CATS ATS

Score3.7 out of 10

57 Reviews and Ratings

What is CATS ATS?

CATS is a web-based recruiting software. Users can manage the entire recruiting process including custom job applications, posting jobs, resume parsing, custom recruitment workflows, and generating customized reports. Pricing is tiered per user, per month.

Categories & Use Cases

Applicant Tracking

Media

Easily view candidates, without leaving the job order, using the candidate preview. Even quickly communicate with candidate via SMS without leaving your current screen.

Add filters to quickly search and narrow down your candidate database.

1 / 4

Job Search Site Posting
Software provides ability to publish postings to top job search sites
Category average: 8.2
Job Requisition Management
Job Requisition Management – Job requisition management is the ability to create jobs quickly and easily
Category average: 8.6
Company Website Posting
Software allows postings to be displayed on the company website
Category average: 8.6

Candidate Search
Search capabilities allows candidates with certain attributes to be located
Category average: 8.1
Reporting
Standard reports on key recruiting metrics such as time-to-fill
Category average: 7
Duplicate Candidate Prevention
Duplicate candidate prevention prevents candidates already in the system from being added
Category average: 7.5

Verified User

Partner (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are a recruiting company that used CATS for tracking Candidates, Jobs, and Client details. We would use it for individual communication, as well as mass communication. We grew our candidate network up to over 90,000 candidates.

Pros

Customization of record fields for different record types.
Workflow options (if I select "this" then "this" option will appear.

Cons

Reporting is extremely limited. Practically zero customization, outside of time periods. There are some boxed reports, but they are very general.
Database search was difficult to work with. The filters were fine, but if you deal with a large volume of candidates, this is not the software. We had a database of over 90,000 candidates and the system was not able to handle that very well. My searches timed out almost every time. I had to adjust a filter to get the resulting number low enough for it to handle the volume. Then, I had to run the search again with a different filter to include the candidates left off on the first search. I called support multiple times on this issue and they could never give me a reason why.
API is very limited. Getting data out of the system was not easy and it did not play well with webhooks.
No automation.

Return on Investment

I would consider CATS ROI to be in the negative The features provided for the cost are limited. There are systems out there for the same cost that are way more robust. Additionally, the platform we recently moved to is exponentially bigger and 20% less in cost per user.

Other Software Used

Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Zoho One

Verified User

Executive in Human Resources (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I have a background in system design and implementation. When I started my recruitment business about 5 years ago I spent 4 months researching various applicant tracking systems. CATS outperforms all online and on-premise solutions by far! It's probably the most user-friendly system I worked on with amazing capabilities for creating custom fields and workflows. I can't imagine our business running without it!

Pros

Create customized fields
Create workflows that fit your business needs
Integrated with MS Office products

Cons

Nothing I can think of

Return on Investment

ROI is very good - it takes care of the painful admin tasks in the recruitment business and this allows the team to be more productive

Karen Mendelsohn

Owner in Human Resources at Upper Crust Recruiters (1-10 employees employees)

Pros

We find the add-ons very useful.
Customer support is always friendly and helpful.
E-mail integration and job postings save us a lot of time.

Cons

When forwarding resumes if there is a position listed in subject it automatically adds them to a job order. This has caused a lot of confusion for us.
E-mail integration is useful but doesn't always seem to work.
Sometimes the site is slow.

Return on Investment

Really strong customer service although we don't need it very often
Saves a lot of time in our recruiting process

Randall Kooistra

Talent Management Lead in Human Resources at Market Track (501-1000 employees employees)

Pros

Simple to implement, SaaS based tool that needs no in-house IT support or resources
Customizable reports, labels, fields, applications
Affordable
No long term contract, month-to-month with ability to cancel anytime
Data backups are simple
Email directly from the candidate record with response coming into Outlook is easy to configure and creates record and updates status automatically

Cons

System isn't intuitive at all when it comes to combining things like Source when left free form - for example. Considers Indeed and indeed two different sources because one candidate capitalized and one didn't (these can be merged)
Resumes forwarded to resume inbox invariably capture source as senders email, even if source is clearly spelled out (can be edited later)
Importing resumes has some trouble with addresses and phone numbers with certain file types/configuration

Return on Investment

Increased candidate/applicant flow
Better tracking of candidate engagement
Faster resume sorting/triage through use of customized application questions

Dave Murry

Staffing Manager in Human Resources at KBACE Technologies (201-500 employees employees)

Pros

Favorite thing about CATS - it does not disrupt how you work. It is easy to use and simply enhances what you are doing and doesn't bog you down in the technology.
Love the one-click download of profiles from all sorts of sites, including LinkedIn.
Mass actions are pretty common in ATS systems, but as usual CATS does it very logically and easily. I use mass actions all the time, either sending a bunch of emails, changing candidate status, etc.

Cons

Reporting has improved over the years but could still be better. It is what I would call "semi-customizable" in terms of what I can generate a report on, but would like full customization capability.
Mobile access is OK but not slick. Usually I don't need mobile access but every once in a while I'm out somewhere, need to grab something out of CATS and I can get it but I think there's a good opportunity to make it better.

Return on Investment

We went from Excel spreadsheets to using CATS so honestly anything would be an improvement. But CATS has saved tremendous time on an on-going basis in terms of managing the career portal automatically.
Being able to log email conversations with the click of a button from Outlook right into CATS has been a time-saver and also has helped numerous times in providing better follow-through to candidates and providing better tracking of candidate interactions and what they have previously said (or not).