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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
18th
Ranking in Talent Management
19th
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
9th
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 April 2026, in the Benefits Administration category, the mindshare of IBM Kenexa is 1.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Taleo is 2.2%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Benefits Administration Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle Taleo2.2%
IBM Kenexa1.7%
Other96.1%
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

"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."
"From everything I’ve seen and heard, I would think Kenxea is probably one of the top three, if not the best, in the business that they do and the things that we use them for."
"We use the Viewpoint and that is an absolutely powerful tool; it is extremely helpful to get more insights, and to start a conversation with our employees to grow and improve."
"I just think it's a good tool, with great flexibility."
"Kenexa’s scalability has been great, as we can grow and expand our use no matter what and seamlessly incorporate our business process for new launches."
"Without this solution, we would have more administrative functions and would need to hire more HR employees."
"IBM Kenexa is fairly stable. We don't have any downtime."
"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."
"It is easy to use. Requisition management and pre-screening are the two most valuable features."
"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."
"The solution has good integration capabilities and extensibility, and there's the standard integration between Fusion and Taleo as well as the validations that can be done on top of Taleo."
"It is a really competitive solution in terms of technical features and user experience."
"The advantage I see is the presence of the industrial Taleo stack, which is beneficial for large-scale companies handling a higher load."
"The stability of the solution is good."
"The Talent Acquisition and Headhunting features are good."
"It has allowed us to be able to source candidates, have them apply for the job, or put in applications online, and all of our onboarding is done via the web as well, which makes everything easy, stable, and reliable."
 

Cons

"I'm just taking over the account, so I'm still pretty new to the whole system."
"The team didn't find the reporting tool that easy to use, in terms of pulling their own data, slicing and dicing it, combining groups."
"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."
"I would like to have a better and more user-friendly interface."
"The user interface could do with an overhaul."
"We're really looking forward to some of their enhancements to their onboarding portal, specifically for recruiters and hiring managers."
"Once-a-year engagement kind of seems to be a little bit lagging in terms of how we can actually shape and improve organizations, so I was looking forward to understanding a bit more where IBM Kenexa's thinking is going in terms of pulsing with the employee voice and how that kind of integrates and works with tell-it-as-it-is, and the other two applications we have; it's just too early to know."
"The downside is it's a system that was created many, many years ago and so it just evolves."
"Lacks some systems that we need."
"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."
"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)."
"When editing some components such as requisitions, the solution does not respond quickly in terms of performance, maybe because of the technology in which the solution is currently built."
"The product was not very sophisticated in terms of what it could do."
"The solution should be more intuitive and user-friendly when navigating the different pages within Oracle."
"There are always going to be little caveats here and there that you might not have known about as far as changes are concerned, however, it's not business-oriented to the point where the business shuts down."
"The bulk recruitment feature does not work well."
 

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
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
22%
Financial Services Firm
13%
University
7%
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

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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.
889,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.