Ramco HCM vs SmartRecruiters comparison

"Ramco is user-friendly. The UA is excellent and so easy to use that a customer can easily understand the process with zero knowledge of the system. We can easily walk a new user through the user guide. For each ESS MSS, I can log in to the ESS access. and documentation is available."

"The performance management system is really good."

"Ramco HCM is a stable system that doesn't have downtime or fluctuation issues. It can also take large volumes and scale up very fast."

"Once we implemented this solution, it was customizable for our needs and this has been the most valuable aspect of this solution."

"Ramco HCM stands out due to its reliability and up-to-date compliance with legal, statutory, and regulatory requirements."

"In general, the solution is very flexible and can be configured in multiple ways."

"It is a good product, and it is suitable for different client requirements. It has customization options and flexibility. You can customize a report or configure the workflow based on your requirements. Everything is there in the product, and you can customize it as per your requirement. Our clients found the automation of the payroll, leave attendance, and onboarding modules the most valuable. The Time and Attendance module is fully integrated with this solution and supports multiple data entry modes, such as barcode, biometric device, fingerprints, and face reading. Its core HR module includes features like movement, expense management, exit, and separation. The compensation and benefits module includes features like welfare, retirement, and superannuation. It also has analytical tools. You can create a real-time report based on your requirements. You can also publish that report in different formats, such as Excel, PDF, HTML, etc. It has a chatbot feature, which is using machine learning and natural language. You can ask questions about your leave balance, attendance, or things like that, and you will get an immediate reply from the chatbot. It also supports approval through email."

"Payroll processing is very easy. SQL rules can be attached to any pay elements."

"It has a lot of good features. We post all of our jobs through the system, and they have a marketplace where you can share the job post with the job boards they're working with. It is integrated with all the records about from where the applications are coming. We have all of our candidates gathered there. We can set up our own hiring processes depending on the type of job and then move them through the process there. It is also possible to involve hiring managers and give them access so that they can also track the candidates and have a look at TBE and interact in the system, which is very useful. We also use SmartRecruiters for job approvals before posting the job as well as for offer approvals before sending an offer. We have everything in the system itself, and everything is being tracked, which is very good for us. It is a reliable system, and you can use it for the full cycle of recruitment. You can really adapt it to your processes. When it comes to the configuration, it is easy to configure. Something that is good with SmartRecruiters is that they are always working on improvements. Every quarter, they have different enhancements or product releases, which is something that we appreciate."

"With this solution, I was able to add diversity to my recruiting. I was able to source from multiple locations, and I could show where applicants came from. The reporting tools that are on offer, allowed us to expand our reach. We were able to add meaningful diversity into recruiting."

"It is a really user-friendly tool, and its implementation is quite wide. It is very easy to manage users and build your workflows. Overall, it works very well for the customization of the workflows for us. The recruitment team has generally found the whole platform useful. We were looking to kind of expand it by using the CRM functions that it has. However, with COVID and recruitment being on the freeze, we weren't really able to make the most of the tool. They are, however, finding it useful to actually build up their talent pools and client candidates to be able to contact them when we kind of have this freeze off."

"I found the core product quite useful. It is easy to use and quite user-friendly. They have also got other options, such as CRM and HRS. They have other versions such as smart distribute, which is an HRS type of system to analyze and get permissions needed from the applicants. In terms of pricing, SmartRecruiters is much better than its competitors."

"The features that were most important for us to have were that it is user friendly and functional, which is definitely the case with SmartRecruiters. Our organization is located in developing countries where the bandwidth and internet stability are not the strongest and SmartRecruiters accommodates this challenge. It was a very big plus that we are able to use the system even in these locations."

"Job publishing and application tracking are the most valuable features. You can keep the flow of a candidate's application into one system. The whole collaboration can also be done within the system, which means that you can schedule interviews and add your feedback and ratings there. You can also communicate with the candidates. The analytics part of it is also very valuable. It is a useful feature that we use quite a lot. We don't really use other features such as recruitment marketing or CRM candidate relationship management in SmartRecruiters."

"With just a click of a button, we can manage the process. Even generating offer letters and obtaining electronic signatures through DocSign are integrated into this application."

"I used the free version, which I found valuable."

"One area for improvement in Ramco HCM is its UI, which could be more intuitive. Another area for improvement in the system is that it can be challenging to make some modular-based changes to it."

"The product itself sometimes feels inconsistent because it comes with bugs."

"The mobile app for this solution could be improved as it lacks many features."

"Ramco could be a bit faster and offer more use cases. A prime aim is to get analytics and this is lacking in Ramco. This lack of reporting is one of the reasons we are moving away from using Ramco."

"The mobile app and web page user experience could be more user friendly."

"The talent management and performance appraisal modules could use some improvement."

"The entire UI/UX of the solution can be improved drastically."

"They can improve the configuration time because it takes more time than other products to configure the system. It could be because they are managing this single product for all countries, but it would be good if they improve the implementation time because we need to implement the solutions within a timeline. They should provide some kind of auto-configuration so that the system can be configured and implemented within a certain timeline. Implementors should have a provision to configure the system in a short time. There should also be an option to move the setup or configuration from staging to production to save time. These types of automation should be there."

"The filters are not accurate. The results are inaccurate when filtering multiple criteria, such as country and hiring manager."

"Around 2015 and into '17, I worked at a federal contractor. I had to switch to a different applicant system as I didn't know if SmartRecruiters was OFCCP compliant, which is something that, as a US-based federal contractor, you have to ensure. They should work to appeal to the contractor industry and get the product OFCCP compliant."

"Sometimes, there is this language or communication barrier in terms of what the applicants mentioned. SmartRecruiters sometimes has trouble understanding certain types of keywords or has certain types of language, translation, or grammar issues."

"One thing that has been a bit of a struggle is getting tech support. It is a little more difficult to get support from SmartRecruiters. They want you to have your own in-house person to help you with any issues, whereas with both Lever and Greenhouse, you can just click a button at the bottom of the screen and chat with someone almost instantly."

"SmartRecruiters' on-click application process could be better."

"The major improvement area is how it integrates with other systems. That's where we've had some sort of pain points. They've done a lot of work with their development team in setting up integrations with other types of software like SuccessFactors, which we use, but we have found some glitches there. This is probably where they need to do some work. Sometimes, when it refreshes or there is any sort of update in SmartRecruiters, it has a direct impact on the integrations that we have with other tools. We are not always notified when that takes place. We have had HR say to us, "We've just hired this guy. He is not there in our end board at all. What's going on?" That's when we realized that the integration is actually broken. When we have other solutions like SuccessFactors, it would be very helpful to have knowledge articles for such integrations. We have found some of the templates that we want to use and some of the customizations that we do around the offer letters and the contract letters to be a little bit more difficult, which hasn't made this process any more efficient than it was. We still have to do a bit of manual intervention there. I don't know if it is just our company, but we need to have different clauses and things in place. We have stopped using DocuSign as well, and we are trying to look at other ways of doing that. They are aware of this."

"One of the areas that we would like them to improve is the self-scheduling feature. They have a self-scheduling feature that can be made a little bit more automated when it comes to scheduling. We are trying to use it, but it doesn't feel very user-friendly. This is something that could be improved. They have launched WhatsApp connections in the system, where instead of sending emails, you can WhatsApp candidates directly from the system, but currently, it mainly works in a few countries. Spain, where I'm based, is not one of them. If we use the system, the phone number for the candidates would be from the UK, and we don't think that would be the best. This feature is good for some countries, but not for all at the moment. It was first launched in the USA and then in a couple of countries in Europe. It is not yet launched fully in Europe. Reporting is always something that can be improved. Even though it is working well for us, its reporting can be better. Currently, it is a little bit complicated when it comes to reporting. It has a few pre-made reports that are easy to access, but if you want more details, you need to build your own reports. In order to do that, it is a bit tricky to learn and understand how it works. Even though you have help agents and support for help, it takes some time to learn, but it is not impossible. We have very recently made some integrations with Tableau. We are building dashboards in Tableau where we can get daily updated reports, and they are definitely helpful. That's something we would recommend. SmartRecruiters has recently implemented an inbox. You can have an inbox where you can see all your conversations, but currently, it is not filtering between the recruiters, so you see everyone's emails in there. They have already announced that they are working on the filtering feature for a specific inbox to make it more personalized per recruiter. This way the recruiters can have an overview of their own work."

"There were limitations with the system that we would have liked, not in the time, but the company in Germany really dictated that. So we couldn't do everything in the system we would have liked to it."

"This solution is priced in the middle compared to other solutions on the market."

"I am not aware of the price because I was working in the implementation team, but pricing is generally based on the requirement, modules, headcount, and country."

"Their customized solution is pretty expensive but much cheaper than its competitors."

"There were implementation costs in the first year to get everything set up and running, and then they have various modules on top, which are optional and available at an extra charge."

"Back in 2018, when I engaged with their sales, they wanted to charge around $10,000 for an annual subscription. Depending on your organization, that either could or couldn't be expensive. I personally think it's a fair price. However, I engaged them and negotiated a lower price with them. I think I got closer to $6,000. It came with a commitment of three years."

"They are pretty competitive. As the product matures, it has much more functionality and different pricing models. It can relatively cost a lot more if you want to use additional features, but, in general, it is competitive in the industry. We work on a yearly license agreement based on the company size. There are the support costs, which are a part of the additional cost based on the percentage of the licensing fee. So, it has a license plus support cost. Then, of course, there are other add-on options that we can purchase and procure whenever we want to based on certain negotiated arrangements."

"I haven't been so involved with pricing, so I don't have all details, but I know that we are paying per head when it comes to different countries. There is an additional fee for new features that they release. If it is something that we would like to use, we need to pay some extra for it."

"I wasn't involved in its acquisition, but I would assume that SmartRecruiters is pretty pricey."

"SmartRecruiters is an expensive solution."

"SmartRecruiters is much better than its competitors. Considering the type of features and services it provides, it is probably one of the best solutions in the market. Others may offer a similar price, but their services won't be that good or the user-friendliness won't be that great. The licensing works based on how many users are there in a company. If you are using other functionalities, like CRM and HRS, the price increases."