Sage People vs SmartRecruiters comparison

"Compared to the other system that we were using, I think Sage is more friendly. As an administrator, Sage's dashboard is visually friendly and many tasks are easier to accomplish. Another feature that we've liked since we started using Sage is the reporting. With the other system, we needed to configure a lot of things manually when it came to reporting, but with Sage the reporting tasks are much simpler."

"The most valuable feature of Sage People is the integration with our payroll system."

"The most valuable features of Sage People are the reports that are useful for decision-making and the API that can be integrated well. Additionally, the solution can be accessed from mobile devices onto the cloud."

"The reporting features are also very valuable because, on top of 300+ reports available on the system, you can also customize quite a number of reports."

"Sage makes all the information accessible, like pulling a file because an employee needs something ASAP. It's all in the system. It's easy to find old reports if I need them for payroll purposes. It might take days to do some of this work by hand."

"The solution is beneficial overall."

"The solution's initial setup was straightforward."

"The solution provides the ability to trace back records, is reliable, makes life easy, and is secure."

"I used the free version, which I found valuable."

"The features that were most important for us to have were that it is user friendly and functional, which is definitely the case with SmartRecruiters. Our organization is located in developing countries where the bandwidth and internet stability are not the strongest and SmartRecruiters accommodates this challenge. It was a very big plus that we are able to use the system even in these locations."

"The most valuable feature is the way that they've set it up for collaboration."

"The all-encompassing ability to manage the process cohesively out of the SmartRecruiter system was valuable."

"It is a really user-friendly tool, and its implementation is quite wide. It is very easy to manage users and build your workflows. Overall, it works very well for the customization of the workflows for us. The recruitment team has generally found the whole platform useful. We were looking to kind of expand it by using the CRM functions that it has. However, with COVID and recruitment being on the freeze, we weren't really able to make the most of the tool. They are, however, finding it useful to actually build up their talent pools and client candidates to be able to contact them when we kind of have this freeze off."

"What I really like about it is that it feels minimal, but is also dynamic. There aren't a lot of ways to get lost, which is good."

"It has a lot of good features. We post all of our jobs through the system, and they have a marketplace where you can share the job post with the job boards they're working with. It is integrated with all the records about from where the applications are coming. We have all of our candidates gathered there. We can set up our own hiring processes depending on the type of job and then move them through the process there. It is also possible to involve hiring managers and give them access so that they can also track the candidates and have a look at TBE and interact in the system, which is very useful. We also use SmartRecruiters for job approvals before posting the job as well as for offer approvals before sending an offer. We have everything in the system itself, and everything is being tracked, which is very good for us. It is a reliable system, and you can use it for the full cycle of recruitment. You can really adapt it to your processes. When it comes to the configuration, it is easy to configure. Something that is good with SmartRecruiters is that they are always working on improvements. Every quarter, they have different enhancements or product releases, which is something that we appreciate."

"SmartRecruiters is a candidate management system or ATS system that we use for recruitment purposes."

"The integration with our payroll system could improve. However, it is managed by another company."

"In my opinion, the performance management module of this system could use improvement as it falls behind compared to other specialized performance management platforms."

"There were a couple of things that we wanted to customize, but we couldn’t do it ourselves."

"The user interface is not great."

"If Sage People were to become a fully cloud-based solution, it could lead to significant improvements. With the COVID pandemic highlighting the benefits of remote work, a complete shift to cloud-based functionality would be a welcome development for users."

"The budget module does not work. Sage People need to maybe make it more user-friendly."

"Its stability could be better."

"Its technical support could have been better."

"There were problems with integrations around other systems and each one had to be custom-built, which took a little while to get set up and running."

"There were limitations with the system that we would have liked, not in the time, but the company in Germany really dictated that. So we couldn't do everything in the system we would have liked to it."

"I don't see the integration of SmartRecruiters with SAP happening quite seamlessly, making it an area where improvements are required."

"The major improvement area is how it integrates with other systems. That's where we've had some sort of pain points. They've done a lot of work with their development team in setting up integrations with other types of software like SuccessFactors, which we use, but we have found some glitches there. This is probably where they need to do some work. Sometimes, when it refreshes or there is any sort of update in SmartRecruiters, it has a direct impact on the integrations that we have with other tools. We are not always notified when that takes place. We have had HR say to us, "We've just hired this guy. He is not there in our end board at all. What's going on?" That's when we realized that the integration is actually broken. When we have other solutions like SuccessFactors, it would be very helpful to have knowledge articles for such integrations. We have found some of the templates that we want to use and some of the customizations that we do around the offer letters and the contract letters to be a little bit more difficult, which hasn't made this process any more efficient than it was. We still have to do a bit of manual intervention there. I don't know if it is just our company, but we need to have different clauses and things in place. We have stopped using DocuSign as well, and we are trying to look at other ways of doing that. They are aware of this."

"One thing that has been a bit of a struggle is getting tech support. It is a little more difficult to get support from SmartRecruiters. They want you to have your own in-house person to help you with any issues, whereas with both Lever and Greenhouse, you can just click a button at the bottom of the screen and chat with someone almost instantly."

"One of the areas that we would like them to improve is the self-scheduling feature. They have a self-scheduling feature that can be made a little bit more automated when it comes to scheduling. We are trying to use it, but it doesn't feel very user-friendly. This is something that could be improved. They have launched WhatsApp connections in the system, where instead of sending emails, you can WhatsApp candidates directly from the system, but currently, it mainly works in a few countries. Spain, where I'm based, is not one of them. If we use the system, the phone number for the candidates would be from the UK, and we don't think that would be the best. This feature is good for some countries, but not for all at the moment. It was first launched in the USA and then in a couple of countries in Europe. It is not yet launched fully in Europe. Reporting is always something that can be improved. Even though it is working well for us, its reporting can be better. Currently, it is a little bit complicated when it comes to reporting. It has a few pre-made reports that are easy to access, but if you want more details, you need to build your own reports. In order to do that, it is a bit tricky to learn and understand how it works. Even though you have help agents and support for help, it takes some time to learn, but it is not impossible. We have very recently made some integrations with Tableau. We are building dashboards in Tableau where we can get daily updated reports, and they are definitely helpful. That's something we would recommend. SmartRecruiters has recently implemented an inbox. You can have an inbox where you can see all your conversations, but currently, it is not filtering between the recruiters, so you see everyone's emails in there. They have already announced that they are working on the filtering feature for a specific inbox to make it more personalized per recruiter. This way the recruiters can have an overview of their own work."

"Around 2015 and into '17, I worked at a federal contractor. I had to switch to a different applicant system as I didn't know if SmartRecruiters was OFCCP compliant, which is something that, as a US-based federal contractor, you have to ensure. They should work to appeal to the contractor industry and get the product OFCCP compliant."

"We require greater flexibility for customization with our employer branding. Currently, it is very much driven by the SmartRecruiters design. We are using a SaaS solution, so we are powered by what is in the core product itself. A disadvantage of being a SaaS solution is that there aren't many customization options because you are literally buying it out of the box. You use whatever is offered to you in a box as much as you can, and that might be a problem sometimes because customizations are not achievable. They should definitely improve and provide more flexibility for customizations. For a large organization like ours, they can provide more flexibility on the authorization side of things. They could create a much more flexible way of access and separate the IT or help desk access when they need to go into the system and do some fixes. Currently, it is set up in a way that that you have access for everything or nothing, which is not useful in terms of the separation of duty that we have. There are also other things like matrix, where we can have a better and deeper kind of analysis."

"From an SME standpoint, I wouldn't necessarily describe it as expensive. However, for the average startup, it may not be affordable since our current annual expenditure on the system, which supports approximately 210-220 users, amounts to approximately £15,000 to £18,000."

"The price of the solution is reasonable."

"Its cost is moderate for a multi-group licensing model."

"We have to purchase the solution's license to use it."

"I believe we pay licensing on a yearly basis, but I can't comment on the total amount that we pay on licensing."

"The cost of Sage People varies depending on the financial resources of the organization. While it may be affordable for middle-level companies, it may be more challenging for young companies to bear the cost."

"There is other software on the market that can do similar functions to Sage People that could be better in price. Some solution allows you to do your payroll processes by month or by the process. Small companies could benefit by using another solution."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"They are pretty competitive. As the product matures, it has much more functionality and different pricing models. It can relatively cost a lot more if you want to use additional features, but, in general, it is competitive in the industry. We work on a yearly license agreement based on the company size. There are the support costs, which are a part of the additional cost based on the percentage of the licensing fee. So, it has a license plus support cost. Then, of course, there are other add-on options that we can purchase and procure whenever we want to based on certain negotiated arrangements."

"SmartRecruiters is much better than its competitors. Considering the type of features and services it provides, it is probably one of the best solutions in the market. Others may offer a similar price, but their services won't be that good or the user-friendliness won't be that great. The licensing works based on how many users are there in a company. If you are using other functionalities, like CRM and HRS, the price increases."

"SmartRecruiters is an expensive solution."

"Back in 2018, when I engaged with their sales, they wanted to charge around $10,000 for an annual subscription. Depending on your organization, that either could or couldn't be expensive. I personally think it's a fair price. However, I engaged them and negotiated a lower price with them. I think I got closer to $6,000. It came with a commitment of three years."

"I haven't been so involved with pricing, so I don't have all details, but I know that we are paying per head when it comes to different countries. There is an additional fee for new features that they release. If it is something that we would like to use, we need to pay some extra for it."

"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."

"I wasn't involved in its acquisition, but I would assume that SmartRecruiters is pretty pricey."