HiringThing Review 2024: Features, Pros And Cons

HiringThing is a recruiting platform provider that offers both a white-label and private-label ATS.

A white-label ATS, typically used by staffing agencies, features your company’s branding and logo but is hosted on HiringThing’s domain. Its white-label ATS is capable of running multiple job sites for an agency’s various clients, and clients have access to its site to see how the hiring process is going.

Most HiringThing customers are software partners that sign on with HiringThing’s private-label solution. Its private-label ATS is highly customized, and the partner owns the domain. So, while HiringThing builds the ATS, HiringThing’s name is nowhere to be found on the front end.

HiringThing’s white-label ATS includes all these core features:

• Unlimited users
• Premium customer support
• Company career page
• Job requisition workflows
• Syndicated job postings
• Keyword matching
• Automatic résumé parsing
• Reporting and analytics
• Assessment and screening tools
• Candidate communication via SMS and email
• Customized email templates
• Calendars and interview scheduling
• Applicant scorecards
• Background check integration
• API access
• Onboarding documents
• Secure hosting and data storage (SSL encryption)
• Access permissions
• Data collection compliant with Equal
• Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP)
• Disclosure statements

Featured Partners

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BambooHR

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Pinpoint ATS

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HiringThing is a recruiting platform suitable for staffing agencies and small to midsized businesses looking to hire the right people. Its private-label option serves HR software vendors and franchises that want a specialized integration, using open API, between HiringThing’s ATS and their current software.

HiringThing’s ATS helps recruiters efficiently manage their applicant pipelines through these capabilities:

• Activity Feed to see the latest actions on open jobs
• Applicant tagging and filtering for easier search and organization
• Branded careers page for a more seamless candidate experience
• Calendar syncing and candidate self-scheduling
• Custom job and applicant fields to elicit job-specific information
• Form Builder custom application forms
• Messaging templates for email and SMS
• Document management for offer letters and onboarding documents
• Convenient QR code application access for candidates
• Referral program
• Reporting and analytics
• Résumé import and parsing
• Scorecards and star ratings
• Videoconferencing
• Workflow configuration

HiringThing’s initial dashboard screen when you first log in.

HiringThing’s standout features include its private-label option and its AI-powered job description tool.

Private-Label ATS

HiringThing’s private-label recruiting technology allows you to add an ATS to your existing solution using open API and user-friendly developer documentation. A private-label ATS allows for more customization, integration and support than a white-label solution where your company name and color palette are simply layered onto a vendor’s product.

By becoming a technology partner with HiringThing, HiringThing builds you an ATS that’s unique to the needs of your business, vertical or industry.

AI Job Description Generator

When creating a job listing, HiringThing provides an AI-powered Job Description Generator. This tool helps you write custom job descriptions more quickly based on the job title.

We tested this out by typing “Sales Associate” into the job title field, and after about 15 seconds, the entire job description appeared. You have the option of running the tool again if you’d like. Otherwise, simply click “Apply Job Description” and edit the description as you see fit.

In fact, we recommend modifying the text to fit your company brand and the desired qualifications, as the language is quite general. In any case, this tool can save recruiters a ton of time from not only typing in job descriptions manually but also digging through files to find a saved template.

HiringThing is currently developing more ways to incorporate AI into its ATS, such as drafting interview questions and assisting in hiring decisions, to name just a couple of examples.

HiringThing’s AI-powered job description generator

The main features of HiringThing include job posting, résumé import, candidate matching and more. We were able to test out nearly all of them for their ease of use.

Syndicated Job Posting

It’s easy to find the “Create a New Job” button right when you log in to HiringThing. Upon clicking that, it takes you to a form where you populate all the necessary information for your job listing.

Right when you log in, the “Create a New Job” button is easy to find.

HiringThing’s new job post screen

When you’re done with the job post, you can save it as a draft to come back to later or simply hit “Publish,” and it instantly posts to free job boards, such as FlexJobs and LinkedIn Limited. The system then directs you to more job boards you can purchase access to. These job boards include but are not limited to:

• CareerBuilder
• DiversityJobs
• Indeed
• LinkedIn
• Monster
• ZipRecruiter

Unless you’re already a subscriber to these premium job boards and can simply link your account to HiringThing, the cost of adding each one through HiringThing can add up quickly. For this reason, HiringThing may not be the most cost-effective option for specialized, high-demand and hard-to-fill roles.

Résumé Import

You can import an applicant’s data through drag and drop or via email with HiringThing’s Resume Import Tool. Dragging and dropping or uploading a file from your computer’s hard drive into the system automatically converts it into an applicant file.

You can also import applicant documents via email by sending the file to the job posting’s specific email address found in the system. However, you have to go into the job itself to find the email address specific to the job posting and copy and paste it into your email, which can be cumbersome.

HiringThing’s Resume Import feature via email

The system needs about one hour to reflect the uploaded files in the system, which is a long time, making it easy to forget to check if the upload worked. We were able to add a file manually using the first method, but we did not see a new applicant file created under the applicant section of the dashboard, even after one hour had passed.

Candidate Matching

HiringThing has keyword tagging and customized pre-screening questions that help you more quickly identify the most qualified candidates for any given position.

Keyword Tagging

When creating a position, you can add a series of keywords separated by commas. HiringThing will then surface applications that best match those keywords, and you’ll see an alert displayed when there’s a match.

Form Builder

For applicants who apply directly from your career site, you can set up a customized form that poses pre-screening questions related to anything from job experience to specific certifications. This can be helpful to screen out candidates that don’t meet minimum criteria.

However, keep in mind that applicants applying from job boards won’t see this form, so you should choose the option that doesn’t allow applicants to apply from the job boards. When selecting that option, applicants will be redirected to your career site where they can proceed with their application.

You can get to the Form Builder feature either through a specific job listing’s settings or by navigating to “Account Details.”

When testing out the Form Builder, we had the option of creating a template to save time in the future. When creating the template, you can choose what types of questions to ask:

• Text-based
• Essay questions
• Multiple choice
• List of checkbox attributes
• Yes/No
• Date for applicant’s earliest start date
• Employment history
• Education history

For some question types, such as Yes/No questions, you can set a rule that automatically tags or archives an applicant based on their response. For instance, if a minimum criterion for a new Sales Associate is at least two to three years of experience, you can filter out applicants that select “no” to the question about whether they have that experience.

The employment and education history questions require applicants to type in that information manually, which can make for a frustrating job candidate experience, as the résumé usually contains this information already.

However, HiringThing gives you full control over the kind of screening questions you want applicants to fill out, so you don’t have to necessarily pose questions that require manual data entry.

HiringThing’s Form Builder

Scorecards for Candidate Evaluation

HiringThing enables you to create customized scorecards before you start evaluating candidates in order to mitigate bias in the review process. You can enter customizable text fields, called “Titles,” and those fields will appear in an applicant’s review section.

The “Title” field is misleading because it’s not the job title. Rather, it denotes the attributes by which you want to evaluate candidates. For example, if hiring for a Sales Manager position, you may want to add titles such as “integrity” or “leadership.”

We found two ways to create a scorecard. For the first method, you have to navigate to the main menu > Account Details > Feature Management, and scroll down to the “Scorecards” section. It’s important to note that once you enter titles this way, they automatically apply to all subsequent jobs that you post after creating the scorecard and cannot be applied retroactively to existing job openings.

This can be frustrating if your general criteria change over time because changes can’t be applied to current openings, and you’d have to enter them into those individual jobs manually per the second method below. It’s therefore important to settle on a general set of criteria that you’ll rarely, if ever, need to change.

The second way to create a job scorecard is to edit a specific job and expand the “Advanced Options” section, and the titles will appear in each applicant’s “Review section.” We found this method more intuitive. Plus, we like that you can add specific criteria for specific jobs.

HiringThing’s Scorecards display different pre-set attributes, and you provide a star rating and optional notes for each candidate.

Candidate Relationship Management

HiringThing facilitates candidate relationship management via email and SMS.

Managing candidate statuses and communication were some of the easiest tasks we tested out in HiringThing. You can individually change an applicant’s status or do so in bulk to save time. You can add statuses including “offer extended” and “offer accepted/rejected” in the “Workflow” section of Account Details.

It was very easy to select a pre-made email template for requesting an interview, rejecting a candidate or other typical recruiter communications. Paying customers have access to HiringThing’s SMS option as an additional communication method.

Interview Tools

HiringThing enables collaborative interview scheduling by syncing with your Outlook, Exchange, Microsoft 365, Google or iCloud calendar. You can select a specific date or time or, even better, allow the candidate to select from a range of dates and times that you give them.

Using a Google account will automatically use Google Meets as a videoconference tool, unless you link your account to another videoconference tool such as Zoom. Otherwise, 8×8 is the default videoconferencing solution for HiringThing.

Workflows and Automations

HiringThing helps you expedite your hiring process by automating job requisitions, candidate screening, interviewing and any other workflows you set up.

HiringThing enables you to set up a workflow for opening, approving and posting job requisitions. Rules for screening questions noted above also automate the candidate selection process by filtering out candidates who don’t meet the minimum requirements and automatically sending them a “Thanks but no thanks” email. That way, you won’t spend time sifting through résumés from unqualified candidates or sending rejection emails.

HiringThing’s new automated interviewing workflow allows you to send an automated interview invitation in one of two ways: as soon as anyone submits an application to the job or based on a change in application status.

You might want to use the former if you’re hiring for a niche position that draws few candidates, all of whom you want to interview. Otherwise, you’d more likely utilize the second workflow option that invites candidates to an interview after you change their status. However, with either option, make sure all who are involved in the process keep their calendar availability up to date.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to try out the workflows setup in the test environment, as this feature is only available to paying customers.

As of August 1, 2023, HiringThing starts at $73 per month and includes unlimited users and access to all features. So, if you increase your head count, HiringThing becomes even more cost-efficient. Annual plans are also available for even more cost savings.

The price per month is dependent upon how many active jobs you want to post each month. The more active job posts you have in your plan, the lower your cost per job post, assuming you use all available job posts in your plan. Plus, you can always switch your subscription plan as your needs change. No matter the number of job postings you need, though, you get an unlimited number of users and access to all features.

This type of pricing might be difficult, for instance, if you need to post 26 jobs to fill in the next quarter. You have to choose the plan that includes 30 job slots, and four remain unused.

We’ve broken down HiringThing’s pricing structure below. We calculated the increase in price and decrease in job post cost from tier to tier.

The plans with 15 and 100 active job posts offer the greatest savings in cost per job post. However, the tier with 15 posts is the sweet spot that offers net savings. In other words, the amount you save per job post is greater than the jump in price from the previous tier. So, upgrading from 10 to 15 job posts is definitely worth it.

Additional price tiers and annual pricing plans are available, in case you need to advertise more than 100 jobs.

Active Jobs	Starting Monthly Price	% Increase in Package Price	Price per Job Post	Cost Savings per Job Post*	Features	# of Users
3	$73	–	$24.33	–	All included	Unlimited
5	$105	44%	$21	13.7%	All included	Unlimited
10	$185	76%	$18.50	12%	All included	Unlimited
15	$219	18%	$14.60	21%	All included	Unlimited
20	$275	26%	$13.75	6%	All included	Unlimited
25	$329	20%	$13.16	4.3%	All included	Unlimited
30	$373	13%	$12.43	5.5%	All included	Unlimited
40	$437	17%	$10.93	12%	All included	Unlimited
50	$493	13%	$9.86	9.8%	All included	Unlimited
100	$713	45%	$7.13	28%	All included	Unlimited
			#colspan#

*Assuming you use all available job postings in the plan

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Add-ons include but are not limited to:

• Premium job posting to maximize reach
• Access to Crimcheck for background checks
• Custom setup package

HiringThing’s private-label ATS is quoted according to your particular customization needs, and its pricing can be modified to fit your pricing model. Otherwise, if you’re looking for a white-label ATS, the pricing breaks down as follows.

Customization

To summarize the customizable features we described above, HiringThing allows you to customize your company’s career page, automated workflows, application forms, email templates, screening questions and scorecards.

Third-Party Integrations

HiringThing enables various types of third-party integrations including:

• Background checks and screening
• Email and calendars
• Job boards
• Pre-hire assessment
• Reference checks
• Videoconferencing
• Collaboration, e.g., Slack
• Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC)

In the “Integrations” section of the “Account Details” interface, you can choose to integrate your HiringThing ATS with Slack, Wufoo Forms, BambooHR, BountyJobs or Indeed Sponsored.

Alternatively, you can access the Partner Marketplace where you can integrate your assessment and background check accounts. Those with coding knowledge can use HiringThing’s API access to link your HiringThing account with other software in your tech stack via REST API, SSO or a custom API integration.

Featured Partners

Advertisement

1

BambooHR

Onboarding

Yes

Employee Records

Yes

Standout Features

ATS

1

BambooHR

Learn More

On BambooHR's Website

2

Pinpoint ATS

Applicant tracking

Yes

Onboarding

Yes

Standout features

24/7 customer support, easy-to-use interface, fast and flexible workflows, hundreds of integrations

2

Pinpoint ATS

Learn More

On Pinpoint HQ's Website

3

ClearCompany

Applicant tracking/onboarding

Yes

Performance management

Yes

Standout Features

Employee engagement

3

ClearCompany

Learn More

On ClearCompany's Website

All plans include access to HiringThing’s Premium Support, which is made up of a support article knowledge base and live support via chat, phone or email Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. PT.

We contacted HiringThing through the live chat feature during normal business hours. It’s easy to start a chat from directly within the system’s interface by navigating to the main menu and selecting “Support” and then “Live Chat.”

Someone responded within seconds. After asking about data import, the Customer Support Representative got back to us after about five minutes with a sufficient answer to our question, plus a link to a support article that contained more detailed information.

	HiringThing	Freshteam	JazzHR	Workable
Rating
Starting Price	$73 per month	Free up to 50 employees, then $71/month + $1.20 per employee per month	$75 per month with annual billing	$149 per month
Free Trial	14 days	21 days	21 days	15 days
Syndicated Job Postings	Yes	2,500-plus job boards	18 job boards	200-plus
Social Media Integration	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Applicant Tracking System	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Candidate Matching	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Candidate Relationship Management	Via integration	Yes	Yes	Yes, email only
Customizable Workflows	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Automations	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Scheduling Tools	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Interviewing Tools	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Onboarding	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Analytics and Reporting	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Templates	For emails, job descriptions and offer letters	For emails, job descriptions and offer letters	For emails, job descriptions and offer letters	For emails, onboarding, profiles
Third-Party Integrations	18-plus	450-plus	$116.00	70-plus
Customer Support	Chat, phone, email, online documentation	Chat, email, online documentation	Email and online documentation, plus live chat and phone for advanced tiers	Chat, phone, email, online documentation
Mobile App	No	iOS and Android	No	iOS and Android
Read Reviews	–	Read Freshteam Review	Read JazzHR Review	Read Workable Review

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Overall, HiringThing rates the best among these three competitors for:

• Meeting customers’ ATS needs
• Ease of use
• Job posting
• Candidate search

Our own testing of HiringThing can only partially attest to its user-friendliness. As noted above, we found the overall navigation clunky, and the dashboard could be more interactive and configurable. At the same time, creating and posting a job was pretty easy.

However, since we only tested the stripped-down trial of HiringThing, its interface might be more user-friendly once you become a paying customer, get the interface set up and get used to the system.

Let’s take a look at how HiringThing stacks up against each competitor.

HiringThing vs. Freshteam

Freshteam has a few impressive features over HiringThing. For one, Freshteam offers a free-forever version for companies with up to 50 employees that already includes three active job posts, compared to HiringThing’s $73-price tag for the same number of job posts. Though Freshteam’s free version has limited features compared to the paid tiers, if you have low-volume hiring needs, Freshteam is far more cost effective.

In addition, Freshteam boasts access to over 2,500 job boards, so your job posts are more likely to get a broader reach with Freshteam than HiringThing. Moreover, since Freshteam integrates with more than 450 other apps, you can more easily fit it into your existing tech stack. Freshteam also has a mobile app, while HiringThing does not. This allows Freshteam users to respond to and evaluate candidates on the go.

HiringThing vs. JazzHR

Both HiringThing and JazzHR offer a limited number of job posts per price tier. For example, both start with three job posts. However, JazzHR is more cost effective in that its starting price is 33% cheaper than HiringThing.

At the same time, HiringThing may save you time by automatically ranking candidates for your job postings. Plus, if strong customer support is a priority, then you can be sure that you’ll have a variety of ways to get in touch with HiringThing, as JazzHR offers varied customer support options based on your plan.

Neither one has a mobile app, so they’re both suitable for recruiters who only manage the hiring process from a laptop or desktop computer from wherever they are.

HiringThing vs. Workable

HiringThing and Workable are comparable in terms of how their ATS features are rated and the breadth of their customer support options.

Like HiringThing, Workable offers automatic candidate matching, but it goes above and beyond by surfacing passive job candidates and pushing your job postings to display in these candidates’ social media feeds.

Workable’s ATS feature ratings beat HiringThing in terms of candidate sourcing, career page setup, candidate evaluation and other metrics. However, HiringThing outshines Workable when it comes to job posting, candidate search and workflow building. Based on our testing, we can vouch for HiringThing’s strength in job posting, given how easy it is to create a job ad using the AI-powered job description generator.

Though both providers have ample customer support modalities, Workable’s customer support has earned higher ratings than HiringThing’s. Another major plus with Workable is its mobile app, which HiringThing lacks.

Based on the starting price alone, HiringThing is more cost-effective. Workable only offers two active job posts in its price tier which is already nearly double the price of HiringThing’s base tier that allows three job posts, so you’ll get more value out of HiringThing’s base tier.

HiringThing meets the needs of small businesses of 50 or more employees who recruit in an office setting rather than on the go.

HiringThing Is Best For:

• Small to midsized business budgets
• Recruiting domestically in the U.S., as there are no internationalization features
• Recruiting in-house
• High-volume hiring due to the range of automations and templates
• Hiring for non-specialized positions
• Franchises, HR service providers and others who need a private-label ATS embedded into their tech stack

HiringThing Is Not Recommended For:

• Hiring for niche or high-demand positions
• On-the-go and/or in-person recruiting
• Businesses that need to get up and running quickly but don’t have the budget for outsourcing the setup to HiringThing

Setup

The free trial page is hard to find, but once you start it you have 14 days to test the product. It doesn’t come with any sandbox data, and any import of existing data is only possible once you sign up for a plan. So, initial setup in the trial phase will take quite a bit of time, as you’ll need to manually enter data from things such as job descriptions or applicant materials.

During the trial, you can create up to five active jobs and try out basic job boards, Premium Support, the Form Builder, the résumé import tool, applicant tagging, email templates and all other core features.

Once the trial period ends and you pay for a plan, you can take advantage of the one-time free Applicant Data Import service. This, too, is a cumbersome process that involves formatting and labeling your files correctly. Any data imports after the initial free one will incur a fee. Alternatively, customers importing data for the first time can save themselves the hassle by paying HiringThing’s data analysts to handle the entire import process.

Overall, we had to rely heavily on the online documentation articles to use the features. Though these articles are helpful, they prolong the setup process, so you can expect users to need time to get used to HiringThing.

Interface Appearance

The user interface is pretty rudimentary, but you can manually configure the look and feel of the interface from within the Account Details section of the main menu. For example, you can add your company logo, color palette, career page introduction and adjust a plethora of other advanced customization options.

Ease of Use

The interface, as we got to know it in the testing environment, can be difficult to navigate. For instance, the blocks at the top of the main dashboard are not clickable, so you have to scroll down to view and modify jobs, applicant information, etc.

Moreover, it took a while, but we discovered that a lot of the essential functions live in the “Account Details” module.