9 Best Recruitment Agency Software [Updated 2024]
- What is recruitment agency software?
- What are the benefits of recruiting agency software?
- Types of software for recruiting agencies
- How to choose the best software for a recruitment agency?
- Which recruitment agency software should you buy?
- 9 popular recruiting agency software
- Why Longlist is a top choice for recruitment agencies
For recruiters, just being a people person is no longer the only skill requirement. With hundreds and thousands of companies looking to hire candidates, your skill sets must include analyzing relevant candidates, cold calling them, following up faster than the other.
And before you run to take care of all these tasks manually, we ask you to stop and look around; there are multiple recruitment software and tools that help search for and help reach out to quality candidates for various job positions.
What is recruitment agency software?
Recruitment agency software helps recruitment agencies and staffing firms managing their hiring processes more efficiently. The best recruitment agency software streamlines various aspects of recruiting, including job posting, candidate sourcing, resume management, and communication with candidates.
Automation and powerful workflows help recruiting agencies reduce time spent on manual tasks, improve the quality AND number of placements, and improve overall client and candidate experience.
What are the benefits of recruiting agency software?
Recruitment agency software offers a variety of benefits that can significantly enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of recruitment processes. Here are some of the key advantages:
Less time wasted
Automation of routine tasks such as resume parsing, candidate tracking, and job posting helps reduce manual work for recruiters. This allows recruiters to focus on what they do best - speaking to candidates and clients.
Cost Savings
By automating various components of the hiring process, recruitment agencies can significantly reduce overhead costs.
These savings can then be reallocated to other strategic areas such as branding, candidate engagement and technology enhancements.
Positive impact on recruiting agency's brand
Streamlined recruitment tools ensure consistent interactions with candidates and clients, which can positively impact a company's brand.
Faster placements
Advanced filtering and matching algorithms can help identify the best candidates more quickly and accurately. This improves the quality of hires by ensuring a better match between the candidate’s skills and the job requirements.
Data-Driven Decision Making
With built-in analytics and reporting tools, recruitment software provides insights into various aspects of the recruitment process, such as source effectiveness, time-to-hire, and cost-per-hire. These metrics enable agencies to make informed decisions and continually optimize their recruitment strategies.
Easier Compliance
Complying with local laws and regulations like GDPR in EU, CCPA is not easy. Using these software helps staffing agencies adopt best practices followed by larger recruitment firms.
All information in one place
ATS and CRMs store all candidate profile data and activity logs in one place which makes the information easily accessible across the entire team.
Types of software for recruiting agencies
Working on a job as a recruiter involves a lot of activities, so there is much scope where software and automated tools can help.
There are solutions available which try to optimize different parts of the hiring process. Some recruiting agency software might focus on a single high value activity (for e.g sourcing or sending SMS) while other all-in-one solutions might have multiple tools which when used together bring larger boost in efficiency.
Here are some of the most popular types of recruiting software available today:
1. Applicant Tracking System (ATS)
Applicant tracking system is easily the first choice of software for a recruitment agency as building a candidate pipeline for open jobs is priority.
An applicant tracking system helps staffing agency easily post jobs to multiple job boards and organize and manage job applications.
With an ATS, recruitment firms can:
- add applications with automated resume parsing
- track candidates' progress
- do candidate assessments
- easily schedule interviews with hiring managers.
One added benefit of applicant tracking system is that it also helps recruitment agencies nurture candidates, as the candidate which do not clear interviews for one of the clients, might still be relevant for others.
2. Recruitment CRM
Recruitment agencies also need to build a client database and that's where a Recruitment CRM comes in.
It allows recruiting agency organize all the information, i.e notes, calls, files for their clients in one place so that they can continuously keep getting more jobs to work on.
It's essential for recruitment agencies to look for software solutions which provide both ATS and CRM functionality. Having one consolidated software helps you use the candidate data to bring more clients, and client details to connect with passive candidates faster.
3. Recruiting Automation Software
Recruiting automation software streamlines the hiring process by using technology to automate tasks like screening resumes, scheduling interviews, and communicating with candidates, making recruitment faster and more efficient.
4. Prospecting tools
Prospecting tools or contact data finders are used to gather client and candidate data such as email addresses, phone numbers and employment histories.
These tools collect contact data from various online and offline sources and help recruiting agencies in building qualified candidates and contact list easily. Small businesses can also use these to connect with prospects and leads more efficiently and build candidate pipeline faster.
5. Timesheet software
For staffing agencies, tracking time is essential. Timesheet software allows contractors working for a staffing agency to record their work hours digitally. This help streamline the approval process and ensure accurate billing and payroll management.
6. Back office software
Back office software for recruitment agencies automates administrative tasks such as payroll processing, invoicing clients, and managing contracts. Popular accounting software like Quickbooks and Xero are used by recruiting agencies.
How to choose the best software for a recruitment agency?
Choosing the best software for a recruitment agency involves several key steps:
Identify the core functionalities needed
There are literally 100s of recruiting agency software and each one boasts of features making it the best software for recruitment. But the decision to invest in technology should be with a goal in mind.
Assess the specific needs of your recruiting agency and see where technology can help.
Usability and user experience is really important
Ensure the software is user-friendly and offers a good user experience for your team. Having a product loaded with features, but not usable can actually hinder recruiter productivity.
Recruiting agencies can utilize free trials or demos to get hands-on experience with the software, assessing its functionality and compatibility with your processes.
Should integrate well with other systems
Consider software that integrates with other recruitment tools and systems.
Look for software that offers native integrations with applicant tracking systems, communication tools, CRMs, and background-checking solutions.
Evaluate Support and Training
Check the availability of customer support, training resources, and implementation assistance. Do they help with data migration - how seamless is that process?
Read Reviews and Ask for Referrals
Read online reviews and ask for referrals from other recruitment agencies. Check out the software’s reputation and customer satisfaction ratings on websites like G2 and Capterra of all softwares you are considering.
Assess Integration Capabilities
Ensure the software can integrate with your existing tools and systems, such as HR software, email, and calendars.
Which recruitment agency software should you buy?
Since there are loads of options to choose, here's our quick helpful guide:
1. Start with an ATS and CRM software
If you don't have an applicant tracking software or recruitment CRM - buy that first. It would become your central hub where all the recruiting software would plug into.
2. Add a prospecting tool for candidate data
With number of restrictions in place to avoid abuse, sourcing platforms might restrict the ability of recruiting agencies to find the candidate pipeline. Prospecting tools make it easier to get clients and candidate profiles allowing you to connect and build your business faster.
Why a recruiting agency should buy an ATS/CRM before a prospecting tool:
- Agencies might end up paying for the same data multiple times when it's not stored in a central hub. Most tools charge by credits or lookups.
- Collaboration and maintaining candidate becomes difficult as everyone would work on their own personal dataset
3. See if recruiting automation can add value
For a staffing agencies working with large number of candidate profiles, automated workflows can really boost recruiter efficiency.
Potential recruiting automation templates include: thanking candidates to apply, re-asking for consent to use data to comply with GDPR and more
9 popular recruiting agency software
Longlist (CRM and ATS)
Longlist is a recruitment software designed to streamline and enhance the hiring process for recruiting agencies.
It automates various recruitment tasks such as candidate sourcing, outreach, and tracking, helping to build comprehensive lists of potential candidates.
With features like advanced search capabilities, automated email campaigns, and integration with popular job boards, Longlist simplifies the initial stages of recruitment.
The software provides tools for managing candidate interactions, ensuring efficient communication and follow-ups.
It also includes analytics and reporting functions to track recruitment metrics and optimize strategies.
By leveraging Longlist, recruiters can save time, increase productivity, and improve the quality of their candidate pipelines, ultimately leading to more effective hiring outcomes.
Zoho Recruit (CRM and ATS)
Zoho Recruit is a cloud-based recruitment software that helps businesses and staffing agencies streamline their hiring process with tools for job posting, candidate tracking, resume management, and communication.
Bullhorn (CRM and ATS)
Bullhorn streamlines the hiring process to find qualified candidates with applicant tracking software and recruiting CRM.
It's one of the most popular (and oldest) recruiting CRMs designed for staffing firms. Sometimes it might feel that it was designed in the 2000s but it's known to get the job done.
The most exciting part about Bullhorn is it's marketplace - it has a lot of add ons that can be purchased by recruitment agencies on top of the existing base applicant tracking software.
For e.g, it has inbuilt resume parsing, but most customers end up buying an addon like Daxtra or Rchilli addons. For job posting, Logic Melon and Broadbean are popular choices.
However, each of the addons do get expensive fast, and integrating and maintaining them doesn't come cheap.
Apollo (Prospecting)
Apollo is primarily a sales engagement platform that helps businesses find and connect with prospects, primarily through contact data and email automation.
It boasts of 275M global contacts and 97.5% email accuracy, with 90M contacts being reverified monthly.
Recruitment agencies can also use Apollo to build their client database by finding work emails, and sending personalized multi-step email campaigns.
Cognism (Prospecting)
Cognism is a B2B lead generation software that provides access to a global database of business contacts, offering tools for sales prospecting and data enrichment.
Staffing firms would find Cognism's "diamond data" phone number data really valuable as it increases the connect rate when cold calling.
ContactOut (Prospecting)
ContactOut is a tool that provides recruiters and sales professionals with contact information, such as emails and phone numbers, directly from LinkedIn profiles.
Source Whale (Recruiting Automation)
Source Whale is an outreach automation platform for recruiters, enabling personalized email campaigns and candidate engagement tracking.
Source Breaker (Recruiting Automation)
SourceBreaker is a recruiting agency software that uses AI to match job vacancies with the best candidates from multiple sources, making it easier to find qualified candidates for jobs.
It has been acquired by Bullhorn and is available as an addon to top of their applicant tracking software.
Indeed (Job boards)
While there are many job boards, Indeed is a one of the most popular. With options to post a job for free, and advertising options based on number of clicks you get, agencies can really optimize their budgets on jobs which need the attention.
Why Longlist is a top choice for recruitment agencies
With an all-in-one recruiting agency software which provides both Recruiting CRM and ATS recruitment software, Longlist is trusted by 100s of recruitment agencies as the only software for recruitment they need.