SmartStart by SmartRecruiters is one of the best free applicant tracking software in the market. It can help you to attract, select, and hire great talent, all in one place. SmartStart will help you to drive an efficient hiring process and an excellent candidate experience. With access to these great tools and unlimited users, SmartStart sets itself as the best option for smaller teams or organizations who want the benefits of robust software, without the hefty investment.
Who Needs SmartStart?
SmartStart is perfect for smaller organizations of up to 250 employees that are looking for cost-effective applicant tracking software (ATS). The software comes with plenty of features that can help businesses streamline the recruiting process, without the price tag of comprehensive software. Its user-friendly interface also makes it a great solution for new business owners who have no experience with ATS.
For organizations that need software for high-volume recruiting or who want to hire for more than 10 active roles at once, SmartStart won’t be the best fit. If your organization has more than 250 employees, SmartStart will likely be too limited to be effective. It’s also not ideal for businesses who are looking for in-depth functionality or CRM features for sourcing the best candidates.
The #1 Best Thing About SmartStart
The best thing about SmartStart is that it offers users completely free access to robust applicant tracking software. In fact, users can’t believe just how comprehensive SmartStart is for a free version. With SmartStart, there are no hidden charges or restrictive limitations to the plan. Unlike its competitors offering free software, SmartStart places no limits on the number of users on the free plan. This means that many people across the organization can get involved in the recruitment process.
SmartStart Job Advertisement
SmartStart offers sophisticated job advertisement capabilities for organizations. Here are the features and benefits of this service.
Features & Benefits
Let’s be honest–advertising your open job role can be tedious and expensive. But with SmartStart on your side, this won’t be the case. SmartStart offers integrated job distribution, accessible social referral networks, and targeted job posts to find and discover qualified talent.
SmartStart makes advertising your open job role a walk in the park. Instead of manually posting and sharing your job advertisement to multiple sites, SmartStart will share your ad to Google, LinkedIn, and more than 200 free and paid job boards, in just one click.
Furthermore, instead of needing to keep track of dozens of applications coming from multiple job boards, SmartStart will streamline those applications, right into your dashboard.
It’s no secret that some of the best candidates exist within your employees’ personal network, but this recruitment tactic is largely unused. SmartStart makes it super easy for existing employees to provide candidate referrals through its applicant tracking software, so you don’t have to miss out on this opportunity in the future.
Finally, SmartStart also allows you to expand your reach by sharing open job roles to Facebook. You can even leverage the success of your online presence using Facebook apply. These features allow you the opportunity to attract passive candidates by putting your open job role where they are already hanging out.
SmartSmart job posting capabilities will not only save you time and money but also put your open job role in front of thousands of talented applicants.
Don’t forget, SmartStart only allows you to post up to ten jobs at one time. If you want to post more than ten active roles at once, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan with SmartRecruiters.
Pros
- Super easy to bulk-post open job roles to major job boards
- Capitalize on employees’ personal networks with easy referrals
- Easily expand reach with one-click posting to social media platforms
Cons
- Can only post up to ten jobs at a time
- Social media sharing is limited to Facebook
Pricing & Plans
SmartStart is completely free to use for teams or smaller organizations who are hiring for up to ten roles at once. If you’d like to post more than ten open job roles at one time, you’d have to upgrade to a paid plan with SmartRecruiters.
SmartStart Candidate Experience
Creating a smooth and professional experience for candidates is an essential part of the recruitment process. SmartStart offers plenty of ways in which you can create a great candidate experience.
Features & Benefits
Would you like to develop deeper interactions with your candidates from the get-go? With SmartStart you can, using a branded careers page.
SmartStart offers users the ability to build dynamic and flexible career pages without IT support. You can even deploy mobile-friendly versions of your site allowing candidates to apply from anywhere. You’ll also be able to promote and display opportunities easily with configurable job widgets.
You can share videos and employee testimonials with potential candidates on your careers page. Tell your story, show them what life is like working for your business. Allowing them a sneak peek into your culture will provide candidates with further incentives to apply.
Candidates will also be able to apply in one click to your jobs via the careers page. The quicker and easier the application process, the more likely you are to land top-quality talent.
The candidate experience isn’t over once they’ve applied though. After candidates submit their resumes, SmartStart allows candidates to track their application status online all the way until a final decision is made. Candidates have reported loving this feature of SmartStart and it certainly increased the candidate experience.
All of these features will contribute to building stronger connections with candidates while elevating your brand culture in the process.
Pros
- Attract quality candidates with an impressive branded careers page
- Promote opportunities easily with configurable job widgets
- Build a lasting connection with candidates, whether they’re successful or not
- Provide status updates to candidates automatically
Cons
- Although you can alert candidates of their progress, you can’t have two-way communication within the portal. You need to switch to email or phone communication
- Lacks interview scheduling features for a complete candidate experience
Pricing & Plans
SmartStart is completely free to use for any teams or smaller organizations who are hiring for up to ten roles at once. The free plan includes all the amazing features and benefits of the candidate experience discussed above. If you want access to more in-depth features, such as customizable hiring workflows, you’d have to upgrade to a paid plan with SmartRecruiters.
SmartStart Applicant Tracking System
SmartStart’s applicant tracking system will help you to improve efficiency and enhance the candidate experience by keeping you well organized and on top of the recruitment process.
Features & Benefits
Effective applicant tracking requires recruiters to keep their eye on a lot of moving parts. When you’ve got applications coming in from hundreds of different job boards, you need a central place to store all the information. Thankfully, SmartStart has got you covered.
SmartStart will keep all your candidates in one place. You can say goodbye to the spreadsheets, email chains, or paper trails you’ve previously used to keep track of them. As soon as applicants apply, hiring teams can email, track, and manage them all under one roof.
You’ll also be able to mark promising candidates with personalized tags to not lose sight of them in the mix. Not that you need to worry about losing candidate information. SmartStart allows you to search the entire database of applicants using keywords and advanced filters.
Finally, SmartStart’s applicant tracking system offers you complete visibility of your hiring process. You can easily spot bottlenecks early and keep an eye on an applicant’s status, no matter where they sit in the workflow.
All of these key features of SmartStart’s applicant tracking system will help you to drive an efficient hiring process that effectively ensures a great candidate experience too.
Pros
- Track hundreds of candidates all in one place
- Search applicants via application source or keyword for easy searchability
- Organize and manage talent pools with mass actions and personalized tags
Cons
- Lack of customization with hiring workflows
- Users report that the number of notifications they receive on candidates movements throughout the hiring pipeline can be overwhelming
Pricing & Plans
SmartStart is completely free to use for any teams or smaller organizations who are hiring for up to ten roles at once. The free plan amazingly includes full access to the feature-rich applicant tracking software. If you’d like the ability to customize the hiring pipeline, you’d have to upgrade to a paid plan with SmartRecruiters.
SmartStart Collaborative Hiring
Hiring the right person for the job is a team effort. SmartStart makes collaborative hiring easy with the below software features.
Features & Benefits
During the hiring process, you’ll need to communicate quickly and often with recruiters, hiring managers, and executives. Team collaboration also ensures the hiring process is conducted fairly and without bias.
But instead of sifting through email chains or chasing down feedback, SmartStart provides an intuitive platform to centralize this feedback.
Decision-makers can leave comments, request reviews, and feedback against applicants, all in one place for the whole team to see. You’ll be able to share resumes securely within the platform and encourage collaboration by easily looping others into the conversation.
SmartStart stores interview notes, scorecards, and interviewer feedback on this platform too. Hiring managers and executives can access this data to effectively weigh in on the candidate’s suitability.
Better yet, your team will have access to all of the above, all the time. SmartStart’s award-winning Hiring App means your team can screen, review, and approve applicants while on the go. This great feature means your hiring process won’t have to suffer when an important decision-maker is away from the office.
SmartStart offers just enough collaboration features to ensure your entire team will be on the same page when it comes to choosing the right candidate.
Pros
- Share feedback and leave notes against each candidate for the entire team to read
- Access interview notes and scorecards for suitability assessment
- Screen, review, and approve applicants on the go with the mobile app
Cons
- For internal hiring, there’s no option to notify the employee’s immediate manager of the application for transparency purposes
- Candidate information varies slightly depending on the way the profile is accessed which could confuse the team
Pricing & Plans
SmartStart is completely free to use for any teams or smaller organizations who are hiring for up to ten roles at once. The free plan includes complete access to the team collaboration features discussed above.
What Do Users Think of SmartStart?
SmartStart generally receives great feedback from real users. It’s not the perfect solution for everyone, but those who do use it have very positive things to say.
In particular, users love its ease of use and robust functionality. They love the extensive integration with major job boards such as Indeed, Glassdoor, and Seek and that you don’t have to pay to post to premium sites. Users who are new to ATS especially love sharing their open job role to multiple platforms with a single click. Users also like that the hiring process can be collaborative across the entire team with no limits on the number of users.
Additionally, users appreciate how easy it is to track and manage candidates from a central dashboard. Users like that it’s incredibly straightforward to search for candidates after they’ve applied and contacting groups of candidates all at once makes communication a breeze.
It’s important to note that SmartStart also receives notable feedback from candidates. Many candidates who applied for a job via SmartStart reported a smooth and professional hiring process. Candidates like that they can track their application process and keep email communications all in one place.
One of the most common complaints users had to make about SmartStart is that there is no API support in the free version. Some users also reported frustration in not being able to set up templates with the free version to save time and streamline communication. Finally, a handful of users reported that the software could be quite slow sometimes and on occasion, suffer glitches that were only alleviated when the system was restarted.
Overall, users love SmartStart. The software provides far more benefits than it does drawbacks and the majority of the negative feedback provided by customers was subjective to user preference.
How SmartStart Measures Up To The Competition
Two of SmartStart’s most notable competitors are VIVAHR and Comeet. All three software tools are known for being user-friendly. VIVAHR and SmartStart are very similar in features and offerings, while Comeet brings some interesting additional features to the table.
The biggest advantage that SmartStart has over its competitors is that it’s completely free to use. Neither VIVAHR nor Comeet offers a free plan. However, there are a few features that both VIVAHR and Comeet have over SmartStart that make them both good options.
SmartStart and VIVAHR serve similar businesses. While VIVAHR does offer flexible paid plans which allow startups to grow and develop, at this point, the software is not as robust as options designed for larger companies.
On the other hand, Comeet is more flexible and accommodates organizations of all sizes. Comeet particularly focuses on organizational collaboration throughout the hiring and retention process. While SmartStart encourages collaboration by allowing unlimited users, Comeet wholeheartedly facilitates it in one centralized dashboard where feedback is easily exchanged.
Comeet also allows you to hold more open jobs, as SmartStart only allows ten and VIVAHR only allow three on the lead-in plan.
Both Comeet and VIVAHR make posting job advertisements easy with pre-made templates, something that SmartStart lacks. All three software are capable of posting to multiple job boards with one click, although you can expect to pay more to post to premium job boards using VIVAHR.
You can see that there are many things to consider when choosing the best ATS for your business hiring needs. If your head is swimming with the possibilities don’t fret. Check out our buying guide to help you decide on the right ATS for your business.
Do We Recommend SmartStart?
Yes. SmartStart by SmartRecruiters is a great recruiting software for small teams or organizations that are content with only hiring for ten active roles at once. The robust capabilities of the software are made even more impressive by the fact that it’s completely free.