Personio vs. SmartSearch ATS

If you are an SMB or generally just a startup, Personio is a no-brainer for its intuitiveness and easy-to-get-started approach. Employees truly enjoy the UI and possibility to get an easy overview of its own data, not to mention processes to apply for vacations and absence etc. Absolutely recommended if your main focus for the new HR system is directed towards your employees.

Incentivized

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.

• Allows automatic posting of job offers on different sites and portals to find the perfect candidates for available vacancies.
• It has employee tracking tools, such as attendance and absence tracking, as well as time monitoring of working hours and overtime.
• Payroll management is very complete and is done quickly and almost automatically, as it enters hours worked, overtime and absences, with an accurate calculation to avoid errors.

Incentivized

• 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.

• From administrative POV, there were indication that some integrations to salarysystems in other countries was lacking

Incentivized

• 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.

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.

Personio is an established HCM provider - for good reasons. In particular, for employees and managers, Personio is easy to use and allows for managers and employees to truly focus on what matters, in a modern and flexible way. There are certain points that could be improved in the overall administration of the system, in particular when it comes to integrations and old techstack - but this is the case really for all historical HCM providers. Personio is a solid tool and certainly recommended.

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.

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.

Personio is much like HiBob, strong focus on the relationship between managers and employees. Very intuitive UX and UI - staying at the forefront of HCM. Sympa does better in terms of overall connectivity. Personio is a market leader for good reasons, solid and giving its customers good value for the investment.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

• This program is complete, so it allows to have all the human resources management in the same panel, along with all the information of the employees, which streamlines the activities of the department, making us more productive. Employees feel more satisfied with our performance, and we have considerably lowered payroll complaints.

Incentivized

• 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.