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Top ATS Tools for Portuguese Startups

HR Tech

8 minutes

February 2, 2026

Written by Hirex

Hiring is everything for a startup. In Portugal’s startup scene, teams grow fast, roles change quickly, and the pressure to hire the right people never really lets up. Before long, applications are spread across inboxes, interview notes live in different places, and keeping everyone aligned starts to feel harder than it should. ✨

That’s usually when an Applicant Tracking System enters the picture. A good ATS helps HR teams stay on top of candidates, keep hiring consistent, and avoid things falling through the cracks. For startups that are serious about scaling, it becomes less about convenience and more about having a hiring process you can actually rely on.

In this article, we’ll break down what an ATS really does, what’s worth paying attention to when choosing one, and which ATS tools make the most sense for startups hiring in Portugal in 2026.

What Is an ATS?

An ATS is basically what most HR teams turn to when hiring starts getting messy. Instead of keeping track of candidates through emails, spreadsheets, calendar invites, and half-finished notes, everything is pulled into one place where you can see what’s going on. Who applied, who you’ve spoken to, who’s waiting for feedback, it’s all there. 📌

In day-to-day terms, an ATS helps in two very real ways. First, it keeps things organized. Every resume, message, and interview note sits together, so you’re not scrolling through old emails trying to remember where a candidate dropped off. Second, it takes care of the repetitive work that quietly eats up your time like sending confirmations, moving candidates forward, coordinating interviews, the kind of tasks that add up quickly when you’re hiring more than one role at a time.

For startup HR teams, this takes a lot of pressure off. You don’t have to chase updates or piece things together manually. You can see what’s happening in the pipeline and spend more time reviewing candidates and keeping things moving, even when hiring speeds up.

There’s also the candidate side. An ATS helps make sure candidates aren’t left wondering what happened after they applied or interviewed. Even small updates can make the experience feel more respectful and professional.

An ATS is about making hiring feel manageable, even when applications pile up and timelines get tight. It gives HR teams structure, visibility, and a process they can rely on as the company grows.

What to Look for in an ATS

Central Candidate Management

A good ATS gives you a single place to manage candidates. No hunting through emails or folders. When hiring ramps up, that alone makes things easier to manage.

Automation that Saves Time

One of the biggest benefits of an ATS is how much small, repetitive work it removes. You’re no longer spending time sorting resumes one by one or sending the same update emails to different candidates. Those things just happen in the background, which frees your team up to focus on the parts of hiring that actually need people.

Collaboration and Team Alignment

Hiring breaks down when feedback is scattered. A shared system gives HR teams and interviewers a clear place to leave notes, compare impressions, and track progress together. The result is fewer follow-ups and faster decisions.

Integrated Scheduling and Communication

Interview scheduling should be simple. A good ATS syncs with your calendar and lets you send invites and reminders easily, without jumping between tools. Fewer missed interviews, better experience for candidates.

Insights that Help You Improve

A good ATS makes it easier to see the whole hiring flow at once. You quickly notice what’s moving along, what’s slowing things down, and where small changes could make a difference.

Top ATS Tools for Portuguese Startups

Here’s where things get practical. Below are some of the most impactful ATS tools that Portuguese startups should consider. 👇

1- Hirex

Hirex is an ATS that many growing teams end up with because it simply doesn’t get in the way. It covers the essentials of hiring without trying to be everything at once, which is often what makes recruitment software feel overwhelming in the first place.

Using Hirex is straightforward. You post roles, review applicants, move candidates forward and loop in colleagues when needed: all without having to think too much about the system itself. Hiring managers find their way around quickly, which helps keep momentum when multiple people are involved in a hire.

It also fits into existing workflows. Interviews can be scheduled easily, communication stays organized and basic updates happen automatically. That kind of quiet automation matters more than it sounds, especially when teams are hiring alongside their day-to-day work.

Where Hirex really earns its place is in how quickly teams can rely on it. There’s no long setup phase and no sense that you need training before it becomes useful. For startups that want a hiring process that feels structured but still flexible, Hirex does the job without slowing things down.

2- Breezy HR

Breezy HR works well for small to mid-sized startup teams because it keeps the hiring process easy to follow. Its drag-and-drop pipeline gives a clear view of candidates at each stage.

Teams tend to like Breezy because it brings order to what is usually a scattered process. Applications, messages and feedback live in one place, so hiring feels more manageable and less reactive. Posting roles to multiple job boards and moving candidates through stages is simple, and basic email communication can run in the background without much effort.

Where Breezy really works well is in collaborative hiring setups. Shared notes and centralized feedback make it easier for founders, managers and HR to stay aligned, even when decisions move quickly. For teams that want a hiring tool that supports collaboration without requiring formal training or heavy setup, Breezy feels intuitive and easy to settle into.

3- Lever

Hiring works better when it’s not purely reactive. Lever helps teams keep warm connections with potential candidates, so when a role opens, there’s already interest and context in place.

For Portuguese startups recruiting for specialized roles or planning ahead, this makes it easier to maintain long-term relationships with talent instead of letting strong candidates fade into a database.

Lever works well when hiring isn’t rushed. Having feedback and past conversations visible to the whole team makes it easier to stay aligned and move forward together, especially in longer hiring cycles or when nurturing passive candidates over time.

4- JazzHR

JazzHR is a simple ATS that sticks to the basics. Instead of overwhelming teams with extra features, it keeps hiring clear and manageable. On a day-to-day level, everything happens in one place: tweaking workflows, booking interviews, and staying in touch with candidates without changing between tools.

Reporting and compliance features come included, and this gives teams visibility into their process without adding more tools. For startups that need to stay cost-conscious while bringing more structure to their hiring process, JazzHR strikes a practical balance.

5- SmartRecruiters

SmartRecruiters tends to come into play once hiring becomes a steady part of the business rather than something you do from time to time. When multiple roles are open and different teams are involved, it helps bring everything into one view so nothing gets lost.

You can see where candidates are in the process, where things tend to get stuck and which sources are bringing in good applicants. That makes it easier to talk about timelines and priorities based on what’s in front of you.

SmartRecruiters is also a good fit for companies that are thinking beyond their current size. It connects well with other HR systems and is designed to grow alongside more structured people operations. For startups that expect hiring to become more complex over time, it provides a level of visibility and stability that simpler tools often can’t.

6- Pinpoint

Pinpoint works best in teams where hiring is shared across different roles, not just HR. Hiring managers can step in when needed, review candidates, and share feedback without having to navigate a complicated system. This matters in practice, because recruitment is usually one responsibility among many, not someone’s full-time focus.

Day to day, the process stays easy to follow. Teams can see who has met with which candidates, what feedback has already been shared, and what still needs attention. That visibility reduces common issues like repeated interviews or follow-ups being missed.

For growing companies, Pinpoint offers a balance. It provides enough structure to keep hiring organized, without the complexity that often comes with enterprise-level systems.

Conclusion

For most Portuguese startups, hiring doesn’t happen in the background. Every new person changes how the team works and how decisions get made. Choosing an ATS is really about deciding how you want that process to run, day to day.

Some teams lean toward tools like Hirex because they’re simple and quick to adopt. Others prefer the visual structure of Breezy HR, the workflow of Lever, or the consistency of JazzHR. As hiring grows, platforms such as SmartRecruiters or Pinpoint often become a better fit.

Rather than comparing long feature lists, it’s usually more useful to ask how the tool will work in practice. Will the team actually use it? Will it reduce friction? Will candidates clearly understand where they stand?

In competitive hiring markets, the best tools tend to be the ones that quietly support the process and leave room for good conversations. ⭐️