What is our primary use case?
We used SmartRecruiters as our sole recruitment platform. Basically, we were using an HR system that had a recruitment module before, and it wasn't very good. So, we were using this as a standalone recruitment tool for all of our recruiting needs across five main areas of work. Essentially, managing the whole end-to-end recruitment process.
I used this program in my last role, which ended earlier in 2020.
How has it helped my organization?
There were several benefits to using this product. One of them was that we previously had a lot of problems with attracting enough candidates for our roles due to various reasons, but with SmartRecruiters, it made attraction significantly easier.
A lot of our roles would fill directly, just through the auto-posting features that SmartRecruiters has. We significantly saved on agency use and recruitment advertising, et cetera. We filled a lot of the roles directly on our own.
Another one was around visibility. Having access to data and reporting was really good. They've got some inbuilt reports around things like diversity monitoring, source of candidates, time to hire, and all of that is really easy to access. It gave you some really useful insight on where the holes in your process were and where things could be made better as well.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the way that they've set it up for collaboration. Recruitment is obviously a team sport for want of a better phrase. A lot of the other systems that I've used, it's been quite tricky to actually get comments and feedback from people via a recruitment system - people tend to do things off-system, but SmartRecruiters made it very easy for the managers and the candidates and everybody else that's involved in recruitment to actually use the system and to share feedback on candidates and share decisions, et cetera, as well.
The interface is definitely user-friendly. Before we decided to go with SmartRecruiters, we did a final round of testing with users between this and another solution. The feedback that I got from hiring managers and from people that were applying as if they were candidates said that it was the most user-friendly system that they've experienced in this type of system.
One thing that stuck with me, the feedback that I got from somebody was he basically said it's like they've looked at all of the other systems, stripped out all the rubbish that you get with them, and then they just give you what you need and it's very clear what you need to do on each page.
With respect to listening to what the users want, they have a forum where people can suggest new ideas and vote on them, and they push those ideas through fairly regular releases.
What needs improvement?
When I was working on it, I found a couple of minor niggles around workflows and the customization of them. However, my understanding is that they have now fixed them.
There were some issues with integrations around other HR systems and each one had to be custom-built, which took a little while to get set up and running. While they have some integrations pre-built, we were using an HR system that would have need an integration building from scratch. It's not really their fault but it can slow things down.
I guess the only other thing is that they don't do, technically, a full end-to-end. In terms of candidate onboarding, et cetera, they don't do onboarding themselves, but they have the marketplace where there's a selection of integrated vendors that you can choose from, but then you obviously need to develop a relationship with those vendors and sign a contract with them and pay for it separately. The system that I'm using now tries to be a "one size fits all" solution for everybody and they only have one solution, whereas, with SmartRecruiters, they give you the choice of a couple of different vendors via their marketplace.
If I had to choose one thing for them to work on, it would be having a more integrated onboarding solution.
Buyer's Guide
SmartRecruiters
October 2024
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
With respect to stability, we had no problems with bugs or freezing. There were occasional downtimes, which were unplanned unscheduled downtimes. I think that was just a blip along the way, but towards the end of my time using it, it was a fairly constant thing.
It was never particularly long, at perhaps 20 to 30 minutes max downtime, but it was annoying at the same time. They do have status updates and they'll email you as soon as they know that something's up and they work on it and they give you fairly constant updates.
As the recruitment manager, I was using it on a daily basis and we were using it for all of our recruitment. My plans were to continue using it, maybe look at expanding out and using some of the marketplace vendors to cover off the other parts of the process that we were doing manually. However, I left that organization and have begun using a different product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We did have the opportunity to scale because we used it beyond our original use case. It was originally bought for our day-to-day recruitment needs for the core company, but then we also have a couple of affiliate companies that have their own brand and identity. Because you can set up additional companies under the existing license, we ended up supporting them.
Then, we also used it to replace another software system that we were using in a different part of the business. We were effectively using CRM for recruitment purposes and paying large sums of money for it when we didn't really need to. We tweaked the process and ended up using SmartRecruiters for that as well.
We had about 250 users, which included myself and HR colleagues, being six or seven of us. The majority of users were hiring managers and all kinds of interviewers or short-listers, as well as candidates.
In terms of configuration and adjusting process flows and look and feel, it's very good.
How are customer service and support?
With the single sign-on problem that we had, we ended up having their head of technical support in San Francisco, join us on a call to sort stuff out, which was really appreciated. On a day-to-day basis, they've got a really responsive team in Poland.
They're very accessible and very responsive.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have deployed a couple of different recruitment systems and this was the easiest one, by far. Since I have left that organization, I have been using another well known ATS. They both do basically the same thing but in very different ways.
My current system has been around for approximately 20 years. They have tweaked it and developed it for a while, but you can tell that the core product has been around for a while and it's not quite as slick and streamlined as I found SmartRecruiters.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was easy, compared to other similar solutions that I have worked with.
It took us a little while to deploy, although that was more on our side. We had some internal IT issues around single sign-on, which took us longer than planned.
SmartRecruiters were really, really good in terms of offering support while we were trying to work out what was wrong on our end. Had it not been for those, we probably could have launched in about six weeks or so, but it ended up being approximately two and a half months in total.
What about the implementation team?
I led the deployment on it from my side, but then I had support from IT colleagues, et cetera. SmartRecruiters provided a dedicated implementation consultant, who was excellent.
The solution is hosted by SmartRecruiters, so all of the maintenance is done by them.
What was our ROI?
We absolutely saw ROI, and it was massive. In terms of cost savings and time savings, that's probably the two main ones.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There were implementation costs in the first year to get everything set up and running, and then they have various modules on top, which are optional and available at an extra charge.
From my perspective, there was not a lack of functionality. They have modules for large parts of the system that they will charge for separately. There were certain things that we didn't pay for, so we didn't have access to These included things like a candidate relationship management database and I think they have various AI tools as well, but that's 'opt-in' if you want it.
In my previous role, when I was using SmartRecruiters, we were a registered charity in the UK, so they offered a fairly significant discount on that, which was really appreciated. Had it not been for that then it definitely would've been out of our price range.
By comparison, it's close to the same price as what I'm paying for my current solution in my current organization. With that charity discount, it definitely makes things more palatable. I think otherwise in terms of the market, where they sit in the marketplace, they are definitely towards the higher end of things.
What other advice do I have?
In my experience with this solution, there were not many downfalls to it.
This is a product that I would recommend. My advice to people would be to just be as prepared as possible. Do your reading. They provide a lot of setup documentation and things that they need from you, so they give you everything, but they will do handholding as well.
There's quite a lot of research internally, which is what I discovered from the example I was saying about the delayed implementation. They make it as easy as possible, but there's a certain amount that you have to do at your end at the same time.
The biggest lesson that I have learned from using SmartRecruiters is that technology can only take you so far. You can have an excellent system like SmartRecruiters, but if your internal processes are broken, then it's only going to take you so far. It's great to have, but you have to have the internal systems and processes in place as well to really make the most of it.
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.