AkkenCloud vs. Brassring

Akkencloud has worked extremely well as an ATS software for our recruiting firm. We deal with a huge volume of clients and candidates and it is difficult to track and manage the different orders and people we have in play. The statuses and on stop shop for requisition details have made things tremendously easy to give real time updates to our managers and client partners.

Incentivized

Other products in the same category as Kenexa 2x BrassRing would be Taleo and PeopleFluent. I would also look into Avature as an ATS option. I am currently on the sourcing side of the recruitment process and use Avature for tracking and candidate mining purposes. I would recommend getting any kind of demo possible since the user interfaces vary quite a bit between them. Ease of use and overall stability should be kept in mind when comparing ATS prices.

• Notes about candidates are the most helpful because as a recruiter, we talk to so many people a day that it is common to forget the details of some conversations.
• Being able to notify other people in the organization about notes that are put in is very beneficial if the note needs to be in the system and someone should know about it!
• Being able to open "candidates" or "job orders" or something else in a new tab is great because then we can have the inbox open while also the candidate notes open, for example.

Incentivized

• Kenexa allows Boolean key word search within a particular requisition so it makes sifting through a high number of applicants manageable and effective
• Kenexa can be tailored to meet individual business needs. During the time we’ve had Kenexa here I’ve used it in support of a few different business segments and for each the way the system was used to “position” candidate statuses have varied based on the individual need of the business. One example is when interviewing a high volume of applicants internationally, we were able to send qualified applicants through to the “event manager” and it would enable the candidate to select his/her interview date/time based on previously submitted options inputted by our Kenexa users.
• Kenexa allows one to customize and score questions for each open requisition that applicants complete as they apply. The system then sorts applicants according to the score of candidate answers allowing for easy sorting of top qualified candidates.

• When a candidate applies via applicant tracking, there is a glitch that you have to submit that candidate a different way than other candidates by using the applied function, then submitting from there. That is a glitch that should be fixed. You should be able to submit the same way and allow the system to track that he was a candidate from applicant tracking.
• The new alerts from notes works well. The only change I would make is it is rather slow to attach a note now since the new messages have been added to notes.
• Email should be a bit quicker. Rather than going to the server every 5 minutes, it should pull much quicker. That ability is rather easy to fix. Especially since we receive emails on our phone much quicker than we receive from Akken.

Incentivized

• Setting up integrations is extremely tedious. For instance, setting up an address feed would have required sending over 5 different spreadsheets on a daily basis (one each for every facility name, street address, zip code, state, country) and a 6th sheet to make the connection between the other 5 elements. We opted not to set up that integration as a result.

Incentivized

There is no reason for us to make a switch. Everybody in the office is familiar with it and it allows us to get our work done faster. There are no pressing issues that would warrant a change at this point

Incentivized

I am confident that the Kenexa product will continue to evolve to meet the needs of our business in an ever changing work environment. The affiliation with IBM also plays a factor as we have a long standing successful relationship with IBM products. We will be looking to integrate other Kenexa products in the near future to streamline our HR processes.

Akken is quite easy to use however there are a few more complex functions or multi steps to go through to run reports and find historic information.

Incentivized

There is nothing that a recruiter needs to do that they can't do with Kenexa 2XB but the proprietary, old fashioned UI is far from intuitive to use. I only rate 2XB this highly because the SaaS is up most of the time, performance is usually reasonable, and it does actually work.

It's an average tool. The calendar function isn't great, email is slow, and there always seem to be day-to-day issues. The functionality is mostly there for a staffing firm, but there are plenty of areas of improvement still needed

Incentivized

Just slow for what we are doing here

The best support we have received has been from sales. Customer success is pretty much a joke. We have been yelled at by customer success reps; been told to take a screenshot of something we are not seeing; been told there are no issues on there in when Akken hadn't been working for hours, only to have it magically fixed shortly after we reported the problem; and been told engineering was working on a problem for weeks without resolution. If you are going to be working with IT Staffing companies, you have to understand that we have a modicum of knowledge in IT, and you can't BS us. Honesty will get you a lot farther than stringing us along with BS.

Incentivized

It is a very basic system. It may be OK for entry level positions only. The practice of removing CVs while the recruitment process is ON is disturbing and there is no one to explain or to inform why it is being done. Even a routine mail is not sent to the client/consultant. I am surprised how this system is continuing without too many complaints.

Encourage your team to watch the training videos available.

Incentivized

We purchased an out of the box solution and that worked well for us.

Incentivized

At the time we purchased Akken, it was the least expensive on the market that met our needs. It was fairly intuitive, which is important, and we liked the idea that it was hosted remotely because we had had several instances with our inhouse system going down and nearly lost all of our CRM/ATS databases at one time.

Incentivized

The primary reason of still going with Kenexa is because we have been using it for quite some time now. And considering it is used by more than 30 countries, it makes the training and communication about Kenexa easy. Also purchasing this license for a longer period (3, 5 years) makes it very cost effective as well.

Incentivized

• The company has pumped enough money into trying to make Akken good that they aren't interested in changing again.
• Seriously a terrible ATS which slows people down due to the useless functions.
• More time lost from people needing to fix issues that arise due to the system requirements.

Incentivized

• Kenexa has assisted us in identifying top talent within our target market of applicants.
• Kenexa may exclude potentially good associates that don't test well.
• Kenexa clearly defines specific categories and general notes for training, development, & coaching of associates on areas of opportunity.

Incentivized