Best Enterprise ATS ZOHO Recruit

This article is meant to compliment our Top 3 ATS recommends. If you haven’t read that yet, click here.

However, if you are looking for the best “Enterprise Class” ATS to streamline your hiring process, there may be no need to look further than ZOHO Recruit and this article.

Who is CareerNet?

CareerNet was founded in 1996 to bring thoughtful solutions to worker development the modern workplace. Our core focus on recruiting, onboarding, and employee productivity gives us unique insights into corporate trends and the solutions to manage them. 

In 1996 we built one of the original job boards, which found its focus sourcing technology professionals for companies during the .com era.

In 2006 we built enterprise level ATS under the brand name, HRsmart.

So we’ve always been a recruiting company that uses technology to make our people and our clients better at their jobs.

Introduction, or why you need to revist your Enterprise Class ATS:

Nearly all enterprise companies already have an ATS.

They’ve done their research.

They assigned review teams.

Prepared half a dozen 40 slide powerpoints.

They’ve presented and “re-presented to committees”.

They’ve negotiated discounts.

They sandboxed quiet trials.

They’ve configured it multiple times.

Most have dedicated IT professionals to oversee the stability and usability of their ATS, and the dozens of integration partners whose services they’ve blended into the hiring process.

Nearly all have a team of dedicated reps from their ATS provider, whose sole job is to assist the enterprise client with full knowledge of their hiring complexities.

You may ask, “If the target market is saturated, why spend the time speaking or writing to enterprise clients at all?”

The answer is obvious to enterprise companies who still have the courage to be honest with themselves.

With all the added staff, added partners, added consultants, and added expense required to use an ATS accross the enterprise, their hiring results really haven’t changed at all. And once again, they are changing their hiring game and blaming the economy. 

It’s almost never the economy. It’s almost always management and, in the case of Google, Twitter, Facebook, an over reliance on tech in the wrong places of their business. Like hiring.

And heads up to those companies, layoffs hurt productivity.

In this review, we will explore why ZOHO Recruit  stands out as the top choice among Enterprise Class  ATS options.

Their current client list includes, among notable others: BOSCH, Deloitte, PWC, Allianz — so it may be worth it to pay attention.

We know that every great company seeks to hire the best. They are not simply filling empty seats. They spend a lot of time selecting, revieiwing and interviewing candidates. They have permenant on-staff recruiters.

In short, they spend huge amounts of money on hiring alone. Some are really good at hiring, some are not so good. ZOHO HR will make them all better.

CareerNet recommends ZOHO HR for Enterprise Class ATS.

Here at CareerNet we’ve been Zoho customers on and off for years. Their CRM was one of the first and, while remaining a bit wonky at the UX level (kind of like like msft vs iOS), it works. Sure it’s been overwhelmed by Salesforce at the CRM level (what CRM hasn’t?). Frankly if it were not for the exorbitant pricing, Salesforce would be the only CRM used by enterprise.  But Zoho is tops for ATS.

Data Regulations: Zoho keeps moving forward. While it has offices in Austin, TX, you need to look at Zoho as an international technology company – headquartered in Chennai, India.  See this as an advantage. Data regulations are an issue after all. The world is complex with massive amounts of varied regulations on data. Zoho stands out in managing this for enterprise level business.

Stability: The company adds stable, effective communication and management features consistently, and you rarely have a day when “ZOHO is Down Again” is trending.

Security: They have great security, too. Describing ZOHO’s CRM security as Enterprise Class would be an understatement. They generally do not advertise this as a core feature, but some quiet inquiries to government offices around the world using CRM would surprise you. Zoho is trusted with holding lots of govt. managed data. Here is a link to their security whitepaper.

So when we heard ZOHO was going to launch a recruiting specific solution based upon their CRM backbone, we were in. It doesn’t disappoint. Read on or simply register for a demo. If you know CRM or ATS, you’ll know they do too and that their laser focus on what ATS should be makes for a top level CRM.

Pricing is great too. $600.00 per user, per year ($50.00 per month) is a bargain at this level. The Zoho Recruit system simply makes you a more efficient recruiter. While we do not think efficiency is an appropriate metric for recruiting, at the enterprise level, if you are reliant upon click-to-apply job boards, you’d better become efficient fast. Zoho Recruit will get you there.

If we had one complaint, it’s how Zoho onboards small companies. There seems to be two standards for training and on-boarding new clients. One for enterprise and one for the rest of us. This is the main reason we do not recommend them for small to midsized firms (say less than 1,000 employees*). If you are a company with more than 1,000 employees, you’ll get the great training and customer service.

*This number is a guess. It’s a number we’ve guessed from working with Zoho for 10 years+ and speaking to our clients of varied sizes that use Zoho CRM. It’s not statistically relevant.

The other concern we have is the time it takes to get up and running to a useful state. Sure you’ll follow the videos, take the onboard training sessions and get your job posted and go live quick. But we are seeking results. We define results as multiple jobs attracting quality and qualified leads on auto pilot. Even the best recruiting team will stumble until they understand how to use Zoho Recruit properly. Say do not expect miracles for 6-8 weeks.

Don’t get frustrated. All enterprise level ATS have a learning curve.  This, like all ATS, is a tool– not a replacement– for great recruiting processes.  

HOWEVER, if you treat it as a tool and learn what it can do, over time you will be rewarded with high quality lists of people suitable for your job openings and worth interviewing. Imagine this actually happening and what it will mean for your organization over time. If you use Zoho Recruit properly, this will happen.  Set this as your only goal and focus on achieving it for a few months before moving to…

Features and partner integrations: Your team will begin adding features or integrations to the system.  If you have taken the time to learn how to recruit with Zoho Recruit, your workflow will be incorporated into, NOT directed by, the ATS. You’ll recocnize that many of your recruiting integration partners offer little value beyond speculative data collection and management and that you really do not need most of them.

Then you can set about determining the integration partners that actually add value.  The system has an uncanny way of adopting your work process as its own.

P.S. If you do not have that kind of time or patience, and you want to ramp up or jump-start your recruiting process, give CareerNet recruiters your user permissions to your existing ATS (more on this later) and we’ll fill it with qualified candidates – in days, not weeks.