CATS Applicant Tracking System vs. Brassring

I don't know how appropriate it'd be for large organizations with very large recruiting teams - cost per license might not make sense after a certain point. For small/medium sized businesses, it's absolutely worth a look. It's very affordable, super-easy to use, highly configurable, and set up is an breeze. Knowledge base is decent, and support is generally OK, though it's not necessarily a strength. The product team is engaged with the user community to crowdsource suggestions for updates/improvements and allows users to vote on others ideas that are appealing. Search functionality is solid and documents are instantly indexed as far as I can tell - I've never noticed any delay. It'll push postings out to various free job boards and you can customize to push out to pay boards as well. It will integrate to certain HRIS packages, so if that's of interest, making sure yours is on the supported list would be important. Data backup is super easy and would likely make changing to another ATS down the road pretty simple if the need arises.

Other products in the same category as Kenexa 2x BrassRing would be Taleo and PeopleFluent. I would also look into Avature as an ATS option. I am currently on the sourcing side of the recruitment process and use Avature for tracking and candidate mining purposes. I would recommend getting any kind of demo possible since the user interfaces vary quite a bit between them. Ease of use and overall stability should be kept in mind when comparing ATS prices.

• Custom fields for all entities of any data type let's you track what you care about. Also customizable workflow with triggers can save a ton of time in automating processes and also ensuring steps aren't missed/established processes and protocols are adhered to.
• Support is extremely responsive, knowledgeable and committed to resolving any issue.
• Integrations with LinkedIn, job boards etc. is a big time saver and helps bring it all to one place.

• Kenexa allows Boolean key word search within a particular requisition so it makes sifting through a high number of applicants manageable and effective
• Kenexa can be tailored to meet individual business needs. During the time we’ve had Kenexa here I’ve used it in support of a few different business segments and for each the way the system was used to “position” candidate statuses have varied based on the individual need of the business. One example is when interviewing a high volume of applicants internationally, we were able to send qualified applicants through to the “event manager” and it would enable the candidate to select his/her interview date/time based on previously submitted options inputted by our Kenexa users.
• Kenexa allows one to customize and score questions for each open requisition that applicants complete as they apply. The system then sorts applicants according to the score of candidate answers allowing for easy sorting of top qualified candidates.

• The safeguard to protect your database from duplicates is absolute trash. It catches duplicates less than half of the time.
• CATS could definitely do a better job at being able to be sorted by multiple features rather than just one column at a time

Incentivized

• Setting up integrations is extremely tedious. For instance, setting up an address feed would have required sending over 5 different spreadsheets on a daily basis (one each for every facility name, street address, zip code, state, country) and a 6th sheet to make the connection between the other 5 elements. We opted not to set up that integration as a result.

Incentivized

Our company has been using it and enjoying the benefits for a few years now. Its a perfect system for our end goal of finding the best candidate effectively and being able to track and write reports on our progress.

I am confident that the Kenexa product will continue to evolve to meet the needs of our business in an ever changing work environment. The affiliation with IBM also plays a factor as we have a long standing successful relationship with IBM products. We will be looking to integrate other Kenexa products in the near future to streamline our HR processes.

not recruiter friendly. workflow is not good

There is nothing that a recruiter needs to do that they can't do with Kenexa 2XB but the proprietary, old fashioned UI is far from intuitive to use. I only rate 2XB this highly because the SaaS is up most of the time, performance is usually reasonable, and it does actually work.

Just slow for what we are doing here

I've had mixed results with asking for support. Sometimes they gave a quick answer and sometimes my emails were never responded to. Some responses were a single word.

It is a very basic system. It may be OK for entry level positions only. The practice of removing CVs while the recruitment process is ON is disturbing and there is no one to explain or to inform why it is being done. Even a routine mail is not sent to the client/consultant. I am surprised how this system is continuing without too many complaints.

This is an incredibly easy system to implement. There is no hardware or software required, it's entirely SaaS based. Compared to other systems I've implemented, it's breathtaking. Customization can all be done directly in the tool, there is no need for any involvement of consultants and most of the information you cannot figure out intuitively is covered in the knowledge base

We purchased an out of the box solution and that worked well for us.

Incentivized

TargetRecruit - CATS is way more user friendly than TargetRecruit. You have to have a degree in Computer Programming to use TargetRecruit. CATS is very streamlined, clean and easy to implement. Zoho Recruit - with the exception of the resume parser, CATS is an infant learning to crawl and Zoho Recruit competes in triathlons. For $70 per month per user, you can build a recruiting universe. Top Echelon - turns out they purchased CATS. We tested them, but it was not as user friendly. JobAdder - loved this product. Customizable like CATS, but the API for JobAdder gives many, many option. However, JobAdder only uses Zapier and all the addons will nickel and dime you to death. A $100 license with JobAdder becomes a $250 per month per user really quick.

Incentivized

The primary reason of still going with Kenexa is because we have been using it for quite some time now. And considering it is used by more than 30 countries, it makes the training and communication about Kenexa easy. Also purchasing this license for a longer period (3, 5 years) makes it very cost effective as well.

Incentivized

• We went from Excel spreadsheets to using CATS so honestly anything would be an improvement. But CATS has saved tremendous time on an on-going basis in terms of managing the career portal automatically.
• Being able to log email conversations with the click of a button from Outlook right into CATS has been a time-saver and also has helped numerous times in providing better follow-through to candidates and providing better tracking of candidate interactions and what they have previously said (or not).

• Kenexa has assisted us in identifying top talent within our target market of applicants.
• Kenexa may exclude potentially good associates that don't test well.
• Kenexa clearly defines specific categories and general notes for training, development, & coaching of associates on areas of opportunity.

Incentivized