Choosing between HeyTalent and Greenhouse comes down to where in the funnel the vacancy gets stuck. If it gets stuck before the first conversation, because scarce profiles never apply and nobody has their email, HeyTalent is the better choice over Greenhouse: it pulls LinkedIn profiles at the moment of the search, finds email and phone numbers and automates outreach, with a free ATS to record the process. Greenhouse is the right tool when applications already arrive and the hard part is interviewing and evaluating against the same criteria. Many agencies end up using both, each one at its own stage.
What HeyTalent is and what Greenhouse is
Greenhouse is an ATS (applicant tracking system) built for structured hiring: shared stages, interview kits and scorecards so that every interviewer assesses candidates against the same criteria. An ATS is defined as the software that records each application from the moment it enters the process until the offer or the rejection, as this explanation of what an ATS is sets out.
HeyTalent is an AI sourcing platform designed for headhunters and agencies: it finds passive candidates on LinkedIn, ranks them against each vacancy's requirements, fills in their email and phone number and contacts them through automated sequences. Its work happens before an application exists.
Greenhouse manages whoever is already in the pipeline; HeyTalent builds that pipeline. They are not direct substitutes.
HeyTalent vs Greenhouse in 2026: comparison table
HeyTalent covers search, contact data, outreach and a basic ATS at no cost; Greenhouse covers the formal management of interviews and evaluations.
| Criterion | HeyTalent | Greenhouse |
|---|---|---|
| Passive candidate sourcing | Boolean search and real-time LinkedIn profile extraction | Not its core function |
| Profile filtering | Configurable AI variables per vacancy | Scorecard-based evaluation inside the process |
| Contact data | Email and phone finder | Not its core function |
| First contact | Automated LinkedIn invitations, follow-ups and InMails | Not its core function |
| Pipeline management | Free ATS: one pipeline per job with configurable stages | ATS with stages, interviews and structured evaluations |
| Collaboration | Shared inbox filterable by vacancy and by recruiter; candidate comments with @mentions and team notifications | Coordination of interviewers and hiring managers |
| Connection to another ATS | Unlimited CSV export | Broad catalogue of integrations |
| Pricing | Prices shown on the website, billed per organisation | Custom quote after talking to sales |
| Typical fit | Headhunters and agencies facing scarce profiles | Organisations with formal processes and many interviewers |
What HeyTalent does before the candidate reaches the ATS
HeyTalent covers the stretch Greenhouse leaves out: going from a brief to a list of qualified profiles that are reachable and already contacted. The recruiter describes the vacancy the way they would to a colleague, and HeyTalent turns it into a search with advanced LinkedIn filters, including outside the recruiter's own network.
Profiles are extracted at the moment of the query, so the experience the recruiter sees is the one that is current on the day of the search. AI variables then rank the list by criteria that do not show up in a job title, such as an English level or a specific industry, and HeyTalent looks up the email and phone number of the finalists.
The HeyTalent sequence sends LinkedIn invitations, follow-ups and InMails at the scheduled time, and replies land in a shared inbox. From that conversation, the recruiter sends the candidate to HeyTalent's ATS in one click. If the agency works in Greenhouse, the handover is done through the CSV export, which is unlimited on every plan.
HeyTalent reports that in their first month with the tool, users gain on average 60% in speed, and attributes it to working with shorter, better-filtered lists. The figure is self-reported and limited to that first month: it is not the same as cutting time-to-hire, so it is worth measuring in your own pilot.
HeyTalent does not replace Greenhouse across the board. It offers no interview kits or structured-hiring scorecards, and connection invitations with a note may require LinkedIn Premium Business.
Which funnel stage is holding your vacancy back
The first question when comparing HeyTalent and Greenhouse is not which tool has more features, but whether candidates are missing at the source or whether managing those already in the process is the hard part. In Spain, 75% of companies reported difficulty finding the profiles they needed in 2025, according to ManpowerGroup on the talent shortage in Spain.
If the right profiles do not apply for the role, the bottleneck is sourcing, which is HeyTalent's territory. If applications arrive and the team loses time coordinating interviews, collecting evaluations and recording decisions, the bottleneck is the process, which is Greenhouse's territory.
Automation is still a minority practice in Spanish recruitment. Only 16% of Spanish companies used AI tools in hiring or planned to within the following 12 months, and just 5% already used them, according to the report on AI adoption in hiring cited by InfoJobs.
To diagnose it, follow one hard vacancy from brief to interview and measure whether the time goes before contact or after it.
How a hard search runs in HeyTalent and in Greenhouse
Take a data engineer with advanced English in a specific city. In HeyTalent, the recruiter starts from a brief, reviews the list, adjusts the messages and launches the campaign; in Greenhouse, the team starts from the candidates it already has.
In Greenhouse, candidates are moved through stages, interviews are coordinated and evaluations are recorded. If the profile is scarce, the initial search has to be done with a sourcing tool or by hand, because Greenhouse manages the pipeline but does not generate passive candidates on its own.
On both routes, human review remains mandatory. Randstad's information on AI in talent management reports a 75% failure rate for fully autonomous systems with no human intervention. The recruiter checks that the criteria reflect the role, reviews each profile and approves the messages before launching the campaign.
GDPR in Spain: what to document in sourcing and what in the ATS
Spain's data protection authority, the AEPD, accepts algorithmic screening of applications, but requires transparency about the parameters, effective human intervention and safeguards against discriminatory outcomes, according to the AEPD note on artificial intelligence and data protection. If the processing carries a high risk, a Data Protection Impact Assessment must be carried out before deployment.
In sourcing, the agency identifies the legal basis for each source, defines why it enriches the data and limits how long it keeps it. It also records which variables prioritised a profile and leaves room for human review before rejecting or contacting anyone. Viewing a public profile is not, on its own, enough to justify any use of that information.
In the ATS, the focus shifts to how applications are filtered and assessed during the formal process. The team must be able to reconstruct the criteria applied and handle access, objection and rectification requests; the AEPD guide on data protection in employment relationships is a useful reference, and for other employment obligations linked to hiring there is the employment law guide from Dessaves Abogados.
HeyTalent processes public data under legitimate interest, transparently and without reselling it, but that does not transfer to HeyTalent the obligations of the agency deciding how to use the information. The guide to sourcing and GDPR goes deeper into the practical criteria.
How much HeyTalent and Greenhouse cost: the cost per qualified candidate
HeyTalent's cheapest plan costs €93/month billed annually (October 2026 pricing), and the licence is paid per organisation, not per recruiter. What gets billed is sourcing (profiles, contact data and outreach): HeyTalent's ATS costs nothing. Greenhouse does not publish prices on its website and quotes each plan through its sales team.
The useful metric is the cost per qualified candidate: the spend tied to a search, manual hours included, divided by the profiles that pass the filter and reply usefully to the first contact.