AkkenCloud
is a cloud-based ATS developed by Akken Inc in New Hampshire. This product
offers the full suite of features typical of applicant tracking systems:
A
user-friendly interface and mobile device integration Batch
or mass communication with potential candidates via multiple channels such as
email or by leveraging its integration with social networking sites (e.g.
LinkedIn) Instantaneous
posting to multiple job boards Job
alerts and category sorted…
N/A
Betterworks
Score 7.2 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Betterworks offers intelligent performance management software solutions. Its enterprise-ready SaaS platform helps workforces and organizations achieve their potential with tools that foster greater manager effectiveness and employee performance, with the goal of increasing engagement and retention. The Betterworks solution combines generative AI and data analytics to enable organizations to make smart, data-informed decisions linked to performance, calibration, skill…
I don't know many other scenarios, as I have been with this company for 13 years and in this industry for roughly 25 years. It is a tool that is well suited for our company and this industry in general. As a staffing company, you can accomplish nearly everything imaginable with this tool. The only area I have seen that might not be ideal is if you wanted to run all kinds of metrics. You can run a variety of reports in Akken, the data fields are limited sometimes and one would think that wouldn't need to be the case. You should be able to put whatever data you want in any field to create the report you need.
BetterWorks really helps keep track of quarterly objectives, as long as the entire company follows the OKRs framework. The objectives and key results of each employee can be linked to the general objectives of the organization and that really helps align on the same mission. I wouldn't recommend using BetterWorks as a standalone platform to follow up on objectives if the rest of the organization is not on board with the OKRs framework.
This is the worst ATS I've ever used. It's hard to find what you need. It's not set up in a coherent manner and things are all over the place.
I have to download a resume just to view it.
The parse function only works in Internet Explorer and it works poorly then. Makes it impossible to tell if its actually a duplicate because it flags everything.
No section for meaningful notes. Notes are all just reports of action.
No way to make it efficient for direct hires. All geared towards staffing so it makes you fill out non-sense information that will be inaccurate and irrelevant just to satisfy field requirements.
There is no reason for us to make a switch. Everybody in the office is familiar with it and it allows us to get our work done faster. There are no pressing issues that would warrant a change at this point
We've been using it for going on four quarters now and it's become part of how our team plans our work for the quarter, holds ourselves accountable, and decides who is doing what work and why. Without it we'd certainly have to replace it with something else - plus it's so nice to see the other departments and top company goals so easily.
Overall the platform is clean and easy to use. It's quick to learn and not unnecessarily complex. While a few specific filtering features can be wonky it's nice that it's simple and clean. There are a lot of icons where words may be more appropriate in the navigation but otherwise the platform is easy to use and quick to hop into and check in.
It's an average tool. The calendar function isn't great, email is slow, and there always seem to be day-to-day issues. The functionality is mostly there for a staffing firm, but there are plenty of areas of improvement still needed
The best support we have received has been from sales. Customer success is pretty much a joke. We have been yelled at by customer success reps; been told to take a screenshot of something we are not seeing; been told there are no issues on there in when Akken hadn't been working for hours, only to have it magically fixed shortly after we reported the problem; and been told engineering was working on a problem for weeks without resolution. If you are going to be working with IT Staffing companies, you have to understand that we have a modicum of knowledge in IT, and you can't BS us. Honesty will get you a lot farther than stringing us along with BS.
We preferred the ability to go with Mac computers. That was the number one selling point for us. Besides that we liked the ease of the product. The email interface looked exactly like Outlook. The calendar the same. The price was also a big selling point. It came in slightly cheaper than Bullhorn and other systems and in our opinion a better product.
I have used Asana, Jira, and VersionOne. I find BetterWorks the most intuitive and organized. It is fairly easy to use and learn, as long as everyone else does the same. Since the team implemented the quarterly reviews and stayed on top of using it, it has been successful so far.
Sometimes the system is slow and the process of hiring someone is lengthy so it takes a long time to complete it so it takes away from other things I could be working on
It’s easy and quick to manage candidates to show what process they’re in
