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Brassring

Brassring
Formerly IBM Kenexa

Overview

What is Brassring?

Brassring, formerly from IBM and part of the Kenexa Talent Acquisition Suite, and now sold by Infinite Computer Solutions, is an enterprise grade ATS and onboarding solution. It allows companies to find the right talent, track and manage candidates, and…

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Recent Reviews

Hiring through Kenexa

8 out of 10
December 03, 2018
Incentivized
Kenexa is used across the organization globally for recruiting and recruiting operations. Its used for candidates applying to various …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 15 features
  • Job Requisition Management (11)
    7.7
    77%
  • Job Search Site Posting (11)
    7.7
    77%
  • Company Website Posting (10)
    7.4
    74%
  • Customized Application Form (11)
    7.1
    71%
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Pricing

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Unavailable

What is Brassring?

Brassring, formerly from IBM and part of the Kenexa Talent Acquisition Suite, and now sold by Infinite Computer Solutions, is an enterprise grade ATS and onboarding solution. It allows companies to find the right talent, track and manage candidates, and use candidate data to spot trends within the…

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  • No setup fee

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  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Features

Recruiting / ATS

Recruiting or Applicant Tracking Software is software used to manage the recruitment process electronically by handling job postings, applicant status, resume management, etc.

7.5
Avg 8.0
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Product Details

What is Brassring?

Brassring, formerly from IBM and part of the Kenexa Talent Acquisition Suite, and now sold by Infinite Computer Solutions, is an enterprise grade ATS and onboarding solution. It allows companies to find the right talent, track and manage candidates, and use candidate data to spot trends within the applicant pool.


Brassring offers candidate relationship management functionality for tracking candidate data and personalizing communication with each candidate. The suite also provides ATS capabilities via BrassRing, which enables automation for routine recruiting processes. It also includes cloud-based onboarding and candidate analytics intended to streamline candidate selection and hire-to-value timelines.

Brassring Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

Brassring, formerly from IBM and part of the Kenexa Talent Acquisition Suite, and now sold by Infinite Computer Solutions, is an enterprise grade ATS and onboarding solution. It allows companies to find the right talent, track and manage candidates, and use candidate data to spot trends within the applicant pool.

Cornerstone OnDemand, Infor Human Resources, and PeopleFluent are common alternatives for Brassring.

Reviewers rate Candidate Search and Applicant Tracking highest, with a score of 8.3.

The most common users of Brassring are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(63)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-17 of 17)
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Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
This is one of the best tools for the employees in any company for their personal growth in terms of technology. This tool is used by the whole organization. When I joined this company my profile was technical support (L1-support) where I was just working on [a] few tools [that] don't [actually] require technical skills. But after some time I realized I should learn something technical and I moved into the Oracle DBA with the help of [the] IBM Kenexa Talent management tool.
  • Best tool to move from one profile/technology to another within the organization
  • Very user friendly
  • Easily interact with the managers or higher profile people through this tool
  • Tracker of the self growth
  • We get the path to move into any new and trending technology
  • We can find our interest in which we're suited well
  • Sometimes, the process of hiring or moving from one team to another team takes too much time.
  • Due to this huge time taking process sometimes rather [than] changing their role within the organization, [people] move to some other company.
This is the best tool for both the employees and the company. For employees, if they want to move from one role to another or want to move from one technology, they can move within the organization with the help of this tool and for companies, if they hire people from outside it there are so many things involved to get information about the employees related to the profile, then interview, onboarding, training, etc. If they hire people within the organization, it will be easy for them and cost-effective as well and existing employees will also not leave the company so easily.
December 03, 2018

Hiring through Kenexa

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Kenexa is used across the organization globally for recruiting and recruiting operations. Its used for candidates applying to various roles, scheduling interviews, acts as a single database for feedback for interviews, making offers to candidates and storing important data like Visa, work permits, passport soft copy, compliance and any work / country specific regulations. It also acts as a triggering tool for sending mass communications, emails and information about the role and organization.
  • Applications on Kenexa - this I believe is the best strength of Kenexa. It is very easy to segregate candidates based on the skill set, role, country, level, etc., hence being the single source for all information.
  • Feedback Forms - As soon as the interviews are done, the tool allows us to send feedback forms with a detailed feedback (up to 4000 words). This allows a detailed documentation of every interview, enabling the organization to make the best possible hires.
  • CRM like features - like any CRM (customer relationship management) tool, Kenexa allows you to be very personalized with every person you are interacting with. The emails directly go to the inbox of the candidates and are personalized as well (with first names, role, and phone numbers).
  • API's - I believe this is one area where Kenexa lags, the ability to talk to other systems. This tool is impossible to integrate with lots of other tools, requring human involvement and manual intervention.
  • Search - Searching is not an easy task. It requires a lot of time and effort to search basic data. But due credit to IBM, they have improved on this a lot. But still the system requires more optimization.
  • Openness - Kenexa is a user defined system. It functions only in one described way. There is no way to reduce time, or have an alternate way. This is sometime irritating.
Kenexa is is well suited for any organization that has more than 3000 employees globally. I would not recommend this to startups or a growing organization with less than 3000 employees. But once you cross this number, Kenexa becomes useful and is a brilliant tool for global operations - recruiting. I would recommend this tool to any organization that has offices in many countries/geographies as well.
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Kenexa is used globally for salaried hiring. It provides a single, integrated hiring solution.
  • Integration with HRIS and job boards
  • Contact management
  • Actual user interface is fairly intuitive
  • 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.
[It's] good for smaller organizations with a low level of complexity in terms of geographic scope and reporting structures.
Dennard Melton | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • It allow you to track the progress of a potenital candidate from start to finish
  • You can set up email templates that you can send and label for each part of the process
  • You can pull resumes fron different sources by using keyword searches for the type of employees you are looking to hire
  • You can track communications to each candidate to see when you email or last contact the candidate
  • Send emails after using the search Function to find the candidate
  • The number of clicks to move a candidate from start to finish
  • Not having to reclick after changing Multiple status for candidates after reviewing
  • If you search for a candidate and find them in the search, you can't send emails to them even if they are in your req. Must go in req to send emails for template.
I would tell a colleague to make sure you what you are trying to get out of the system. Are you mass recruiting or are you trying to fill a position every once in a while in your company? Make sure you understand the search function as well as how you can get the folders and the files built the way you need it. I am not sure they are tools that would help with mass recruiting. I think removing some of the tools would make it easier to get to resumes and not to have some many clicks with each candidate.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We were using Kenexa as our applicant tracking system. HR and Hiring Managers was the user population that had involvement with using the system. The system is robust and had many good features from a recruiting perspective but did not integrate easily with out current HCM system so we ended up going away from it and using a different system. The mobile capabilities of the system were subpar at best which was another problem for us since we are a sales based organization.
  • The system is intutive and easy for the recruiters to manager through reqs and candidates.
  • The system has Gobal language capabilities.
  • The sytem has integration posibilites with many different background vendors such as HireRight, and Talentwise.
  • Kenexa does not integrate with other HCM's easily such as Workday.
  • The support for Kenexa is not very good at all. It takes a long time to get tickets resolved and their tier one staff is not very knowledgeable.
  • Their Social Source product was a waste of money. It is very time consuming for recruiters to manage.
It think as an overall applicant tracking system Kenexa is a good tool. If you need to integrate with another platform I would not recommend it. Also I would also do a deep dive with an implementation consultant before purchasing to see if it will actually work for your business. The sales people sometimes give a false sense of what the system can really do and are not upfront about all the add ons that cost extra money. In other words some people pay for a Pinto but expect a Mercedes Benz to be implemented because the sales team snowed them a little bit through the sales process.
Daniela Whitfield | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized

My company currently uses the behavioral MDP (Management Development Program) assessment to identify candidates for our training programs, which take place three times a year. This test is one of the determining factors as to whether or not a candidate gains entrance into our MDP cycle. Typically the candidate goes through three phases in the interview. First a phone screen or face-to-face meeting with the Human Resources Field Recruiter, then the invitation to take the Kenexa assessment. Based on the score, the panel interview is scheduled.

We also use the test for current Assistant Store Managers that are seeking a promotion in the near future. In between recruitment cycles, I test the top performers in each zone and give them feedback on areas of opportunity and highlight their strengths with the feedback from their testing.

The assessment breaks the scores down into three categories. 0-20= Fail; 21-49= Pass with Caution; 50-100= Pass. Currently, any candidate, whether internal or external, that fails cannot proceed in the interview process. Candidates are allowed to retest 6 months later.

The Kenexa assessment gives situational examples of real life scenarios and assessing whether or not a candidate can deal with the stresses of retail management.

  • Identifies how a candidate will deal with stressful situations within Retail Management.
  • Weeds out potential risk factors with overall performance through detailed, behavioral questions.
  • Assesses key behavioral categories that a manager needs to be successful.
  • Some of the questions under situational judgment are subjective and don't take into account different scenarios.
  • The test is a little lengthy.
  • Some people do not test well and I am not sure if there is a contingency built in for that margin of error.

Kenexa asked a lot of questions that pertained to real life scenarios for retail managers. It is very helpful to see how people react under pressure. It measures the years of experience in comparison to how an individual would react thoroughly.

Some of the more complex math and theory questions may or may not apply to the type of manager we need for this specific industry given all you need is a high school diploma and 2-3 years of management experience to be considered for the role.

Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Kenexa was used as the primary application tracking system for the entire company to handle over 10,000 hires a year. We had a few hundred recruiters using the system along with various support staff and hiring managers across the company.
  • Data extraction - this is about the only area where Kenexa did fairly well. Although there weren't built-in tools to get very meaningful data within the system, you had many options to extract data in ways that would allow ingestion into other systems for processing and analysis.
  • Almost everything - the system is clearly a legacy system that has been patched together over time and never really received the updates it needed to be competitive in a modern web environment. The recruiter experience is very poor, requiring tedious processes for even the most basic tasks. The job applicant experience is also very poor, unless you very heavily tweak the poor interfaces (and even then it's not possible to get it looking and working particularly well). The back-end administration is also quite painful and non-intuitive. The system is capable of doing some powerful things, but you really have to "trick" it into doing what you want. It doesn't appear to be designed with useful functionality in mind. Most of the solutions we implemented for were hacks that worked around silly limitations within the system.
  • Support - really, really poor. We paid for a dedicated consultant, and would regularly go days without getting responses (much less resolutions) to our issues. We replaced the consultant after a few years of pain, and the new consultant wasn't much better. They are not responsive, not knowledgeable, and regularly dropped the ball. Even if the system was excellent, based on the quality of the support we paid to receive I could not recommend this company.
Stay away from Kenexa. I could not recommend using any of their products in any circumstance. Look at newer players in the ATS field, where you're likely to find a more innovative, well-designed system that will provide a better experience for recruiters, managers, applicants, and back-office support. It'll probably be a lot less expensive as well.
February 13, 2015

Kenexa review

Jennifer Uriguen | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Kenexa is used across the HR organization globally. BrassRing is used for applicant tracking and OrgMappers is used for engagement data.
  • Kenexa BrassRing is a great tool for applicant tracking, posting roles, tracking EEO data, background check info, candidate profiles, templates, reporting,
  • Kenexa technician support is valuable in providing what their customer needs are to run their business effectively
  • Kenexa OrgMappers is a great tool to host engagement surveys, pull data easily, enter data easily
  • Understanding the industry and where technology is going and offering services to customers to bring them up to speed. i.e. solutions for career conferences to easily have candidates apply on the fly
  • Offering to send a rep to the conference free of charge to enhance the customer relationship
I would recommend Kenexa because their applicant tracking system has everything needed to run a successful recruitment process where there is a high volume of roles and strong strategy to bring in diverse top talent. I do think this type of tool is for larger companies or companies that are global. For smaller companies with less than 500 employees whose volume of recruitment is low, you may not need this type of system.
Ellen Pham | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 3 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
While using Kenexa, I encountered issues repeatedly. The ATS itself was extremely slow and was not compatible with many systems. I was not able to use it for a regular session without growing frustrated. It would constantly freeze during all my searches as well as giving me error notifications for status checks. This would happen ALL THE TIME.
All Recruiters and leads used it to search for candidates, but it was still awful.

Here is a basic overall look:
1) Lags 24/7
2) Outdated information
3) Constant Outages
4) NON user-friendly interface (needs to be updated)
  • It's really good at stalling time.
  • I liked that documents were easily sent with a single click.
  • Easy to learn and use (at times)
  • The interface needs to be more user-friendly and updated. it seems as though it hasn't been changed or updated in a decade.
  • It needs to be compatible with Google Chrome. Internet Explorer is slower and crashes more often.
  • There needs to be an automatic clean-up option to detain and get rid of outdated resumes to speed up recruitment processes.
I think companies should look into Bullhorn Reach. it's much more usable and minimized. Sleek, modern, fast, compatible and cloud based. It also offers mobile recruiting, that way all processes can be made anywhere and anytime--which makes it more convenient for recruiters who are also out in the field more. Bullhorn Reach also has consistent activity tracking. Every bit of process or communication made by recruiters and users is tracked and can be seen by every one else. Which ultimately helps us stay updated on everything. The less clicking we have to do to get to something that we need to know about, the more user friendly it is.
February 04, 2015

Review of Kenexa

Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Kenexa is being used as our primary ATS (applicant tracking system). It is currently being used by the department. We use Kenexa to track requisition assignments, candidate status and applicants.
  • Interface is clean and concise - It is very easy to see the information needed in one screen. The usage is pretty intuitive.
  • Information and fields displayed is very customizable to individual preference.
  • Easy to see actions that are pending and needing to be addressed and real time status'
  • A better training program may be helpful. A lot of key features I needed to figure out on my own.
  • System can hang up or is slow at times
  • More customization could be provided for default settings.
It acts as a more than adequate applicant tracking system(ATS). The interface is intuitive but the system tends to be slow. At times, he system takes a few tries to log-in as it cannot locate appropriate credentials.
December 20, 2013

2XBrassRing Review

Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • Implementation of a new product.
  • Listening to current users design requests and suggestions.
  • Willingness to set up meetings with multiple groups within the organization to find solutions to known issues.
  • Roll out of new functionality.
  • Testing new functionality prior to roll out.
  • Communicating functionality changes to all clients, and providing complete documentation showing how to implement those changes without help from consultant.
My advice would be that the level of service received from the consultants is not what it once was. I believe their service model changed two years ago, and as a result the consultants are responsible for more clients. As a result the consultants have less time to really learn the system, as they are constantly on calls from one client to the next with no real down time to troubleshoot.
Brett Kummer, PHR | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • Kenexa's "Data Insight Tool" allows for real time metrics to be collected and shared to make decisions that impact our company.
  • Applicant flow data is easy to track as the HR Status options are customizable to adopt to specific work processes.
  • Kenexa customer service allows for an expert technical liaison to help consult any and all implementation decisions that my company decides to pursue.
  • RAM Trigger logic allows for optimal automation of the transactional recruiting processes.
  • Talent Records can be located with Boolean search logic which aids in the recruitment process.
  • Kenexa "Agency Manager" for Third Party Agencies is a primitive tool and could be enhanced to help manage agency usage.
  • System outages are particularly troublesome for our international locations as the generally occur in the middle of their work day.
  • Work Bench Training is only held several times a year and is instrumental to a company's ability to adopt BrassRing as their applicant tracking system.
I would recommend that any colleague should complete the due diligence process of examining all products to find the right fit for their company culture. Some of the questions I would ask in a search are: 1-What does the customer service process look like? 2-Who will be performing any enhancements or alterations to my instance of the product? 3-How will this product integrate with existing HR systems already employed by my company.
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • It is an easy transition from the Recruiting team to the HR team when it comes to onboarding new employees.
  • Great for keeping track of candidates and organizing information by requisition numbers.
  • Easy process for sending out offer letters.
  • Can be very tedious when offer letters are filled out incorrectly, or need to be updated. There should be an easier tool to edit offer letters that need to be revised instead of plugging in all of the info again.
  • I experienced a lot of glitches with the format of the offer letter. At times the formatting and fonts would be skewed when copy/pasting into Kenexa.
  • "Moving a candidate through Kenexa" could be confusing for people who do not use all of the points (1st interview, 2nd interview, Manager review, etc). There should be a smoother process where you can jump from one status to the next easily.
I would advise to go over the functions step by step a few times a day with the trainer in order to get comfortable with it. You need to click on a lot of things to navigate through the product so be prepared to take a significant amount of time a day to review.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • 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.
  • When onboarding a new hire, Kenexa sends our new hire documents via a portal link to be submitted online by the candidate. The system is not easily compatible with Mac users and so it can complicate the candidate experience for many of our creative hires.
  • I’ve experienced a high volume of system outages where I was not able access Kenexa. These outages have been resolved in some cases by a system restart, clearing my “cookies” and in the majority of cases, the Kenexa tech team had to make the fix on their end as more often the not the issue tended to be user wide. They are usually great about fixing bugs in a timely fashion but there have been instances where I’ve been blocked out for a few hours.
  • In my ideal ATS, a system should be able to compose and edit offer letters with the click of a button. Unfortunately there is much manual entry needed to generate offer letters in Kenexa, and once completed, it is no possible to edit. For example, if a new hire’s start date changed we have to create an completely new offer letter, we cannot go in and just make the minor adjustment.
1. Is the system compatable with both Mac and PC platforms?
2. Can the system be customized to unique individual business needs?
Simon Meth | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • 2XB is SaaS and it is up and running most of the time. Performance is usually good and there is only very minimal downtime.
  • 2XB allows corporate recruiters to work the way they want to work. It provides a clear snapshot of everything on the recruiter's "desk": what there is to do now, what there is to do later, and what can be ignored.
  • 2XB can handle companies/organizations of various sizes including the very largest and handles multi-site, multi-countries well.
  • The GUI has undergone several major revisions since I first used it in '03. It is far from Windows compliant. As the market transitions away from pure Windows compliance, now is the time to redesign and bring the UI up-to-date.
  • Reporting is very poor. A redesign of the reporting engine to use modern technologies is needed.
  • There is little that the user can do to customize their experience other than moving columns around, adding and deleting columns, and rearranging the landing page. This should be addressed when architecting the new UI.
  • The implementation of 2XB that I use has no social media integration that I'm aware of. However, Kenexa has announced Release 13: Social media integration and mobile functionality are at the top of the holiday wish list of recruiters this year. Just in time for the holidays, we’re excited to roll out Release 13 of Kenexa 2x BrassRing. Highlights of the release include expanded functionality for social, mobile, on-demand video interviewing, SMS/Text Messaging, user interface advances and candidate relationship management. No idea if that's vaporware or not but at least they are headed in the right direction.
Kenexa 2XB is certainly worth consideration. It's important to determine if the UI is going to be acceptable. Whether or not that is true will depend on the rest of the software suite in use. Reporting is also important. While you can report on most of the data, doing so is cumbersome and not readily available and intuitive for most users. That may be an issue in environments where users are expected to generate their own reports. Modern software should work the way that users expect. Given that most users are now used to using Web applications, tablet applications, and smartphone applications, shouldn't their ATS be available and work consistently on each of those platforms? 2XB does not!
Gayatri (Gigi) Goswami | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • Has a good UI.
  • Able to navigate through the tool easily.
  • I'd like to see better searching capabilities.
  • The search results are not 100% accurate. It requires more time to find the right candidate.
Able to work through the entire hiring process. Can pick up at any point and leave notes for candidate actions.
Angela Cartwright | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • Candidate View includes the resume which allows for quick decision making on suitability of candidate.
  • The reports generated from Kenexa worked well and easy enough to configure.
  • The flow to the careers page was simple.
  • Posting to external sites was easy to do.
  • The version we had did not include social network sharing and that would have been nice.
  • The version we used didn't support .docx or .pdf but I'm sure that has changed now.
  • Some functionality, like template creation, needed engineering customization and would have been nice to do ourselves.
  • Workflow jump to the next step would have been a nice feature.
Depends on size of company, if a bigger company Kenexa worked well but for a smaller one it was too pricey.
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