6 Best Free Applicant Tracking Systems in 2023

• Multichannel job posting: You can choose where and how you want to publish jobs—externally or internally. If you do not have templates for posting an open position, you can choose from Freshteam’s 100-plus prebuilt job description templates or customize your own—similar to what MightyRecruiter offers.
• Smart candidate sourcing: Unlike Homebase, Freshteam allows you to customize your mobile career site with your own branding. To reach a wider talent base, Freshteam allows you to post jobs on free job boards like Adzuna, LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, and Glassdoor or share it on social media channels like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. You can even add a custom tab on your Facebook brand page to source candidates.
• External recruiters: You can tap your vendors to increase the number of applicants using Freshteam. Vendors get exclusive access to your applicant tracking software through the vendor portal, where they can add candidates and track them without depending on you. You’ll just have to sync your career email inbox with Freshteam and convert every email you receive into an application.
• Resume screening: Freshteam parses the uploaded resume immediately and populates the candidate profile with it automatically. The profile contains every applicant detail plus interaction history, feedback, and interview scores. You can also archive them if the candidate doesn’t fit your current criteria and for future reference. Your selected hiring team can make their opinions count through comments and ratings.
• Preassessment: During technical rounds, Freshteam is the only provider that offers pre-assessment test integrations with HackerEarth, HackerRank, or Codility to screen a high volume of applicants.
• Flexible customer support: Freshteam has 24/7 free email, unlike the other providers on our list, and a 24/5 chat and call support.

• JobPromote: If you need help finding qualified applicants in highly competitive job markets, MightyRecruiter’s JobPromote can help. It gets your work opportunities in front of the right candidates and fills your position in no time—a unique function only MightyRecruiter offers.
• Searchable resume database: MightyRecruiter has a database of more than 22 million resumes that can help you find employees from those unique, opted-in candidates.
• Prescreening: For the application process, you can include screening questions from MightyRecruiter’s Question Library or customized ones to eliminate applicants who fail to meet predetermined requirements, such as location or age requirements and certifications and essential skills.
• Reporting and analytics: You can generate reports for job postings, candidate sourcing, job advertising costs, and even data to comply with the EEOC and OFCCP in the case of an audit, which is a function JobScore also offers.
• Customer support: Only MightyRecruiter has a dedicated account manager available for all customers. You can also contact MightyRecruiter’s support team via chat, phone, and email for basic troubleshooting and quick questions from Monday until Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central time.

• Per-location pricing: While other providers charge monthly fees on a per-employee basis, only Homebase bills you based on the number of business locations you have. This is optimal for employers with plans to grow their workforce in one location.
• Feature-rich free tier: Compared to all of the applicant tracking software we reviewed, only Homebase has a robust offering of free-to-use hiring, scheduling, and time tracking tools. You even get a built-in team messenger and a self-service portal where employees can manage their own information.
• Premium boost: To get your job post in front of more applicants, you can purchase Homebase’s Premium Boost, which lasts for 30 days and increases the number of applicants you’ll receive.
• Applicant management: Aside from reaching out to applicants via job boards and social media platforms, Homebase offers different ways you can find applicants:
  • Referrals: You can send a link to your job post to your team members.
  • QR code: Applicants can download a QR code that they can scan on their phones.
  • Text-to-apply: To capture walk-ins, you can send applicants a text message with a link to your job post—a unique feature only Homebase offers.
  • Career page: Customize and use your career page to describe your business and advertise your company culture. You can also send the career page’s link to applicants.
  • Manual: Add applicants directly to Homebase through its Hiring page.
• Multiple filters: Only Homebase narrows the number of applicants down using different filters—Status, Distance, Application Quality, Source, and Availability.
• Automated onboarding process: New employees hired using Homebase will receive a welcome packet and can e-sign direct deposit, W-4, W-9, and I-9 forms.

• Careers page and employer branding: Your free Indeed company page informs job seekers what it’s like to work for your company. You can add photos, and employees can leave reviews about your company. Unlike Freshteam, you don’t have to upgrade to customize your careers page.
• Sponsored job postings: Indeed’s Sponsored Jobs is the only PPC plan to boost your job postings in this guide. You can post jobs directly on its platform for free, but you can also pay a small fee (starts at $5 per day) to sponsor jobs. Sponsoring your ad is one way to maximize your job post on Indeed. If you have an existing company career site, you can post a job for free in the general search results or pay to advertise.
• Mobile recruiting: Like Freshteam and SmartRecruiters, you can cast a wider net for qualified applicants since Indeed job postings automatically receive applications via Indeed Apply, even on mobile. Indeed Apply is a feature that allows job seekers to quickly send their applications using an Indeed Resume or a traditional resume file.
• Applicant screening: Like MightyRecruiter and Homebase, you can add screening questions to the job application form, such as “How many years of experience do you have?” You can also ask job seekers to complete online exams to verify their skills, like customer support, typing, or Excel.
• Third-party integration: Only Indeed works seamlessly with more than 200 third-party platforms, such as Applicant Pro, Breezy HR, Greenhouse, Hirebridge, JazzHR, TalentReef, Workable, and Zoho Recruit.

• Social recruiting: JobScore promotes jobs via social media. However, instead of cross-posting the open jobs to social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, you’ll have to send a referral campaign email to prompt your employees to share open positions through their social media networks.
• Overdue reports: With JobScore’s Scale and Enterprise plans, you can set the maximum time a candidate should be in each workflow stage—or else their status will be “overdue.” The Overdue Report shows how many people are overdue in each stage and prompts you to take action.
• Employee referral portal: Like Freshteam, JobScore lets your employees take part in your hiring process by using their networks for referrals. There will be an employee referral portal so your team can easily send resumes and track their referrals in the hiring process.
• Reward referral: To motivate your employees more, you can make rewards available when they have a successful referral. Just input the email addresses of your employees, draft your message requesting for referrals, and then blast it through your company—watch the referrals come in. You can also add a monetary reward for extra incentive. JobScore then tracks the referrals you receive, and employees can also monitor the status of their referrals.
• Search firms management: With JobScore’s Enterprise plan, you can invite search firms to submit candidates for open positions via email with detailed submission instructions. When agencies submit candidates, JobScore parses and sends the resumes to the hiring team. Search firms will be kept in the loop in every communication between you and the candidates.
• Interviews: Among the other providers, only JobScore’s Scale and Enterprise plans help you prepare interview templates that you can use at each stage of the hiring process. Scheduled interviews link to these templates, so your team can always be prepared.
• EEOC- and OFCCP-compliant: Similar to MightyRecruiter, JobScore helps you stay in compliance with state laws and regulations with its disclaimer that gives applicants the option to volunteer their gender, ethnicity, disability, and veteran status. Its self-identification form also matches the recommended OFCCP font and layout. JobScore has configurable “disposition codes” to disclose the reason for declined and withdrawn candidates.

• Multiboard job posting: With one click, SmartRecruiters can post jobs on more than 300 job boards. Its SmartDistribute tracking reports and post-to-hire metrics even identify which job boards are helping you fill your talent pipeline, a function only SmartRecruiters offer.
• Workflow management: SmartRecruiters’ unique workflow management is one of the best in the market as it’s so simple to configure, unlike other providers where inexperienced users may need guidance. This solution, similar to JobScore’s overdue reports, prevents workflow stagnation with configurable tasks and reminders, easy approvals, and real-time dashboards.
• Applicant screening: SmartRecruiters has customizable application forms that let you identify qualified candidates quickly—a function JobScore also has. It even has fully integrated assessments and skills tests to predict if a candidate is fit for the role and if they will stay with the company for a long time—something Freshteam and Indeed can also do.
• Hiring plans: You can set hiring goals and monitor and improve the hiring team’s performance during the recruitment process.
• Offer management and onboarding: Only with SmartRecruiters can you extend timely offers to applicants using integrated and configurable offer letter templates and forms and automated approvals via any mobile device. You can even let candidates view, sign, and accept their offers quickly and from any device using SmartRecruiters’ DocuSign integration. It also has an automated onboarding process complete with background checks for new hires.

Free applicant tracking systems aren’t suitable for everyone because they have feature limitations. For other organizations, paying for upgraded features is more cost-efficient. If the following situations fit you, then using a free ATS is recommended:

• You have a simple hiring process. If your recruiting process is simple and works for you, then a free ATS should be all you need to iron things out and save time.
• You have a limited recruiting budget or only hire occasionally. If you’re not hiring year-round, getting a paid ATS may not be worth it, especially if a free ATS can already get the job done.

Applicant tracking systems come in different price ranges and features. Free applicant tracking systems come with limits, but the best free ATS should, at the very least, help streamline job posting, manage and store resumes, and enable hiring members to communicate and collaborate.

For businesses, the primary advantage of using an ATS is to reduce the time spent on mundane data entry tasks and streamline the hiring process as a whole. It helps save time, especially if you’re regularly managing a huge volume of applicants.

While you can’t expect to get the same features of paid software, the best free ATS should at least let you:

• Create a careers website
• Sort applications
• Parse resumes
• Collaborate with other hiring members
• Communicate with candidates
• Import or export resumes
• Add screening questions
• Create basic hiring reports