17 Best Applicant Tracking Systems [Chosen by HR Professional]

ClearCompany’s ATS system comes as a standalone tool or as part of the HR suite. I’d pick this tool for its powerful automation capabilities. For instance, you can automate various tasks, such as job postings, interview scheduling, and automated recruiting campaigns, and expedite these communications to different channels.

To save time and manual effort, ClearCompany’s AI lets you craft solid job descriptions, email campaigns, and whatnot!

I also like that you can use real-time communications to interact with job seekers right from your smartphone. ClearCompany offers various recruitment marketing tools, such as QR codes, text-to-apply, and social sharing tools.

Another highlight feature is its powerful analytics and candidate tracking. The platform uses data visualization technology to create reports that track candidate demographics, identify pipeline sources, and provide time-to-hire metrics.

Overall, I’d recommend ClearCompany to medium and large-size businesses with more than 50 hiring in a year.

Workable is an HR-focused platform with ATS as one of its most essential features. When you log in to the Workable dashboard, you’ll have different tabs for different HR processes. The ‘Job’ tab gives an overview of various ongoing jobs and lets you post jobs across 200 job boards with over 700 pre-made templates.

Workable makes it easier to search through a large pool of applications. Its ‘Candidate’ tab gives a list of applied candidates across various jobs. As easy as it gets, you can use filters to sort through different jobs, roles, and stages of hiring.

I love how they’ve used AI extensively in every hiring step. For instance, it can search through a large database of potential candidates. Similarly, it uses AI to view jobs on candidate’s social media feeds passively.

Another key differentiator for me is Workable’s mobile app. The app is quick to launch and offers features such as a one-click application and auto-fill.

Next on my list is Greenhouse, which is best known for creating a structured hiring process. During our tests and the criteria we had, Greenhouse tick marks every point. The dashboard is pretty intuitive, and you’ll need minimal training to master it.

The platform gives access to over 1,000 job boards, including niche sites and job marketplaces. Its most significant feature is the ability to build a standardized hiring process that clearly defines role requirements. This is essential if you are looking for an unbiased recruitment.

To cut off your manual efforts, Greenhouse offers pre-made templates for creating job posts —specific to certain roles. If you need custom ones, you can use the drag-and-drop functionality to build structured hiring workflows.

However, I wouldn’t recommend it to smaller teams or someone who has just started using ATS because of its overwhelming number of features.

Lever isn’t just about applicant tracking but about building relationships with the candidates. One of its highlight features is candidate nurturing — which engages with the potential candidates (just like a CRM).

Lever expedites the hiring process by creating an automated recruitment workflow. You can source candidates from multiple sources, including career sites, social media, and internal referrals.

I’m really impressed with its quick email and nurturing template for different touchpoints. For instance, you could use it to promote an upcoming job opportunity or introduce the candidates to the company culture.

You’ll like the ‘candidate surveys and feedback’ feature here. Recruiters can gather insights from candidates on previous recruiting campaigns and iterate them for the future. Lastly, its integration with Zoom makes it a viable choice to schedule and run any interview—live, asynchronous, and structured.

Recruiting teams need a certain level of customization in their hiring process. Ashby fills in the expectations with its highly customizable pipelines, visual workflow builder, and custom interview plans.

If you are familiar with the Kanban boards or cards style, you’ll love its visual pipeline, which allows you to view candidates across different jobs at a glance.

The platform offers advanced automation capabilities for sending assessments, emails, questionnaires, and scheduling links when candidates enter different hiring stages.

Since our last testing, Ashby has greatly improved security and compliance. For instance, you can anonymize the candidate during initial screening to avoid bias. Similarly, you can set rules to capture consent from the candidates.

However, SMBs need 4-5 weeks to get used to Ashby. If you’re stuck, the team of customer executives will assist you throughout the process.

Manatal is our highest-rated ATS system for all the fair reasons. Simple yet modern, it offers a user interface with all the dashboard elements on the left.

I love its ability to blend simplicity with advanced features such as AI candidate matching, automated resume formatting, and document signing.

Most importantly, it ticks the essential factor—budget-friendliness. Even the pricing options are flexible and transparent, so you don’t have to wait for the sales team to find a ballpark figure.

Its visual pipeline offers a Kanban-style display of candidates’ jobs, descriptions, and current stages. You can drag and drop these cards to the subsequent stages. It offers a simplistic search functionality, which allows you to search for jobs, candidates, departments, and clients across the entire database.

There were some minor issues with Manatal. For instance, you can’t use the Boolean and Advanced search together. Plus, its AI functionality was only limited to English.

Beetween is a lesser-known recruitment platform that is best known for the digitized ATS functionalities—custom career sites, recruiting campaign monitoring, and custom tagging options.

Though I had to wait five days to get their demo, the walkthrough didn’t disappoint me. Its strength lies in its powerful automation of repetitive tasks in human management.

Recruiters can publish to multiple job boards in one click and match with only qualified candidates. The key differentiator is its powerful dashboard and reporting. You can use different views to display recruitment progress and filter them based on user rights and all current and/or past recruitments.

Further, you can determine the channels through which your candidates apply and focus your job postings on ones with more engagement. If you need more customizations, you can reach out to them, and they will help you build a flexible reporting tool.

However, the platform doesn’t offer some advanced functionalities, such as boolean search or AI resume parsing.

Again, Zoho Recruit is a recruiting solution that combines the ATS functionality with the CRM. The dashboard looks as if you’ve signed up for a CRM — with different tabs for job openings, candidate profiles, scheduled interviews, and departments.

Its highlight feature is the hiring pipeline. Recruiters can map the candidate’s journey through a visual interface and use color codes to customize different stages of the interview process.

For the hiring process, Zoho offers a portal for candidates to track their application process. Recruiters can set different screening stages based on their requirements—pre-screening, behavioral screening, background check, and more.

Lastly, Zoho offers vast AI functionalities for streamlining candidate sourcing and posting job requirements. For instance, you can use the zip codes to find the best matching candidate within a radius.

I found Zoho’s chatbot assistant, Zia, to be a wonderful addition. This AI assistant works as a virtual guide for recruiters, assisting them with key responsibilities such as candidate matching, sourcing, and calendars.

However, some features like video interviews and a client portal come as an add-on. You might also face inconvenience with their customer support, as it is not the industry’s best.

JazzHR is built with small businesses in mind. When you log in, there are no complex workflows or setups. You’ll love it for its simplicity in syndicating the job posts across various boards and the ability to customize the workflows for each job.

The platform is best known for its ability to keep candidates engaged during the recruiting process by assigning automated tasks and assessments. Candidate shortlisting and feedback is another significant feature. Recruiters can share their feedback and mention the collaborators to continue the loop.

Overall, Jazz HR lacks certain key functionalities like AI outreach and a drag-and-drop recruiting process. I found that the basic pricing won’t offer many features except job posting and syndicating.

Oracle’s Taleo is an enterprise recruiting platform that offers end-to-end talent management features such as sourcing, recruiting, onboarding, and career development. Oracle is flexible in its approach, offering two different versions for different business needs: Enterprise and Business.

The platform is loaded with various useful AI features such as intelligent recommendations, self-scheduled interviews, and data-driven decisions for driving personalized experience.

However, simplicity is where the software lacks. If you’re not familiar with the Oracle suite of tools, you will need a few weeks to get used to it.

Trakstire Hire (formerly RecruiterBox) is a web-based recruiting platform with an elegant dashboard and clean icons. My experience using Trakstire was mostly positive. Post a job on one platform, and you’ll have it auto-published on various career sites, job boards, and social media websites.

Recruiters can also sponsor these job posts to maximize their visibility across various channels. It offers a plethora of automation features for resume parsing, candidate screening, and profile creation. Candidates can fill out the application form, which turns into a well-structured resume. Next, Trakstire parses the information from resumes and creates the profile accordingly.

Workday is an AI-driven platform that is ideal for large businesses. This holistic platform has a recruiting funnel, with ATS as one of its key elements. Though it comes with a small learning curve, I’d pick it for its smooth recruiting workflow.

The dashboard has all the elements on the left panel—recruiting information, qualifications, jobs, attachments, and compensation. It offers a simplistic form-like interface that recruiters can fill out to proceed with the job posting.

For instance, you can choose options such as job profile, start date, employment type, and location. Once you have created the job posts, you can create a template to replicate them for similar job openings.

Like a mailbox, the left side of the screen will display all the upcoming tasks. Recruiters can also get an overview of the active candidates, job openings, and declined candidates.

Next on my list is Recruit CRM— an ATS best known for its vast talent database across different specializations. The platform offers functionalities such as text filters, Boolean search, and radius search to match the best candidates.

The platform is best known for its flexible dashboard, which offers a Kanban and list view of the hiring process. You can switch between the two, much like a project management tool.

Recruit CRM facilitates automation by handling crucial tasks such as sending emails when a candidate is rejected or for upcoming interviews.

The key differentiator is its “hotlist” feature, which helps you sort candidates based on geographical location, skillsets, or experience and use them in the future. AI-wise, the platform offers resume parsing in multiple languages, candidate matching, and GPT integration.

Jobvite is an end-to-end ATS solution that uses AI to optimize the entire TA lifecycle. Its dashboard is similar to those of its sister companies, Lever and Jazz HR. Its strength lies in intelligent candidate sourcing, which automatically locates and engages with the right candidate.

Users can set up configurable workflows by using filters to sort out candidates based on location, business unit, department, role, recruiter, and more. If you’re looking for powerful AI features, Jobvite is a better option than Jazz and Lever.

Its intelligent chatbot automates various tasks, including candidate screening, communications, scheduling, onboarding, and survey completion.

However, the interface looks somewhat outdated and cluttered.

UKG Pro is a cloud-based human capital management suite designed for global applications. What I really appreciate is how it supports core HR functions like employee records, compensation, time and attendance, and performance evaluations, all in one place.

Its highlight feature is Pro Recruiting, which takes a relationship-driven approach to hiring. It allows recruiters to focus on building meaningful connections with candidates, ensuring that the right people are brought on board to drive company growth.

UKG Pro leverages AI to offer a personalized experience throughout the recruitment process. It empowers an intelligent chatbot assistant to answer questions about onboarding, benefits, time, scheduling, and the company handbook.

However, compared to other ATS solutions, it offers very few integrations. Plus, its pricing is a bit expensive.

iCIMS is a talent management platform for enterprises that works suitably for organizations with high-volume hiring needs. When we think of enterprise, it has to be quick and efficient.

That’s what its gen-AI-powered co-pilot offers. Recruiters can use this co-pilot to craft interview questions, optimize job descriptions, and accelerate hiring workflows.

iCIMS offers a multilingual dashboard that operates in 70 languages, including English, French, Spanish, and others.

Within your career site, you can embed an employee video testimonial. iCIMS uses pre-defined approval chains to enhance collaboration between stakeholders and recruiters. Plus, you get to collaborate with your team internally through mentions and simple @.

Ceipal is a completely AI-powered ATS solution that manages job postings, candidate sourcing, interview scheduling, and analytics–all in this centralized platform.

There are so many features that you’d like here. For instance, it can transition from the interview stage to the placement. Recruiters can use integration tools to conduct interviews via video or phone.

Ceipal facilitates effective communication through various means, including texting, voicemail, SMS, and email campaigns. Though less relevant, I’d also appreciate its SMS marketing for the recruiters.

You’d also get the flexibility of creating custom reports based on team goals and initiatives. Recruiters can use these graph reports to track their recruiting campaigns and what works for them.

Regardless of the industry, Ceipal serves across various departments and business use cases.