What users are saying about

CATS ATS vs SmartRecruiters

CATS ATS
49 Ratings
SmartRecruiters
Top Rated
206 Ratings

CATS ATS

49 Ratings
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Score 6.8 out of 100

Based on 49 reviews and ratings

SmartRecruiters

Top Rated
206 Ratings
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Score 8.4 out of 100

Based on 206 reviews and ratings

Feature Set Ratings

  • CATS Applicant Tracking System ranks higher in 1 feature set: Recruiting / ATS

Recruiting / ATS

8.1

CATS ATS

81%
7.8

SmartRecruiters

78%
CATS Applicant Tracking System ranks higher in 10/15 features
CATS Applicant Tracking System ranks higher in 10/15 features

Job Requisition Management

9.5
95%
17 Ratings
8.6
86%
98 Ratings

Company Website Posting

9.5
95%
17 Ratings
8.4
84%
102 Ratings

Publish to Social Media

8.5
85%
17 Ratings
7.6
76%
102 Ratings

Job Search Site Posting

10.0
100%
17 Ratings
7.6
76%
106 Ratings

Customized Application Form

9.5
95%
18 Ratings
8.2
82%
94 Ratings

Resume Management

8.0
80%
19 Ratings
8.0
80%
107 Ratings

Duplicate Candidate Prevention

4.5
45%
18 Ratings
5.7
57%
101 Ratings

Candidate Search

6.0
60%
19 Ratings
7.3
73%
110 Ratings

Applicant Tracking

7.5
75%
19 Ratings
8.7
87%
113 Ratings

Collaboration

8.5
85%
12 Ratings
9.1
91%
104 Ratings

Task Creation and Delegation

8.5
85%
15 Ratings
7.7
77%
89 Ratings

Email Templates

9.5
95%
19 Ratings
8.0
80%
101 Ratings

User Permissions

8.5
85%
17 Ratings
8.0
80%
96 Ratings

Notifications and Alerts

9.5
95%
17 Ratings
7.9
79%
108 Ratings

Reporting

4.5
45%
18 Ratings
6.5
65%
94 Ratings

Attribute Ratings

  • CATS Applicant Tracking System is rated higher in 1 area: Availability
  • SmartRecruiters is rated higher in 5 areas: Likelihood to Recommend, Likelihood to Renew, Usability, Performance, Support Rating
  • CATS Applicant Tracking System and SmartRecruiters are tied in 1 area: Implementation Rating

Likelihood to Recommend

8.0

CATS ATS

80%
28 Ratings
8.6

SmartRecruiters

86%
116 Ratings

Likelihood to Renew

8.4

CATS ATS

84%
10 Ratings
10.0

SmartRecruiters

100%
14 Ratings

Usability

2.7

CATS ATS

27%
1 Rating
9.0

SmartRecruiters

90%
13 Ratings

Availability

9.1

CATS ATS

91%
4 Ratings
9.0

SmartRecruiters

90%
2 Ratings

Performance

5.9

CATS ATS

59%
4 Ratings
10.0

SmartRecruiters

100%
2 Ratings

Support Rating

4.5

CATS ATS

45%
2 Ratings
8.7

SmartRecruiters

87%
13 Ratings

Implementation Rating

9.1

CATS ATS

91%
2 Ratings
9.1

SmartRecruiters

91%
3 Ratings

Product Scalability

CATS ATS

N/A
0 Ratings
9.0

SmartRecruiters

90%
1 Rating

Likelihood to Recommend

CATS ATS

It has a great parsing feature and the extension is very helpful. Many ATS systems do not support parsing within LinkedIn...this one does. I was sad to see this option go when we finally transitioned. I would almost keep CATS just for the LinkedIn parsing if I knew I could easily get the information OUT of the system once it was there. A good API/webhook would be great, but sadly the API connections don't work well. Our firm also works with companies with multiple sites all across the US. There was never a way to "nest" a location with a parent company. Because of this, being able to research or report on a true client relationship was not possible. It was a very manual process.

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Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
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SmartRecruiters

I highly recommend SmartRecruiters for all organizations to make job searches and applications smoother and easier. This application is currently well suited for this. I find it easy to search and review the job posting, job description, and criteria. It even shows the direct hiring manager and hiring recruiter. This allows me to send a separate email to either one if I had questions that were not answered directly on the posting.

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Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
View all 116 answers on this topic

Pros

CATS ATS

  • Simple to implement, SaaS based tool that needs no in-house IT support or resources
  • Customizable reports, labels, fields, applications
  • Affordable
  • No long term contract, month-to-month with ability to cancel anytime
  • Data backups are simple
  • Email directly from the candidate record with response coming into Outlook is easy to configure and creates record and updates status automatically

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Randall Kooistra | TrustRadius Reviewer
Randall Kooistra
View all 28 answers on this topic

SmartRecruiters

  • Organization - SmartRecruiters is not so busy that I cannot easily tell what I am looking at. Everything is easy to navigate and follow intuitively.
  • Workflow - SmartRecruiters allows me to set up logical connections to automate subsequent fields in job creation. This aids in accuracy of job creation to match our payroll system, plus makes the process of creating a new requisition/ad faster.
  • Approvals - Approvals of job requisitions and offers could not be simpler.
  • Customization - There is very little that cannot be customized and/or branded to fit my organization's needs, including connecting to my other business platforms.

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Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
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Cons

CATS ATS

  • I would like to see either an integration with a robust reporting tool that would allow me to design my own custom reports with a data export or more built-in reporting options.
  • Mobile app is currently mostly just a look-up tool. I would like it to have the ability to do more - add tasks, update pipelines, etc.

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Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
View all 28 answers on this topic

SmartRecruiters

  • Not having feature of referral data, who has referred
  • Another problem is that in [the] emails section it shows 'company name' field will show as Smartrecruiters vs. the name of our agency that will make confuse to [candidates]
  • Major problem of this is that it does not support api in the free version

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Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
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Pricing Details

CATS ATS

General

Free Trial
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
—
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—
Entry-level set up fee?
No

Starting Price

$69 per month

CATS ATS Editions & Modules

Edition
Monthly Pro Plan$991
Annual Pro Plan$691
  1. per user, per month
Additional Pricing Details
Please visit the CATS pricing page to compare plans and features

SmartRecruiters

General

Free Trial
—
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
Entry-level set up fee?
Required
$1,000

Starting Price

$0 per month

SmartRecruiters Editions & Modules

Edition
CorporateVaries, per FTE1
GlobalVaries, per FTE1
SmartStartFree2
  1. Billed annually
  2. up to 10 active job postings
Additional Pricing Details
The software subscription is determined by the number of full time employees in your company. A one time cost to set up software, including customizations, integrations, data migration and training.

Likelihood to Renew

CATS ATS

CATS ATS 8.4
Based on 10 answers
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.

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Caitlin Hostetter | TrustRadius Reviewer
Caitlin Hostetter
View all 10 answers on this topic

SmartRecruiters

SmartRecruiters 10.0
Based on 14 answers
Our team is currently on a free tier as we only hire a handful of people per year. With that said, I would not switch if the low usage tier was paid. We have several years of data and candidates in the system and they have continued to make the product better. I discovered SR years ago from their community management and customer services efforts, which were outstanding. They care about their users, and they're passionate about making them successful. They've definitely evolved to become more enterprise focused, but the free SmartStart versions still blows away competitors. Plus, they've got some kickass t-shirts

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Josh Krakauer | TrustRadius Reviewer
Josh Krakauer
View all 14 answers on this topic

Usability

CATS ATS

CATS ATS 2.7
Based on 1 answer
not recruiter friendly. workflow is not good

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Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
View all 1 answers on this topic

SmartRecruiters

SmartRecruiters 9.0
Based on 13 answers
SmartRecruiters is an intuitive tool that our HR recruiters can use without a lot of prior training. It is easy to post jobs to targeted audiences; create advertisements to attract attention; and then keep track of candidates for follow-ups, etc. Overall I would saw SmartRecruiters is very easy to use.

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Mark McCully | TrustRadius Reviewer
Mark McCully
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Reliability and Availability

CATS ATS

CATS ATS 9.1
Based on 4 answers
No answer on this topic is available.

SmartRecruiters

SmartRecruiters 9.0
Based on 2 answers
Rarely is there an issue and if the product is down, it typically is restored quickly.

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Joel Zak | TrustRadius Reviewer
Joel Zak
View all 2 answers on this topic

Performance

CATS ATS

CATS ATS 5.9
Based on 4 answers
No answer on this topic is available.

SmartRecruiters

SmartRecruiters 10.0
Based on 2 answers
I have no complaints about performance. The system works virtually flawless.

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Joel Zak | TrustRadius Reviewer
Joel Zak
View all 2 answers on this topic

Support Rating

CATS ATS

CATS ATS 4.5
Based on 2 answers
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.

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Bill Branstetter | TrustRadius Reviewer
Bill Branstetter
View all 2 answers on this topic

SmartRecruiters

SmartRecruiters 8.7
Based on 13 answers
I would give this rating as it is the best platform for HR to solve their recruitment problems along with their team. As it has got multiple features to exposure. It has made my communication with hiring managers much easier, I don't need to write emails, neither they do. They like it very much. The rating card of the candidates after the Interview is the very best feature of it. Would love to use it again in Future

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Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
View all 13 answers on this topic

In-Person Training

CATS ATS

No answers on this topic

SmartRecruiters

Quick and easy to learn.

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Aaron Fitzgerald | TrustRadius Reviewer
Aaron Fitzgerald
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Implementation Rating

CATS ATS

CATS ATS 9.1
Based on 2 answers
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

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Randall Kooistra | TrustRadius Reviewer
Randall Kooistra
View all 2 answers on this topic

SmartRecruiters

SmartRecruiters 9.1
Based on 3 answers
It really was a painless and easy process to switch to SmartRecruiters.

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Joel Zak | TrustRadius Reviewer
Joel Zak
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Alternatives Considered

CATS ATS

We used to use Sendouts (prior to it being acquired by Bullhorn) - and it wasn't browser based like CATS so instead of being able to access it from a home computer, laptop, mobile phone, etc. you could only use it on the computer with the software uploaded - which is a hindrance. It also wasn't as customizable as CATS. We picked CATS because it the price was right, it was browser-based, had email-integration, and integrates with social media and job posting services to share your jobs
with the public.

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Megan Carty | TrustRadius Reviewer
Megan Carty
View all 28 answers on this topic

SmartRecruiters

I've really enjoyed using SmartRecruiters, but these other ATSs that we've checked out offer better reporting features and price points. Over time, we may be transitioning off of SmartRecruiters to one of these ATSs because the price is a set price where SmartRecruiters has employee-based pricing model. Also, these other software products offer better reporting features that would eliminate some of our manual tracking process that we're currently doing.

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Michelle Sexton | TrustRadius Reviewer
Michelle Sexton
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Scalability

CATS ATS

No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic

SmartRecruiters

SmartRecruiters 9.0
Based on 1 answer
No explanation really, just a great product.

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Joel Zak | TrustRadius Reviewer
Joel Zak
View all 1 answers on this topic

Return on Investment

CATS ATS

  • 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).

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Dave Murry | TrustRadius Reviewer
Dave Murry
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SmartRecruiters

  • In terms of ROI, SR helped our business greatly in returning precious time to my productivity in business management, as well as my team's, so that we could get back to the main work we were hired for. The SR process did most of the heavy lifting.

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Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Verified User
View all 116 answers on this topic

Screenshots

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