Clunky Tool, but Highly Customizable
SmartSearch was used across a 20 person + staffing agency. It is used as a candidate relationship management tool to track candidates, …
SmartSearch ATS
SmartSearch ATS
SmartSearch ATS
Overview
What is SmartSearch ATS?
SmartSearch is a web-based talent acquisition and staffing management software. Features include job posting to job boards and social media outlets, resume parsing, and automated workflow. SmartSearch advertises robust customer service and implementation assistance.
Read moreRecent Reviews
Popular Features
View all 15 features- Company Website Posting (17)3.030%
- Job Requisition Management (17)3.030%
- Resume Management (17)1.010%
- Job Search Site Posting (17)1.010%
Video Reviews
Leaving a video review helps other professionals like you evaluate products. Be the first one in your network to record a review of SmartSearch ATS, and make your voice heard!
Pricing
View all pricingN/A
Unavailable
What is SmartSearch ATS?
SmartSearch is a web-based talent acquisition and staffing management software. Features include job posting to job boards and social media outlets, resume parsing, and automated workflow. SmartSearch advertises robust customer service and implementation assistance.
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting / Integration Services
Would you like us to let the vendor know that you want pricing?
2 people want pricing too
Alternatives Pricing
What is SmartRecruiters?
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.
N/A
Unavailable
What is ADP Workforce Now?
ADP Workforce Now is a cloud-based HR platform for mid-sized businesses. It features customizable modules of various HR services that businesses can tailor to their specific needs, as well as regulatory monitoring and alerts to help businesses remain compliant.
Features
Return to navigation
Product Details
- About
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is SmartSearch ATS?
SmartSearch is the flagship web-based talent acquisition and staffing management software from Advanced Personnel Systems Inc, that, while not as broadly used as some other software suites, is capable of delivering all of the features and capabilities (e.g. integration with outside services like Outlook, direct posting to job boards and sourcing via social networks, data/resume parsing and rich automation features) expected of applicant tracking systems. Live support representatives are available 24/7. Also, Advanced Personnel Systems offers a live, personalized demonstration of the software for those interested, as well as full "concierge" service throughout the implementation process.
SmartSearch ATS Features
Recruiting / ATS Features
- Supported: Job Requisition Management
- Supported: Company Website Posting
- Supported: Publish to Social Media
- Supported: Job Search Site Posting
- Supported: Customized Application Form
- Supported: Resume Management
- Supported: Duplicate Candidate Prevention
- Supported: Candidate Search
- Supported: Applicant Tracking
- Supported: Collaboration
- Supported: Task Creation and Delegation
- Supported: Email Templates
- Supported: User Permissions
- Supported: Notifications and Alerts
- Supported: Reporting
SmartSearch ATS Competitors
SmartSearch ATS Technical Details
| Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
| Mobile Application | Apple iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Mobile Web |
Frequently Asked Questions
SmartSearch is a web-based talent acquisition and staffing management software. Features include job posting to job boards and social media outlets, resume parsing, and automated workflow. SmartSearch advertises robust customer service and implementation assistance.
Reviewers rate Duplicate Candidate Prevention highest, with a score of 10.
The most common users of SmartSearch ATS are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
Comparisons
View all alternativesCompare with
Reviews and Ratings
(39)
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-25 of 31)- Popular Filters
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
October 07, 2021
Clunky Tool, but Highly Customizable
SmartSearch was used across a 20 person + staffing agency. It is used as a candidate relationship management tool to track candidates, recruiter who owned each candidate, interview notes, [etc.] It held the open requisitions for each job and would track candidate submittals through each req[uisition], tracking hiring managers, billing information, and client information.
- Customizable
- Reporting
- Analytics
- Clunky
- Too many options
- Needed to customize to make user friendly
October 19, 2020
SmartSearch RULES!!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
SmartSearch is used across the entire organization. We use it as a sales/new business/client development tool and also as our candidate tracking system. We also use SmartSearch for the onboarding of new hires and ongoing management of our employees. SmartSearch serves all of our needs.
- Captures the activities during the recruiting process such as emailing as notes in the system.
- Is integrated to social media such as LinkedIn.
- Is integrated with MS Outlook.
- provides excellent reports.
- customer service is exceptional.
- Is a trusted partner.
- I frankly cannot think of any areas of improvement.
- I am very pleased with all aspects of the software.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
SmartSearch is used across our entire business as our applicant tracking system. We do requisition management including: related workflows for approval of all positions for hiring and requisition reporting. We also use it for our offer management and approval for all positions. We are in the process of finalizing data feeds from SMS for use in our Human Capital Analytics capabilities and also for global KPI recruitment performance activities. We are also finalizing the onboarding portal capabilities and front end data feeds to our Oracle HCMS.
- Job posting integration.
- Requisition workflow management.
- Offer workflow management.
- Candidate search usability.
- Customer support/partnering.
- Global development support.
- Some latency issues in China and India.
- User interfaces have improved but can always find ease of use improvements.
October 19, 2020
Good Product but Room for Improvement
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
HR uses SmartSearch as a repository of candidates (candidates apply via our external website and their information is stored in SmartSearch), completing the hiring process (using e-sign and electronic document portal) and capturing offer letters for internal promotions/transfers. In addition, existing employees can apply to a position within our HR intranet and be attached to the position in SmartSearch for further review.
- Electronic signing of offer letters and additional documents.
- There is a nice candidate workflow.
- Daily imports of our ADP tables for job information.
- Timely response to issues.
- More than 1 person at the company who understands the client's configuration.
- Additional focus on non-recruiting clients.
October 19, 2020
SmartSearch - efficiency, flexibility and features... This does a lot for your business.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
SmartSearch is being used primarily as our candidate intake, recruiting, applicant tracking and onboarding tool. Additionally we use it to track employment and various HR functions and documentation. I solved the problem of obtaining and organizing a lot of information surrounding each candidate. It allowed us to also create a number of procedures in the form of 'traks' to move candidates and customers through our process in a consistent manner.
- 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.
- Would like to see some additional reporting options. There are some very powerful reporting tools in the software but they are not very intuitive for the basic user.
October 19, 2020
SmartSearch is Great and a True Business Partner
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We utilize SmartSearch as our applicant tracking system (ATS) and contact/client tracking. SmartSearch integrates with our back office, so the vast majority of the work our business does in housed within the SmartSearch platform.
- 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.
- With any upgrade, there can be small bugs or glitches. Whenever these pop up, the team at SmartSearch is quick to attack them and fix the issues as soon as possible.
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use SmartSearch as our primary applicant, job and client tracking system.
- SmartSearch is affordable. Most other systems like this cost more.
- SmartSearch has great staff, knowledgeable and long-term.
- SmartSearch automated tasks are very helpful.
- 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.
May 10, 2018
Great ATS!
We use SmartSearch as an applicant tracking system. SmartSearch also pushes out our job postings to multiple websites, including CareerBuilder and our company website. SmartSearch allows us to track applicants all the way from application to hire, including adding candidates that have been sourced externally, through platforms such as LinkedIn Talent, Indeed, etc. Once an offer is extended by a client, we are able to use SmartSearch to initiate onboarding and track items such as AWGP, gross margin, and more.
- Great for keeping candidates well organized, especially if you have them submitted to multiple job orders. Each job order will create its own "hire track" which makes it easy to keep an eye on where a candidate is in the hiring process.
- Easily identifies duplicate applicants and candidates through comparison of a number of details and not just name - including the phone number, email, and location - but still affords you the opportunity to double check and ensure a candidate is, in fact, a duplicate entry
- For larger organizations, SmartSearch is wonderful in helping to identify the appropriate company contacts working on various positions across the US. If I am working with a candidate interested in a posting he saw for a job in Kentucky, I can locate the account manager and recruiter for the position within minutes.
- No ability to "tag" coworkers. My organization tracks certain metrics such as candidate submittals, interviews, and call connects. If I work with another recruiter on a position, there is no way to tag both recruiters to ensure each gets credit for their work.
- Job orders can only be assigned to one recruiter, one sourcer, and one account manager. Similar to my other point, this can be very restricting. For example, on my Dashboard, I have a list of "open jobs". If I am not listed as the recruiter or sourcer for the job order, it can be very cumbersome to attach candidates to the hiring track for that position if I do not have the JO# written down elsewhere.
- Something I wish SmartSearch (and many other platforms) offered is some pre-set tutorials to go through. SmartSearch seems to have a lot of features that I am not taking advantage of, simply because I do not know they exist or how to use them.
November 06, 2017
SmartSearch is a great ATS!
As a recruitment process outsourcing company, we used SmartSearch for both our internal hires and customer candidate tracking. It was a great ATS and easy to use. User-friendly dashboards. As one of the administrators, adding new users and specifying their access requirements was a smooth process. As the scheduler of all internal interviews, it was an easy way to track when a candidate was ready for scheduling, when the interview was complete and great for sharing notes on the candidates.
- ATS - Tracking applicants across multiple customers and job openings was a piece of cake.
- Communication among users was so easy.
- Customer Service. The team at SmartSearch was always available for a quick and painless Q&A.
- I don't think I have anything to add here.
December 23, 2015
Great System, Great Service
We use SmartSearch ATS for our recruiting services as well as our CRM. It helps us keep our recruiting efforts in line and provides excellent reporting and tracking of activities. As a CRM, its been very helpful with tracking pre-close and post-close clients. We are about to launch our marketing program utilizing the various tools in SmartSearch.
- Easy to use and very flexible. There are a lot of ways to customize it to your company's needs - both on the ATS and CRM sides.
- Excellent customer service - every single SmartSearch team member has been professional, friendly and very quick to answer questions and help with solutions. Plus, they do great follow up!
- They offer wonderful webinars on how to better utilize the product and provide access to some industry experts that are extremely beneficial.
- 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.
September 30, 2015
SmartSearch ATS is SMART!
SmartSearch ATS is being used in my company both as an Applicant Tracking System for my RecruiterGuy.com contract recruiter/consulting business and as a Customer Records Management System for my public speaking business SpeakBill.com. It solves my problem of tracking jobs, candidates, managers, posting jobs for Internet Aggregators to scrape, and tracking activity for clients and my businesses.
- When a company is a new client, SmartSearch ATS does an excellent job of bringing functionality to their client very quickly, usually within a couple of weeks. Their training program is designed so even non-technical users may use their SmartSearch ATS quickly.
- The Customer Support Team at SmartSearch ATS are off the charts great for jumping on problems quickly and solving them. Sometimes the problems are created by other vendors who link with SmartSearch ATS. Even then SmartSearch resolves the problem. My advice? Expect a happy resolution the rare times you have a problem.
- The Development Team at SmartSearch ATS have been around for many years. While the fundamentals of the SmartSearch ATS software are mature, the nature of the ATS software business is constant change. SmartSearch ATS does a wonderful job staying up to date. There is no need to bleed at cutting edge. Give me up to date and stability any day! SmartSearch ATS provides both.
- When you create a new job posting, you are required to pick a field from "miscellaneous export information". Camera Operator and Makeup Artists are choices. Web Developers are not a choice. I don't get that.
April 10, 2015
review
I am personally using it to create org charts. I just use it in HR.
- Org charts
- Searching locations
- Finding the employees needed for a job
- I cant think of any at this time.
April 07, 2015
Adaptable and User Friendly
Smart Search is being used company-wide where I work. It makes sure we can retain information for qualified job seekers.
- I like it better than other ATS I have used in the past because it utilizes very little system resources. Unlike other ATS I have used it has never frozen my computer or caused it to crash.
- It is very customizable. You can easily edit your default view to give you access to any information you may need. This significantly increases productivity.
- It has a great search function. You can quickly search most aspects of candidates, job orders, or contacts to find the information you need quickly.
- Once in a blue moon, when searching within the radius of a zip code, I find that the information is lacking in the ATS.
- The searches can be at times confusing, especially when searching job orders.
March 18, 2015
Most Flexible Product & Service
After evaluating several other products in the market, we found SmartSearch to be most flexible one out there. We later on visited their site and met their executive. Their transparency and flexibility were keys to our selection process. The data migration from a totally different platform went VERY smoothly as they had done a great amount of preparation. The product has exceeded our expectation. This product is used by several departments in our firm including both front and back office staff members.
- Flexible and customizable
- Robustness of both technology and the product
- Data Migration., Training, and Customer Service
- Nothing that I can think of at this point.
SmartSearch is being used across the organization as the primary applicant tracking system. In the staffing industry, an efficient ATS is instrumental in our success. SmartSearch is very user friendly and allows us to effectively streamline our applicant hire process.
- Search integration with popular job boards such as Monster and CareerBuilder make for simple searches to maximize results.
- HireTrak allows smooth transition through the hiring process.
- WIP is great. It makes it easy to efficiently maximize your daily productivity.
- Adding a contact to a job. The auto-populate feature doesn't always seem to work in accurately identifying the correct business contact to assign an order under
- When copying and pasting a job description from MS Word to SmartSearch, it often alters the format causing me to reformat.
February 25, 2015
Smart Search Review
It is used by the whole organization when the client does not posses or does not want us to share their ATS.
- Multi-database support for a very low price
- Easy to use
- Very low maintenance
- It could be improved by giving less options
- Minimum drop down menus instead of so many options
- A more clear and concise dashboard
February 21, 2015
SmartSearch Review
SmartSearch was used as an applicant tracking system. It made our lives easier as recruiters. We were able to create searches based on our defined criteria to find the best suited candidates in a quick fashion.
- Applicant tracking system
- Advanced searches
- Simple user interface
- Would be nice if the application was in a mobile app
- Faster results
- Associate employees with companies and manage that way
February 20, 2015
Former user of SmartSearch ATS provides perspective
SmartSearch was our ATS starting in 1995, we have since retired it as of last fall. The entire Recruitment Dept used it and it was accessible to HR.
- There are pluses and minuses with all software.
- It started off as a small company and has expanded over the years.
- As we grew we realized that customizing the software created issues.
- The reporting features were not robust and missed the mark for our reporting needs.
- We outgrew the system for several reasons.
February 18, 2015
It does the job....
At Novotus, we use SmartSearch ATS as our internal applicant tracking system for hiring internally. We also use SmartSeach for our one-off clients that we hire a couple positions for sporadically. It is not being used across the entire organization. We use a lot of different applicant tracking systems for all of our different clients.
- SmartSearch ATS is great as an applicant tracking system. It is very easy to use, but could use some tweaking.
- SmartSearch ATS is really great for easily posting to free job boards.
- SmartSearch ATS has a lot of applications and allows a lot of template creations for every different point of the process.
- SmartSearch ATS is VERY temperamental. It is hard to move around from one page to another without losing all data.
- SmartSearch ATS reporting is awful. There are not a lot of reports that you can pull as cleanly as I have found on other ATSs.
- SmartSearch ATS is very hard to train new people on. It is confusing and there are different ways of doing things.
December 18, 2014
Smart Search from a Recruiters POV
Different divisions of the company use SmartSearch in different ways. I will explain how my division uses it. In our division, it is only recruiting and HR that uses SmartSearch at this time. I work with the recruiting department and we use it for the gathering, interviewing and hiring process of candidates. All resumes we receive are loaded into SmartSearch. These can then be searched or referenced when looking for qualified candidates for positions. All jobs are also loaded into the program and then posted on our company website and shared with a few others. We then track the progress of the interview process within the program. SmartSearch helps keep the recruiting department organized.
- It is adaptable/customizable. Our department has a very particular process we move through when interviewing and we were able to customize a hire track. As an individual, you can customize your workspace, showing specifically what you need in your "WIP" (works in progress) and "Dashboard."
- SmartSearch Outlook Toolbar. This handy little tool has saved me personally hours of work. If a candidate sends me a resume, with the click of one button, I can quickly load him into SmartSearch. You can also easily add emails to the "Notes" section to keep track of communication with the candidate.
- Web-based, therefore accessible from anywhere. If I am out of the office working, I can still get exactly what I need because it not sitting on my hard drive in my office.
- The search function is not perfect. Sometimes with a simple search of candidates in my area, I only get three results, even though I know for a fact there are others in the system. I know some of it has to do with what format the resume was loaded into SmartSearch.
- Candidates can apply for a job without attaching a resume. They have to fill out some basic information, but apparently are not required to submit a resume. It doesn't happen often, but we've had it happen a number of times.
- There are so many functions/uses for SmartSearch, it can be overwhelming. When I first started using it, there was no training program and I was taught as I went. There were so many things I didn't learn...I am still picking up on new things to this day. I have noticed that recently there have been some more tutorials and webinars added, but when I started, there were not many at all.
- Some of the export functions could be improved. When jobs are exported to Monster or Careerbuilder, they sometimes mess with the formatting. We always have to double check the posting to make sure that it does not look bad (extra spaces, font changes, etc).
December 01, 2014
SmartSearch ATS
SmartSearch ATS is used by the HR department and by all hiring and project managers. It allows us to control and maintain communications and documentation to the hiring process per candidate, per project, and per manager/recruiter. Additionally, the reporting and dashboard functionality provide a visual for our activity including areas of weakness and strength. The workflow processes allow employees to apply directly online from our site, and the Outlook integration ensures efficiency between systems.
- Outlook Add-In Capability
- Multiple Application Options (Company careers page, Job Boards, etc.)
- Automatic and Custom Workflows
- Fillable pdf form integration
- Technical, functional, behavioral skills testing
August 21, 2014
SmartSearch Review
Synerfac currently uses SmartSearch throughout the entire company to store, and manage candidate resumes to help ease the process of staffing. It is very helpful in keeping everything organized with candidate contact info, daily scheduling and current or past tasks worked on.
- Easy flow of candidate processing.
- Very simple to use, easy to learn.
- It is aesthetically easy on the eyes with customization options.
- It is very slow during certain times of the day.
- The dashboard does not load and it seems like it crashes.
- When trying to process resumes added to the system, it sometimes just deletes the data, forcing you to start the whole process again.
- It seriously moves really slow and you have to exit out of the program and restart to try and make it work.
- Certain links do not load the first time, forcing you to reload and hope they show up on the screen.
August 20, 2014
SS rocks.
It is being used by the company that I work for to manage the applicants. It is used across the whole organization.
- Organization
- Easy Navigation
- Well Built
- More customization in the tool. An easier way to edit and put any box in whatever format on the dashboard.
August 20, 2014
SmartSearch Review
We use SmartSearch to put in our job requisitions we are recruiting for, and our candidates we find on job boards, LinkedIn, referrals, etc., pertaining to that specific job requisition. We use it across our organization from our Recruiters to our Account Executives to ensure that everyone sees all job requisitions and the candidates that have been submitted.
- Allowing to see candidates from our whole organization
- Seeing what open job requisitions we have, or which ones that I'm assigned to
- Matching skill sets of like candidates when a similar job requisition comes out that we have used in the past
- Can run really slow and get bogged down sometimes.
SmartSearch is being used by the organization as a whole. Its main purpose is to increase productivity throughout the company. As there are a lot of documents in play at an insurance company, a program like this brings a lot of value. The business problem it addresses is the lag that exists between way-points in the various business processes. With SmartSearch, there is a level of automation that significantly decreases this lag time, and diminishes the possibility of documents falling between the cracks.
- Organizational Automation - Too often a stack of paperwork on someone's desk takes a long time to process. This decreases the lag time by automatically routing paperwork to the proper party.
- Business Process Transparency - Along with the lag time mentioned above, other parties down the assembly line from a lag point are usually kept in the dark as far as where they are in a given business process. SmartSearch provides everyone involved in a business process or document workflow a clear view of its status, and who to talk to if there is a lag.
- IT Skill Needed - Although the basic functions are easy to implement for anyone regardless of their IT skill level, it takes someone with significant IT aptitude to implement the best parts of the software.