An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) will save any business a bunch of money, time and effort in a recruitment process. Sadly, the system usually comes at a price of its own. For those running small companies or on limited budgets, we’ve accumulated a list of 7 free applicant tracking systems for your recruitment in 2022.
What is an ATS?
An applicant tracking system (ATS) is a software application that allows employers and agencies to efficiently and effectively manage their recruitment process, candidate flow and interpersonal communication. An ATS can also help coordinate hiring teams, streamlining the hiring process and improving the experience for everyone involved. An ATS should meet your needs and requirements, and one of these requirements may be that you do not have a budget and need a free system.
1. Zoho Recruit
Zoho Recruit’s Forever Free Plan allows for 1 active job opening, candidate management, e-mail management, interview scheduling, a custom career site. It is, however, limited with the amount of job board posting. It allows for simple resume search and provides a total of 5 e-mail templates.
2. SmartStart
SmartRecruiters’ SmartStart ATS was built specifically for teams and smaller organisations. It allows for an unlimited number of users, includes multi-board job posting, one-click apply, schedule management tools, candidate database management, a customised career site and collaboration across teams. It is limited to 10 active job postings at any given time.
3. Recooty
Recooty’s ATS is ideal for small business with only one person doing the recruiting: single-users can use the (basic) service for free. Their basic plan offers a total of 3 active job posts, job widget integration, a branded careers page, applicant tracking and the ability to share your jobs on social networks.
4. RecruitEze
RecruitEze is one of few ATS providers that allows for an unlimited number of jobs per month — but its free package is, by all means, limited. Their starter plan allows for 1 user and supports up to 500 candidates in total. Moreover, it does not include a custom careers page, candidate workflow, online job applications and bulk resume upload.
5. Freshteam
Freshteam offers a variety of services within its free ATS for small organisations. It allows for up to 3 published job postings, a basic career site, e-mail integration, applications via e-mail, employee referral, employee directory and applicant tracking through Kanban Boards. It is intended for organisations with around 50 employees.
6. MightyRecruiter
MightyRecruiter is one of the only ATS providers on this list that doesn’t even allow for a paid plan. It allows for a maximum of 29 jobs posted at once. Additionally, it offers end-to-end applicant tracking, a branded career site, candidate ranking, support with data-driven and compliance, as well as a 20+ million searchable resume database. Moreover, it includes 200+ customisable job description templates and many sample letters to candidates.
7. CandidATS
CandidATS is a free open source ATS, the first one of its kind on this list. As is usually the case with open source software, you have to work your way through an unfriendly UI. But if that is no problem, CandidATS allows for an extensive centralised candidate management tool. It has the capability to search the database for resumes and schedule interviews. It also has ready-to-go e-mail templates.
Please note: All of these Applicant Tracking System providers allow for a completely free plan at the time this article was written. This article did not include ATS providers that allow for a (limited) free trial of their ATS.
