Bullhorn Recruitment CRM is a SaaS based solution that offers a suite of features typical of applicant tracking systems: a mobile app, batch or mass communication with potential candidates via multiple channels, instantaneous posting to multiple job boards, resume parsing, and data and document uploading.
$99
per month per user
SmartSearch ATS
Score 6.6 out of 10
N/A
SmartSearch is a web-based talent acquisition and staffing management software. Features include job posting to job boards and social media outlets, resume parsing, and automated workflow. SmartSearch advertises robust customer service and implementation assistance.
Bullhorn is much more user friendly than bond, Winsearch and somewhat more user friendly than SmartSearch. The biggest competition for us was between Bullhorn and SmartSearch, it basically came down to the fact that bullhorn was a large company with a lot of partners and …
I've only used two recruitment CRMs prior to Bullhorn. The first was a homebrewed CRM platform and the second was SmartSearch. Bullhorn is vastly superior to both in terms of functionality, ease of use, and stability.
iCIMS is way more robust of a tool than Bullhorn. The reporting is better and it is much more customizable. The upside to Bullhorn is it requires less work up front and can be easier to use than iCIMS. If you are looking for a simple ATS/CRM I would go with Bullhorn. If you're …
Ultimately I did NOT select Bullhorn. When I was at a previous company, we were using Bullhorn. I evaluated a few, gave a full trial to SendOuts and MaxHire, and ultimately selected MaxHire to replace Bullhorn.
Then, at my current company, we were using PCRecruiter. It was not …
SmartSearch is far, far, far better than our experience with any other system. It may not be as "pretty" but the technology and service blow away the competition.
Verified User
Professional
Chose SmartSearch ATS
SmartSearch is by far the easiest and most effective ATS that I have used. It is extremely user friendly and integrates well with other products to eliminate duplicate efforts.
i think they are very different systems and i would say i like smartsearch better. i did not select the system, the company was already utilizing it when i started. The other company I used ss at already had it in place as well but I believed used more aspects of it then my …
Bullhorn served as a very reliable and thorough tracking system for contacts, discovering prospects, and maintaining track of all relevant data. There are many customization options, strong search results, and sensible workflows. Excellent reporting tool. When we needed to find new resumes but all we could find were talents who had previously been discovered, it was less appropriate. Job Boards outperformed Bull Horn in terms of speed and quality.
I think our environment has stretched SmS and their capabilities (positively) but we have grown together and developed an enormously capable system together that is now very well integrated into our business. For doing applicant tracking, requisition management and offer management that has really been strong. I think we can partner together and build some better analytics and reporting capabilities that would be better suited for our business.
It provides the contact details of a candidate relevant to the job. All details are with a user-friendly interface that anyone can use the application.
The specific details given by Bullhorn ATS & CRM are unbelievable. One place and you can make a decision about hiring or not hiring.
The messaging automation feature again helps to save our time.
The search functions are outstanding. It is the reason we originally went with SmartSearch many years ago. The ability to do very simple or complex searches gives the recruiting staff great flexibility in how they look for and narrow down candidates.
The hire and onboarding traks allow us to create very specific processes we want our staff to follow to insure a consistent and repeatable result. I can create traks that can be very general or traks that literally provide emails and reminders to all of the players (recruiters, managers, candidates, etc...) every step of the way. This is particularly helpful where we have customers who have extremely stringent contractual guidelines that must be followed.
Support. Their customer support is second to none. We always joke that they are our favorite vendor to deal with.... Anytime we have an issue or question. They are there to walk us through it. The training is on target and the staff has always been friendly and more than eager to help make us successful with the tool.
Reporting: out of the box reporting is not very detailed or easy to navigate. In order to get better detailed and specific reports, you either need their Canvas product or pay for a 3rd party vendor.
Customization: will get better with NOVO Experience update, but many users still don't have it. Right now many fields and order are not customizable
Many features Bullhorn can do are not apparent to the user, often times you have to call in the figure things out.
SmartSearch has a steep learning curve if you want to extensively use the features like automated tasks and the report writer
Technical support is spotty and sometimes very frustrating, they don't respond for weeks at a time.
SmartSearch user interface is old and has far less ability to customize the interface than other tracking systems
SmartSearch has virtually no ability to connect directly with other software and allows now other software to connect in - so no Microsoft Flow, no Zapier, no mail parser, etc. and since Smart Search capabilities are limited, not being able to integrate it with other platforms easily is unfortunate.
We have about 2 years left on our current contract; It would take a major change in the ATS marketplace for us to strongly consider opting out of renewal given the time and effort we have dedicated to building our our Bullhorn system. I will take the time to revisit with some of the competition down the road, but Bullhorn acquired our runner up, MaxHire, about a year back and continues to offer a solid product suite for our current and future needs.
I believe over the past 30 or so pages (or so it seems), you have every reason for my business to continue as a SmartSearch ATS client and user. The support is off the charts great the few times I need them (generally not even once per year). My business has been a client since 2004. That should say it all.
It isn't the best ATS out there. It lacks on both the recruitment and sales side. There is no way to differentiate between prospects, candidates, and clients. There isn't a way to merge accounts and names, so there are many duplicates. Too may paid add ons. I had a much longer review written up and the page just deleted it, but I wouldn't recommend Bullhorn first or even third. It feels like it hasn't been fully realized yet. There are certainly some good things about the product, but more areas where they can improve.
There are so many facets of SmartSearch, that to know everything about it is nearly impossible. While it is mainly straight forward, there is a lot. After using the program for a while, you become pretty comfortable with the basics and can start adding some of the other features.
My license for SmartSearch goes back to 2004. It has always been available for me - don't remember a single time it was not available in all of those years.
It's been a nightmare experience. The initial sales team were brilliant, and the customer service is great from the tech team - they get in touch with you quickly. However; I was often finding workarounds myself, or being advised workarounds instead of having issues resolved (example - The DPA/Non DPA issue - an Excel spreadsheet can do this, yet a CRM cannot?). I was debited on the incorrect date & then when I requested they refund until the due date, I was re-debited again on the correct date. The communication was poor - their billing team are based in the US and there was no acknowledgement of the mistake. My initial consultant chased them down for me, and advised me of their error. Lucky. The product was oversold. For example; I was advised their 'merge docs' feature would allow me to pull data directly from the 'Overview,' 'Work Histories' which later proved to be false. Finally, when I requested to end my contract & transfer my data (I advised a specific date I needed it, when my CRM would be ready) they advised it would take 15 business days & I was to put no further data in my system during that 15 days, and then gave me my data after 3. I now have no CRM for 4 weeks
Once you get the 1 person on the phone they are very knowledgeable and tend to solve the problem. The issue is there are not enough resources to handle all the clients. Their primary clients are "recruiting firms" and I think that is where most of the their support resources go
Using the basic functions of SmartSearch is an easy implementation. But consider carefully what your organization needs to really drive placements. Because we only did a basic implementation first, we were caught off guard when later trying to implement more functions and realizing that the capabilities were limited or were difficult to learn and implement and realizing that tech support was not going to be consistent.
Breathe is a great tool for smaller internal recruitment teams and I have previously used an in-house built system similar however Bullhorn is something you can use across larger businesses and growing SME's it works well for international businesses as everything is updated in real-time. The support function is excellent and the training tools for new starters are super helpful for our L&D team. Your account manager is also great for assisting in personalising sections to make them more business specific.
Functionally, SmartSearch is not on the same page as ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter as a platform is much more geared toward helping applicants and is essentially a glorified resume database. SmartSearch offers so much more in terms of features and abilities, that would not really be appropriate to try and compare the two. Similarly, the overall use of SmartSearch is an apples and oranges comparison to LinkedIn Talent. LinkedIn is great for sourcing and attracting talent, but in terms of tracking candidates all the way through a hiring process and tracking a heavy volume of job orders across a variety of states and locations, the two just don't really compare.
Bullhorn has helped with the standardization of data which allows us to track our high, low and in between individuals. It allows for corporate bench marks to be tracked. It also allows for a closer look at all of the data points to make decisions versus making decisions based on perceptions. The data has definitely helped us make better business decisions because of the reporting capabilities.
Bullhorn has some great marketplace partners and additional products like VMS Access that help with your VMS clients. This is a real time saver.
That's easy - they have helped us grown and make more money. The core element of their technology (e.g. the ability to search for, identify and contact candidates is excellent).
They are a business partner and do their very best to help us succeed.
