Best Free Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) in 2024

Free applicant tracking systems (ATS) are increasing in popularity as more businesses turn to these tools to improve company recruitment strategies. Basically, this type of software automates the entire process of finding and hiring candidates. It also handles tasks such as applicant screenings, job postings, facilitating communication with candidates, and more. To give you a complete picture of a free applicant tracking system in action, we prepared this buyer’s guide that details the crucial factors and features that you should know before investing in this type of software product.

One of the best ways to find the software product best suited to your business is to sign up for the free trials or demos offered by the top free applicant tracking system for employers. Doing so can help you determine if your chosen platform has all the essential features you need to modernize your hiring and recruitment processes. That said, we recommend you check out the following free applicant tracking system software: Freshteam, Snaphunt, Zoho Recruit, Breezy HR, and hireEZ.

You can easily find an applicant tracking system free online. These systems typically target specific kinds of businesses. Here are some examples:

Startups and small teams. Small businesses with 1-50 employees usually do not have a dedicated recruitment team. By implementing a free online applicant tracking system, startups and small teams can efficiently manage tasks that go into hiring and recruiting candidates.

Growing teams and medium-sized businesses. Medium-sized enterprises that typically have 51-500 employees use the best free applicant tracking system to automate tasks and speed up the recruitment process.

Large teams and enterprises. Applicant tracking software free systems enable big corporations to better manage their most complex hiring and recruitment needs. Large teams with more than hundreds of employees and a variety of office departments also benefit from online applicant tracking system free tools by saving time on repetitive and tedious workforce management processes.

• Freshteam. A cloud-based HR software that allows you to develop an HR portal where you can streamline processes related to hiring, recruitment, employee onboarding, and more. It is an intuitive platform that helps you find top-notch talents for their companies or clients and retain your employees.
• Snaphunt. One of the industry’s leading remote hiring platforms. It enables you to find, engage, and hire the best remote talent from anywhere in the world. It leverages AI technology in its talent sourcing tools, allowing you to find the best-matched candidates for the job roles you want to fill.
• Zoho Recruit. An industry-leading applicant tracking system free software ideal for small and medium-sized businesses. It offers an array of customizable features and an easy-to-use interface that allows you to find and recruit the right candidates for your company. It also streamlines all your back-office and front-office tasks involved in recruitment efforts.
• Breezy HR. A robust applicant tracking system software free to use online. It provides you with all the essential tools you need to attract and hire better employees for your company. It also automates your workflows, enabling you to reduce repetitive and time-consuming tasks.
• hireEZ. An AI-powered recruitment and applicant tracking platform that helps you find the right match for the open roles in your organization. It provides powerful market insights and analytics that enable you to come up with data-driven applicant engagement strategies.

There are various types of applicant tracking system online free in the market. Below, you’ll find some kinds of tools that are closely related to applicant tracking software products and their functions:

• Talent management software. This type of software streamlines and optimizes crucial talent management operations. It enables you to manage the full employee lifecycle, from hiring applicants and onboarding candidates to employee retirement.
• HR apps. Full-suite HR management solutions allow you to streamline HR processes, such as applicant tracking, employee onboarding, time tracking, performance tracking, and payroll management. This type of software helps you improve the overall HR outcomes of your organization.
• Staffing agency software. Mostly used by recruiting and staffing agencies, this type of software provides features such as back office management, calendar/email integration, and expense and time tracking.
• Onboarding software. You can also find this applicant tracking system free on the web. With the help of onboarding software, you can easily automate onboarding tasks, enabling you to welcome new hires and facilitate training processes more effectively and efficiently. Some of its key features are task management, an onboarding portal, contract management, and digital signature tools.
• Recruiting software. A helpful solution that allows you to optimize the entire hiring process, from finding the right talent, attracting candidates, screening resumes, and contract management. It also enables you to perform background checks, improve branding initiatives, and provide a seamless applicant experience.

• Job postings – With this feature, you can create and design job postings and share them on popular career sites and internal portals.
• Resume screening – This allows you to optimize your application review process by automating resume screening and keeping a record of your candidate’s credentials.
• Candidate profiles – An important feature that helps you find the right candidates for your job postings across multiple career websites and job boards.
• Talent pool management – Archiving shortlisted candidates to your own talent pool portal makes it easier for you to find the right talent when relevant job openings get created.
• Calendar – You can manage interview schedules and allow candidates to pick a convenient time and date for their own job interview.
• Onboarding – This feature enables you to create a seamless experience for new hires by automating email communication, information collection, and document sharing.
• Employee information system – Another core feature of applicant tracking systems. This allows you to store and access employee documents and key employee details.

• Automate hiring workflows – By automating manual and time-consuming tasks, free applicant tracking systems help you streamline your workflows and save time on application processing and hiring procedures.
• Source from multiple job sites – One of the biggest benefits of implementing a free applicant tracking software is that it allows you to source the right candidate for your job postings across multiple job sites.
• Faster resume parsing – Free applicant tracking software products enable you to scan resumes and cover letters much more quickly and efficiently.
• Centralized employee information system – Another important benefit of free applicant tracking systems is it provides you with a single source of truth and a centralized employee information system. This is where you can keep track of all the applications you have received and find key information about job candidates.

Use of modern screening tools – Given the benefits of newer and more sophisticated screening software products, more businesses are leveraging these tools to streamline their hiring processes. With advanced screening systems, hiring managers now have faster and more efficient ways to review resumes and conduct interviews.

Offering remote work setup to attract candidates – The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the transition to remote and hybrid work for many organizations. As such, businesses are now offering remote working opportunities to entice more candidates to apply for their open job roles. For many candidates, remote work benefits have become a key deciding factor in accepting job offers by hiring managers.

Missing out on potential great hires – Not all applicant tracking systems are created equal, and if you’re not careful, you might end up picking a solution that offers substandard features when it comes to choosing candidates. This does not only decrease the overall value of your hiring process but it can also prevent you from finding the top talents that fit the job roles you need to fill.

Misread resumes in PDF format – Applicant tracking systems are designed to help you parse through batches of resumes and screen candidates at scale. Most systems automatically arrange resume data in a more readable format, making it easier for you to score the candidate, comment on their profiles, communicate with them, and schedule interviews. However, you may come across outdated systems with limited functions and have the tendency to misread resumes in PDF format. This is why it’s important to carefully select a quality tool that uses best-in-class technologies and has excellent capabilities in resume parsing.

Before choosing a free applicant tracking system, conducting thorough research about what your chosen tool can do goes a long way. Try to figure out first what the product offers, how it works, and where you might possibly run into snags with it. To help you in this matter, we listed below some of the important questions that you might want to ask in deciding which applicant tracking system to pick for your organization:

• Does it have all the essential features needed to streamline and optimize hiring and recruitment processes?
• Is the software easy enough to use and can it be quickly adapted by employees who are not at all tech-savvy?
• Does it support a wide variety of third-party integrations in case you need to connect it with your existing tech stack?
• Is the solution compatible with your team’s devices, whether on mobile or desktop?
• Is it true to its free plan offer? Can you get all of the features you need from the software at totally no cost and without any hidden charges?
• Is customer support available on multiple channels, including phone, email, and live chat?

Hiring new employees has always been a task that most organizations struggle with. That’s why many employers today use free applicant tracking software as a way to streamline their entire hiring process and reduce errors along the way. Furthermore, this type of software enables organizations to find the top talents and accelerate the hiring and recruitment lifecycle.

Essentially, the whole point of an applicant tracking system is to improve your recruitment and hiring operations from beginning to end. By leveraging automation tools and smart technologies, it enables you to bring the best talent in the world to the forefront of your organization.

Once you find the system that fits the unique requirements of your business, you’ll finally have a resource that improves the overall quality of your hiring efforts. Hopefully, this article has helped you kickstart your research on the best free applicant tracking systems and have a better grasp of how you can maximize the potential of your chosen product.