualified candidates from the applicant pool, saving hours of manual work on their part.

ClearCompany provides recruiters with data-driven insights into their performance and how it compares to industry standards. This allows employers to get an objective view of how effective their recruiting efforts are and adjust accordingly, if necessary.

The software provides guidance on best practices when it comes to talent acquisition strategies. For instance, the platform offers advice on how to create more attractive job postings that will draw in more qualified applicants and tips on how to conduct better interviews that focus on assessing soft skills rather than just technical knowledge.

The software also includes an automated onboarding system that makes the process of bringing new employees into an organization simpler and faster. The system creates personalized onboarding plans for each employee based on their role in the company and provides tools such as checklists, reminders, documents, and approvals needed throughout the process. This helps reduce paperwork and administrative time while ensuring accurate data is collected from each new hire before they start work.

ClearCompany Standout Features and Integrations

Features include an applicant tracking system, branded career sites, job postings & job board management tools, video interviewing, text recruiting tools, background-checking workflows, interview scheduling automation, rich candidate profiles, and detailed reports & analytics covering all aspects of your recruiting funnel, including time-to-hire metrics.

Integrations are available natively with 100+ popular HR software solutions, including payroll providers, time-tracking apps, and performance management solutions. Key integrations include Absorb LMS, ADP, BambooHR, eSkill, Glassdoor, Gmail, Indeed, LinkedIn, Microsoft Office 365, Okta, OneLogin, ScreeningOne, SimpliVerified, Sterling, and many others.

ClearCompany Plans and Pricing

Pricing details for ClearCompany are available upon request. You can also request a free demo through their website.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Well-rounded talent management features cover the whole employee lifecycle
  • User-friendly virtual onboarding process works well for remote staff
  • Integrated e-signature capability saves time and removes hassles

Cons:

  • Pricing details are not transparent
  • No free trial available

Best talent acquisition software for mitigating bias in candidate scoring

  • Free plan available
  • From $99/2 users/month
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Rating: 4.5/5

Unnanu Hire is a talent acquisition platform that employs contextual analysis and patented technology to facilitate intelligent candidate scoring. This tool is particularly effective for mitigating bias in candidate evaluation. It also focuses on reducing time-to-fill by streamlining candidate communications and video interview management, and providing integrated offer and onboarding functionalities.

I chose Unnanu Hire for its intelligent candidate scoring with patented technology, which uses contextual analysis to understand the meaning behind a candidate's resume and map resumes to job descriptions. This feature distinguishes the software from other talent acquisition software by focusing on bias-free candidate selection, which is crucial for companies aiming to improve diversity and ensure a better cultural fit for their employees.

The system's Applicant Tracking System (ATS) enables companies to manage the recruitment process effectively, tracking applicants from application through to hiring and onboarding.

Unnanu Hire Standout Features and Integrations

Features include pre-populated talent database, AI-powered resume scanning, bias mitigation in candidate assessment, video interview management, automated emails, communications management, and integrated offers and onboarding tools.

Integrations are not currently listed by the provider.

Unnanu Hire Plans and Pricing

A freemium plan is available with unlimited job posting included, and paid plans start from $99 per month for up to 2 users.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Free plan with unlimited job postings
  • Includes a pre-populated talent database
  • Supports mass emails and other bulk actions

Cons:

  • AI resume scanner comes as a paid add-on
  • Limited customer support with lower-tier plans

Best talent acquisition software for candidate sourcing

  • 15-day free trial + free plan available
  • From $30/user/month
Visit Website
Rating: 4.4/5

Zoho Recruit is a recruitment management solution that helps in-house talent acquisition specialists and staffing agencies source great candidates. 

The solution integrates with dozens of free and premium job boards and with your social media channels, so you can maximize your reach and increase your chances of finding top talent. Hiring specialists can map skill sets to job descriptions, allowing the software’s artificial intelligence to match candidates automatically. 

Zoho Recruit makes candidate sourcing easy, so it’s ideal for freelance recruiters, staffing agencies, and the HR departments of medium to large organizations. 

Zoho Recruit Standout Features and Integrations

Features include social recruiting, reference checking, onboarding tools, AI matching, and career site creation. 

Integrations are natively available with dozens of solutions, including all Zoho products, Checkr, DocuSign, LinkedIn, Mailchimp, Microsoft Outlook, and Slack. 

Zoho Recruit Plans and Pricing

Plans begin at $30 per user, per month. They also offer a 15-day free trial and a free-forever version for one active job. 

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Customizable career page
  • Free plan available
  • Customizable workflows

Cons:

  • Career page can sometimes look bad on mobile devices
  • Tool may seem overwhelming at first

Best talent acquisition software for career site creation

  • 21-day free trial
  • From $1.20/user/month + $71/month base fee
Visit Website
Rating: 4.6/5

Freshteam is a HR software that enables businesses to create customizable career sites without writing code. 

Thanks to its drag-and-drop website editor and the variety of templates it offers, Freshteam makes it easy to create a branded career site to attract job seekers. The software also integrates with free and premium job boards, so organizations can attract leads from multiple channels. 

Freshteam is an ideal recruiting tool for startups and small businesses because it offers a free-forever plan for organizations with up to 50 employees. Businesses can use the software to find the right candidates as they scale and upgrade their plans whenever necessary. 

Freshteam Standout Features and Integrations

Features include applicant tracking system, talent pool management, interview scorecards, offer management, onboarding and offboarding, and recruitment reporting. 

Integrations are available natively with multiple tools, including Indeed, Jooble, LinkedIn, Instahyre, Microsoft Office 365, and ZipRecruiter. 

Freshteam Plans and Pricing

Plans begin at $71 per month plus $1.20 per employee, per month. They also offer a 21-day free trial and a free-forever plan for up to 50 employees. 

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Comprehensive learning guides and tutorials
  • Good automation features
  • Free plan for startups and small businesses

Cons:

  • User interface could be improved
  • Automatic triggers can be difficult to set up

Best talent acquisition software for AI matching

  • 15-day free trial + free demo
  • From $149/month
Visit Website
Rating: 4.6/5

Workable is a recruitment and applicant tracking software that uses AI to connect acquisition teams with qualified candidates. 

The solution maintains a database of over 160 million job seekers and automatically provides you with a list of 50 candidates every time you post a job. This helps you speed up your hiring process and enables you to build a contact list of qualified people. 

Workable’s passive candidate search functionality crawls social media platforms and creates detailed candidate profiles that include email addresses and social links, so you can contact highly skilled individuals directly. The platform also enables you to share your job on 200+ job sites, so you can increase your reach. Workable’s automation features make it ideal for businesses that are looking for candidates with specific skill sets, such as those operating in tech or SaaS. 

Workable Standout Features and Integrations

Features include job advertising, onboarding, candidate assessments, AI-powered matching, video interviews, background checks, offer letters, and e-signatures. 

Integrations are natively available with dozens of apps, including BambooHR, Factorial, Gmail, HR Cloud, Microsoft Outlook, Namely, Sapling, ZipRecruiter and Zoom. 

Workable Plans and Pricing

Plans begin at $129 per job posting, per month. They also offer a 15-day free trial. 

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Good onboarding
  • Workflows are easy to set up
  • Offers a variety of templates

Cons:

  • Some email templates need more customization options
  • Search filters could be better

Best talent acquisition software for conversational recruiting

  • Free demo available
  • Pricing upon request
Visit Website
Rating: 4.3/5

SmartRecruiters is a talent acquisition suite that enables businesses to attract top talent and build candidate relationships through efficient communication. 

The solution enables acquisition specialists to engage candidates via email, text, social media, or chatbots, so they can expand their talent pool. HR professionals can sort job seekers using tags and resume data, so they can identify the right candidate profiles for each job opening. 

SmartRecruiters helps businesses of all sizes attract and retrain candidates without difficulty. The software allows HR teams to review, rate, and share candidate profiles so they can create collaborative talent sourcing processes. 

SmartRecruiters Standout Features and Integrations

Features include job advertising, applicant tracking, CRM, AI recruiting, chatbot recruiting, and text recruiting. 

Integrations are available natively with dozens of tools, including ConveyIQ, Gem, HackerRank, Honeit, SourceWhale, and Trustcruit. 

SmartRecruiters Plans and Pricing

SmartRecruiters offers custom pricing upon request, as well as a free demo.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Multiple internal and external communication options
  • Great mobile app
  • Automated screening assessments

Cons:

  • Can be challenging to integrate it with some solutions
  • Resume parsing can be buggy at times

Best talent acquisition software for AI-driven candidate matching

  • 14-day free trial + free demo
  • Pricing upon request
Visit Website
Rating: 4.5/5

SeekOut is a talent intelligence platform that helps recruiters attract and retain job seekers with AI. 

SeekOut allows you to expand your talent pool with AI-driven candidate matching. The tool can automatically identify candidates based on your job description, and you can trim your results using software’s advanced search capabilities with a combination of keywords and filters.

SeekOut is a talent sourcing tool that helps businesses connect with the right candidates. Thanks to the software’s ability to access platforms like GitHub to source candidates, it’s ideal for organizations that are looking for tech talent. 

SeekOut Standout Features and Integrations

Features include AI matching, ATS rediscovery, candidate engagement, diversity hiring, and talent analytics.

Integrations are available natively with multiple apps, including Ascendify, Greenhouse, iCIMS, Lever, SAP SuccessFactors, and Workday. 

SeekOut Plans and Pricing

SeekOut offers custom pricing upon request, as well as a free demo. 

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Sources talent from rarely used social platforms
  • No outreach limits
  • Great for advanced, niched searches

Cons:

  • The large number of features can seem overwhelming at first
  • Candidate social profiles could be updated more frequently

10 Best Talent Acquisition Software Comparison Chart

Here’s a comparison chart that summarizes basic details about each of my top talent acquisition 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 that works for your budget.

Tools Price
Teamtailor Pricing upon request
Fetcher Pricing upon request
TalentReef Pricing upon request
ClearCompany Pricing upon request
Unnanu Hire From $99/2 users/month
Zoho Recruit From $30/user/month
Freshteam From $1.20/user/month + $71/month base fee
Workable From $149/month
SmartRecruiters Pricing upon request
SeekOut Pricing upon request
Preview Image - 
<h2  class="c-block__title b-summary-table__title c-listicle__title h3" >
	Compare Software Specs Side by Side</h2>

Compare Software Specs Side by Side

Use our comparison chart to review and evaluate software specs side-by-side.

Compare Software

Other Options

Here are a few more options that didn’t make the best talent acquisition software list. I didn't have room for a full review for each of these but they are still worthy of consideration:

  1. Yello

    Best talent acquisition software for diversity recruiting

  2. Workday

    Best talent acquisition software for collaborative hiring workflows

  3. Eightfold.ai

    Best talent acquisition software for unbiased candidate selection

  4. LeverTRM

    Best talent acquisition software for referral tracking

  5. iCIMS Talent Cloud

    Best talent acquisition software for customizable workflows

  6. Evolve Talent Acquisition Suite (by Jobvite)

    Best talent acquisition software for applicant tracking

  7. JazzHR

    Best talent acquisition software for data-driven hiring processes

  8. hireEZ

    Best talent acquisition software for technical hires

  9. Recruiterflow

    Best talent acquisition software for automated job posting

  10. Ideal

    Best talent acquisition software for objective candidate selection

Selection Criteria

Wondering what criteria I used to select the best talent acquisition software for this list? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria: 

  1. User Interface (UI): Talent acquisition solutions can help your team perform a lot of tasks. I look for tools with clean layouts so your team members can quickly find the right functionality for anything they want to achieve. 
  2. Usability: Hiring managers have a lot on their plates, so they shouldn’t have to waste time learning how to use a new tool. I selected software that’s easy to use so your team doesn’t have to go through a complex onboarding process. 
  3. Integrations: Talent acquisition software works best when paired with other solutions, such as your HR software, human resources information system (HRIS), customer relationship management (CRM), or human capital management (HCM) apps. I chose tools that offer multiple native integrations or can connect to other apps via third-party integration providers. 
  4. Value for $: The best talent management tools help you simplify and speed up your recruitment process. I selected solutions that enable your team members to achieve multiple tasks so you get a nice return on your investment. 

Talent Acquisition Software: Frequently Asked Questions

Other Resources

Talent acquisition strategies can help your business scale. As Marc Benioff, co-CEO of Salesforce, said:

"Acquiring the right talent is the most important key to growth. Hiring was — and still is — the most important thing we do."

Read our article on Why And How To Create A Proper Talent Management Strategy if you want to discover how to build a long-term strategy that makes your business attractive to top performers. 

Our article on How To Attract And Retain Top Talent Through The Employee Life Cycle explains how to improve the way you’re perceived as an employer. And our article – Talent Management Versus Learning And Development – helps you understand how to promote a culture of self-development in your organization. 

If you want to receive actionable advice on how to improve your talent acquisition efforts in order to increase your organization’s performance directly in your inbox, subscribe to the People Managing People newsletter

By Kim Behnke

Kim Behnke is an HR Tool Expert & Writer for People Managing People. She draws on her 9 years of human resources experience and her keen eye for systematic processes to support her analyses of the top HR tools on the market. She is passionate about maximizing efficiencies and streamlining workflows to ensure internal systems run smoothly. Kim's HR experience includes recruitment, onboarding, performance management, training and development, policy development and enforcement, and HR analytics. She also has degrees in psychology, writing, publishing, and technical communication, and recently completed a Certified Digital HR Specialist program through the Academy to Innovate HR. When away from her desk, she can usually be found outside tending to her ever-expanding garden.