Recruiters are always trying to find the best talent and it can be a daunting task. With so much admin to handle and so many distractions along the way, how can you make sure you’re making the most of your time in the office? The answer isn’t always simple, but there are certainly some tools that can help you along the way. Here we have compiled our favorite and some of the best recruitment tools available at the moment.
List of the best recruitment tools to power your recruiting
1. Time Zone Converter - Savvy Time
If you’re recruiting across time zones, it can be stressful when it comes to arranging interviews. Was that a time difference of two hours or three hours? And was it ahead or behind? Make sure you’re 100% clear on your times with Time Zone Converter. Never miss another interview due to tricky time differences!
2. Pocket
It seems almost impossible for most recruiters to keep up with industry news and innovation when in the midst of sourcing for multiple roles. Are you saving links in a word document or sticky note on your desktop? Do you see articles on LinkedIn you wish you could just save for later? Use Pocket to keep all your links for later so that you can keep updated on your industry and be the sharpest recruiter in the market. Once you’ve mastered the art of saving your own industry inspiration using Pocket, you might be ready to sign up to our MidWeek Read where we share articles and updates.
3. Workona
Do you find yourself sifting through an ever-growing number of tabs in your browser? There’s a critical number of tabs where you may begin to risk losing valuable information- including LinkedIn profiles, articles, invoices, company pages. Keep yourself in check with Workona. Use workspaces to keep your work tabs open and save everything under one project. Keep yourself productive and become the tab minimalist you have always aspired to be!
4. Calendly
Struggling to find the interview times between your candidates and hiring managers? Calendly will help you find availability in your synced calendar and allow candidates to book an available time with you. The basic plan is free and pretty handy, however, if you have more than one hiring party involved in the interview process and would like their availability as well, you may need to upgrade to a paid plan. Plans start at an affordable $8 a month.
5. Grammarly
Not everyone has precise spelling or exact grammar all the time. But in a professional environment, you want to put your best foot forward with as few spelling and grammar mistakes as possible. Unfortunately, spell check doesn’t always catch tricky spelling mistakes (like the contextual difference between their, there, and they’re) so you might wind up looking a little unprofessional when approaching candidates online. Get your spelling and grammar right every time, wherever you’re typing with Grammarly. This feature alone makes Grammarly one of the best recruitment tools around. Whether you’re writing a message on Facebook or posting a job on LinkedIn, Grammarly will have you covered. Grammarly has a great freemium plan with upgrades for more extensive writers starting at $29.95 a month.
6. JobLint
Are your tech job descriptions not really hitting the mark? Are you struggling to get the right candidates through the door? Copy and paste your job description into JobLint and it will check it for issues with tech culture, sexism, coding languages, and any other elements that might come off as fails to developers. Best part? This tool is completely free making it one of the best recruitment tools around.
7. Gender decoder
You know diversity in the workplace is a big deal, but it can be tough to actively put it into practice when sourcing for candidates. If you’re struggling with this, gender decoder might help you from a gender diversity perspective. This tool will read any job description you copy paste into it and check it for gender-exclusive terminology. With more neutral pronouns and descriptors you’ll be more likely to attract candidates from both genders.
8. Textio
Ever wonder how someone might respond to your job description? Do you ever wonder if you’re really speaking the language of a junior designer? Textio offers a service that helps you draft your job description and then scores it based on the professional competency you are searching for and location of the role. Textio compares your job description to similar descriptions which have been successful. They also have similar offerings for recruitment emails. If you’re looking to read your candidates’ minds, plans start at $59 per month, per user.
9. Buffer
Are you an employer branding pro? Or even just regularly posting vacancies on your company social media accounts? Buffer is one of the best recruitment tools around for aspiring social media recruitment whizzes. Buffer will allow you to access several social media accounts at once (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook etc) and make one post to all. It’s a great tool to use if you’re looking to save time switching between accounts and want to cut out the copy-pasting routine. Additionally, if you’re off on holiday you can schedule posts for the coming week(s) so that you’re constantly getting social visibility on your open positions. Buffer is free if you’re only looking to connect three accounts. Over this, plans begin at $15 a month.
10. AmazingHiring
Recruiters are expert investigators when it comes to looking up candidates. Sometimes it can take a couple searches to find all existing profiles of a candidate. Use AmazingHiring to find linked social media and professional profiles. This is particularly helpful when sourcing for developers on LinkedIn making it one of the best recruitment tools around for IT recruiters. With AmazingHiring, you can find their correlating GitHub account and check out some of their work online.
11. Search this site
As skilled investigators, recruiters visit tons of websites on a daily basis. Did you ever find a valuable snippet of information on a website, only to return days later with no idea where to find it? Like the search function in Finder or in your desktop folders, Search this site allows you to search an entire site for information.
12. CrystalKnows
Are you ever scanning a candidate’s LinkedIn wondering how you should reach out to them? You don’t want to send them a generic copy and paste inMail but somehow the words don’t come to you. CrystalKnows is a great extension that assesses an individual LinkedIn profile and gives you tips on how you should reach out to them based on perceived personality preferences. The service can also be extended to email outreach as a communication coach which has earned it a spot as one of the best recruitment tools. Keep in mind however that candidates that are very inactive on Linkedin, will get highly inaccurate descriptions on Crystal Knows. The freemium plan offers only a limited number of profile views and paid plans start at $29 a month.
13. Hotjar
If you’re into improving your careers page, Hotjar can be a great tool to help guide your optimization efforts. Once installed on your page, Hotjar can generate reports and show you where people are clicking on the screen. This guidance can help you determine the best placements for your CTAs (“Apply now!” buttons) and give you direct insight into candidate behavior on your careers page. They also have features that allow you to run quick surveys for content improvement directed at visitors. Plan pricing varies depending on the traffic to your careers page.
14. Search Preview
Are you quickly gathering information from Google with little time to delve into each result? Search Preview will pop open a preview window within your browser for each selected Google result. This is the best recruitment tool to help you save precious time when sifting through Google for information on the spot.
15. Recruitee sourcing extension
If you’re a Recruitee user on the hunt for new talent, you’re in luck. We have a sourcing extension designed for Chrome to help you automatically import candidate data across online sources like Xing, Angel List, LinkedIn and GitHub. Once all the candidate data fields are filled, you can directly add the profile to a talent pool. This extension seeks to help you spend less time copy-pasting and more time connecting with qualified candidates.
16. Various contact finders
Candidates are more likely to respond to emails rather than messages over LinkedIn and other social media channels. Sometimes you may struggle to find an email in a LinkedIn profile. You can use various contact finding extensions like Lusha, Contact Out, Snovio or Nymeria to hunt down email addresses. Pricing plans vary but are usually on the more expensive side.
However, use these services wisely when dealing with European candidate data. Be aware that retaining personal data like an email address without the consent of the individual is a GDPR violation. Individual outreach with a relevant business intent- relevant open position, reference- is acceptable but use with caution.
17. Forest
If you’re easily distracted and find yourself accidentally internet surfing from time-to-time, then this is one for you! Forest claims to help you stay focused and present. Once installed as a Chrome extension, Forest will grow a little virtual tree for every moment you do not visit your blacklisted websites. Need to bash out a couple job descriptions or answer a few emails without feeling the temptation to scroll through your LinkedIn messages? With Forest, you can grow a little virtual jungle in no time.
18. Canva
More and more recruiters are using visuals to support their calls for applications as they draw the eye and boost engagement with posts on Facebook and LinkedIn. If you’re advertising on your company Instagram page, having a photo editing app is absolutely necessary. Canva is a great tool to create original and engaging graphics for any social media channel making it one of the best recruitment tools you can have in your belt. You can upload photos and logos and place design elements on top including the text of your choice. The tool is great for both the design-savvy and design-challenged, and better yet, its free.
Find your best recruitment tool
As the intersection between recruitment and tech becomes bigger and bigger with chatbots and AI becoming a day-to-day reality, this list is sure to change. What should not be forgotten, however, is that your most important recruitment aid- more than just a tool- will be your ATS. Recruitee, for example, enables you to track and record hiring data, so that you can make improve the efficiency, and quality of hires.
Make sure that your ATS is compatible with innovation and ready to tackle the challenge of modern recruitment with you. In the meantime, keep updated on new extensions, helpful apps, and best recruitment tools that can be leveraged to keep you productive and connecting with the right talent.
Additional reading: Check out our ultimate list of HR tools every HR manager should know about
