Ascentis HR uses web-based management programs to help automate complex HR processes. Ascentis’ other services included customizable payroll, time and attendance and recruiting modules. Ascentis was acquired by UKG in March of 2022, and will be discontinued.
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Hire by Google (discontinued)
Score 8.5 out of 10
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Hire, by Google, was a recruiting app for G suite customers. The product includes functionality for applicant tracking, candidate relationship management, and candidate sourcing. Google sunsetted the product in late 2020.
In working with Ascentis in payroll, the program makes my job so much easier. I am new to this position and the learning process has been so much easier with this product than those in the past. I appreciate the patience I am given when I call in for assistance as well.
Google Hire is very good at doing the basics well. I believe for most internal HR departments at small companies, this is all you need. It also works well for small to medium-sized staffing companies that just want something reliable and easy to use. What Google Hire doesn't do very well is be flexible. They don't have custom options, they don't have a ton of settings, and their development cycle is slow. As a result, it's pretty much what you see is what you get.
Easy to use software. I have had several new HR employees comment on how easy the system is to learn!
Problem Solving- Ascentis is always problem solving! When we were in the process of selecting a new payroll company, we needed unemployment claims management assistance for our locations, something Ascentis did not currently offer. The sales rep went out of his way to find a unemployment claims management company that would work with Ascentis and us. That company has helped us keep an 80% win rate for our claims!
User conference- Engage is an awesome way to learn more about the products Ascentis has available as well and meet up with the staff you work with every day!
Google does search well so when I search through our database for candidates, I'm confident that I'm pulling up all the right people from what we have.
They have a modern and nice user interface - this is one of the biggest reasons to use it over other systems, as most ATS' are pretty ancient looking and not very pleasant to use.
Their support is very good at answering and addressing questions.
Their pricing is incredible. I'm sure at some point it will change, but for small companies paying 100+ per user for other ATS' - it's incredible to pay 100/month for the whole company.
Updating the system so it is one platform and not two.
Create changes to the benefit enrollment process and upgrade the system so hire dates do not need to be changed to trigger benefits for status changes.
Focus updates on HR Admin, mobile application, ATS and transitioning to one platform. Larger areas of focus have been on the payroll portion of the system with a few updates to other areas.
When something is broken, quicker turn time on fixing the issue.
Despite many many months of requests, Google still hasn't implemented ANY custom fields. This makes it tough for an external recruiting firm to track what they want (most importantly: desired salary).
The job board integration is not great for external recruiters, mostly at the fault of Indeed. Indeed flagged us as a recruiting firm and so none of our jobs actually go live. While I know this is an Indeed problem (we had the same problem when using Bullhorn), Breezy ATS never has that problem for us so I don't know what they're doing differently.
Their development cycles are quite frankly very slow. I've requested some features, and while support is great about telling me it's coming or in the pipeline, I honestly don't really see a difference in the product since we started using it. It's still great to use, and we still love the software, but there haven't been too many visible improvements that make any difference to our work.
Being Google, it can sometimes be frustrating that one arm doesn't talk to the other. For example, they announced a Gmail for Works App/Extension integration, but for some reason when they launched it, admins of a domain couldn't install it. Google Hire pointed to the Google for Works team, and it took literally months to fix. Not the end of the world, but just very silly considering they're the same company.
This rating would be a 10 if it were not for some issues we have been having recently with the benefit carrier connections. The carrier connections are critical for us so how these issues are resolved will be key in our renewal decision.
I'd give it a 7.5. If the modules were easier to access and not so buried (or placed in left field to find), I would give it a higher rating. As I said, as the potential to be great if ACCESS to other modules was easier.
They normally give you notice when an update will affect the use of the system. Otherwise, when we have an error , we send a message to the support team. Sometimes someone will get right back with you and sometimes it takes a while.
Support is attentive and quick to answer the call and get the answer for you. If they for any reason cannot answer right then, they are back to you within a day and always seem to have a sense of urgency. You truly get the impression that they are aiming to make you happy.
First, to clarify our "in-person" training was done mainly through Web-X meetings and conference calls. It was the closest thing we got to as far as an "in-person" training for this software. However, for the large majority of it, this type of training worked out well. We were able to share our screens and the trainer was able to share his/her screen. We could follow along with what we were doing in our database in real time and see how different functions worked and how manipulating our information could produce different results. It was also nice in that it provided for real-time results if something hadn't been coded correctly or we were having issues as to why something wasn't working the way we thought it should be. However, it did have some downsides in that we often had to rely on a conference phone and that made it difficult to hear people on both sides. Also, sometimes the trainers had internet difficulties when working from home and that caused issues with the WebX meetings.
Ascentis HR has a number of online training videos to watch on a number of different topics. I gave it a lower rating because there is not much interactivity with the videos and it seems to cater to really only one or two learning styles. Plus, one has to be pretty motivated to go to a separate area to access the videos and then pull up a specific one to watch it and then learn. From my experience, people know that they are there, many just don't take the time and effort to go find them and actually watch them - especially since the username and password are different from their normal username and password.
It was very easy to implement, but the customization pieces should really be fleshed out in order to determine the full need of an organization at the time of implementation. I believe if a little more time was spent on the requirements, the recruiting module would not have to be customized again at a cost at a later date.
Ascentis has far better customer service and the implementation experience was also better. The ability to do a lot of customization is also easier with Ascentis as it's smaller organization. The payroll has positive and negatives compared to ADP but the accuracy is the same in both. Ascentis just started their community site which doesn't have a lot of traffic but hopefully can become more like ADP's community site, which was extremely helpful to me as an administrator.
I picked Google Hire after spending about 3 months on Bullhorn. I found Bullhorn to be terrible. It's WAY more customizable and theoretically powerful, but it's also a pain to set up and maintain. Even just getting your job page set up on your own site required tech support. Getting it eventually to what you want could be a great benefit, but Google Hire does great right out of the box and is a lot cheaper. Breezy HR is a great system. It's a bit more expensive than Google Hire for multiple job postings, but their system is equally easy to use and straight forward. However, we are all in on Google Products, so it was just a no brainer to go with Hire for a better price and most likely a better search function.
HR DPT. is much more effective, as we can assess any employee information no matter where we are, etc. This helps to provide information immediately when requested!
Employees have access to Ascentis, and therefore to their timecard, open enrollment, etc., from anywhere at any time!
Time, PTO requests, employee goals, and evaluations can be approved from anywhere at any time!
Recruiting can be accessed any where at any time, and this helps with hiring, internal communication, etc.
Google Hire makes, unfortunately, a very little impact on our ROI, but I think in the ATS world that's a good thing. It simply acts as a record that we can put everything in and easily reference, and the fact that it works overall makes it a positive software product in the long run.
While the search works great, I don't know that I've ever specifically found a candidate and placed them due to it. That could be a result of our job reqs though.
The biggest most obvious impact is really just the price. We needed a tool that does what Google Hire does, reliably. Most other companies charge at least 150 or so for 2 people, whereas Google Hire is 100/month for many users. It gives us flexibility for the future and helps minimize what could be a big expense. That definitely helps our bottom line.
