The 8 types of recruiting tools you need in your stack

Hiring great people at scale is a tough challenge for any growing company. Whether you’re recruiting for an SMB in rapid growth or an enterprise expanding into new markets, you have your work cut out for you.

At any given moment, a recruiter is juggling dozens of candidates, across multiple open roles, while keeping hiring managers informed, ensuring every interviewer is prepared, and maintaining a great candidate experience. 

And while AI and automation have transformed recruiting, getting the right mix of tools that work well together is never straightforward.

But it’s worth the effort. The right recruiting stack is a force multiplier, enhancing and enabling each recruiter to do their best work. The right technology lets you eliminate repetitive tasks, make better decisions, and spend more time doing the human side of recruiting: building relationships and selling the opportunity.

This guide explores the top recruiting tools that in-house talent teams are using to find and sign the right candidates, faster.

Key challenges for recruiting teams today

Recruiting leaders at both SMBs and enterprise companies face the same set of operational headaches. And as the volume and complexity of hiring scales up, these issues can really impact results.

1. Managing high candidate volume

When you’re hiring across multiple roles at once, each recruiter can easily find themselves managing 20–30 active candidates at different stages of the process. That means multiple calendars to juggle, dozens of follow-up emails to send, and a steady stream of interviewer feedback to chase down. 

It near-impossible for recruiters to keep the key requirements in mind for just a few roles. At scale, you quickly lose track and can confuse people, responsibilities, and the key qualities you’re looking for. 

Candidates slip through the cracks, and important updates are missed. This creates a real risk of delays, duplicate effort, and you start losing strong candidates to faster-moving (or better organized) competitors.

2. Keeping hiring teams aligned

Recruiting is a team sport involving recruiters, coordinators, hiring managers, interviewers, and executive stakeholders. Everyone is busy, and most have “real work” taking their precious attention. Information gets scattered across Slack or Teams, email threads, calendars, and applicant tracking systems (ATS).

This makes it difficult to keep hiring teams aligned on the status of a search or on the qualities they’re actually looking for in a candidate. You rely on weekly catch-ups, which are just another burden on already-busy employees. 

Misalignment slows down the process and leads to poor candidate evaluations. And ultimately, you miss out on the talent you need. 

3. Synthesizing fragmented data

Recruiters gather information from every step of the process: resumes, screening calls, technical assessments, interview panels, and reference checks. But when that data is stored in multiple places, it’s hard to see patterns or use it for decision-making. 

It becomes difficult to spot where candidates are dropping out of the funnel, which interviewers might need more feedback, or how hiring goals are tracking against the plan. 

This lack of visibility can lead to gut-feel decisions instead of data-backed hiring strategies.

4. Balancing speed with quality

There’s a constant tension between filling roles quickly and maintaining a high bar for talent. Move too slowly, and top candidates lose interest or accept other offers. Move too fast, and you risk hiring people who aren’t a good fit, which can create costly turnover and impact team performance. 

Striking this balance is one of the hardest parts of the job, especially when you’re under pressure from leadership to hit ambitious headcount goals.

5. Delivering a standout candidate experience

Every candidate expects a smooth, professional, and personalized hiring journey. That requires prompt communication, clear expectations, and a process that respects their time.

But when recruiters are stretched thin, it’s easy for candidate experience to suffer. Delayed responses, clunky scheduling, or inconsistent messaging can leave a poor impression. In a competitive talent market, that’s enough to tip the balance toward a competitor offering a more appealing process.

The benefits of smart recruiting tools

When implemented thoughtfully, recruiting tools make life easier for talent teams. They also directly improve hiring outcomes by enabling speed, consistency, and better decision-making.

Here are the key benefits of the right recruiting technology. 

1. Automation reduces repetitive admin

Recruiters spend a huge portion of their week manually scheduling interviews, sending reminders, and compiling post-interview notes. The right tools can automate these repetitive processes so recruiters can redirect their time toward higher-value work. 

Instead of juggling calendar invites, use a scheduling assistant that syncs stakeholders’ availability and sends confirmations automatically. Post-call summaries can be generated instantly, eliminating hours of manual transcription and note consolidation.

We’ll see examples of these tools shortly.

2. Collaboration keeps everyone aligned

A good recruiting stack centralizes feedback, interview materials, and status updates so hiring managers, recruiters, and interviewers always have the same information. This cuts down on back-and-forth and reduces the risk of miscommunication. 

Some tools even include real-time collaboration features that let multiple team members review and comment on candidate profiles simultaneously. That means faster decisions, fewer delays, and a more cohesive hiring process.

3. Analytics surface actionable insights

Modern recruiting platforms don’t just store data, they actually make it usable. Built-in analytics show where you lose candidates in the funnel, how long each stage takes, and which sources bring in the most qualified applicants. 

By identifying bottlenecks and inefficiencies, recruiting teams can make targeted process improvements. 

For example, if data shows a consistent drop-off after a particular interview stage, interviewers might need better calibration, or the assessment could be too time-consuming.

4. AI augments recruiter decision-making

AI can process and analyze recruiting data faster than a human, turning raw information into actionable insights. For instance, AI recruiting tools can summarize conversations, highlight key candidate skills, and even flag potential concerns. 

Instead of combing through lengthy notes or watching interview recordings, recruiters get the signal they need in seconds. This not only speeds up decision-making but also ensures every candidate is evaluated consistently against the same criteria.

5. Integrations cut down on context-switching

Recruiters are constantly jumping between ATS systems, emails, calendars, video conferencing platforms, and candidate communication tools. Every transition is wasted time, and an opportunity to get lost or make mistakes. 

The best recruiting software integrates directly with these systems so data flows automatically. That means fewer tabs, less copy-pasting, and no need to update the same information in multiple places. 

The result is less friction, fewer mistakes, and a smoother overall process for both recruiters and candidates.

The top recruiting tools for hiring teams

These are the recruiting tools that top in-house talent teams rely on to move fast without sacrificing quality. Each one addresses a key part of the hiring process, and together they form a best-in-class recruiting stack.

1. AI recruiting platforms

Candidate conversations are the fuel for every hiring process. During interviews, recruiters need to focus on the person in front of them, and not on their notes. AI recruiting tools automatically record, transcribe, and summarize interviews, providing clear, structured notes without the manual effort. 

This is especially valuable for teams managing dozens of interviews per week, where it’s easy to miss or forget details. These tools also make it easier to compare candidates fairly, with feedback based on a consistent set of notes rather than memory or shorthand. 

Over time, the structured data from interviews can also be analyzed for insights into hiring trends, interviewer performance, and candidate preferences. What begin as individual candidate conversations quickly become a rich picture of your entire recruitment process.

Metaview

Metaview is purpose-built for recruiting teams that want to save time and improve hiring decisions. It takes notes, crafts reports, improves job posts, and delivers insides, all with AI tuned to your specific context and recruiting needs. And the AI assistant answers questions and finds details related to any role or individual interview. 

Metaview integrates with the tools recruiters already use, from Zoom and Google Meet to leading ATS platforms. It’s trusted by companies like Brex, Zapier, and Robinhood to capture, summarize, and analyze interviews automatically. 

Why it’s a good fit for recruiters: 

Metaview is a rare AI platform purpose-built for recruiting teams. It automatically captures, transcribes, summarizes, and analyzes conversations to improve your hiring process. It saves hours of manual work, from AI notetaking to reporting, to internal feedback.

Key features:

• AI-generated interview summaries and insights
• Reporting on candidate preferences, skills, and rejection reasons
• Integration with ATS, calendar, and video platforms
• Customizable templates for different roles and interview stages

Pricing/market fit: Ideal for mid-size and scaling enterprise talent teams; pricing is quote-based.

2. Applicant tracking systems (ATS)

An ATS is the backbone of most recruiting operations. It centralizes candidate applications, resumes, and communications into one system, making it easier to track where each candidate is in the process.

For high-volume recruiters, it eliminates the chaos of spreadsheets and email chains by giving everyone a single source of truth. Modern ATS platforms also integrate with job boards, scheduling tools, and other recruiting software, so workflows are streamlined. This saves recruiters time, reduces errors, and ensures a consistent process across the team. 

For growing companies, a scalable ATS can support everything from role creation to compliance tracking.

Ashby

Ashby is a modern applicant tracking system designed to support high-growth companies. It combines ATS functionality with advanced analytics and scheduling features, making it easier for recruiting teams to manage pipelines, measure performance, and scale hiring processes. 

Companies like Notion, Figma, and Deel use Ashby to centralize recruiting workflows and gain deeper visibility into hiring metrics.

Why it’s a good fit for recruiters: 

Ashby is particularly strong for fast-growing teams that need both a powerful ATS and advanced analytics in a single platform. It reduces reliance on spreadsheets and separate reporting tools, giving recruiters and hiring managers actionable insights directly in their workflow.

Key features:

• Robust applicant tracking and pipeline management
• Automated scheduling and interview coordination
• Advanced reporting and analytics dashboards
• Built-in diversity and inclusion reporting
• Collaboration tools for hiring managers and recruiters

Pricing/market fit: Best for scaling startups and mid-sized companies that need an ATS with strong analytics; pricing is custom.

Greenhouse

Greenhouse is one of the most widely used ATS platforms for scaling companies, trusted by organizations like HubSpot, Airbnb, and DoorDash. Founded in 2012 and headquartered in New York City, it’s known for its structured hiring approach and extensive integration ecosystem. Greenhouse serves customers in more than 30 countries, supporting everything from job posting to onboarding.

Why it’s a good fit for recruiters: 

Greenhouse is the go-to ATS for fast-growing companies because it’s highly configurable, integrates with hundreds of other tools, and scales with your team. It offers robust workflow customization, making it easy to match your hiring process to each role without losing consistency.

Key features:

• Structured hiring workflows and interview scorecards
• Built-in candidate experience surveys
• Advanced reporting and analytics
• Marketplace with 400+ integrations

Pricing/market fit: Best suited for SMBs to mid-market enterprises that need customization and integrations. Pricing is quote-based.

Lever

Lever was founded in 2012 in San Francisco and is used by companies like Netflix, Shopify, and Atlassian. It stands out as a combined ATS and CRM, giving recruiters the ability to manage both active candidates and long-term talent pipelines in one system. Lever supports over 4,000 customers worldwide, with a particular focus on mid-sized and enterprise hiring teams.

Why it’s a good fit for recruiters:

Lever combines ATS and CRM functionality, which is ideal for teams that want to track active candidates and nurture passive talent in one platform. Its clean interface and automation capabilities make it easy for recruiters to manage high candidate volume efficiently.

Key features:

• Unified ATS + CRM database
• Pipeline automation and bulk actions
• Customizable dashboards and reports
• AI-driven candidate recommendations

Pricing/market fit: Strong fit for mid-sized teams hiring across multiple functions; pricing is quote-based.

3. Interview scheduling automation

Scheduling interviews is a thankless, time-consuming aspect of recruiting. And it’s especially painful coordinating multiple interviewers across different time zones. But good help is available. 

Scheduling automation tools let candidates choose from pre-approved slots, and even automatically match participants’ availability across calendars. Some also send reminders, reschedule appointments, and balance interviewer load.

For recruiters, it frees up hours each week that can be spent sourcing, screening, or relationship-building instead of managing logistics. 

GoodTime

Founded in 2014, GoodTime is an AI-powered scheduling platform designed specifically for recruiting teams. It eliminates back-and-forth by automatically finding interview slots that work for candidates and interviewers, even across time zones. This is a big time-saver for recruiters managing dozens of concurrent interview processes.

GoodTime is especially popular among high-growth companies with distributed teams that need to reduce time-to-interview. It’s used by organizations like Zoom, Slack, and Pinterest to coordinate thousands of interviews per month. 

Why it’s a good fit for recruiters: 

It’s simply one of the most effective, capable scheduling automation tools available. And because it’s built for recruiters first, it’s regularly updated with your particular challenges in mind. 

Key features:

• AI-powered interviewer matching
• Calendar syncing across platforms
• Candidate self-scheduling
• Interviewer load balancing

Pricing/market fit: Designed for teams doing 50+ interviews per month; pricing is custom.

Calendly

Calendly is one of the most recognizable names in scheduling software. While it’s used across industries, many small and mid-sized recruiting teams rely on it to streamline interview booking. 

Calendly integrates with popular ATS, video conferencing, and calendar tools, making it a simple but powerful addition to the hiring workflow.

Why it’s a good fit for recruiters:

For smaller recruiting teams or those on tighter budgets, Calendly is an affordable, easy-to-implement scheduling solution. The integrations with ATS and video conferencing tools mean it fits neatly into most recruiting tool stacks.

Key features:

• Multiple meeting types (screening calls, panel interviews)
• Integration with Zoom, Teams, Google Meet
• Automated reminders and follow-ups

Pricing/market fit: Great entry-level option; free and paid tiers starting under $15/month.

4. Automated resume screening

Automated resume screening tools evaluate large volumes of applications, identifying the candidates who best match a job’s requirements. Instead of manually sifting through resumes, these tools use AI to analyze skills, experience, and qualifications to provide a ranked shortlist.

Good ones integrate with your recruiting stack, so you move top candidates forward while reducing bias in early-stage screening. This helps recruiters focus on meaningful interactions rather than repetitive administrative tasks.

By automating resume screening, you accelerate time-to-hire and improve candidate quality while maintaining a consistent, objective evaluation process.

Micro1.ai

Micro1.ai is an AI-based resume screening solution that evaluates candidate experience and qualifications with high accuracy. Simply put, it helps recruiters rank and prioritize applications.

It also supports diverse hiring by highlighting candidates who meet requirements but might be overlooked in traditional screenings. Homogeneity can be a concern with automated screening, and Micro1.ai is designed to counter this issue. 

Why it’s a good fit for recruiters: 

Micro1.ai is particularly useful for teams seeking objective, bias-reducing candidate evaluations, while still streamlining early-stage screening.

Key features:

• Automated candidate ranking and scoring
• Diversity-focused screening insights
• Skill and experience extraction from resumes
• Integration with HRIS and ATS systems

Pricing/market fit: Suited for companies of all sizes looking to improve hiring efficiency and consistency in candidate screening; custom pricing.

Covey

Covey is an AI-powered hiring platform that analyzes resumes for key skills and experience, to generate a ranked shortlist. It also offers insights into notable skill gaps and specific role fit.

Why it’s a good fit for recruiters:

Covey excels at quickly surfacing the strongest candidates with minimal manual review. It’s ideal for high-volume hiring, particularly where each role has specific skill requirements.

Key features:

• AI-driven resume analysis and candidate ranking
• Role-fit scoring and skill gap identification
• Integration with ATS platforms
• Automated reporting for hiring managers

Pricing/market fit: Best for mid- to large-sized teams handling high-volume recruitment; custom pricing.

5. Skills assessments

Skills assessment tools evaluate candidate abilities through practical tests or simulations relevant to the role. They’re especially useful for technical positions, where it’s critical to validate skills before making an offer. They’re increasingly common for sales, marketing, and customer service roles, too. 

For recruiters, these tools provide an objective measure of ability that complements interviews and resumes. This can reduce bias in hiring and increase confidence that the candidate can perform in the role. 

The data from assessments can also help guide onboarding and training plans for new hires.

CodeSignal 

Headquartered in San Francisco, CodeSignal is a leading platform for evaluating software engineering and technical skills. It’s trusted by companies like Uber, Dropbox, and Zoom to assess coding ability through real-world programming challenges, coding tests, and technical interviews. 

Crucially, CodeSignal supports both automated assessments and live coding interviews. Recruiters and hiring managers have the necessary flexibility to measure talent in a range of testing scenarios.

Why it’s a good fit for recruiters: 

CodeSignal excels at technical hiring, offering scalable, standardized assessments for engineering candidates. It’s particularly strong for teams looking to benchmark skills across multiple roles or locations.

Key features:

• Customizable coding challenges and assessments
• Real-time coding interviews and pair programming
• Automated scoring and anti-cheating measures
• Integrated data insights for candidate comparison

Pricing/market fit: Ideal for tech hiring at scale; pricing is quote-based.

TestGorilla

TestGorilla is a versatile skills assessment platform that helps companies evaluate candidates for a wide range of roles beyond tech. It’s used by organizations like DHL, OLX, and Adidas to measure job-specific skills, cognitive abilities, and personality traits before making hiring decisions.

Why it’s a good fit for recruiters: 

TestGorilla is perfect for assessing diverse roles with objective, standardized tests which help reduce bias and improve the quality of hires across departments.

Key features:

• Pre-built and customizable skills assessments for multiple roles
• Cognitive, personality, and culture-fit testing
• AI-assisted scoring and candidate ranking
• Integration with ATS platforms

Pricing/market fit: Suitable for teams of all sizes; plans start around $299/month.

6. Video interview platforms

Video interview tools let recruiters connect with candidates remotely, either in real-time or asynchronously. Live interviews let you move candidates through the process quickly without requiring travel, while still making direct and lasting connections. 

Asynchronous (on-demand) video interviews let candidates record responses to pre-set questions at their convenience, speeding up screening for high-volume roles. 

For distributed or global teams, video interviews reduce logistical barriers and widen the talent pool.

HireVue

HireVue is a pioneers in video interviewing technology. It’s used by organizations like Unilever, Hilton, and Vodafone for both live and asynchronous interviews. 

In recent years, HireVue has expanded its offerings to include AI-assisted candidate evaluation and skills assessments.

Why it’s a good fit for recruiters: 

A leader in both asynchronous and live video interviewing, HireVue lets you scale interviews while giving candidates flexibility.

Notable features:

• On-demand video responses
• AI-assisted candidate evaluation
• Built-in scheduling tools

Pricing/market fit: Best for teams hiring across multiple locations/time zones; pricing is custom.

7. Recruitment analytics

Recruitment analytics tools turn hiring data into actionable insights. They can track key metrics like time-to-hire, source-of-hire, offer acceptance rate, and conversion rates at each stage of the funnel. This helps recruiters and hiring managers identify bottlenecks, improve processes, and forecast hiring needs more accurately. 

For growing companies, analytics can reveal which sourcing channels are most effective, which roles take longest to fill, and where candidates are dropping out. Armed with this data, talent teams can make more informed, strategic decisions instead of relying on gut feel.

Gem

In truth, Gem is now much more than an analytics tool, offering applicant tracking and other valuable recruiting features. But as a recruiting analytics and engagement platform, it helps recruiters track outreach performance, pipeline health, and hiring velocity in one place. 

An ATS in its own right, Gem also integrates deeply with other tracking platforms, enabling richer reporting without requiring manual data entry. It’s used by companies like Dropbox, Lyft, and Robinhood.

Why it’s a good fit for recruiters: 

Gem provides deep analytics into sourcing effectiveness, pipeline health, and recruiter productivity. It helps teams see what’s working and where to optimize.

Notable features:

• Outreach and pipeline tracking
• Source-to-hire analytics
• Forecasting and goal tracking

Pricing/market fit: Strong for data-driven teams; pricing is quote-based.

8. All-purpose LLMs

General AI tools are increasingly transforming workflows across industries, and recruiting is no exception. By automating repetitive tasks, providing actionable insights, and enhancing decision-making, AI helps recruiters work faster and more efficiently. 

In recruiting, AI can summarize resumes, draft outreach emails, suggest interview questions, and even analyze candidate responses for fit and sentiment. It also assists in workforce planning, predicting which roles may be harder to fill or which candidates are more likely to accept offers. 

Importantly, these tools let recruiters focus more on human interactions and relationship-building, while AI handles time-consuming administrative or analytical tasks.

ChatGPT

Developed by OpenAI, ChatGPT is a conversational AI tool that can assist recruiters in a wide range of tasks. It can draft personalized outreach emails, generate engaging job descriptions, summarize candidate resumes, and even create interview questions tailored to specific roles. 

ChatGPT can also be used for training and onboarding new recruiting team members by generating FAQs or process guides. While not build specifically for recruiting, it helps in just about any task requiring reasoning, research, and writing. 

Why it’s a good fit for recruiters: 

ChatGPT is highly versatile, making it useful for both strategic and operational recruiting tasks. It accelerates communication, content creation, and knowledge management within recruiting teams.

Key features:

• AI-assisted writing for emails, job postings, and candidate communications
• Resume summarization and candidate profile analysis
• Interview question generation and scenario simulations
• Integration with productivity tools via API or plugins

Pricing/market fit: Useful for recruiting teams of any size; free tier available, with paid plans for extended usage and enterprise features.

Perplexity

Perplexity is an AI-powered search and question-answering tool that helps recruiters quickly find insights from structured and unstructured data. Recruiters use it to research companies or industry trends, benchmark salary, and learn more about candidate backgrounds, providing context to support better hiring decisions.

It can also summarize articles, reports, or internal data, helping recruiters stay informed without spending hours manually sifting through information.

Why it’s a good fit for recruiters: 

Perplexity is ideal for research-intensive recruiting tasks. It provides fast, reliable insights that support sourcing, market mapping, and strategic decision-making.

Key features:

• AI-driven search and summarization of information
• Contextual answers from multiple sources
• Research support for industry trends, company intelligence, and candidate backgrounds
• Integration potential with workflow tools via API

Pricing/market fit: Suitable for recruiters and talent teams who rely on research and market intelligence; free and enterprise tiers available.

Build a better recruiting tool stack today

The most effective recruiting teams know that the right tools help them move faster without sacrificing quality or candidate experience. Every part of the stack—from sourcing platforms to onboarding systems—plays a role in keeping processes consistent and efficient.

AI-powered tools in particular have been a game changer, automating repetitive tasks so recruiters can focus on high-value, human-centric work.

For the perfect starting point, try Metaview. Candidate conversations are the basis for your entire workflow, so distilling and analyzing these automatically lets you make make faster, more confident hiring decisions. This means better conversations with candidates, more consistent evaluations, and less time lost to admin. 

The teams that invest in the right technology are already miles ahead in the race for talent. Make sure you’re one of them.