Finding and hiring talented employees in the healthcare sector can be extremely challenging and chaotic. Skill assessments, credential verification, and compliance—all these tasks come with huge responsibilities that must be performed accurately.

These responsibilities leave human resources (HR) teams exhausted, leading to mistakes and poor hiring decisions. Applicant tracking systems (ATS) for healthcare can solve these issues by streamlining recruitment and HR tasks.

In this guide, we have carefully selected six healthcare ATSs that can help you structure your processes, automate HR workflows, and improve hiring speed and quality.

Our Top Picks For The Best Applicant Tracking Systems

  • symplr Recruiting: Best for automating reference checks and gathering behavioral insights on candidates
  • Vars Health: Best for AI-powered passive candidate sourcing and automated resume collection
  • ICIMS Software: Best for high-volume enterprise hiring with AI-driven candidate matching
  • Pinpoint: Best for secure multi-site healthcare recruitment with robust data access controls
  • Kula: Best for customizable interview workflows and broad job board distribution
  • SmartRecruiters: Best for collaborative hiring and reclaiming previously sourced talent through advanced search

Comparison Table

Software

Best For

Main Features

Pricing

symplr Recruiting 

Automated reference checks and behavioral insights 

  

ATS dashboards, automated workflows, and reference assessment tool 

  

Custom pricing 

Vars Health 

AI-driven sourcing and resume collection 

  

AI-powered sourcing, candidate recommendations, and job board integrations 

 

Custom pricing + free trial 

iCIMS 

Enterprise-level hiring and smart candidate matching 

  

Candidate matching, customizable workflows, and AI communication tools 

 

Custom plans start from $1700/month 

Pinpoint 

Secure, multi-site recruiting with role-based access 

  

Multi-site recruitment, custom workflows, and role-based access 

 

Custom Pricing 

Kula 

Flexible interviews and a wide job board reach 

  

 

AI screening, interview customization, and job board distribution. 

 

Three pricing plans, starting from $399/month 

SmartRecruiters 

Team collaboration and rediscovering talent 

 

Source analytics, advanced search, and approval workflows. 

 

Custom plans, starting from $10,000/year 

symplr Recruiting

symplr Recruiting is a unified platform that is designed to help healthcare organizations streamline their human resources (HR) tasks and scale their operations. It offers comprehensive ATS dashboards, automated workflows for filling job openings, and real-time calendar sync to help candidates self-schedule interviews.

It stands out due to its ‘Reference Assessment’ tool that automates the process of reference gathering, enabling managers to access candidates’ experience, past performances, and any behavioral issues they may have had.

Pros

  • The platform makes applicant tracking very straightforward for healthcare institutions
  • Seamlessly integrates with third-party applications
  • Advanced analytics help organizations adhere to compliance regulations in the healthcare industry

Cons

  • There aren’t any notifications before updates are pushed
  • Mobile application has limited features compared to the web application

Pricing

symplr Recruiting offers custom pricing plans based on an organization’s requirements and size. Contact us to get a custom symplr Recruiting pricing quotation.

Vars Health

Vars Health is an AI-powered software that allows organizations to enhance their sourcing and applicant tracking capabilities. Its ‘AI-powered Passive Candidate Sourcing’ ensures organizations are continuously sourcing talented candidates. Users also receive AI-driven candidate recommendations based on job descriptions, ensuring only applicants with relevant skills are shortlisted.

Furthermore, it integrates with multiple job boards and automatically collects resumes for job openings, helping companies increase their job posts’ reach and drive efficiency in processes.

Pros

  • Offers an easy-to-use interface
  • Training new employees on the platform is not hard
  • Let managers set role-based access for different functions

Cons

  • Customer support can be improved for faster resolutions
  • Some users might find the number of integrations to be limited

Pricing

The vendor offers custom pricing plans based on a business’s needs and employee count. Users can also get a free trial to test the software for their unique workflows. You can contact us for a customized Vars Health pricing quote.

iCIMS

iCIMS Software is an enterprise-grade applicant tracking system designed for teams with high-volume hiring requirements. Its AI-powered candidate matching surfaces the top applicants for a specific job role, helping recruiters enhance the average quality of hire.

It offers customized workflows and comprehensive analytics dashboards, enabling users to streamline HR processes and make better, data-backed decisions.

Additionally, the AI-based communication tools help hiring managers coordinate with a high number of applicants, while ensuring a personalized candidate experience.

Pros

  • Helps large organizations easily track jobs
  • The Chrome extension for picking up candidate phone numbers is very helpful
  • Highly customizable in terms of creating reports, gathering data, and measuring progress

Cons

  • The system slows down if multiple tabs are open
  • Boolean strings aren’t that helpful in finding information using relevant keywords

Pricing

The vendor offers custom modules, with plans starting at $1,700/month. Contact us today for a custom iCIMS pricing quotation.

Disclaimer: The pricing has been sourced from third-party websites and is subject to change.

Pinpoint

Pinpoint ATS is a modern solution designed specifically for healthcare and social care organizations. It offers tools to support multi-site recruitment, integrates seamlessly with existing tech stacks, and automates several HR tasks.

The platform has ISO27001 and SOC 2 Type II Certifications, making it a secure platform for analyzing candidate data. Additionally, managers can grant role-specific access to ensure that only the relevant personnel can view sensitive data.

Pros

  • It helps create custom workflows for different roles and functionalities
  • Lets users create personalized templates to save time
  • Allows hiring managers to easily review candidate applications

Cons

  • Reports could be improved, as they still require manual review
  • Setting up automation for the first time can take some time

Pricing

Pinpoint offers custom pricing plans based on different business requirements. Contact us for a custom Pinpoint pricing quotation tailored to your exact needs and budget.

Kula

Kula is an end-to-end applicant tracking system that assists hiring departments in a number of areas. It offers career sites to attract top talent and career portals to post job openings, ensuring applicants in search of relevant jobs find them.

The AI-powered screening filters applicants based on a company’s requirements, showing only the most qualified candidates and saving time.  With its integrated scheduling tools and customizable interviews, managers can tailor each interview to a specific role and seniority level.

Moreover, hiring teams can create, publish, and distribute job posts on 100+ job boards, significantly enhancing response rates.

Pros

  • Helps managers hire people from fields they haven't hired before, based on skills and qualifications
  • There’s no option to delete a candidate from a job while keeping their data in the database
  • Hiring teams can create automation for reaching out to potential candidates in a multi-channel way

Cons

  • Managers cannot set automatic disqualifications based on factors like location and education
  • If someone misses a step in any process, there are no pop-ups or notifications to highlight that

Pricing

Kula offers three pricing plans. The Starter plan starts at $399/month, while the Plus and Enterprise plans are offered at custom pricing.

Disclaimer: The pricing is subject to change.

SmartRecruiters

SmartRecruiters is an applicant tracking system that can help with the hiring efforts of healthcare institutions. The platform helps identify the best candidate sources, allowing businesses to spend their recruitment budget wisely.

It improves communication between different teams with auto-replies, templates, and scheduled notifications. This helps seamless coordination between different departments and accelerates processes.

Furthermore, the platform equips users with advanced search, enabling them to find previously registered talent, use filters to find applications faster and use keywords to access critical information quickly.

Pros

  • Enables recruiters to easily find qualified candidates for jobs with varying requirements
  • Offer approval features significantly streamline the hiring processes
  • Enables candidates to self-schedule interviews with the help of the calendar integration

Cons

  • It’s a bit difficult to switch between jobs and find candidates if they are not in that particular stage
  • Scorecards take a lot of time to set up

Pricing

SmartRecruiters offers custom plans starting from $10,000/year.

Disclaimer: The pricing has been sourced from third-party websites and is subject to change.

How We Chose The Best Healthcare Applicant Tracking Systems

The following are the factors we considered while selecting the best healthcare applicant tracking systems:

Healthcare Focused Functionality

Since this guide is tailored to the healthcare sector, we prioritized platforms specifically designed to address the industry's unique requirements. We prioritized features like sector-specific features, credential tracking, and role-based compliance documentation.

Scalability For High-Volume Hiring

Healthcare organizations often need to fill multiple positions quickly or sometimes on an urgent basis. We evaluated each platform to see whether it can scale with an organization’s operations, without compromising performance or user experience.

Compliance And Data Security

Adhering to healthcare regulations, such as HIPAA, data privacy, and fair use of applicant information, is critical in the healthcare industry. We have only picked software that offers tools and features to help organizations stay compliant and avoid legal penalties.

Ease Of Use

Last but not least, we have carefully evaluated each platform's user interface to see how well it helps managers and recruiters operate the software. Each of the selected software is easy to use, ensuring the person using it will be able to navigate to areas where they want, even when dealing with multiple applications at a time.

Features To Look For In The Best Healthcare Applicant Tracking Systems

These are the features you should never compromise on when choosing the best healthcare applicant tracking systems:

Credential And License Verification

An ATS should automate the process of verification of certifications, licenses, and credentials, all of which are critical for ensuring qualified candidates and meeting compliance.

Automated Compliance Workflows

You should always look for solutions that use tools to automatically identify missing documentation and expired licenses to help institutions stay away from legal complications and hefty fines.

Role-Based Access And Permissions

Having control over who in the organization can access information is crucial, particularly in industries such as healthcare. That's why you should always choose software that offers role-based access and permissions, allowing managers to restrict or allow people from accessing sensitive information like contact numbers, addresses, and previous work history.

Multi-Site Hiring Support

Healthcare organizations often have facilities in multiple regions and locations. This necessitates software that is compliant with regulations of not just one state, but ideally all states and regions where your company operates or plans to expand.

Built-In Communication Tools

It is essential to have a reliable means of communication that lets hiring managers contact qualified candidates in time. For this reason, you should select software that offers tools with integrated messaging, automated alerts, and interview scheduling features to streamline engagement with candidates and coordination within your hiring team.

Making The Final Decision

Choosing the right healthcare applicant tracking system can change how you hire talent for your organization. If selected properly, it can bring speed, structure, and precision to your hiring efforts.

When selecting one, we highly recommend you onboard your HR managers to help you make the decision, as they are the ones who’ll be using it daily. If you require additional support in evaluating software or narrowing down your options, you can always contact one of our consultants.