With a more demanding candidate market than ever, candidate engagement is the biggest differentiator for recruiters in 2023.

Candidate engagement is the practice of interacting with potential candidates during the entire recruiting process in order to build relationships and create a positive candidate experience.

Candidate engagement is about involving candidates in your company brand, mission and job positions through several touchpoints in the recruitment funnel.

Candidate engagement platforms, also known as talent engagement platforms, are software platforms that hiring companies and their recruiters use to inform, educate and nurture candidates with the right resources at the right time in the funnel so candidates can make informed decisions on joining a company.

Engagement is typically facilitated through a set of features enabling the hiring company to send automated messages, follow up messages, share content and send notifications to the right candidates on scheduled or triggered moments so the candidate can be engaged, nurtured, re-engaged and the relationship with the candidate can grow.

We have listed the best candidate engagement platform so you can make a better decision about which platforms to further explore.

These are the best candidate engagement platforms for 2023:

1. HeroHunt.ai
2. iCIMS Talent Cloud
3. Bullhorn
4. Sense
5. Gem

1. HeroHunt.ai

HeroHunt.ai is the talent search and engagement platform that enables recruiters to find 1 billion candidates worldwide and engage them with highly personalized automated outreach.

HeroHunt.ai delivers profiles from untapped talent pools with rich information on skills and experience, contact info and allows recruiters to send automated sequences of messages over a period of time.

HeroHunt.ai is used by recruiters worldwide to find new candidates based on their job description. Every step in the sourcing process is highly automated with HeroHunt.ai, from automatically generating your search from your job description to the automatic generation and sending of personalized messages.

Best for: talent search and initial engagement - finding new profiles, sending personalized messages, message sequences

Ideal user: small, medium and bigger companies with a hiring need

Free trial: yes available (get free trial)

Features

• Real-time candidate search: Find 1 billion candidates worldwide in a variety of online sources like LinkedIn, GitHub and Stack Overflow with real-time and always up-to-date profile data
• Contact finder: Find verified personal email addresses for 90% of profiles on average. Find social media links of the candidates from dozens of platforms.
• Profile enrichment: Extensive analytics on candidate skills and experience to provide additional screening insights for the recruiter.
• Hyper-personalized outreach: Highly personalized outreach messages that are automatically generated for every candidate that you find. Sending your personalized outreach message is one click away.
• Automated messaging: Send several automated messages like emails and follow up emails to candidates over a period of time.
• Workflows: An automated workflow to execute on what used to be manual tasks, like finding contact details, sending several messages over time and saving candidates to your ATS.

2. iCIMS Talent Cloud

iCIMS Talent Cloud is a talent relationship management platform that helps to continually engage with candidates in the talent pipeline. 

You can send targeted, automated text and email campaigns that get candidates to apply faster, host virtual career fairs to cut costs and expand your reach and get powerful recruitment marketing reporting and source analytics that help you measure ROI and efficiency.

Best for: recruitment marketing automation - multi touch campaigns based on your current ATS contacts

Ideal user: large companies with a big and well maintained ATS system with lots of contacts

Free trial: not available (demo)

Features

• Marketing automation: Nurture the candidates who are most likely to convert by using campaign personalization and lead scoring.
• Tracking: Track and score candidate interactions so you can engage candidates who are most interested in your employer brand, track engagement for all content pieces and score actions based on intent.
• Personalization: Automate personalized recruitment campaigns so your candidates receive the messages that interest them most.
• Nurture: Keep candidates active throughout the recruitment journey with several drip campaigns and touchpoints including notifications and status updates.
• Re-engagement: Reactivate passive candidates who have shown intent for your company in the past.
• Pipeline management: Select candidates based on their engagement scores so you know who is cold, warm and hire-ready.

‍

3. Bullhorn

Bullhorn is staffing and recruiting software that provides one platform to build high-touch relationships throughout the candidate journey from the first call to placement.

You can see Bullhorn as a highly automated ATS that complements your workflow. It manages the recruitment process end-to-end and acts as a central hub to integrate your recruitment technology with.

Best for: candidate relationship management for recruitment agencies - nurturing existing candidates in the ATS with campaigns

Ideal user: staffing agencies with a big and well maintained ATS system with many contacts

Free trial: not available (demo)

Features

• Applicant Tracking & CRM: A system of record for all your clients and candidates that enables staffing agencies to deliver a high-touch experience.
• Bullhorn for Salesforce: The applicant tracking system of record that is built to maximize the power of Salesforce.
• Onboarding: Facilitate the candidate onboarding experience while ensuring compliance and improving on-time starts.
• Invenias Executive Search: Executive search solution focused on executive search, integrated with Microsoft Office and available on mobile.
• Recruitment Automation: Automation for modern staffing firm that makes it easy for staffing firms to automate workflows, processes and communication throughout the recruiting cycle.
• VMS Automation: Closed-loop Vendor Management System (VMS) integration for staffing firms which automates VMS workflows.
• Messaging: Enabling sending text messages on phone to reach candidates faster and build stronger relationships.
• Analytics: Easy-to-understand, real-time reporting and actionable insights which are configurable to reporting needs.

4. Sense

Sense is a candidate engagement platform that helps to accelerate hiring and strengthen your brand by delivering a personalized candidate experience.

With Sense you can activate candidates with AI-driven matching, automated screening, and candidate alerts and reactivate passive talent with personalized, multi-channel campaigns.

Sense makes applying to jobs simple, fast and mobile-first for dynamic audiences. 

Sense integrates with leading ATS providers, including Workday, Greenhouse, Taleo, SAP SuccessFactors, Bullhorn and others.

Best for: candidate experience improvement for volume hiring - with smart scheduling, candidate chatbot, text messaging and referral management

Ideal user: blue collar employers hiring larger volumes and looking to personalize and automate the hiring process

Free trial: not available (demo)

Features

• Engage: Enable personalized experiences for candidates across all channels. Visualize and automate talent journeys.
• Text Messaging: 1:1 texting to drive response rates with customized broadcasts and automated, personalized check-ins.
• AI Chatbot: Conversational AI that automates recruiting tasks with smart dynamic conversations including a fully-integrated 24/7 digital recruiter.
• Discover: Search & Match AI to connect qualified candidates to open roles and streamline the recruiting process.
• Talent Relationship Management (TRM): AI-powered talent relationship system to manage the candidate experience and engage candidates from a single platform. View candidate information, add them to campaigns and advance them through the hiring process with automated workflows.
• Referrals: Referral management to expand your talent pipeline with submission tracking and management, payouts and rewards.
• Interview Scheduling: 24/7 automated interview scheduling to automatically fill recruiter calendars and eliminating back-and-forth scheduling emails.

5. Gem

Gem is a strategic recruiting platform that finds real-time data, unifies workflows and lets recruiters engage talent with automated workflows.

Gem provides insights in full-funnel recruiting and tracks metrics, allows for benchmarking, diagnoses drop-off and headcount planning.

The database you build with Gem is dynamic and you can create talent pools that are updated automatically. Gem also enables DEI&B goals by assessing how different genders, races and ethnicities move through the hiring funnel.

Best for: longer term candidate engagement based on sync with your current ATS

Ideal user: large enterprises with a very big current candidate database

Free trial: yes available (free trial)

Features

• Candidate Relationship Management: One source of truth for all talent relationship data, unifying data across recruiting systems.
• Talent Sourcing & Outreach: Enables sourcers and recruiters to keep talent warm for current or future hiring needs by sending message sequences and nurture campaigns. 
• Pipeline management: Day-to-day candidate management in a recruiting pipeline with collaboration features to involve hiring managers and improve recruiting efficiency and the candidate experience.‍
• Talent Compass: Insights that drive strategic recruiting and surfaces data across Gem and your ATS to forecast and plan goals, uncover cost-saving opportunities and improve operational efficiency.