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IBM Kenexa pros and cons

Vendor: IBM

3.8 out of 5

30 reviews
90% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

IBM Kenexa offers flexibility in managing large applicant volumes and allows individualized profile viewing for recruiters. The platform supports document management with stable performance and scalability, ideal for large companies. Challenges include complex reporting tools, extensive training for the Workbench, and unsatisfactory customer service. An update to reporting and analytics tools is recommended to improve usability for HR professionals, enhancing the overall experience and operational efficiency.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

IBM Kenexa handles a large volume of applicants efficiently, facilitating the management of over 20,000 applicants annually for some positions.

Recruiters can easily customize views and settings according to individual preferences, enhancing personal productivity and experience.

Users can readily upload and download documents as needed, providing convenience and flexibility in accessing vital information.

IBM Kenexa offers high stability with minimal downtime, ensuring continuous operational performance.

Scaling capabilities are strong, making IBM Kenexa a reliable choice for large organizations looking to expand their recruiting efforts seamlessly.

CONS

Reporting tool is not the easiest to train or understand for HR professionals.

Workbench site requires more work from administrators.

Workbench training is very unhelpful and takes eight hours to complete.

Customer service for Workbench site is not helpful.

IBM Kenexa needs to update its reporting and analytics tools.

IBM Kenexa Pros review quotes

Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Sep 26, 2023

The ease of scaling is one of BrassRing's biggest strengths, making it a trusted choice for large companies.

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RL

Associate at a hospitality company with 10,001+ employees

Jun 22, 2022

IBM Kenexa is fairly stable. We don't have any downtime.

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reviewer1469322

HR Operations Manager at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Dec 9, 2020

The most valuable features are that we can upload documents and download them on demand.

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Free Report: IBM Kenexa Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about IBM Kenexa. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2026.

893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.

reviewer1467882

Manager, Human Resources at a non-profit with 11-50 employees

Dec 11, 2020

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.

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Head Of Culture & Engagement at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Feb 15, 2017

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.

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Experienced Full Cycle Remote at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Jun 19, 2017

I like how we can copy a req as we have many duplicates, which saved a lot of time when opening reqs.

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Assoc. Specialist Talent Acquisition Solutions at a consumer goods company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Nov 15, 2016

I would say the support that we get from the CSMs is the most valuable for me right now, because I'm still leaning on them pretty heavily to understand everything that I'm doing within the system.

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Director of HR Operations and HRIS at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Aug 22, 2016

It allowed for truly global listing for all open positions.

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Global Employee Engagement Lead at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Feb 15, 2017

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.

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Talent Systems and Operations Analyst at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Oct 14, 2016

This tool is very powerful and the ability to tweak it in order to meet desired processes and controls is valuable.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 29)

IBM Kenexa Cons review quotes

Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Sep 26, 2023

It needs to update its reporting and analytics tools.

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RL

Associate at a hospitality company with 10,001+ employees

Jun 22, 2022

I would not recommend IBM Kenexa to others.

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reviewer1469322

HR Operations Manager at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Dec 9, 2020

I would like to have a better and more user-friendly interface.

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Free Report: IBM Kenexa Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about IBM Kenexa. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2026.

893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.

reviewer1467882

Manager, Human Resources at a non-profit with 11-50 employees

Dec 11, 2020

The reporting tool is helpful, but it is not the easiest to train on or is not as understandable for other HR pros. Their Workbench site, which is the administrator site that you use to update your website, is not user-friendly. When updates are required, it is not that easy to manage because Workbench is not user friendly. It required more work from the admins. They have Workbench training, which actually was very unhelpful. It took eight hours to complete, and it was not very helpful. Their customer service when it comes specifically to their Workbench site is not helpful.

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Head Of Culture & Engagement at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Feb 15, 2017

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.

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Experienced Full Cycle Remote at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Jun 19, 2017

There were functions we couldn't customize and needed to.

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Assoc. Specialist Talent Acquisition Solutions at a consumer goods company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Nov 15, 2016

I'm just taking over the account, so I'm still pretty new to the whole system.

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Director of HR Operations and HRIS at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Aug 22, 2016

2xO was created by brain-damaged monkeys in front of keyboards.

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Global Employee Engagement Lead at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Feb 15, 2017

There are tools that actually are not there where clients need them, especially the survey analytics to analyze verbatim in different languages.

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Talent Systems and Operations Analyst at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Oct 14, 2016

The user interface could do with an overhaul.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 29)

Product Categories

Product Categories

Talent Management

Benefits Administration

Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software

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Product Categories

Product Categories

Talent Management

Benefits Administration

Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

SAP SuccessFactors vs IBM Kenexa

Workday vs IBM Kenexa

UKG vs IBM Kenexa

PeopleSoft vs IBM Kenexa

Oracle HCM Cloud vs IBM Kenexa

SAP HCM vs IBM Kenexa

PeopleStrong vs IBM Kenexa

Sage People vs IBM Kenexa

SmartRecruiters vs IBM Kenexa

Oracle Taleo vs IBM Kenexa

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