You have an open job position. And you’re looking for the very best candidate to fill the role.

The problem is, recruiting takes time. According to a recent study, it takes somewhere between 36 and 42 days to fill an average role in the US.

The best AI recruiting software can help shorten this time frame by automating much of the process, but speeding up your hiring process isn’t everything. 

You also want to make sure your candidates are a good fit for the role, so they don’t join the 4 million Americans who leave their jobs every month.

That’s why I’ve chosen to highlight these 12 best AI recruiting software, as they’ll not only help you recruit candidates faster, but they’ll help you source excellent talent that’s a great fit for your organization.

I’ve chosen eight different highly-rated recruiting and hiring platforms, a virtual recruiter named Holly, and three bonus tools to automate busywork and save you time.

  • Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my links, at no extra cost to you. Please read full disclosure for more information.
for small business

Manatal

Full Review

  • Manage job postings & ad campaigns in app.
  • Recruiting & pipeline manager.
try it out
Secure

hireEZ

Full Review

  • Outbound AI recruiting software.
  • Database 8 million plus candidates.
try it out
job posting

Zoho Recruit

Full Review

  • Great for those using Zoho CRM.
  • AI Chatbot for recruiting.
try it out

What is the Best AI Recruiting Software?

Best AI Lead Generation Software

1. Manatal

Most Affordable

Manatal is an easy-to-use recruiting and pipeline manager for HR teams, recruitment agencies, and headhunters.

They serve over 10,000 teams in more than 135 countries.

Here’s what you can do with this tool:

  • Set up detailed pipeline dashboards to see the flow of candidates across your organization, including kanban board views.
  • Manage all job postings (to over 2,500 platforms) and ad campaigns inside the app.
  • Get AI-powered candidate recommendations based on job requirements. Each candidate gets a score so you can review them easily.
  • The AI assistant looks through public data and social media platforms to find extra candidate data. This is shown alongside their profile.
  • Use it on the go with apps for iOS and Android.
  • This app focuses on inbound recruiting, so it’s not optimized for outreach (though you can do LinkedIn outreach with it).

Manatal Pricing

The Professional Plan covers 15 jobs and 10,000 candidates for $19 per user per month. Upgrade to the Enterprise plan for $39 to remove those limits.

Manatal Verdict

Manatal gives you plenty of AI recruiting tools for a low monthly price, making it a great fit for small businesses looking to improve their recruitment process.

Try Manatal Here

2. hireEZ

Most Secure

Outbound recruiting platform hireEZ (formerly known as Hiretual) provides all the features a recruiting team needs, wrapped in a secure platform to keep your data safe.

HireEZ performs three main functions for its more than 200,000 users: finding better candidates, engaging with candidates, and syncing with your ATS (applicant tracking software).

Here are some key features of hireEZ:

  • Use AI to search through a database of 8+ million candidates from more than 45 platforms (including Meta, AngelList, LinkedIn, and GitHub search).
  • Send email campaigns to 200 people at a time with templates, automated sequences, and drip campaigns.
  • Use the built-in meeting scheduler to book interviews without back-and-forth emails.
  • Integrate with ATS or CRM tools to enrich your data and see ATS data alongside your hireEZ contacts.
  • Uncover underrepresented groups through search filters, and see how much your team is interacting with minority groups to avoid biased hiring.
  • hireEZ is compliant and certified with eight different data security centers.
  • Only sends emails, not other types of messaging.

HireEZ Pricing

Contact hireEZ’s sales team to get pricing information, as it’s depending on your needs.

HireEZ Verdict

hireEZ’s focus on data security makes it an excellent AI recruiting platform for organizations with high-security environments.

Try HireEZ Here

3. Loxo

Biggest Talent Directory

Loxo’s aim is to bring together all the different platforms recruiters use for the hiring process into one tool. 

Your ATS, CRM, outbound recruiting tools, and sourcing tools are covered by this one piece of software, used by more than 13,000 organizations.

Here are some of its key features:

  • Loxo claims to have the “world’s largest talent directory” with more than 1 billion profiles to sift through with AI-based search. This also includes 800 million verified emails and phone numbers.
  • Loxo AI recommends you relevant candidates, ranking them by their relevancy and fit for the job.
  • Get helpful analytics and dashboards to see what’s happening over your entire team and make better decisions.
  • Loxo Outreach automates multi-channel messaging (SMS, email, voice, and inMail) with templates and scheduling. You can write your own messages or generate them with the built-in AI writing tool.
  • It’s more expensive than other tools.

Loxo Pricing

Paid plans start at $359 per user per month for all features. It’s pricier than other options, but since it combines many types of recruiting software into one, it could be worth it for the right organization.

Loxo Verdict

Recruiting teams looking to simplify their workflow and house all their tools in one place will get great value from Loxo.

Try Loxo Here

4. Holly

AI-Powered Recruiter

Holly is your “AI-powered virtual recruiter.” She’s like ChatGPT but trained in recruiting knowledge and skills.

You can talk to her in a chat interface like you would with a teammate, and she’ll do a bunch of things to make the recruitment process easier.

Here are some key things Holly can do:

  • Give her a job description and answer her questions, and she’ll give you a list of suitable candidates to reach out to.
  • She can converse with your candidates in web-based conversations by installing a Chrome extension.
  • And you can give her feedback on her performance through text-based chat, just like you would do with a real employee, and she’ll learn from them using machine learning.
  • The app integrates with multiple platforms like Gmail, LinkedIn, Slack, and more.
  • This app is still in beta, and some parts of the website are unfinished. We’ll see how this develops as time goes on.

Holly Pricing

A company-wide license costs $50 a month for up to 5 roles and 10,000 candidates. Try it out for free first.

Holly Verdict

Fifty dollars a month for a recruiting assistant sounds like a steal. If this app does perform as advertised, it’ll be an alternative solution for teams who want a ChatGPT-like interface for their AI recruiting tool.

Try Holly Here

5. Sense

Automated Inbound Recruiting

Sense is a talent engagement platform that helps make the hiring process faster and smoother for large-scale organizations. 

They work with over 1,000 clients, including Amazon, Coca-Cola, and Sony.

The idea is to provide a good experience for both recruiters and candidates using the platform.

They’ve also recently acquired Skillate (also one of the best AI recruiting tools and one I was planning to add to the list). Going forward, Sense will integrate Skillate’s technology for even better AI integration.

So what can you do with Sense?

  • Set up automated email workflows for job applicants to make communications easy.
  • Send text and WhatsApp messages from within the app, so you can keep communications in one place.
  • Set up an AI chatbot to engage with potential candidates anytime day or night and get essential information from them.
  • The AI algorithm will match candidates to jobs that fit their profile best (and it syncs with your ATS to keep things consistent).
  • Get smart analysis and key metrics to see how the work is progressing and what could be improved.
  • This doesn’t help with outreach and cold messaging.

Sense Pricing

Set up a demo with Sense to learn more.

Sense Verdict

For companies that get a lot of applications coming in, Sense is a great way to manage the applications and improve the hiring process for both your hiring managers and candidates.

Try Sense Here

6. Ceipal

All-In-One Recruitment Platform

Similar to Loxo (reviewed above), Ceipal aims to be your one-stop recruiting platform, combining the functions of an ATS, CRM, VMS, and workforce management platform in one place.

Here are some top features that make it a favorite for over 2,500 clients:

  • Connect with 50+ job boards and VMS portals, then let the AI assistant pick job seekers and gather resumes for your search.
  • Send emails from within the app and use email workflows designed by leading recruiters. (You can also send text, voicemail, and video).
  • See your teams’ communications in one place, so there’s no overlap.
  • Post jobs to job boards and social media in one click.
  • Get AI-generated reports on each candidate to understand their working style, workplace values, and more.
  • Reviews say the low-cost platform can sometimes be slow.

Ceipal Pricing

Paid plans start at $24 per user per month for a minimum of 5 users.

Ceipal Verdict

Ceipal is one of the most user-friendly ATSs out there, plus it combines tons of extra features. If you’re looking for an all-in-one solution to accelerate the hiring process, definitely give this a try.

Try Ceipal Here

7. Fetcher

Automated Candidate Sourcing

Fetcher is a sourcing app that, true to its name, “fetches” candidates for you from across the web.

Give it your search criteria, and it’ll send you daily batches of relevant candidates it thinks would fit your organization well.

Over 500 companies are using it so far.

Here are some key features of Fetcher:

  • Get smaller batches of job candidates every day, so you never feel overwhelmed.
  • Send emails to candidates from within the platform, using templates and set up automations to make the recruitment process easy.
  • Add candidate profiles by hand using the Chrome extension.
  • Visualize your current talent pipeline and search and sort by tons of different properties to get insights on your candidate pool. 
  • See your email pipeline how many people have been contacted, opened emails, replied, and are interested in a position.
  • View gender and demographic data to make sure your hiring is diverse and inclusive.
  • Other tools can do these things, too, so if you have another tool on this list, you may not need Fetcher

Fetcher Pricing

Schedule a demo to learn more.

Fetcher Verdict

I like how Fetcher sends small, daily batches of qualified candidates so you can work through it little by little. I’m not sure how valuable this tool is compared to others, but if you need a specialized tool like this, it’s definitely worth looking into.

Try Fetcher Here

8. SeekOut

Find & Develop Talent

SeekOut doesn’t stop at the recruitment process. It also provides a platform to develop talent and help your employees move forward in their careers.

The platform serves more than 1,000 organizations, including McKinsey, Microsoft, and Salesforce.

So here’s what I like about SeekOut:

  • You can search through 800 million public profiles and let the AI-powered search assistant find qualified candidates for you.
  • The SeekOut Assist feature simplifies the whole process: it takes your job requirements, makes candidate lists, then reaches out to qualified candidates on your behalf with AI-generated messages.
  • If you have a great candidate already, you can use that person’s profile as a search query to find more people like them.
  • The Bias Reducer removes gender and race indicators from profiles to help recruiters hire more fairly.
  • On top of this, you get tons of features for helping employees develop skills, move to new positions within your organization, and strengthen your business overall.
  • The information found in this app is sometimes out-of-date with what you can find on LinkedIn.

SeekOut Pricing

Request a free demo to learn more.

SeekOut Verdict

AI recruiting platform SeekOut provides organizations with great tools that go beyond the hiring process to support your people throughout their careers with your company.

Try SeekOut Here

9. Zoho Recruit

Easy Job Posting

Zoho Recruit makes the talent acquisition process easier for over 8,000 businesses, including Bosch and PWC.

It combines an ATS and CRM and is designed for staffing agencies and HR teams.

So what can you do with Zoho Recruit?

  • Post a job to over 75 job boards and social media platforms in one click. Plus, they integrate with LinkedIn to make it easier for LinkedIn users to apply.
  • Create a branded careers site to link to from your website for a better application experience.
  • Manage candidates and visualize your talent pipeline in an easy-to-use database.
  • Automatically evaluate candidates with background checks, pre-screening, third-party assessments, and more.
  • Use the AI chatbot Zia to match applicants to open roles.
  • Create autoresponders and workflows to follow up with candidates and complete the hiring process. (You can even integrate with your HR tools to move new hires into your system).
  • It doesn’t help with cold outreach and outbound recruiting, which are also important parts of the recruitment process.

Zoho Recruit Pricing

Paid plans start at $30 per user per month for 100 active jobs and all features. Start for free with 1 active job and limited features.

Zoho Recruit Verdict

Staffing agencies and HR teams should include Zoho Recruit in their search when looking for the best AI recruiting tools for their organization.

Try Zoho Here

10. Hally

AI Writer for Recruiters

You’ve heard of Jasper and Copy AI (both great tools for writing sales copy). Now meet Hally, an AI writing app specifically designed for the recruitment process.

Here’s the low-down on Hally:

  • Choose from more than 50 recruiting templates, like job ads, candidate outreach emails, job tweets, and more.
  • This also includes helpful hiring tools like a resume screener, AI bias detector, and personality analysis. (Another one generates questions to ask a candidate based on their resume)
  • Hally writes in 25 languages to help you reach a larger population.
  • You can also write ads, emails, sales copy, blogs, and more—any marketing copy you might need for your HR team, recruiting company, or organization as a whole.
  • While this app is optimized for recruiting, it lacks the advanced features you’ll get from Jasper and other well-established tools.

Hally Pricing

Paid plans start at 7 pounds (about $9) per month for 20 templates and up to 500 tasks. You can get started with a 7-day free trial.

Hally Verdict

Want to save time writing engaging copy for job postings, candidate messages, and marketing materials to reach more potential candidates? Hally can do all this and more.

Try Hally Here

11. Bardeen

Smart Data Scraper

Bardeen is a little tool that seems simple but can actually make a huge difference in your recruiting productivity.

In a nutshell, this tool completes repetitive tasks for you at scale, so you can focus your time on things that create more value.

And it’s easy to use. Install the Chrome extension, then type in what you want it to do, and it will create a workflow for you. (You get to review and edit the workflow to make sure it’s what you want.)

Here’s what I like about Bardeen:

  • It’s really good at data scraping, so you could have it download tons of profiles from LinkedIn, then put them in a Google Sheet for you to review
  • It integrates with tons of tools, so it can send a Slack to a certain person when a task is over or send emails to job candidates it finds during its search.
  • You can create custom automations without code.
  • You can set tasks to run overnight so they don’t take up your time while working.
  • Right now, the main thing it can do is get info, then put it into another app. It would be great if they added more functionality, since you can get candidate data from other apps, too.

Bardeen Pricing

Paid plans start at $15 per month for 500 credits. You can increase the price for more monthly credits. A free tier also exists with limited features.

Bardeen Verdict

If you want to save time on data sourcing and finding potential candidates, and want to save lists in an existing tool like Notion or Google Sheets, Bardeen could be just what you’re looking for.

Try Bardeen Here

12. ChatGPT

Best Free Tool

ChatGPT is another great tool that can assist you with recruiting and candidate engagement. 

It’s not going to find you candidates or message people for you, but it can help you prepare interview questions, write job descriptions, evaluate resumes, and more.

And best of all, ChatGPT is absolutely free.

Here are some things you can do with this app:

  • Treat ChatGPT like your recruiting assistant, and ask it questions. For example, what’s the median salary for …? What skills are required for …? Where can I find people who …?
  • You can also train ChatGPT to your way of working. You can tell it what kind of people you look for, what values you have for recruiting, and more, and it can remember them and operate with that knowledge going forward. (Just make sure to save your chat inside the ChatGPT interface and use the same chat if you want ChatGPT to remember what you taught it.)
  • Paste in bullet points of your job requirements and ask it to write a job description aimed at your target candidate. Or better yet, ask it what kind of things should be included in a job post, then ask it to review your finished post and suggest what to improve.
  • Give it information about your candidates, then ask it to craft personalized outreach messages to each of them.
  • Paste in examples of your own writing and ask it to learn from and use your tone of voice going forward.
  • ChatGPT is a closed system, which means it doesn’t learn from any new data once it’s released. The current version, GPT-4, uses data from 2021.
  • Some of the answers will be blatantly wrong, because ChatGPT cannot check itself for accuracy. With everything (and in general for AI software), you should fact-check your results.

ChatGPT Pricing

ChatGPT is free to use. If you want priority access to new features and a faster connection, you can subscribe to ChatGPT Plus for $20 a month.

ChatGPT Verdict

Want to test out what AI recruiting software can do for your recruiting workflow? ChatGPT is a great place to start. It’s absolutely free and can do some really amazing stuff. You should be using it for many different workflows at this point.

Try ChatGPT Here

What is AI Recruiting Software?

AI recruiting software is a type of software that uses artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing, and other smart technology to automate parts of the recruiting process.

What can AI recruiting software help with?

If you’re looking for a better way to help your recruiting process, here’s a few things that the AI recruitment softwares can streamline for you:

  • Read and understand your requirements for a new position.
  • Decide what type of person would fit the role.
  • Read through job applications or public profiles and decide which candidates best fit your requirements.
  • Give you a shortlist of the most promising candidates.
  • Score candidates based on how well they fit your requirements and culture.
  • Messages candidates to get to know them and set up interviews.
  • Remove biased language from job postings and messages.
  • Remove gender and demographic-related language from applications and resumes to help remove hiring bias.
  • Analyze the diversity of your pipeline and workforce and make suggestions to increase diversity and representation.
  • Put together emails and workflows to follow up with candidates.
  • Help job applicants and existing employees find job opportunities within your organization.
  • Write job listings or ads based on a prompt.
  • Scrape candidate and application data from the web and save it to a spreadsheet.
  • Review resumes and summarize the main points or uncover potential issues.
  • Analyze your entire pipeline and give you insights and suggestions to improve

Many AI-powered recruiting softwares work with or replace the functions of an ATS, CMS, and VMS. If you’re not familiar with these terms, I’ll give a short explanation below.

What is an ATS?

An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) manages all your job applications in one place.

When someone submits a resume to your company, it will be sent to the ATS software and scanned to see if the person is a good fit for an open position.

If the ATS deems the candidate a good match for the job, the candidate will be referred to a real human for follow-up.

Traditional ATSs scan for keywords, but don’t necessarily use AI technology. 

However, many of the AI recruiting tools on this list combine the functionality of an ATS with AI technology for even better performance. Other tools can integrate with your ATS and bring its data into the AI tool.

What is a CMS (Recruiting)?

A Candidate Management System (CMS) is a type of recruiting database that helps recruiters and hiring teams keep track of candidates.

It’s similar to an ATS, but it focuses on managing information about candidates, instead of individual applications.

The CMS tracks who are interested in jobs, what they’ve applied for, and how far they’ve gone in the hiring process. It also keeps their resume and other information in one place.

Many tools on this list also include CMS functions to help you keep track of each candidate in your system. Some focus on inbound applications (who apply directly to your jobs), while others focus on outbound recruiting (people you reached out to for a job). A few include both types of candidates in their CMS.

What is a VMS?

A Vendor Management System (VMS) is a system that helps recruiting and staffing firms fill positions in larger-scale organizations. These companies usually have many open positions and need to make a lot of hires all the time.

The system focuses on managing each vendor and the open positions in each one. It has features for creating job descriptions, managing openings, receiving applications, analyzing hiring data, and more.

Some AI tools on this list also include a VMS within the platform.

How AI Recruiting Tools Work

Artificial intelligence is a field that solves problems with the help of computers and lots and lots of data.

AI recruiting tools, then, use lots and lots of data and sophisticated algorithms to solve complex problems in the recruiting process.

A. Machine Learning

AI recruiting tools can do something called machine learning, which means they can look at new data and learn from it each time.

Essentially, these programs have looked at so many job descriptions and candidate profiles, that they know what to look for. They’ve gotten data on which candidates have been hired for which jobs, and which ones were a good fit. 

With that huge set of data, and using math and probability, they’re able to predict which candidates and which jobs are a good match.

B. Natural Language Processing

AI recruiting tools also use something called natural language processing, which allows them to read written words and understand their meaning. They can also write text and answer questions and prompts with the most likely answer.

Many, if not all, tools are likely built on top of ChatGPT, which already has all that data baked into it. Each app would have its own algorithms an datasets on top of ChatGPT that would teach it to do recruiting tasks effectively.

C. How to Interact with an AI Recruiting Tool

That’s why you can write a prompt like, “I’m looking for a candidate for this job: { job description }. Send me a list of 20 candidates who would be a good match for this job,” and the AI tool will be able to understand and follow your command.

While some allow you to write text-based prompts like that one, others will ask you to fill out a form, check boxes, or select pre-defined options to tell the program what you want it to do.

D. Continuous Learning

As you use AI recruitment software, and as they see which candidates you hire and which you reject, many can learn from the data and improve their recommendations over time.

Benefits of Using AI Recruiting Tools

So what kind of results can you see from adopting AI recruiting tools?

(Aka, why should you—or your boss—care?)

Here are some major pluses you can expect when you start using AI recruiting tools in the hiring process.

  • Faster Recruiting – By saving time personally searching for and reviewing applications, or crafting and sending emails by hand, you can skip all the tedious stuff and get straight to interviewing and hiring.
  • Bigger Candidate Pool – AI tools can go onto the web and into social media and search for candidates for you. They can quickly scan through thousands of profiles while you sleep, find inactive candidates, and pull the names into a list for you to review the next day.
  • Reduced Bias – These AI tools can search for and remove biased language or language that might create bias in the reader, so hiring managers can eliminate as much bias as possible
  • More Diversity – Many AI recruiting tools can analyze the diversity of your pipeline and current organization so you can make sure you’re hiring a diverse workforce
  • Eliminate Time-Consuming Tasks – By taking tedious tasks off your plate like sending the same email over and over, copying and pasting data, and reading through endless resumes and applications, you can spend more time on value-creating tasks that feel good to complete instead of busywork.
  • Lower-Cost Hiring – Instead of paying a whole salary for an employee to source candidates, read resumes, and help with hiring, you can pay a low monthly fee to a software to do the same thing, reducing cost overall.
  • Self-Service Applications – AI chatbots can interact with your job applicants to get necessary information from them and start the hiring process. This means that applicants can apply for the job smoothly without needing help from an employee.
  • Better Candidate Matching – These apps use sophisticated algorithms to predict which candidate will succeed in a position. Plus, they can learn from performance over time and improve their accuracy.
  • Less Turnover – By getting better matches through AI analysis, you could potentially reduce turnover in your business and keep your employees happy for a longer time.
  • Always-On Chatbot – AI chatbots are available 24-7 to field questions, assist with the application process, and review CVs anytime day or night, so you never miss an inquiry.

Inbound vs Outbound Recruiting Tools

Inbound recruiting tools focus on applications coming into the platform. These usually help you post jobs, then sort through and evaluate applications that are submitted.

On the other hand, outbound recruiting tools help you find potential candidates on social media and public platforms like LinkedIn, then send cold outreach messages to them to interest them in your job opening.

Both are crucial and helpful for the recruiting process, but not all tools focus on both types.

Here’s the breakdown of my recommended AI recruiting tools:

Best Inbound Recruiting Tools

These tools will help you post jobs, gather applications, and manage hiring.

Best Outbound Recruiting Tools

These tools will help you source candidates from the web and reach out to them.

Best All-In-One Recruiting Tools

These tools combine both inbound and outbound recruiting support.

Cautions & Shortcomings of AI Recruiting Platforms

The positives vastly outweigh the negatives, but there are some things to be aware of when using one of these tools.

  • Wrong Information:  Some tools will display incorrect or outdated information from time to time, so you always want to double-check with public profiles before messaging a candidate
  • Learning Curve: It may take time to understand how the tool works and how to use it in your workflow. If a recruiter isn’t tech-savvy, the tool might take longer to get used to. It might be necessary to train your team to use these programs and decide how you will use it as an organization
  • Needs a Human Touch: Of course, an AI tool can’t make all the hiring decisions. It can only read a resume and make paper-based judgements about the person and their skills. HR teams will still need to interact with candidates and evaluate them holistically in order to make good hiring decisions

However, having a tool like this will save so much time and money, that recruiters should actively use them.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Can AI assist in the hiring process?

Yes, it can help with sourcing candidates, sending messages, managing applications, candidates, and job openings, writing job posts, evaluating resumes, qualifying applicants, and much, much more.

What does AI recruitment software do?

AI recruiting tools can help you find candidates, match candidates to jobs, optimize job postings, engage with and pre-qualify candidates, help remove bias from hiring, write emails and content for you, scrape data, automate workflows, and more.
There is so much an AI tool like this can do that I wrote a full list in the second half of the article above. (See “What can AI recruiting software help with?”)

How much does AI recruitment software cost?

While some AI recruitment tools offer free plans, they don’t go very far. Paid plans range from $19 per user per month (Manatal) to over $350 a month (Loxo) and more.

Can artificial intelligence replace the human recruiter?

I don’t believe AI tools will ever replace recruiters. While AI recruiting software is great at following instructions and suggesting candidates and ways to engage, they’ll never be able to have a real human connection with candidates and look beyond the data to the person they are interacting with. However, recruiters who use AI will almost certainly replace recruiters who don’t use these tools over the long term.

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