A side-by-side comparison of the best talent acquisition software

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of TA technology tools available. But which of them – if any – are most effective for executive talent acquisition?

We’ve analysed five of the biggest providers. What are their strengths? Where do they fall short? How useful are they when searching for senior talent?

We include a side-by-side comparison of all five tools in a summary table at the end of this article.

MapX
AI tool, optimised for executive talent acquisition

Unlike the other tools we will mention below, MapX has been created specifically for executive talent acquisition. Full disclosure: we developed it here at Savannah Group, drawing on our 20+ years’ experience of placing executives around the world. We wanted to provide those responsible for executive recruitment with a bespoke tool that would enhance the quality and creativity of their output. So we analysed the available technology and built an AI-powered tool that mimics the search methods of a professional head hunter performing at superhuman speeds.

Executive Candidate Search
access best fit talent for leadership roles

Ideal Profile Matching
surface executives with similar career pathways

Leadership Talent Insights
understand trends and patterns for specific roles

Diversity in Executive Recruitment
understand expected diversity of candidate populations and identify more diverse talent

Executive Talent Mapping
identify and track high potential talent for in-demand roles

Hiring Manager Collaboration
share well-presented, actionable insight with key stakeholders

If you’re looking for a fast but rigorous solution to improve the quality of senior-level talent mapping, acquisition and succession planning, MapX could be your answer. What's more, it's free to sign up and try.

LinkedIn Recruiter
The industry standard

It’s the one TA tool everybody has heard of – and with good reason. LinkedIn Recruiter gives you access to everybody on LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional networking platform. That’s 900 million potential candidates across all industries and job functions (or almost a quarter of the global workforce).

Candidate search
40+ search filters to find people by job title, location, industry and more

Recommended match
automatically identifies candidates for open roles

InMail messaging
send personalized messages to anyone on the network

ATS
manage and track candidates through the recruitment process

Team collaboration
share notes on candidates with others in your organization

LinkedIn Recruiter is built for general recruitment, which makes it a highly effective tool for high-volume or mid management-level roles. However, it performs less well for executive roles as it has not been designed to handle the subtleties and nuances of a C-suite search.

An annual subscription will cost you somewhere in the region of $4,000 to $8,000, making it one of the more expensive tools on the market.

Zoominfo TalentOS
Huge candidate database – without the huge cost

ZoomInfo began life as a sales and marketing tool before later being adapted for general recruitment purposes. But this hasn’t stopped it becoming one of the biggest players in the space. With a searchable database of more than 130 million professional profiles, it provides a popular – and less expensive – alternative to LinkedIn Recruiter.

Candidate Search
search by company firmographics, role or culture expectations

Recruiting Analytics
track the performance of your recruiting efforts

Team Collaboration
share notes on candidates with others in your company

Employer Branding Support
access customizable career pages, job postings and more

Integrations
links up with your ATS and other HR systems

ZoomInfo TalentOS is another general TA tool, which means it has the same limitations for executive talent acquisition as we saw above. The search functionality, which can be highly effective for more junior roles, becomes increasingly less reliable the further up the organization you go.

An annual subscription costs around $2,000.

SeekOut
A go-to for diverse and hard-to-recruit talent

SeekOut may not be as big a player as ZoomInfo TalentOS or LinkedIn Recruiter, but it does have some unique strengths that help it stand out from the crowd. It is particularly useful from a diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI) perspective, offering users opportunities to search underrepresented talent pools and gain critical insights into the diversity of their talent pipeline.

Candidate Search
access a comprehensive index of hard-to-find talent

DEI Tools
identify diverse candidates and eliminate bias in the recruitment process

Personalised Messaging
reach out directly to potential candidates

Talent Mapping
identify and track talent in specific industries or regions

Team Collaboration
share notes on candidates with others in your company

While SeekOut can be used to source any role at any level, its main selling point is its ability to identify candidates for hard-to-fill roles. For example, it pulls data from GitHub and other specialist sources to give you direct access to people with niche tech skills.

An annual subscription costs around $4,000 to £6,000.

HireEz
AI-powered sourcing and engagement

Claiming to be the #1 AI-powered end-to-end outbound recruiting platform, HireEz enables you to access 800M+ diverse candidate profiles across 45+ open web platforms.