Before making your first online recruiting software purchase, be aware that there are different types of recruiting software. You might read reviews and discover people recommend a particular software, but that doesn’t mean it will actually accomplish what you are hoping it would for your business. You might pay for more than you really need. You might also miss out on game-changing software just because you don’t know it exists, thinking recruiting software only comes in one type. Read on to learn more about your options for paid and the best free recruiting software.
Types of Recruiting Software
First, let’s discuss recruiting software in general. This is a broad term referring to any software intended to solve problems recruiters face. That is why there are so many types. You might hear about an applicant tracking system (ats) for example, and think that is what recruiting software means. Yes, an ats is recruiting software, but so are several other things with vastly different purposes.
Read more: Why staffing agencies should use recruitment software and Recruitment automation software
Social Media Aggregators
Social media aggregators search social media platforms for potential candidates. They’ll find and collect people with the skills, job titles, education, and location you are looking for so you can go through them at your convenience. This saves a lot of manual sourcing time and is a great way to find passive candidates or ones who haven’t thought to seek out your business yet.
Select this recruitment software if your goal is to enhance your sourcing efforts, including finding passive candidates. Use it alone, if that’s all you need right now, or use it in addition to other recruiting software.
Be sure not to confuse these with job aggregators. That is a similar-sounding term for an opposite function. Social media aggregators help recruiters and hiring managers find potential candidates while job aggregators help candidates find jobs.
Read more: The ultimate guide for social recruiting [UPDATED]
Resume Spiders
Resume spiders search the web for resumes, another sourcing tool that can save a recruiter or hiring manager a lot of time. Some resume spiders just search job sites like Indeed, while others search job sites, personal websites, your current candidate database, and more.
This type of software shares a similar purpose to social media aggregators, but it goes about it in a very different way. Social media aggregators focus on, as would be implied, social media accounts. Resume spiders are only about resumes. Both find active and passive candidates for your business.
The fact that some resume spiders also search your current database is a powerful tool for not wasting the talent that has already shown an interest in your company. They may not have been the optimal fit last year, but they may be now, or maybe they were fine but you simply didn’t have enough openings. Many businesses forget about these candidates and a resume spider can put them back in your focus. Just be sure that you are getting a resume spider that includes that function.
Use a resume spider to improve your sourcing efforts, alone or in conjunction with other software.
Read more: Benefits of resume formatting software
Recruitment CRMs
A candidate relationship management system, or recruitment CRM, is what a resume spider will search to find candidates who have already applied to work at your business.
It is a database that stores candidate information and helps you:
- quickly find current and past candidates
- nurture relationships with both current and past candidates
- measure and improve hiring metrics
- improve candidate experience
- save time
Another CRM, the customer relationship management system, sometimes includes recruiting functions. It is the height of employer branding and effective hiring to merge the customer experience and candidate experience, both types of relationships need to be nurtured and customers can often be your best employees.
Usually, a CRM doesn’t take in new applications for you, you have to enter them into the system.
Candidate management is crucial. You can’t really keep your candidate information organized and therefore build effective relationships with either current or past candidates without software that performs this function.
Read more: ATS vs CRM
ATSs
Applicant tracking systems, or ATS, are actually the most common recruitment software and therefore the one most people are probably talking about when they mention the term. Like a recruitment CRM, they manage candidate relationships, but they typically have a greater focus on acquiring new talent and optimizing the hiring process.
An ATS:
- helps you build a career portal
- posts job openings
- takes in new resumes
- often, formats resumes for optimal reading
- some of them appoint the resumes to certain jobs and certain managers
An ATS is crucial. The time you save not having to perform recruiting tasks that could be automated is game-changing for your business.
Read more: Recruitment database software and How ATS enables efficient and optimized recruitment metrics tracking
Interviewing Software
There is also software out there that allows you to interview candidates through video.
By utilizing video interview software, businesses can:
- reduce the cost and stress candidates experience going to in-person interviews
- improve candidate selection when hiring remote workers
- save themselves money if they pay for interview costs
- record interviews for other managers to see and to prove compliance with diversity goals
Read more: How recruitment software automates recruiting
Combining Types of Recruiting Software
These types often overlap. Many ATSs and CRMs boast features shared by the other software type.
Recruiteze is the best free recruiting software on today’s market that combines an ATS offering a careers page, job posting functions, resume parsing, workflows to manage the hiring process, communication opportunities with candidates from with the software, and other ATS functions as well as CRM functions like bulk uploading of past resumes and candidate search functions. Read the features list to see all it can do.
It is usually best to keep as many functions within one recruiting software was possible as it makes your life much simpler and your recruiting efforts more effective. There will be less to learn and less going back and forth from software to software.
Sometimes you may find that you can actually work out a better deal for yourself at a given time by putting together more than one software offering. For instance, you may find an ats with the features you need for free or at a low cost but you’d also like to find passive candidates online. It may be impossible or terribly expensive to find recruiting software that does all of the things you’re looking for. Still try to keep your recruiting software selections fewer in number.
Read more: Best staffing agency software
More to Consider
The types of recruiting software get more complicated the further you look into them.
For one, some software is made for different sized businesses. An ats may be made for small businesses, for agencies, or for enterprises. Always check the website and the software’s reviews to determine who the intended user is and what it is primarily being used for.
You will also hear about on-premise or cloud-based software. Some recruiting software is stored on the user’s computer, on-premise, and some is stored elsewhere and accessed by the user via the cloud. The latter is safe, provided you find a reputable vendor with sufficient security policies, and can be accessed by anyone who works for you anywhere they are. On-premise is usually only preferable for a large company requiring a custom recruitment system.
No recruiting software is exactly the same as another. You should always research the features of any recruiting software you are considering to ensure you are getting what you need without paying for more than you need. Read our guide on selecting a small business applicant tracking system for more details.
Read more: Benefits of cloud-based recruitment software
Conclusion
Do not make the easy assumption that recruiting software refers only to a CRM or an ATS. There are actually several kinds of recruiting software, since all the term really means is that it is software designed to solve recruiting problems. Your understanding of different types of recruiting software can help you select the right option for your needs. Social media aggregators and resume spiders help you save time sourcing candidates, CRMs help you build relationships with candidates, ATSs make managing new hires much easier, and interview software can revolutionize your interviewing process.
Check this:
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