Hiring software for small business is a hot topic these days. Many people who don’t have a lot of experience with hiring employees or new businesses say it’s a difficult task to get right, but I beg to differ. In this article, I’m going to explain why it’s not all that difficult to get right and what you should be looking for in an applicant.
Hiring software for small business? Understanding how to source, evaluate and implement the right products, solutions and people into your organization is one of the most delicate processes in business. This is especially true when it comes to hiring software.
BambooHR Recruiting Software: Best Applicant Tracking System in an HR Recruiting Application
BambooHR Recruiting SoftwareVISIT SITEBambooHR has several great recruiting software capabilities, its standout feature, though, is the capability it confers to small businesses to track and manage individuals from the moment they apply for a position to when leave the company. BambooHR offers two different month-to-month plans that are charged on a per-employee basis: Essentials and Advantage. The Essentials plan offers HR management features and employee self-service options, and the Advantage plan comes equipped with additional features that track applicants throughout their time at your company. Users can add advanced features like performance management and time-tracking functionalities for additional fees. We evaluated the Advantage plan and found it to be a comprehensive software solution. You can access hiring and onboarding features, including customizable job postings, and candidate screening and review. You can manage candidates through the consideration funnel and onward to the onboarding phase with offer letters, new hire packets and e-signatures. BambooHR doesn’t stop there. You can continue to use the software to manage employees with human resource management tools, employee records, benefits tracking, and more. Access easy but robust reporting on topics like employee satisfaction, applicant sources, applicant funnels, and analytics on protected classes. The software is desktop and mobile-friendly.
Breezy HR: Best Free Recruiting Software Application
Breezy HRCOMPARE QUOTESMany highly-rated HR recruiting solutions offer free trials of its software, but Breezy HR offers a totally free plan. Breezy HR’s free plan comes equipped with all the basic recruiting features a startup or small business needs for making occasional hires. BreezyHR’s free plan allows for one active position and one active candidate pool. As your business grows, you can scale to a paid plan that fits your needs. Paid plans are month to month, and start at $143 per month for unlimited positions, unlimited candidate pools and comprehensive features. If you have minimal or infrequent hiring needs, Breezy HR’s free Bootstrap plan might be the way to go. It distributes your job posting to 50+ job boards, parses resumes, and imports profiles with a sourcing extension. Paid features like SMS text messaging and a sourcing database are available as well. Although these features may be limited compared to Breezy’s paid plans, it is the best free recruiting software we found and is a good place to start.
Zoho Recruit: Best Overall Recruiting Software
Overall Score: 4.59 OUT OF 5 i
- Forever-free plan
- Unlimited users
- Workflow automations
- 300+ job boards
- Most popular job boards cost extra
- Limited support
- Steeper learning curve than others on the list
Zoho Recruit Pricing
- Free plan: 1 job
- Corporate HR plan: $30-$60/recruiter/month
- Staffing Agency plan: $30-$90/recruiter/month
- Workerly Plan: $59/month for 50 temps
- 15-day free trial
- 45-day money-back guarantee
Add-ons
- Additional licenses: $1/month
- Hiring manager license: $1/month
- Vendor portal: $6/month
- Additional jobs: $30/month for 10
- API Calls: $11.50/250 calls
- WebHooks: $11.40/200 calls
- Workflow Alerts: $5.75/250 alerts
- Mass Mail: $28.50/750 mails per day
- Video Interview: $12/job slot
Zoho Recruit is a robust recruiting software that has one of the fullest and most customizable feature sets we’ve seen. It’s designed for staffing agencies and corporate HR teams that handle multiple job openings at once. However, the pricing is by recruiter, making it a cost-effective choice for small businesses as well, and small business users praise it for ease of use and functionality.
With 4.59 out of 5 on our evaluation, Zoho Recruit had perfect scores for pricing, functionality and reports. It also scored very highly in all areas. Further, users rated it an average of 4.4 out of 5 on various review sites. Nonetheless, its size and complexity make it better suited for companies that do a lot of hiring.
Zoho Recruit Pricing
Zoho is one of the few on the list that provides a forever free plan, which works for a single job ad at a time with candidate management.
The paid plans start as low as $30 per user per month ($25 per month if you pay annually) and include job posting, resume management, and candidate tracking. For screening and background checks, you need higher plans. Unlike most of the software on our list, it also lets you add on some features for an additional fee.
Zoho is unique in that it not only lets you cancel any time, but also offers a money-back guarantee. Others will allow you to cancel, but rather than refund partial payments, they let you finish out your month.
Zoho Recruit Features
Zoho Recruit is designed for busy HR departments and staffing agencies.
(Source: Zoho Recruit)
- Job boards: Zoho posts to over 300 job boards, paid and free, as well as social media like LinkedIn, Google for Jobs, and Facebook. It also manages employee referrals. While it does not have as many job boards as several on our list, it includes the major players. In addition, Zoho lets you create your own recruiting campaigns by emailing past applicants about new jobs they may qualify for. Only ZipRecruiter, Monster, and Indeed offer a similar function.
- Assessment assistance: Zoho Recruit has a resume parser and background checks to help you find the best candidate. In addition, its AI, Zia, can rate candidates and provide you a list ranked by how they match job requirements.
- Temp job searches: Temp agencies can benefit from Zoho’s Workerly plan. It searches your database of temps based on your criteria, then handles the assignment, time sheet tracking, and invoices. No other recruiting software on our list has a similar feature.
- Candidate portal: Zoho Recruit’s higher-tier plans include a candidate portal where applicants can see what jobs they’ve applied to and the status of their application. This is a great feature for large companies. Only ZipRecruiter and Indeed offer a similar service to applicants, and it’s not company-specific.
- Customizable reports: Of all the recruiting software we evaluated, Zoho has the most complete report builder. It lets you create a report from the ground up, choosing up to 25 data points, setting up in-depth filters, and choosing how the reports are displayed. Once you’ve created reports, you can save them to re-run or modify.
What Zoho Recruit Is Missing
- Onboarding: Zoho Recruit does not have onboarding tools, unless you purchase and integrate with other Zoho software. For more onboarding and HR tools, look at ApplicantPro or Freshteam.
- Simplicity: Zoho offers a lot of tools and customizations, which makes it more complex than most of the software on our list.
ZipRecruiter: Best for High-Turnover Industries
Overall Score: 4.47 OUT OF 5 i
- Reaches 10M+ job seekers
- Automatically reaches out to candidates for you
- 500+ job templates
- AI learns your preferences to make better candidate recommendations
- No free plan
- Limited applicant evaluation, tracking tools
- Only in the US, Canada, Australia, and the U.K.
ZipRecruiter Pricing
- Daily pricing:
- $16 per job post—one reusable job slot, unlimited applications, access to partner job boards
- $24 per job post—premium job distribution, 25 resume views
- Monthly pricing is complex, based on the number of ads, users, and resume searches. Contact Sales for an exact quote. Below is a sample subscription plan for a single ad per month:
- $299—one ad with no switching, 1 user, no resume access
- $349—one ad, but can switch, 2 users, 25 resume views
- $599—one ad with switching, 8 users, 200 resume views
- Traffic boost: $120/month per ad
- 4-day free trial
Read full reviewVisit ZipRecruiter
ZipRecruiter is one of the most popular job boards, with over 10 million job seekers each week. Its higher monthly subscription plans allow you to switch out job ads once they have been filled or no longer needed, making it a great choice for fast-growing businesses or industries with a high turnover. It posts on over 100 other job boards, plus social media or your own careers website, and has some applicant evaluation and tracking capability.
With a score of 4.47 out of 5 on our rubric, ZipRecruiter is our top ranking job board for recruiting software. It excels in reach of candidates, job templates, and general applicant tracking. However, it does not have the extensive applicant evaluation and communication tools that others like Freshteam or Zoho Recruit offer.
ZipRecruiter Pricing
ZipRecruiter’s pricing is not as straightforward as the rest on our list, as it depends on how many jobs you have active at once, how many resumes you want to harvest, and how many users you have on your plan. When considering a single job ad each month, one user and no resume searches, you will pay $299 a month. This is on the high end of those we reviewed. However, keep in mind that while some of the others on this list post to ZipRecruiter, they may require you to pay for a subscription anyway.
ZipRecruiter’s daily pricing options ($16 to $24 per job post) make it more accessible for businesses needing to make an affordable hire in a short period of time. Indeed lets you place ads for any amount of time and lets you pay for promotion on a daily basis.
ZipRecruiter Features
ZipRecruiter has simple tools for viewing, downloading, and rating resumes.
(Source: ZipRecruiter)
- Job boards: ZipRecruiter, like Indeed and Monster, has its own highly popular job board. In fact, most of the recruiting software on our list will post to it. In addition, it automatically posts to over 100 other job sites. Many are niche sites that have smaller but more focused job seekers. It also makes it possible to post your job ads on social media and your website and have them run through ZipRecruiter. (Learn how ZipRecruiter fares against LinkedIn, for example.)
- Email outreach: It is also proactive in that it sends job alerts to interested job seekers, again like Indeed and Monster. This means that when you post a new job ad, it gets sent to potential applicants via newsletter. If you purchase a traffic boost, you also get better placement there and on the job board.
- Machine learning: As you rate candidates and resumes on the app, ZipRecruiter’s AI takes that information into account and changes its algorithms to bring you better candidates. Indeed and Monster have similar functions, but others on our list do not provide this feedback to the job boards.
- Mobile app: Job seekers love the mobile app, giving it 4.8 out of 5 both for Apple and Android. There is no mobile app for employers, although the website is mobile-friendly.
What ZipRecruiter Is Missing
- Free plan: ZipRecruiter only has a 4-day free trial, perhaps enough to check out the system. However, if you want free job posting, try Indeed, Zoho Recruit, or Freshteam.
- Reports: ZipRecruiter has an analytics page that helps you see how your job ads compare to others on its board. However, it lacks reports found in most of the other software on our list. If you need EEO reporting, for example, check out Monster.
Zoho Recruit
Zoho Recruit is an applicant tracking system catering to multiple hurdles faced by recruiters. With complete solutions for both in-house recruiters and staffing agencies, Zoho Recruit helps you source, track, and hire the best candidates, without any juggling required across different media. Customize every aspect of your workday and automate tasks like sending emails, updating interview status, and more. Get reports and analytics at your fingertips and plan better hiring strategies.
Conclusion
Hiring software for small business has become easier over the years with the widespread availability of cloud software. Business owners can now outsource tasks like accounting, payroll, inventory management, human resources and CRM to third parties.