Cornerstone OnDemand vs. SmartRecruiters

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cornerstone OnDemand
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Cornerstone OnDemand is a cloud-based application for talent management. Cornerstone offers suites for recruiting, training, performance monitoring and planning, learning, and HR data management. It is scaled for enterprises.N/A
SmartRecruiters
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
SmartRecruiters’ Talent Acquisition Suite is a cloud-based recruitment marketing and collaborative hiring platform. It features an open marketplace for third party recruitment services. SmartRecruiters also offers talent sourcing and screening as add-on features.
$0
per month
Pricing
Cornerstone OnDemandSmartRecruiters
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Corporate
Varies, per FTE
Billed annually
Global
Varies, per FTE
Billed annually
SmartStart
Free
up to 10 active job postings
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cornerstone OnDemandSmartRecruiters
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeRequired$1,000
Additional DetailsThe 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.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cornerstone OnDemandSmartRecruiters
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cornerstone OnDemandSmartRecruiters
Onboarding
Comparison of Onboarding features of Product A and Product B
Cornerstone OnDemand
8.2
132 Ratings
11% above category average
SmartRecruiters
-
Ratings
New hire portal8.369 Ratings00 Ratings
Manager tracking tools8.0114 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance tracking and reporting8.4125 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance and Goals
Comparison of Performance and Goals features of Product A and Product B
Cornerstone OnDemand
8.3
114 Ratings
13% above category average
SmartRecruiters
-
Ratings
Corporate goal setting8.095 Ratings00 Ratings
Subordinate goal setting8.398 Ratings00 Ratings
Individual goal setting8.8106 Ratings00 Ratings
Line-of sight-visibility8.194 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance tracking8.1109 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance Management
Comparison of Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
Cornerstone OnDemand
7.8
119 Ratings
13% above category average
SmartRecruiters
-
Ratings
Performance plans8.193 Ratings00 Ratings
Plan weighting7.480 Ratings00 Ratings
Manager note taking7.969 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance improvement plans7.781 Ratings00 Ratings
Review status tracking8.396 Ratings00 Ratings
Rater nomination workflow7.664 Ratings00 Ratings
Review reminders8.293 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow restrictions7.485 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple review frequency7.082 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting8.1113 Ratings00 Ratings
Succession Planning
Comparison of Succession Planning features of Product A and Product B
Cornerstone OnDemand
9.1
58 Ratings
24% above category average
SmartRecruiters
-
Ratings
Create succession plans/pools8.449 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate ranking9.349 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate search9.352 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate development9.249 Ratings00 Ratings
Recruiting / ATS
Comparison of Recruiting / ATS features of Product A and Product B
Cornerstone OnDemand
8.6
66 Ratings
16% above category average
SmartRecruiters
8.3
127 Ratings
4% above category average
Job Requisition Management8.745 Ratings9.2109 Ratings
Company Website Posting8.841 Ratings9.7114 Ratings
Publish to Social Media8.738 Ratings7.6112 Ratings
Job Search Site Posting8.638 Ratings8.1116 Ratings
Customized Application Form8.740 Ratings8.6104 Ratings
Resume Management8.743 Ratings7.8119 Ratings
Duplicate Candidate Prevention8.840 Ratings7.9114 Ratings
Candidate Search8.641 Ratings8.4122 Ratings
Applicant Tracking8.841 Ratings9.3126 Ratings
Collaboration8.836 Ratings8.2117 Ratings
Task Creation and Delegation8.638 Ratings9.197 Ratings
Email Templates8.359 Ratings8.5114 Ratings
User Permissions8.360 Ratings8.8109 Ratings
Notifications and Alerts8.355 Ratings9.3119 Ratings
Reporting8.363 Ratings4.6105 Ratings
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Cornerstone OnDemand
7.5
187 Ratings
6% above category average
SmartRecruiters
-
Ratings
Course authoring5.6138 Ratings00 Ratings
Course catalog or library8.4185 Ratings00 Ratings
Player/Portal7.8172 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning content8.2147 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile friendly7.9135 Ratings00 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications7.4168 Ratings00 Ratings
Assignments7.8181 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance management7.5162 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning administration7.5184 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics7.7183 Ratings00 Ratings
Social learning6.9116 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cornerstone OnDemandSmartRecruiters
Small Businesses
Paycor
Paycor
Score 7.3 out of 10
Recruit CRM
Recruit CRM
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Darwinbox
Darwinbox
Score 7.9 out of 10
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM
Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM
Score 7.5 out of 10
Vibe HCM
Vibe HCM
Score 4.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cornerstone OnDemandSmartRecruiters
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(257 ratings)
7.8
(129 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(37 ratings)
6.0
(15 ratings)
Usability
8.1
(37 ratings)
9.1
(12 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(5 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(5 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
6.6
(36 ratings)
9.0
(10 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.6
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(10 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(10 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Configurability
7.3
(115 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.5
(3 ratings)
7.1
(12 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.5
(4 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.9
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cornerstone OnDemandSmartRecruiters
Likelihood to Recommend
Cornerstone OnDemand
I feel Cornerstone OnDemand is a great solution for companies that have a large amount of compliance training that needs to be assigned and closely tracked. The features of dynamic groups (based on specific user criteria) allows you to target very specific audiences. The assignment functionality gives you great flexibility on when the assignment runs and how often, and also provides many options for due dates (static date or dynamic date - x days from hire date, date assigned, etc.). This has allowed us to have a clear and consistent user experience for both our newly hired employees and our seasoned employees.
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SmartRecruiters
SmartRecruiters has allowed us to enable our hiring managers to self-service their requirements for recruitment, simplifying our internal processes. We have visibility of recruitment requirements and significantly improved our approvals process using the software. We have been able to configure our hiring processes relevant to different areas of the business. Collaboration for our hiring teams (managers and business partners) is simple and effective. Candidate experience is enhanced and engaging. The platform has brought many benefits to our Resourcing business partners and hiring managers. We have visibility and insightful data which has integrity, allowing us to make informed business decisions. Our offer process has seen significant improvements and provides an engaging candidate experience, previously this was a labour-intensive process that is now streamlined and automated. The recently launched Community for collaboration amongst customers is very helpful and insigtful for how other people are using the software and exploring ideas with each other
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Pros
Cornerstone OnDemand
  • Automatic recurring assignments are easy to get that refresher training out without needing to assign it fresh each time.
  • Reporting 2.0 makes it easy to write and share your reports with just selected filters. Making it easy for people receiving it to just change what they need to see.
  • Learning Admin Console makes it easy to peek at what is going on in your portal and open up connected reporting when needed.
  • Success Center is a great resource for getting peer answers to questions and learning about the releases and suggesting changes that should be added to the roadmap.
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SmartRecruiters
  • Job Referrals - can easily refer others to a job posting and view the status
  • Job Postings - can easily search for job openings and read job description and criteria
  • Application online - Can easily apply for the job directly and see who the hiring manager and hiring recruiter is
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Cons
Cornerstone OnDemand
  • Sometimes finding the right answer to your support question can be a bit more difficult than it should be.
  • I would like to see more OSHA related courses.
  • At times, the administrative interface seems to need to be updated, but the tradeoff honestly might be the absolute rock-solid stability of the platform.
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SmartRecruiters
  • Settings page can be difficult to navigate & find what you're looking for
  • Job approval chains would be better with additional qualifying fields so that we can segregate different areas of the business better
  • The ability to edit an existing offer template in-system would improve the experience, rather than having to edit offline and upload a whole new version.
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Likelihood to Renew
Cornerstone OnDemand
As long as pricing stays reasonable, we will likely stay with Cornerstone for at least one more contract renewal. It would be a large task to migrate all of our content to a new system. However, the LMS landscape is diversifying with new startups that are showing some real innovation.
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SmartRecruiters
I thoroughly enjoy using SmartRecruiters and have shared this feedback with those responsible, however I am not a decision maker in the process. I understand that at the moment there are lots of factors affecting the economy and business outcomes, so I cannot comment with certainty on the renewal of SmartRecruiters at this time, not involved in the confirmation of renewal.
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Usability
Cornerstone OnDemand
Easy to use, easy to learn, lots of support during the learning process. There are a few parts of the system we don't use and I'm hesitant to begin using because other clients have said they're difficult and cumbersome (certifications) or outdated (libraries)
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SmartRecruiters
I would give this rating as overall it a great combo of all your problems. With just one click you can get away with all your problems such as recruitment, candidate update, Interview scheduling, updating candidates, reports of a job perspective, and recruiters perspective. Usability is worth of SmartRecruiters. The dashboard is also very attractive and once you open you will love working on this platform again and again. I would say it is the best platform to use once for smooth work in your organization.
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Reliability and Availability
Cornerstone OnDemand
I haven't really had any major availability problems. The service is practically impeccable but it is true that at times, due to server and latency problems, the application has been slower. But these have been specific issues that have resolved themselves.
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SmartRecruiters
Rarely is there an issue and if the product is down, it typically is restored quickly.
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Performance
Cornerstone OnDemand
Pages do not load quickly. Often times any action or selection of a box, drop down, check, pretty much ANY Javascript interaction causes the whole entire page to load/reload/start doing something in the background. This makes a nightmare for having to mass edit courses or upload ILT sessions. It's the one of the archaic web designs they use that really bugs me as an admin and makes working in the portal at times intolerable and insufferable
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SmartRecruiters
I have no complaints about performance. The system works virtually flawless.
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Support Rating
Cornerstone OnDemand
Its always important to have support when you are facing problems and when you are the main admin of the organization. Cornerstone Support is very supporting when you have not found the answer in the help guide. its very useful to have a team support to guide you.
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SmartRecruiters
Response is normally very fast. There are times, however, when the response is not useful. It is difficult to work with the reporting and the offer letter templates, and the front line support agents usually are not very knowledgeable. Second, if there are any issues with integrations, the regular support agents will not be able to help you. You'll have to create that ticket and ask them to escalate it to an integration specialist.
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In-Person Training
Cornerstone OnDemand
we use also to admin all our training in person events and sessions. Its easy to admin this kind of trainings and automatize some processes we have. Also de user experience and the integration with other systems helps to the employees to use more. All modules integrated oriented to develop people is the principal reason to have CSOD. The training administration is very complete and allows to automate many processes.
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SmartRecruiters
Quick and easy to learn.
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Online Training
Cornerstone OnDemand
The online modules are pretty good. You can access them at any time, which we have done. You learn a lot in the beginning, but having the ability to retake short lessons when you are working on those items was very helpful.
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SmartRecruiters
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Cornerstone OnDemand
The implementation was pretty difficult. We felt they (Cornerstone) didn’t properly allocate the resources to complete our implementation in the timetable we wanted.

For example, we worked on Workday and SSO integrations - work that we had specifically contracted for in advance. When we were ready to work on that project, they didn’t have the people ready to help us, so it took a lot longer than necessary. That was my biggest pain point.

The implementation approach we went with was a self-led implementation. We would speak to the implementation manager once per week, and self-trained. We met with implementation manager to discuss issues, review things that we’d learned for 1 hour. We found that wasn’t enough. Other things would come up outside that one hour window that we couldn’t get answers to. We didn’t have anyone to ask about those things and we had to wait to ask during our weekly meeting.

The advantage of the self-led implementation approach was that it was really inexpensive – significantly less than the implementation cost for the other systems that we looked at. I also liked that we could pace ourselves. There were however big roadblocks. We would have to make sure the right resources were available. We had an implementation/project manager with a lot of experience and felt that the person was knowledgeable but missed on a few things.

In hindsight, I would still go with the self-led implementation, but knowing what I know now, I would ask for the integration person to be available more. I would work that into the contract. With single sign-on, we needed deep linking to build direct links through a Single Sign-On tool, e.g. when someone gets an email, it directs them to training. But it has to go through SSO to get them to the correct link. Deep linking wasn’t turned on in our system and they had to activate it. We encountered little things like that – sequencing pre-requisites which were problematic. We tried to troubleshoot ourselves.

I recommend you consider contracting for some extra implementation hours and determine when they are going to be available. Work it into the contract that you have the ability to call tech support during implementation. In addition to weekly implementation meetings, they have technical webexes – 4 every week, but 2 didn’t apply to us – one as we were using SSO. The challenge is they were not always relevant – we had specific questions that didn’t fall into those categories
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SmartRecruiters
It really was a painless and easy process to switch to SmartRecruiters.
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Alternatives Considered
Cornerstone OnDemand
The user experience is a lot better than using SumTotal as an admin CSOD makes working easy. Without having workarounds. Reporting is a lot better than both platforms. Reporting in CSOD is complex however easy to manage and create when you understand the data points collected
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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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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Cornerstone OnDemand
It is important to be familiar with the terms and annual increases in licenses and other aspects of the contract. I recommend analyzing this from the beginning and the permanence is relevant because Cornerstone updates its modules and brings out new features that may allow you to leave a module to acquire another
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SmartRecruiters
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Cornerstone OnDemand
It's a great product with some pieces that are set but many things that can be customized as needed for individual needs
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SmartRecruiters
No explanation really, just a great product.
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Professional Services
Cornerstone OnDemand
As I have said before, I have no doubt that the services of the Cornerstone sales people were very good. In particular, our salesperson spent a lot of time in contact with us to make the process go smoothly. Perhaps being a large company in some cases the times were slowed down but it is something normal to take into account.
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SmartRecruiters
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Cornerstone OnDemand
  • We are in the process of trying to increase employee engagement through content expansion. We are in the early stages of this.
  • The Edge Import Tool, in conjunction with Reporting 2.0, has done a great job of helping to automate/semi-automate tasks for huge time savings.
  • Maintaining compliance. Achieved through dynamic/automated groups, assignments, communication, and reporting.
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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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ScreenShots

Cornerstone OnDemand Screenshots

Screenshot of A personalized, modern user experience and self-service capabilities to engage employees, ensure productivity, and centralize employee dataScreenshot of With Cornerstone Learning, go beyond compliance and training - truly develop an engaged and collaborative workforce.Screenshot of Cornerstone Recruiting takes care of all talent acquisition needs and provides candidates with an amazing experience.Screenshot of With Cornerstone Performance, benchmark your people's performance, align them with your strategy, and provide feedback that matters.Screenshot of Cornerstone HR offers a personalized, modern user experience and self-service capabilities to engage employees, ensure productivity, and centralize employee data.Screenshot of With Content Anytime, quickly deliver hundreds of eLearning courses covering key soft-skills such as communication, time management, leadership, teamwork, and emotional intelligence.

SmartRecruiters Screenshots

Screenshot of A candidate experience to  reach, engage, and connect with talent wherever they are.Screenshot of Engaged hiring managers empowered by collaboration tools and applicant tracking to drive better hiring decisions.Screenshot of Digital offer management, onboarding, and reporting deliver a seamless journey for new hires and recruiters.Screenshot of SmartRecruiters eases the burden of juggling multiple open roles and hiring large volumes.Screenshot of Frees up hiring teams to focus on making great hires and delivering a better candidate experience by automating routine tasks.Screenshot of Find and discover qualified talent while getting the most from the advertising budget.