HR leaders at small businesses play a key role in building strong, connected teams and setting every new joiner up for long-term success. But without large recruiting teams behind them, they need tools that streamline hiring without adding extra headcount.
Modern recruiting software helps small businesses stay competitive. It simplifies sourcing, tracks applications, and automates repetitive tasks so you can focus on finding the right people. In fact, more than 90 percent of recruiters say their tools have a positive impact on the hiring process.
This guide explores the top recruiting software for small businesses, making it easier to choose a solution that speeds up hiring, supports smart decisions, and helps you bring the best people on board.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect HiBob’s views. Prospective users are encouraged to conduct research to make the best decision for their organization.
What is recruitment software?
Recruitment software helps companies manage the hiring process in a structured and organized way. Instead of manually tracking candidates across spreadsheets or email threads, HR teams and hiring managers can use one system to:
- Post job openings and track applicants from initial application to final offer
- Automate interview scheduling and candidate communications
- Store and review resumes, applications, and screening notes in one place
- Analyze recruiting metrics like hire rate, cost per hire, and quality of hire
Why do small businesses need recruiting software?
Small businesses can implement HR tech to establish efficient hiring processes early—before scaling makes things more complex. With lean HR teams and limited resources, smaller companies can use recruiting software to:
- Reduce time-to-hire and time-to-fill
- Save time and reduce administrative workload
- Find the right candidates faster
- Improve collaboration across hiring teams
- Enhance the hiring experience
- Track past hiring successes and challenges
What to look for in recruiting software for small businesses
With the right recruiting software, small businesses can make hiring easier, improve candidate experiences, and build a foundational team for long-term success. Follow these steps to find the best fit for your business:
Recruiting task automation
The best recruiting software handles repetitive hiring tasks automatically to give teams more time to focus on engaging with candidates. Look for tools that streamline resume parsing, interview scheduling, and onboarding flows. With automation in place, small businesses can move quickly without adding additional headcount.
Applicant tracking
An ATS keeps all candidate information, resumes, and communication in one place. Instead of fumbling through disconnected applications, recruiters can quickly filter applicants, track hiring progress, and move candidates through different hiring stages.
Onboarding tools
A smooth onboarding experience helps new joiners start on a strong note. Look for onboarding tools that can send offer letters, gather paperwork, and introduce new people to their team before their start date. This helps people integrate into the company culture from day one and get up to speed on procedures more quickly.
Security and compliance features
Look for hiring software that meets compliance with employment laws, data protection regulations, and equal opportunity hiring standards. Platforms with built-in compliance checks, secure document storage, and automated audit trails can protect sensitive candidate data from unwanted eyes. With the right safeguards in place, small businesses can hire confidently while maintaining fairness and transparency.
Scalability
Growing businesses need recruiting software that keeps up with their hiring needs as they expand. Whether hiring one person or an entire team, a scalable platform adjusts to changing needs without requiring a complete system overhaul. Features like customizable workflows, multi-user access, and job posting expansion ensure long-term usability as the company expands.
Top recruiting software for small businesses
With the right recruitment software, you can compete with large enterprises for the best talent on the market. Let’s look at the best systems available today.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect HiBob’s views. Prospective users are encouraged to conduct research to make the best decision for their organization.
Bob
HR leaders from small businesses and startups use HiBob’s HR software, Bob, to simplify hiring, streamline recruitment workflows, and ensure a smooth transition from candidate to team member. Bob’s intuitive platform helps HR teams track job openings, collaborate with hiring managers, and automate calendar scheduling, evaluation scorecards, and offer letters—all within a user-friendly system that keeps recruitment organized and efficient.
HR teams can manage job postings, centralize applicant tracking, and coordinate interviews with ease. The platform’s recruitment analytics provide real-time insights into sourcing effectiveness, hiring speed, and retention trends, helping small businesses refine their hiring strategy and recruit the best candidates faster.
Beyond hiring, Bob offers a complete HR suite that includes onboarding, performance management, compensation, and workforce planning—ensuring small businesses scale efficiently without juggling multiple tools. With seamless integrations for payroll software, collaboration tools, and internal learning and development features, Bob helps small businesses build a strong workforce and keep hiring simple.
Features:
- Hiring: Manage job postings, candidate pipelines, and interview scheduling in one place
- Onboarding: Create a seamless new joiner experience by automating paperwork, connecting people with peers, and providing essential resources
- Workforce Planning: Strategically map, track, and plan roles for long-term company growth
- Payroll Hub: Centralize payroll data and integrate seamlessly with external payroll providers to reduce processing time
- Compensation: Manage salary reviews, bonuses, and equity allocation with a transparent, structured approach
- Performance management: Run structured review cycles, collect 360-degree feedback, and track performance trends to drive team growth
- Goal setting and tracking: Align individual and company-wide goals with real-time goal tracking and performance insights
- Surveys and feedback: Collect actionable insights through customizable surveys to measure engagement
- Core HR: Automate HR processes, generate reports, and centralize people data to streamline daily operations
- People Analytics: Analyze key workforce metrics like headcount growth, retention rate, and absenteeism to support decisions
- Your Voice: Promote open communication with a dedicated space for team members to share feedback and suggestions
- Time and Attendance: Track hours and attendance with accuracy to ensure fair and compliant payroll
- Time Off: Simplify PTO, sick days, and vacation approvals with an easy-to-use dashboard
- UK Payroll: Provide complete payroll management built to meet UK-specific tax and compliance requirements
- Sandbox: Test and optimize performance cycles, compensation events, and automations in a risk-free duplicate of your Bob production setup
- Learning and development: Design and deliver training programs tailored to career progression and key lifecycle events
Pros:
- Reduces manual work for small HR teams by automating job postings, interview scheduling, and candidate tracking
- Improves candidate selection with structured scorecards, hiring metrics, and data-driven insights to identify the best talent faster
- Reduces hiring bias with structured evaluation templates, standardized workflows, and data-backed decision-making tools
- Speeds up onboarding with automated workflows that handle paperwork, introduce new joiners to teams, and ensure a smooth first day
- Keeps hiring data organized with centralized candidate profiles, interview notes, and recruitment metrics all in one place
- Boosts retention by integrating hiring with performance management, career growth tracking, and engagement tools
Cons:
- “No specific format for phone numbers” – verified review
Pricing: Contact the HiBob team for a custom plan
Bamboo HR
Bamboo HR is an HR software that provides people management, payroll, and benefits features. Users can add custom permissions to gather input from stakeholders, automate emails, customize offer letters, and access in-system messaging to keep candidates moving through the pipeline. Bamboo HR also provides customizable flows for onboarding and offboarding your new team members.
Pros:
- “The interface is simple and easy to navigate for both employees and admins.” – verified review
- “I like that there are a lot of different things that can be done in Bamboo.” – verified review
Cons:
- “The integrations are lacking, making it difficult to connect with other systems.” – verified review
- “The main downside at the moment is the analytics capability is weak so you need to extract data and do a lot of the analysis yourself.” – verified review
Pricing: Custom pricing
(This article includes platform features and pricing that reflect the information available on the Bamboo HR website as of the publication date.)
<<Compare Bob vs. BambooHR – See which fits your business best>>
Breezy HR
Breezy HR combines hiring software and an applicant tracking system (ATS). Users can advertise open positions to over 50 job sites and link back to customizable careers pages. Breezy HR can automatically pre-screen candidates, send emails, schedule interviews, and collect feedback from your team.
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Pros:
- “Great range of functionality.” – verified review
- “BreezyHR has been great for reaching candidates with our job posts” – verified review
Cons:
- “Crazy long loading times.” – verified review
- “The duplicates are driving me insane. And how slow the website really is.” – verified review
Pricing:
- Bootstrap: Free
- Startup: $189/mo
- Growth: $329/mo
- Business: $529/mo
(This article includes platform features and pricing that reflect the information available on the Breezy HR website as of the publication date.)
GoHire
GoHire is an AI-first hiring platform aimed at SMBs. It offers AI-driven candidate matching, automated interview workflows, and job post creation tools. Users can place open positions on over 15 job board integrations from Indeed to LinkedIn and lead people to a custom careers page. Hiring managers can also message candidates directly within the platform to ask any questions needed to make final decisions.
Pros:
- “Being able to post across multiple job boards with one click is a huge timesaver.” – verified review
- “It has a simple UI and it is connected with a variety of job boards.” – verified review
Cons:
- “The thing that annoys me the most in GoHire is its inability to provide the advanced reporting feature.” – verified review
- “It takes forever for a job to go live” – verified review
Pricing:
- Starter: $99/mo
- Growth: $199/mo
- Pro: $299/mo
(This article includes platform features and pricing that reflect the information available on the GoHire website as of the publication date.)
Greenhouse
Greenhouse users can access over 1,000 global job boards and integrate with sourcing tools like LinkedIn. Greenhouse provides interview planning kits that help your team prepare scorecards and anonymous take-home tests to evaluate candidates.
Pros:
- “I love how easy it is to pull reports.” – verified review
- “I like that Greenhouse has email templating capabilities.” – verified review
Cons:
- “For what we pay, we should be able to do more of what we really want with Greenhouse.” – verified review
- “The new interface in the dashboard for candidate profiles makes it harder to navigate and find things” – verified review
Pricing: Custom pricing
(This article includes platform features and pricing that reflect the information available on the Greenhouse website as of the publication date.)
Gusto
Gusto is an HR and payroll platform where HR teams can create public job posts, track applications, request electronic signatures, and personalize offer letters for candidates. Once a candidate gets the job, users can customize onboarding checklists to collect necessary documents, set up benefits, and import their information into payroll.
Pros:
- “The Gusto interface is straightforward and easy to navigate.” – verified review
- “The software seems easy enough to use with a few hiccups along the way.”- verified review
Cons:
- “Customer service drastically changed (for the worse) in 2022.” – verified review
- “Gusto recently raised its pricing substantially adding new features as well. Unfortunately for super small businesses like us who don’t utilize these features, the price increase isn’t justifiable.” – verified review
Pricing:
- Simple: $49/mo
- Plus: $80/mo
- Premium: $180/mo
(This article includes platform features and pricing that reflect the information available on the Gusto website as of the publication date.)
Homerun
Homerun is a European market ATS that can track candidates, feedback, and progress in a single dashboard. Users can create job posts, customize a career page, automate emails and interview scheduling, and send custom questionnaire assignments to obtain important files or answers to a qualifying question. Homerun also provides an insight dashboard to track key hiring metrics and trends to see what’s working and where candidates fall off.
Pros:
- “It’s simple to implement across the business.” – verified review
- “It is a good place to see my organization’s information” – verified review
Cons:
- “The reporting and analytics features can sometimes feel limited compared to more robust HR software.” – verified review
- “Homerun isn’t ideal for those looking to hire directly through platforms like LinkedIn or Indeed.” – verified review
Pricing:
- Light: €89/mo
- Basic: €159/mo
- Plus: €249/mo
- Custom: Custom pricing
(This article includes platform features and pricing that reflect the information available on the Homerun website as of the publication date.)
iCIMS
iCIMS is an all-in-one recruitment software targeted towards global brands and high-growth companies that can still be used by small businesses. They break their offerings into three products spending based on your needs. iCIMS Hire streamlines hiring with a configurable ATS, iCIMS Engage builds automated sourcing and nurture campaigns, and iCIMS Employer Branding helps build your brand for potential candidates to see.
Pros:
- “I love that iCIMS is very configurable.” – verified review
- “I like the way iCIMS presents information and keeps me on track.” – verified review
Cons:
- “The reports can be difficult to drill down.” – verified review
- “Very complex, not very user-friendly and slower than other ATS” – verified review
Pricing: Custom pricing
(This article includes platform features and pricing that reflect the information available on the iCIMS website as of the publication date.)
Jazz HR
Jazz HR offers recruiting software to small businesses to help automate manual tasks and centralize candidate information. Users can post to multiple job boards at once, filter out unqualified applicants, customize their career page, and email, tag, and progress candidates through their pipeline. Jazz HR also implements an AI tool to identify qualified talent faster, generate interview questions, and provide bias-free evaluations.
Pros:
- “It simplifies the hiring process.” – verified review
- “They answer emails quickly.” – verified review
Cons:
- “It lacks advanced AI-driven candidate matching and seems limited in the integrations I’m using.” – verified review
- “I wish there were better candidate verification systems in place as I sometimes wind up interviewing people who are clearly not in the country or who are not real candidates.” – verified review
Pricing:
- Hero: $99/mo
- Plus: $325/mo
- Pro: $499/mo
(This article includes platform features and pricing that reflect the information available on the Jazz HR website as of the publication date.)
JobAdder
JobAdder is a recruitment software that combines ATS and CRM features for recruitment agencies, HR, and talent acquisition teams. Users can post to multiple job boards, source candidates for both temporary and permanent positions, and automatically discover people who match open roles with AI-based skill matching. Their dashboards enable users to add notes, message candidates and contacts, review applicant stages, change current statuses, and drill down into recruitment activity by team, consultant, or company.
Pros:
- “Has a nice LinkedIn integration.” – verified review
- “It’s really easy to figure out yourself.” – verified review
Cons:
- “Support is horrifically bad, not the people, necessarily just their workflow, way of requesting support, and general response time.” – verified review
- “Pricing is going up and they have not kept their word on the offer they made initially that pricing would not be raised” – verified review
Pricing: Custom pricing
(This article includes platform features and pricing that reflect the information available on the JobAdder website as of the publication date.)
Lever
Lever is a recruiting software that combines an applicant tracking system with candidate relationship management tools. Their AI tool can automate interview summaries and feedback collection, coach current team members to improve their interviewing skills, generate recommended skills-based questions, and offer insights into candidate sentiment. Users can also evaluate, skip, advance, or archive candidates with Lever’s Fast Resume Review.
Pros:
- “Lever generates good reports and it serves as a great repository for resumes and records.” – verified review
- “Light package so not the most difficult tool to implement” – verified review
Cons:
- “Not able to capture the entire candidate journey, reporting/ analytics is weak.” – verified review
- “I need to buy other tools for Lever to function how I need it to. It’s very behind other ATS systems.” – verified review
Pricing: Custom pricing
(This article includes platform features and pricing that reflect the information available on the Lever website as of the publication date.)
Mantal
Manatal offers AI-powered recruitment software designed to source and hire candidates for HR teams, recruitment agencies, and headhunters. Users can customize the recruitment pipeline with a drag-and-drop interface, share job openings to over 2,500 free and premium channels, and send offer letters all within the same platform. Manatal’s AI tools can enrich candidates’ profiles and score them based on job requirements by browsing over 20 social media and public platforms.
Pros:
- “Affordable option for an ATS tool.” – verified review
- “The UI is very clean.” – verified review
Cons:
- “It doesn’t have enough automation.” – verified review
- “It takes some extra manual steps to communicate with candidates between stages” – verified review
Pricing:
- Professional: $19/mo
- Enterprise: $39/mo
- Enterprise Plus: $59/mo
- Custom: Custom pricing
(This article includes platform features and pricing that reflect the information available on the Manatal website as of the publication date.)
Recruitee
Recruitee is an ATS and hiring platform with no-code features for small businesses. Users can access an interview scheduler, interview templates, notes, and custom dashboards to see how recruitment processes can be optimized. Job posts can deploy to over 2,900 free and paid job boards in your area and abroad, along with evaluation templates to assess candidates on the same criteria.
Pros:
- “Streamlined and user-friendly” – verified review
- “Recruitee is a handy and easy system to use” – verified review
Cons:
- “My only negatives would be their customer support and that they can be difficult to actually speak to.” – verified review
- “Feels like as the company grows the more we also outgrow Recruitee” – verified review
Pricing:
- Start: $270/mo
- Grow: $343/mo
- Optimize: Custom pricing
(This article includes platform features and pricing that reflect the information available on the Recruitee website as of the publication date.)
SmartRecruiters
SmartRecruiters is an AI-powered hiring software that can manage interviews, offers, and onboarding. Their AI tool, Winston, can sort through candidates to identify the best fits and offer proactive hiring suggestions. Users can configure workflows based on their hiring preferences for each position, build custom career sites and career pages, communicate with candidates from a desktop or the hiring app, and share impactful content like videos or team member testimonials.
Pros:
- “Simple to use.” – verified review
- “The ability to use the app on your phone.” – verified review
Cons:
- “It’s a bit tedious to get to a specific candidate within the job if they’re not in the stage you’re already looking at.” – verified review
- “Automation between steps is too basic.” – verified review
Pricing: Custom pricing
(This article includes platform features and pricing that reflect the information available on the SmartRecruiters website as of the publication date.)
Spark Hire Recruit
Spark Hire Recruit, formerly Comeet, offers an ATS for global teams. Users can access auto-scheduling to let candidates choose their own interview time, an AI assistant that composes scorecards and interview questions, and integrations so hiring managers can offer timely feedback on preferred candidates. They also provide a pipeline dashboard with analytics on your recruiting and hiring practices.
Pros:
- “Their customer support is superb.” – verified review
- “Very useful system for internal recruiters working with outside agencies and recruiters.” – verified review
Cons:
- “Hard to use Comeet as a database and look for candidates.” – verified review
- “The option to add comments on the review in the system is missing.” – verified review
Pricing:
- Recruit Pro: $399/mo
- Recruit Growth: Custom pricing
- Recruit Enterprise: Custom pricing
(This article includes platform features and pricing that reflect the information available on the Spark Hire Recruit website as of the publication date.)
TalentReef
TalentReef by Mitratech is an applicant tracking software that handles the entire hiring and onboarding process for applicants with branded career pages, job board postings, text communications, and document collection. Managers can reach out to candidates, schedule interviews, conduct virtual training, and handle performance management directly within the platform.
Pros:
- “The best thing about the Talentreef platform is the scalability of user activity.” – verified review
- “I like that applicants can handle everything all from one portal.” – verified review
Cons:
- “Every single person that I’ve ever known to use TalentReef has had issues logging in and ends up having to reset their password multiple times.” – verified review
- “We are having ongoing issues with the Indeed integration. It is difficult to contact customer service.” – verified review
Pricing: Custom pricing
(This article includes platform features and pricing that reflect the information available on the TalentReef website as of the publication date.)
Teamtailor
Teamtailor is an all-in-one recruitment software where teams can post jobs over 120 boards, talk to applicants through the Candidate Chat widget, and send NPS surveys to collect data and identify opportunities to improve your hiring workflow. Users can customize their career site with video presentations, team stories, multiple languages, and mobile-friendly applications. Teamtailor also allows you to create targeted campaign pages for specialized roles, events, or job fairs.
Pros:
- “Beautiful UI/UX and super easy on the eyes.” – verified review
- “The implementation team/process has been structured, which is great.” – verified review
Cons:
- “The analytic part is lacking.” – verified review
- “As the features are built into the system there are limited opportunities to tailor the platform to work more succinctly with client’s business processes.” – verified review
Pricing: Custom pricing.
(This article includes platform features and pricing that reflect the information available on the Teamtailor website as of the publication date.)
VIVAHR
VIVAHR is a recruiting software that enables hiring teams to evaluate applicants, qualify their skills, and send job offer letters. VIVAHR can automatically post to over 50 job boards, social media sites, and encourages people to refer their friends and colleagues for open positions. They also generate candidate scorecards to identify which candidates have the skills and experience you’re looking for.
Pros:
- “Good for basic ATS needs.” – verified review
- “Decent experience” – verified review
Cons:
- “Having a third party hosting the communication means that candidates are less likely to check their messages and respond.” – verified review
- “I do not believe I get as many candidates. So I posted the job on Indeed manually myself and we received at least 10x the applicants in just a couple days.” – verified review
Pricing:
- Starter: $129/mo
- Growth: $199/mo
- Premier: $349/mo
(This article includes platform features and pricing that reflect the information available on the VIVAHR website as of the publication date.)
Workable
Workable is an all-in-one HR platform that uses AI to identify suitable candidates, generate personalized outreach emails, and handle one-way video interviews. Users can post to over 200 job boards, including Indeed and LinkedIn, and access customizable interview kits, scorecards, and science-backed assessments to standardize hiring criteria across every role. You can provide selected candidates with a personalized welcome portal to collect paperwork and e-signatures, track progress, and instantly notify managers of their progress.
Pros:
- “I find it easy to integrate it with other tools and job boards.” – verified review
- “The customization and automation is good.” – verified review
Cons:
- “What I dislike about Workable is that its AI-driven candidate selection can sometimes miss relevant profiles.” – verified review
- “The high minimum pricing structure, which for small businesses can be a deal breaker.” – verified review
Pricing:
- Starter: $249/mo
- Standard: $420/mo
- Premier: $679/mo
(This article includes platform features and pricing that reflect the information available on the Workable website as of the publication date.)
Recommended For Further Reading
Zoho Recruit
Zoho Recruit offers an all-in-one talent acquisition solution that starts with custom-branded career sites and job descriptions posted to over 75 boards. Users can list must-haves and preferred skills and then let Zia, Zoho Recruit’s AI assistant, instantly rank and recommend candidates based on the specifications. From there, you can send custom assessments, conduct collaborative interviews, and extend offers to the top candidates.
Pros:
- “Comprehensive set of features.” – verified review
- “The fact that I could do that all in one app allowed us to make our hiring process way less manual.” – verified review
Cons:
- “The system is overly complex for first-time users and lacks clear guidance.” – verified review
- “Very tricky to use.” – verified review
Pricing:
- Free: $0
- Standard: $30/mo
- Enterprise: $60/mo
(This article includes platform features and pricing that reflect the information available on the Zoho Recruit website as of the publication date.)
Find the right talent with the best recruiting software for small businesses
Small businesses need efficient tools to attract top talent, streamline hiring, and build strong teams without adding headcount. The right recruiting software simplifies applicant tracking, automates repetitive tasks, and ensures a smooth hiring experience—helping businesses scale with confidence.
For those looking for an all-in-one recruiting solution, consider Bob. Bob automates hiring workflows, centralizes candidate data, and provides actionable insights to improve decision-making. With built-in compliance features, user-friendly onboarding tools, and intuitive collaboration capabilities, small businesses can focus on finding the best people for their teams.
Beyond hiring, Bob also helps businesses easily manage the entire performance review process, track engagement through customizable surveys, run compensation cycles with structured salary reviews, and analyze productivity to make workforce planning decisions.
Hire smarter and faster with Bob.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect HiBob’s views. Prospective users are encouraged to conduct research to make the best decision for their organization.
