Greenhouse vs. SmartSearch ATS

Greenhouse merges very well with most of the Job Board we use such as Indeed, Linkedin Recruiter and others. It makes it easy to import date from these job boards onto the system. However, more can be done when it comes to bulk candidate import, I think there should be a feature that allows us to adding bulk candidates at a go.

Incentivized

If you have a recruiting organization that needs flexibility and a wide range of options to address an ever changing landscape than this is your system. It does not try to pigeon-hole recruiters into a single recruiting model. It allows you to customize how your organization does things but also allows you to control where you need to control. We have been using SmartSearch for more than 24 years. We started out on one of the first versions because we liked the company and the direction they were taking. SmartSearch has not always been the tool with the flashiest features.... but it has always had some of the best features. They have always been of the cutting edge of the next technology and have the tools and features that make SmartSearch a complete solution. We have not seen anything else out in the marketplace that has encouraged us to change.

• Customization of interview plans, questions, interviewer roles for multiple positions
• Manages efficient and timely candidate, hiring manager, and interviewer communication
• Integrates with other tools needed in the hiring process such as sourcing tools and onboarding systems
• Provides analytics and reporting to allow for data insights and process improvements
• Provides an Onboarding feature that makes the hiring cycle seamless from first interview to hire date

Incentivized

• Customization - the team at SmartSearch always tries to find a solution that works for our company specifically.
• Customer Care - the team actually cares and is concerned about the well-being of our business. They help us solve issues as if they worked for us and this feeling is felt at every level of the organization beginning with their President.
• Technology - I have used multiple ATSs and demoed many, many more. SmartSearch has superior technology for staffing firm; the technology that helps us recruit and fill jobs faster.
• Listening - the team at SmartSearch actually listens to us and our concerns whether it's regarding a feature for an upgrade or simply solving an issue we are facing.
• Common Sense - there have been many times in our relationship when we have asked about a feature and we hear "that makes sense, we will make that change for all of our customers"...listening is rare and they do it well.

• Greenhouse Security is simple, but not that granular. For example, everytime new recruiter joins, we have to give them access manually one by one. There is no one click or an easy way to auto assign security unlike other systems that we use such as Workday.
• Greenhouse reporting is very lacking. Even though we are on the highest tier, we cannot extract data through this delivered feature. For example, scorecard custom questions. We have to do this through SQL.
• Greenhouse Audit Log is also lacking. It is not useful at all. We cannot even see what job info changed and who changed it even though we are on the highest tier now.

Incentivized

• There's some room for improvement with candidate status. If you change a status, you have to refresh your screen for that to appear. It's a minor thing.
• It would be nice to hide certain bits of information on the web posting, but keep that information in the requisition for our records, ie, salary range, etc.

I think Greenhouse is an effective, easy way to interview and score recruits -- especially as our organization grows in size

Incentivized

While I do not have experience with SmartSearch's competitors, I would renew my use of SmartSearch simply based on the up-front costs of implementing the program. It would be better to continue with a program that is sufficiently meeting my needs than it would be to incur the same up-front costs to implement something else.

Incentivized

The overall interface is very easy to understand and it is capable. There are a lot of very useful functionalities that help in productivity as simple as tags for the coordinators to manage their day to day tasks. The continuous improvements greenhouse brings to the users are really impressive. We use quite a few integrations with it and they help the job even hassle free.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

I have never needed to call Greenhouse for support. I am not the primary account holder, nor do I use Greenhouse enough to merit calling support. I delegate that responsibility to the Recruiting team. They have never mentioned any experience with Greenhouse technical support, either bad or good. I would assume that they would tell me if the support was poor.

Incentivized

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

I think we could have used more delivered functionality and less customized which now results in more maintenance

Incentivized

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.

A lot of new features and Recruiter friendly Interface is what made us to choose Greenhouse over any other competition in Market. Cost is another factor as Greenhouse is available at a very competitive price in Market. This is an overall package for all your recruitment, Engagement and reporting needs.

Incentivized

We have looked at multiple alternatives over the years at both Gates and our collective experiences prior to joining Gates. In our opinion, SmartSearch is the right choice for our business today. We have been able to scale it globally and conduct all of our major requirements for our applicant tracking system and that works for Gates. We also feel like we are an important partner to SmartSearch and they work with us and we feel like our feedback is important to them. I have worked with a number of ATS vendors prior to SmartSearch and pre-Gates. That is not a universal approach in this space and is a unique value prop from SmartSearch.

• Streamlined the hiring process and new hire time to value
• Increased satisfaction for hiring managers and sales account managers
• Allowed us to gain access to a bigger and more targeted talent pool
• Saved us time and helped us avoid things falling by the wayside by keeping things in one place and sending automated alerts

Incentivized

• I am not involved in the budgeting or finance for recruiting software, so cannot speak directly to any numbers for ROI. However, SmartSearch personally saves me several hours a day in organizing candidates, thus saving my company substantial amounts in productivity.
• The lacking ability to tag additional recruiters throughout the hire track process means whoever onboards the hire has to ensure that a "split" is marked when completing the NHS. Failure to do so can result in quite a lot of lost time from HR to get the mistake fixed.

Incentivized