CATS Applicant Tracking System Reviews and Ratings
Rating: 3.8 out of 10
Score
3.8 out of 10
Community insights
TrustRadius Insights for CATS Applicant Tracking System are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.
Pros
Simplicity and Ease of Use: Many users have found CATS to be simple to implement and use, with no need for in-house IT support or resources. They appreciate the intuitive interface that does not require extensive training or an instruction manual.
Customizability: The customizable reports, labels, fields, and applications offered by CATS have been highly praised by users. This flexibility allows them to tailor the tool to their specific needs and make it a valuable choice.
Affordability and Flexibility: Users appreciate that CATS is affordable and offers a month-to-month contract with the ability to cancel anytime. This provides them with the flexibility they need while also ensuring cost-effectiveness.
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
Likelihood to Recommend
The system does exactly what it says - "Candidates, Jobs, Companies and Contact Tracking" - fantastic database management with exceptional capabilities to track a Job with all applications.
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.
Likelihood to Recommend
It has a great parsing feature and the extension is very helpful. Many ATS systems do not support parsing within LinkedIn...this one does. I was sad to see this option go when we finally transitioned. I would almost keep CATS just for the LinkedIn parsing if I knew I could easily get the information OUT of the system once it was there. A good API/webhook would be great, but sadly the API connections don't work well. Our firm also works with companies with multiple sites all across the US. There was never a way to "nest" a location with a parent company. Because of this, being able to research or report on a true client relationship was not possible. It was a very manual process.
CATS is simple and easy to use. Basically it's an "out of the box" solution that is user friendly and has a great interface. You are able to accept applications and forms for the applicants within the online interface.
The ability to post job openings on free job board sites is an incentive for anyone using the software.
The software being cloud based means that I can access this from anywhere I want.
Customer service was excellent.
Pros
Cloud Based
No special hardware is required
Cons
Search feature is limited and needs improvement.
Regular Updates
Likelihood to Recommend
The way to go in the digital industry is cloud based platforms. If you're not cloud based yet, keep an open mind and try this.
We are using CATS to track our candidate applicants, our recruiting efforts, as well as our hired employees.
Pros
The system streamlines the hiring/approval process by automatically generating emails and tasks for the necessary persons involved.
Customer Service is quite prompt and responsive.
CATS may be inadequate for all of our needs, but they are making major improvements.
Cons
The system's user interface is clumsy and not organized very well.
CATS is not mobile-friendly.
Likelihood to Recommend
CATS is difficult to use as a federal contractor, as it does not easily generate the data that we need to provide to meet regulations. We have managed work-arounds by using fields for uses they were not designed, but we are still unable to accurately and automatically generate the data we need.
We use CATS for all of our applicant tracking and to manage the postings for our corporate website's career page. It's the only tool we use in recruiting to manage candidate information before they are hired (at which point they move to our HR system for employees) and is directly integrated to our public facing careers page.
Pros
Simple to implement, SaaS based tool that needs no in-house IT support or resources
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
Likelihood to Recommend
I don't know how appropriate it'd be for large organizations with very large recruiting teams - cost per license might not make sense after a certain point. For small/medium sized businesses, it's absolutely worth a look. It's very affordable, super-easy to use, highly configurable, and set up is an breeze. Knowledge base is decent, and support is generally OK, though it's not necessarily a strength. The product team is engaged with the user community to crowdsource suggestions for updates/improvements and allows users to vote on others ideas that are appealing. Search functionality is solid and documents are instantly indexed as far as I can tell - I've never noticed any delay. It'll push postings out to various free job boards and you can customize to push out to pay boards as well. It will integrate to certain HRIS packages, so if that's of interest, making sure yours is on the supported list would be important. Data backup is super easy and would likely make changing to another ATS down the road pretty simple if the need arises.
We grew the business from self managed applicant tracking to selecting CATS as our solution. We investigated many solutions and settled on CATS. We are happy with that decision and it is used as our primary tool. We use it internally as well as for interfacing with our clients. It is also used for complete candidate lifecycle tracking for my recruiting firm.
Pros
Excellent trigger email solutions. Customizable and easy to configure.
High-End presence and able to customize for specific client's needs. Client doesn't need to fit our flow, we customize for them with CATS flexibility.
Friendly and helpful customer service team.
Cons
More International free job site integrations.
Integrated candidate references.
Likelihood to Recommend
Key points for our selection were:
<ul><li>No contract</li><li>Well priced</li><li>Extremely customizable, without being confusing</li><li>Coud based and always available anywhere, including mobile</li></ul>
CATS Applicant Tracking System is super easy to use and much more powerful for our business than hiring another recruiter. From workflows to candidate management, it is a really simple solution that takes a lot of work off our plate.
Pros
Easy to Use
Simple to Set Up
Powerful Workflow and Reporting
Cons
None
Likelihood to Recommend
We are a recruiting agency and it works great for us.
I am a sole proprietor third party recruiter and use CATS ATS exclusively for the full process recruiting. CATS is very flexible with many options for customization. As such, I have been able to adapt it very specifically to my own business processes and also adapt it as my processes adapt to market conditions or my improvements in process. It has exponentially improved my ability to track contact, pipeline workflow, sourcing etc. I also have a lot of split partners and the customization has allowed me to optimize that process, as well. Being cloud-based (my previous software was not) I can access it outside of the office and normal business hours which is most helpful as, given the nature of my business, many conversations and interactions necessarily take place outside the normal workday / workplace.
Pros
Custom fields for all entities of any data type let's you track what you care about. Also customizable workflow with triggers can save a ton of time in automating processes and also ensuring steps aren't missed/established processes and protocols are adhered to.
Support is extremely responsive, knowledgeable and committed to resolving any issue.
Integrations with LinkedIn, job boards etc. is a big time saver and helps bring it all to one place.
Cons
I would like to see either an integration with a robust reporting tool that would allow me to design my own custom reports with a data export or more built-in reporting options.
Mobile app is currently mostly just a look-up tool. I would like it to have the ability to do more - add tasks, update pipelines, etc.
Likelihood to Recommend
I am a sole proprietor doing third party recruiting. For me, it is the perfect solution set without being overkill (for which I would pay with other products). I can't really speak to any scenario other than that. In evaluating it, I HIGHLY recommend playing around with the online demo to see for yourself how you would adapt it to your needs. However, also do not be afraid to ask how to accomplish certain things. There is a LOT of functionality that is not immediately obvious but which support can quickly get you to.
CATS is used by all of our recruiters. We are a recruiting firm specializing in the Restaurant & Hospitality Industry. We find it very useful in the full cycle of recruiting from job postings to placement of candidates
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.
Likelihood to Recommend
If you are looking for something that is not too complicated, CATS is perfect.
I have been the sole user of CATS at my company since 2007, with the focus on managing the sourcing and hiring process. We hire 50+ full time per year as well as 20-30 offshore.
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.
Likelihood to Recommend
For any recruiting agency or small to mid-sized firm looking for a good, economical, easy to use ATS then CATS is the best. If you need a complete HRIS system, talent management, payroll, etc., then there may be better options for you.
