PeopleFluent vs. SilkRoad Recruiting

PeopleFluent has eliminated the use of paper reviews. It is also eliminated the use of scanning, emailing or interoffice mail. It is a great tool for communication and I highly recommend it. However, in some ways, the product can be improved. Some processes are tied to each other and could function in tandem. For example, while completing the self-review, the employee has to capture multi-raters. If self-review is submitted without listing multi-rater names then multi-rater review has to be captured separately on paper. In my opinion, these two processes can be different. Multi-raters should be added/removed/modified after submitting self-review.

Incentivized

I think OpenHire is best for a small company (max about 2500 employees). The more employees you have the more HR people you should have and this can get expensive. I know most larger companies are using more advanced systems as well (Workday). During the selection process be sure to determine how many OpenHire users you would need. Ask whether your managers will be willing to work in the system as well or whether HR would have to own the entire process. If you are EEOC compliant, make sure you ask about diversity posting, APP tracking of applicants, and reporting needs. If you require an onboarding tool, SilkRoad offers RedCarpet. I found it to be very complex and hiring managers refused to use it. If you require an onboarding tool, definitely look into it. The demo may look great but there were a lot of implementation steps done to make it work and it just didn't fit our company culture. So make sure it fits yours.

Incentivized

• Self-service tool to add/change configurations without the need for additional professional services
• Amazing implementation team that makes sure your tool is up and running
• Reporting such as compensation statements, budget and total rewards statements available for all cycles
• Configurable feed to our HRIS to make sure data is up to date
• Opportunity to leverage the current tool capabilities within the comp module for other comp processes (e.g. Total Rewards Statements)
• Customer support team is great!

Incentivized

• The ease of use when it comes to create requisitions from a hiring managers side of things is definitely a positive. It's very much user intuitive and the specifications can be completely customized as to what a company would like to appear within said requisition.
• Candidate correspondence is an absolute breeze as you can custom load templates into the system that can be edited at any time through an administrator in your company instead of having to go through a technical support team on the other side of things.
• Overall, it's a pretty no muss no fuss system to use as there's not a great layer of complication about it and like most things, spaced practice and consistent exposure to it tend to iron out those rough edges. From an administration standpoint, adding in locations and hiring managers is incredibly simplistic along with reporting functionality.
• Candidate folders have come a long way in the system and are much more user friendly at this point than when I began using the system some four years ago. It's very easy to shift candidate profiles between folders and edit on the fly.

Incentivized

• I would advise better filtering options when pulling up candidate profiles, we should have multiple functions when requesting candidates profile.
• Sometimes I get huge projects and need to move more than 20 people, it's a headache moving groups in parts.
• A faster way to verify if a candidate has been double submitted, maybe with a unique ID or email that identifies said candidate prior to going through the whole submission process.
• Stronger cache cookies when session is timed out get kicked out and the process reboots. Sometimes recruiters are pulled in different directions while multitasking.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

PeopleFluent continues to develop an already high quality product and works to continually improve the user experience. The different modules integrate well, and the administrative functions are easy to understand and perform resulting in less time spent with KTLO functions. They provide world class customer service and work hard to keep you engaged as a customer.

It was a great solution for the company in all aspects, especially the cost. The company was not in a position to afford a solution such as Oracle PeopleSoft. The only reason we did not renew OpenHire was we got acquired by a much larger organization and started utilizing the tools that the parent company had available

Incentivized

PeopleFluent seems to have all the functionality one would need, but it can be a bit overwhelming. Depending on the client implementation, it can be downright confusing and not intuitive. My 6 rating comes from the fact that it seems like the system can be configured to actually be confusing and not make sense. I think a VMS should be set up not to allow a customer to configure it in such a way as to not really work, or to allow users to circumvent steps. I also really don't like the "organization key" that needs to be entered every time you log in. Why is a login and password good enough for 99% of the systems out there, but PeopleFluent requires an extra field?

Incentivized

It's not a bad system to use, there just seems to be so much click through to get one task achieved. Once you know all the little routes and pieces it gets easier.

Incentivized

In my experience, the support team was very prompt and helpful. They had good subject matter expertise and were able to troubleshoot immediately. At times we wanted some enhancements but it was not possible due to product limitations. But, the support team was helpful in suggesting alternatives for our requirements. The customer support staff was also very polite and friendly.

Incentivized

The support for Silkroad is awful. I know they are working on it and it seems to be slightly better but it's still not great. I have had multiple cases I have never heard from them on, others I have had to follow-up multiple times and one that took a year

Incentivized

Out of the VMS's listed, I'd say PeopleFluent is solidly in the middle. Fieldglass and IQN are probably easier to navigate and more modern looking, and I definitely don't run into the login problems with them. Beeline and PRO Wand are probably on par with PeopleFluent. They have their plusses and minuses in terms of navigation and ease of use. Covendis is definitely worse than PeopleFluent. Covendis is a mess - very difficult to navigate, not intuitive at all with terrible workflow. Again, I didn't select PeopleFluent; my client did, and I have chosen to work with them, therefore I work with PeopleFluent.

Incentivized

OpenHire is not nearly as advanced as Kenexa and is probably more on par with iCIMS. I did find iCIMS had some additional functionality and was easier to use than OpenHire. OpenHire's system seems much more fragmented, requiring work arounds than either of the others. I also found iCIMS to have better customer service when in need of help using the system or requesting any changes. OpenHire was the selection at my previous company based on its global platform as well as cost savings. At my current company, OpenHire was selected prior to my joining, however, for the level of recruiting we do, the lack of sophistication isn't really an issue.

Incentivized

• I do believe that goal setting and the workflow of following up, going through the process yearly is as good as you make it. If you set good goals, or help your team make good goals then the experience can go well. Otherwise it's just another thing that an employee is doing to make their manager happy.
• I am not sure the cost of the product, but if it is really expensive I am not sure that we are getting fully what we should be for what the product offers. Make sure you are using what is offered.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized