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IBM Kenexa vs Oracle Taleo comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Kenexa
Ranking in Benefits Administration
16th
Ranking in Talent Management
17th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software (10th)
Oracle Taleo
Ranking in Benefits Administration
8th
Ranking in Talent Management
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Benefits Administration category, the mindshare of IBM Kenexa is 1.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Taleo is 2.3%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Benefits Administration Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle Taleo2.3%
IBM Kenexa1.8%
Other95.9%
Benefits Administration
 

Featured Reviews

Karan Grover - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Suitable for larger-scale companies aiming to streamline and automate their processes digitally
The deployment of the solution took between six to eight months. When we introduced BrassRing at my company, we encountered several challenges. First, moving data from our old system to BrassRing was tough because it needed reformatting. Second, connecting BrassRing with our HR data was tricky due to manual processes for roles and departments. Third, setting up the workflow in BrassRing was complex. Fourth, configuring user access and approval levels was a detailed task. We also had to manage the change process, including running both old and new systems in parallel, communicating changes, and training users. Lastly, monitoring and reporting were needed to ensure data accuracy and proper system usage once everything was in place. We had a team of six to eight people managing the project from our side during the BrassRing deployment. I'm not sure about the size of the BrassRing team, and we also had our own technical team, which had three to four members. The solution required maintenance, particularly from my side as the administrator. Maintenance responsibilities were divided into two parts: some tasks we, as end-users, could control, while others were the responsibility of the BrassRing team. Payment-related tasks were a regular part of our responsibilities. I wasn't the only person maintaining the solution. There were three power users from Infosys, each responsible for a specific geography. My counterpart managed it in the US, and I, along with my colleague in India, managed it for other geographies.
Raghu Varun - PeerSpot reviewer
Talent Acquisition Specialist at Autodesk, Inc.
Supports recruitment workflows effectively but requires better AI search and mobile capabilities
Oracle Taleo lacks AI right now when everyone is transitioning into AI. It is very limited with a single word search. A chatbot could be added to Oracle Taleo as most of the current existing tools have. Career site redirection could be more advanced with the user interface.AI-assisted search can help in the sourcing platform, which would be an added advantage compared to Oracle Taleo. The filters are good, but when trying to use a Boolean search or customize search options, it only takes a limited selection of keywords. AI could help in more advanced search capability, which might be a drawback for Oracle Taleo. Additionally, creating campaigns and bulk messaging is lacking.Regarding the mobile-friendly candidate experience, there are better options from other tools. You are limited to the approval part. Difficulties arise when wanting access to applications or dashboards connected to Oracle Taleo or viewing the transition on mobile.When it comes to stability and performance, there are prior communications about downtimes on Saturdays, but there are some issues during weekdays which are faced occasionally. The scalability aspect is not quite scalable.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"As I said, IBM are doing a great job with us at the moment, but we're always looking and speaking and open to having conversations with other people because the market's changing and IBM are aware of that."
"The ability now to be able to take data, load it yourself, ask the business questions and get the answers on your own process with the business just made it a lot faster, and the cognitive solution gives us some insights for us to think about."
"For us in particular, I love how configurable the system is; I can use the same technology for different parts of my business."
"We felt like Kenexa was robust enough and dynamic enough that it met our needs, so it didn't make sense for us to disrupt 700 locations and reteach them something."
"The most valuable features are that we can upload documents and download them on demand, whether it is joining documents, employment screening, or your employment history, and it's easy enough to upload, find, and retrieve whatever you are looking for."
"It is extremely user friendly. It is very flexible in managing recruitment, especially when you have thousands of applicants as we did. We easily had over 20,000 applicants within a year for some of our positions, so it made it very easy to manage a large application pool. It was very easy to customize by recruiter preference. When you open up someone's profile to see their experience, education, or other things, you can customize that for yourself. It was flexible in that, and each recruiter could set up their preferences. It didn't have to be set up so that everyone had to have the same landing platform, which was very helpful. As someone who trained other HR people on how to use the system, it was very easy to pick up and learn."
"I like how we can copy a req as we have many duplicates, which saved a lot of time when opening reqs."
"It has definitely improved my organization by being able to help the recruiters move candidates through the interview process."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"It works okay, I've found good resources using Taleo, it saved me a lot of time, I just put a requisition in and then I just grab the candidates, the resumes, and I scan them, okay, I want this guy, I don't want that guy, the rest is done by HR, so it's less trouble for me as a manager, and I am dealing with a very special group of people."
"The stability of the solution is good."
"I think we have faster on-boarding time, it is mobile and you can use it anywhere, and it's also more cost effective because it doesn't take as many people to do it."
"It's huge, as it is revenue for us as we sell our training to hospitals and hospital systems, as well as through e-commerce for individual purchases."
"Oracle Taleo's integration capabilities are good."
"ATS is used to track candidates. We've used it for job requisitions, getting candidates for those requisitions, moving them through different interview stages, and then handling their onboarding process."
"The stability of the solution is good."
 

Cons

"Improvements can be made from the back end, with the workbench."
"There were functions we couldn't customize and needed to."
"In the past year, there has been a significant increase in the amount of internal errors that are displayed."
"I get a real sense of frustration when you see the kind of customer insight teams and what they can do and then you look at the colleague insights teams, which I'm leading on as well, and seeing there's a gap and we need to close that gap."
"Technical support was not always great. They tend to push you towards workbench admins or paid support."
"Being in a silo of my own world, my wish would be that everything that's available in their legacy views would be moved into their new Talent Suite products, so we could move over to that."
"The reporting feature currently is our biggest struggle point; getting the data we need and in the fashion that we need it is a current struggle point for us."
"Improved integrations: There are all kinds of issues with integrations, hires failing."
"Oracle Taleo felt a bit outdated, and we didn't use it for every step of the candidate process. We mainly used it to track job IDs, create job requisitions, and add candidates when making an offer. It wasn't very user-friendly for moving candidates through different stages of the recruitment lifecycle."
"In terms of Oracle Taleo as a product, there are a lot of things which can be developed; most feedback which I have heard from customers is about the dashboard and the home page, both of which are quite basic."
"With Taleo, I experience two limitations. First, it only supports soft calls with a daily limit, which is a concern. The other limitation is that it feels outdated, and I cannot compare certain things or implement some automations that require a lot of manual intervention when initiating, generating, and calculating offers."
"Customer support. It is very cold, you put a ticket in and you might get a response back an hour or two later."
"The bulk recruitment feature does not work well."
"Although I know that the Oracle Development team is working on it for next releases, there are certain areas where functionality could be improved in the Learning Module (better integration with the other modules, and in terms of reporting)."
"Also, the users didn’t like Learn. It was not as user friendly and simple (step-wise) as our legacy system. We didn’t anticipate how much they would hate Learn."
"It only supports soft calls with a daily limit, which is a concern."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Kenexa was fairly priced. However, in 2019, before I left my previous organization, they significantly increased their pricing. It can be affordable, but their pricing is going up. It is not just licensing; it is how many applicants you have in your system on the database side."
"Whether you pay annually or on some other payment schedule depends on the license model you choose. Typically, clients pay a yearly subscription."
"Oracle Taleo is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
22%
Financial Services Firm
12%
University
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise28
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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What needs improvement with Oracle Taleo?
Oracle Taleo lacks AI right now when everyone is transitioning into AI. It is very limited with a single word search. A chatbot could be added to Oracle Taleo as most of the current existing tools ...
What is your primary use case for Oracle Taleo?
I have been working with Workday for the last one and a half years, but prior to that, I was there for Oracle Taleo and SuccessFactors for almost six years. I migrated to Workday and Oracle HCM app...
What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Taleo?
When someone is trying to implement Oracle Taleo, they should look into the systems and what features can be integrated. Not every organization helps you in integration with third parties, and you ...
 

Also Known As

IBM Smarter Workforce, Outstart
Taleo, SonicRecruit
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Sweet Spot International (SSI), Leo Burnett Worldwide (LBW), Sika AG, Legacy Health, Apollo Group Inc., Regeneron, Transurban Group, National Health Service, New Zealand Police, Overland Footwear, Yealands, Johnson Controls, Allscripts, Kerry Foods, Masterpet, AMD, Balfour Beatty
ICA Fluor, Monsanto Company, Hitachi Consulting, Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, Kalpataru Ltd, DELL Inc., JSR Micro Inc., Skanska AB, Acciona, Baloise Group, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, Logicalis Inc., Garmin International, Intuit Inc, The Dow Chemical Company
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Kenexa vs. Oracle Taleo and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.