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SilkRoad Recruiting

Score8 out of 10

46 Reviews and Ratings

What is SilkRoad Recruiting?

SilkRoad offers OpenHire, a recruiting and ATS system. It offers recruiting access through social media channels, data security, and EEO compliance for mid-sized to large businesses. It is a component of SilkRoad’s Lifesuite product line.

Categories & Use Cases

Top Performing Features

  • 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

  • Applicant Tracking

    Applicant tracking allows recruiters to assign applicants to various stages so others can see status at a glance

    Category average: 8.9

Areas for Improvement

  • Notifications and Alerts

    Notifications and reminders inform you of tasks to be completed

    Category average: 8.5

  • Reporting

    Standard reports on key recruiting metrics such as time-to-fill

    Category average: 7

  • User Permissions

    User permissions allow you to decide which information is viewable or editable by others

    Category average: 8.5

SilkRoad Recruiting is great if you have the right resources to admin it

Pros

  • Applicant tracking
  • Flows to SilkRoad Onboarding
  • Easy to use for hiring managers

Cons

  • Ease of updating and customizing for administrators

Return on Investment

  • It makes it easier to report on open and filled positions
  • It makes the onboarding process easier by flowing to the onboarding portal

Alternatives Considered

ADP Workforce Now

Other Software Used

ADP Workforce Now, SAP SuccessFactors, SilkRoad Onboarding (RedCarpet)

I miss it now that I don't have it.

Pros

  • Notifying decision-makers when to take action
  • Easily identifying status on a dashboard
  • Allowing us to customize the process

Cons

  • Support is slow and not always helpful
  • Processes are very complicated and hard to understand
  • Documentation is high level
  • Interface with onboarding not as clean or fully featured as advertised

Return on Investment

  • The cost was very high
  • It made managers more involved in the process
  • It got managers involved earlier than they had been in the past
  • It forced managers to stay involved in their recruiting and not just wait for HR to hire someone

Other Software Used

SilkRoad Onboarding (RedCarpet)

Simple and user-friendly system!

Pros

  • SilkRoad Recruiting is very user-friendly and easy to learn
  • SilkRoad Recruiting integrates with Single Sign-on for easy access across the organization
  • SilkRoad Recruiting has automatic job posting to industry-leading job boards

Cons

  • The reporting features are not very intuitive

Return on Investment

  • Significant reduction in time to post positions (2+ weeks to 1-2 days from request to posting)
  • Significant increase in applicant volume (3 times more applications per job opening)

OpenHire didn't work well for my organization

Pros

  • For the most parts applicants found it easy to appy.
  • It was easy to keep track of hiring pools.
  • It did a good job of keeping history of applicants and jobs.

Cons

  • We no longer use Silkroad largely because it caused me more work. There was no ability to make documents required in the application process. Although we said a resume, transcripts, a specific list of references and cover letter were required in the posting more than 90% of applications were missing something which forced me to correspond with thousands of applicants and wasted a lot of time.
  • They lack integrity. We were promised customer support for applicants when we purchased Silkroad but it was yanked about a year later. It wasted even more of my time and showed a lack of integrity on the part of the company.
  • It lacked some of the reporting we needed and every time we needed something special it was an extra cost.

Return on Investment

  • It had a negative impact on our organization because of the huge amount of time wasted communicating with applicants asking them to complete their applications. Being able to have required and optional slots for specific attachments would have been a huge help.
  • I got too many notifications without an ability to turn them off which wasted a lot of my time.

Other Software Used

NEOGOV Onboard

Gets the Job Done

Pros

  • Integrates with our website. The careers portal can be customized to blend seamlessly to your website so candidates don't realize that they have left your site.
  • Rates your resumes based on key words from the job description. While not always accurate, this feature really helps you prioritize resumes to review when there are hundreds of them.
  • Integrates very well with Aurico background checks and Silkroad's RedCarpet. This is a great feature because you can initiate the background check directly from the candidate's profile without having to get any sensitive information from the candidate prior to hiring. The integration with RedCarpet is also great because all of the candidate's information as well as the offer info and job details are sent to the onboarding program. This allows for quick setup of the new employee and reduces the need for any manual processes.

Cons

  • Reporting. While OpenHire has a number of standard reports, building a custom report is difficult.
  • Support. Silkroad's support is severely lacking. They have grown too big too quickly and you often get support staff that don't know how to address your problem or they just stop working on it. You often have to follow up multiple times to get a problem resolved.
  • There are some required fields in the job postings that are unclear but mandatory and some steps that are redundant. You definitely have to learn the quarks of the system.

Return on Investment

  • OpenHire has very positively impacted our organization. It has allowed us to streamline our process and keep record of all of our recruitment electronically instead of in paper.
  • It has allowed us to have a consistent recruitment process in all of our countries
  • It has greatly increased the efficiency of our recruitment team.
  • Only negative is that our organization has an expectation for reports and we are not able to always give them what they would like out of the system.