Applicant tracking
Zoho Recruit: the complete independent guide
Zoho Recruit is Zoho's applicant tracking system. It publishes job openings, collects and sorts applications, and moves candidates through interviews to an offer. This guide explains what it does for in-house HR teams and for staffing agencies, which edition to choose and how to set it up.
- Best for
- HR teams hiring regularly, and staffing and recruiting agencies
- Editions
- Free, Standard, Enterprise. The staffing version has its own list
- Billing
- Per recruiter, monthly or yearly
- Free plan
- Yes, for one recruiter and one active job
- Two versions
- Corporate HR and staffing agency
What it is
Zoho Recruit keeps every job opening and every candidate in one place. A job is created once and published to your careers page and to job boards. Applications arrive in a single list, résumés are read automatically into structured records, and each candidate moves through stages you define: screening, interview, offer, hired.
It comes in two versions. The corporate HR version is built for a company filling its own positions, with hiring managers and departments. The staffing agency version adds clients, contacts and submissions, because an agency sells candidates to client companies.
The value appears with volume. With two hires a year, a mailbox is enough. With twenty openings, several recruiters and hundreds of applications, a system is the only way to answer everyone, avoid losing good candidates and know which sources actually work.
Who it fits
A good fit when
- Applications arrive by email and good candidates are lost or answered late.
- Several people interview and their feedback lives in separate inboxes.
- You are a staffing agency that needs to track clients, job orders and submissions.
- You want to build a talent pool you can search for the next opening.
Look elsewhere when
- You hire once or twice a year. A simple form and a spreadsheet will do.
- You need a full enterprise suite with workforce planning tied to recruiting at very large scale.
- Your hiring happens entirely through one job platform whose built-in tools you are happy with.
What it does well
- Job publishing and careers site
- Publish openings to a branded careers page and to job boards from one screen, with an application form you control.
- Résumé parsing and candidate database
- Résumés are read into fields such as skills, experience and education, creating a searchable pool for future openings.
- Hiring pipeline
- Move candidates through your stages, with automatic emails at each step and a clear view of where every application stands.
- Interviews and assessments
- Schedule interviews against calendars, collect structured feedback from each interviewer and send assessments before the interview.
- Offers and onboarding handoff
- Generate offer letters from templates, send them for signature and pass the new hire to Zoho People.
- Client and vendor portals
- In the staffing version, clients review submitted candidates and vendors submit their own, each through a portal.
Editions and pricing explained
Zoho Recruit is sold per recruiter in a free edition and two paid editions for corporate HR. The staffing agency version has its own plan list. We describe what each is for and leave current prices to Zoho's price list.
| Edition | Made for | What it adds |
|---|---|---|
| Free | A company with a single opening | One recruiter, one active job, candidate management and interview scheduling. |
| Standard | Small teams hiring regularly | More active jobs, candidate sourcing, résumé management, job board publishing, a careers site, referrals and assessments. |
| Enterprise | Larger recruiting operations | AI candidate matching, portals, territories, Blueprint, automation, custom reports and the highest limits. |
Choose the version first, corporate or staffing, because switching later is not trivial. Then count recruiters, not hiring managers: managers who only review candidates do not usually need a full licence. Zoho Recruit is included in Zoho One.
How to set it up properly
Define your hiring stages
Write the steps every candidate goes through and what decision ends each one. Keep the list short enough to be used the same way for every opening.
Build the careers page and application form
Ask only what you need at application: each extra field loses candidates. Add the privacy notice your jurisdiction requires.
Prepare email templates
Acknowledgement, invitation, rejection and offer. Automatic and courteous answers at each stage protect your reputation as an employer.
Import your existing candidates
Bring in past applicants with their résumés so the talent pool is useful from day one, and decide how long you keep candidate data.
Train recruiters and hiring managers separately
Recruiters need the whole tool. Hiring managers need two actions: review a candidate and leave feedback.
Rather have a specialist do it? Talk to TECHMA
Common problems and how to fix them
Parsed résumés contain errors
Parsing is good, not perfect, especially on heavily designed résumés. Review key fields for shortlisted candidates rather than for everyone.
Duplicate candidates
The same person applies to several jobs or through several boards. Turn on duplicate detection by email and merge records.
Hiring managers do not give feedback in the system
Make it one click from the email invitation, and do not move a candidate forward on feedback given in a hallway.
Candidate data kept forever
Privacy laws such as Québec's Law 25 and the GDPR limit how long you may keep applications. Set a retention period and a routine to delete or anonymize old records.
Adding AI
Zoho Recruit uses Zia to match candidates to a job by skills and experience and to rank applicants, in the higher editions.
An outside assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT can help with writing job descriptions, summarizing a résumé against the requirements or drafting interview questions. Use AI ranking as a help to read faster, never as the decision: automated screening can reproduce bias, and several jurisdictions now regulate its use in hiring.
Questions people ask
Is Zoho Recruit free?
There is a free edition for one recruiter with one active job. Companies hiring for several positions need a paid edition.
What is the difference between Zoho Recruit and Zoho People?
Zoho Recruit manages candidates until they are hired. Zoho People manages employees after they join. The two connect so that a hired candidate becomes an employee record.
Is Zoho Recruit suitable for staffing agencies?
Yes. The staffing version adds clients, job orders, submissions and client and vendor portals.
Is Zoho Recruit included in Zoho One?
Yes. Zoho One includes Zoho Recruit along with Zoho People.
Want it set up right the first time?
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