Functionality
Zoho Recruit and The Resumator are two great examples of cloud Recruitment Management software and although they share the same foundation they differ in many ways. Let’s start at the beginning – the dashboard. Zoho Recruit’s one is bringing a static snapshot of what has recently happened together with an outlook to the future via embedded calendar. On the other hand, The Resumator’s dashboard is clearly a result of much thinking and, we have to say, that it totally paid off. Its dashboard doesn’t seem to be that static and contains the most important information from the entire application (like preview of inbox, new recent activity, and tasks) and helps us to go directly to the area which requires our attention. So, the dashboard gives us immediately feeling of what we have to do and directs us right there.
Creating new job openings is very well implemented of in both applications and the openings can be posted on job boards like Simply Hired and Indeed or on our company’s web page (The Resumator also creates company’s hosted page at company-name.theresumator.com). Both applications have “social” function, so job openings can be shared via Twitter, LinkedIn, and so forth. The Resumator has, in addition to just described functions, one more feature worth mentioning: a company can encourage its own employees to share and promote job openings on their social networks and such an action can be even tracked. Thanks to this functionality the organization can see where from the traffic comes and to whom to be grateful for a new recruit (and give a referral fee). The Resumator also has a function called Jobnosis™, that offers an automated rating system for job listings, which can help with improving the job description, formatting, etc. and thus helps us to attract more applicants and increase their quality.
Once the company gets a response, new applicant’s profile is created. On one hand, Zoho Recruit is trying to analyze attached resume (or similar document), parse it and automatically fill out these values fields into applicant’s profile. With some documents it works flawlessly, with others it doesn’t work so well. For instance CVs (resume format used mainly in Europe) are handled very badly. On the other hand, The Resumator doesn’t parse the resume at all and it can only preview is by a third party application called Scribd (it doesn’t affect full text search, though) so, we have to fill out (fairly detailed) applicant’s profile by hand.
From our experience with using both applications, we still got to a conclusion that Zoho Recruit is more functionally rich. The reason is both its integration with other Zoho products and other third party products, and the overall deepness of its implemented functionality which saves time. This is why Zoho seemed to us to be able to provide a more complete solution for true recruiting professionals (such as personal agencies), and thus it is a category’s winner for us. However, The Resumator can be the right choice for other companies with more diversified HR department.
Category Winner: Zoho Recruit
Customization
We can say at the very beginning that both applications are very well customizable. First, both applications let you customize application forms in deep, however The Resumator has a nice advantage in adding custom made questionnaire to the application form. It’s nice, easy, and... reusable. Such a thing can save a lot of time!
Second, Both competitors offer a code to embed into our own pages (we found The Resumator’s one a bit harder to implement). This code is fairly customizable and we were able to achieve exactly the look we wanted, so the job posting section looked exactly as the rest of our web. The Resumator also offers a hosted page customizable by own CSS.
Lastly, we were able to customize recruiting workflows to our liking in both applications. Yet again, The Resumator didn’t let us down and did show us slightly different way how to do it – but, in our humble opinion, much better one. In The Resumator we were able to define multiple workflows and add them to a job openings accordingly. It’s such a small thing, but again, it can save time.
All in all, Zoho Recruit and The Resumator can be customized to a great depth in all points mentioned above. In Zoho Recruit we were able to customize myriads of things which is not the case of The Resumator, although at places where it can be customized it just works smart. So, in their own ways both applications are winners.
Category Winner: Both
Look and Feel
This match is between two function-rich applications and it’s a great example how differently an extensive functionality can be handled. The Resumator looks very nice, it’s easy to navigate and mostly has a great philosophy of its user interface: everything revolves around job openings and applicants, not around recruiters. This way all the information is easily shared between team members. Great implementation, indeed. On the other hand, Zoho Recruit gave us a bit more technical impression and – quite unfortunately – we got lost or rather overwhelmed time to time. It’s mainly because some features seemed to us relatively poorly accessible and easy to overlook. Additionally, some Zoho Recruit pages (such as the dashboard) do not fit entirely on the screen of a laptop with a standard screen resolution. Apart from this, dialogs were well linked (unlike like some other functionally-richer applications), so our work had a nice flow.
Category Winner: The Resumator
Browser, Language and General Support
Concerning generally used browsers, we haven’t seen any problem nor any glitch using the applications whatsoever. The Resumator sticks just with English language mutation, while Zoho Recruit offers 10 languages (namely Italian, German, Russian, French, Spanish, Dutch, Korean, Portuguese, Swedish, and Polish). Neither application is especially adapted to any country, though The Resumator can help with EEO and OFCCP reporting, which is a small plus, and Zoho Recruit’s parser can be adjusted for several different territories. Both applications offer variety of support options: email and support center with extensive FAQ and knowledge base. Zoho Recruit has a "Speed Lane" support for acute problems and The Resumator has a very neat feature where we can submit a feature request and/or vote on other submitted features. We think that in this category both competitors are at the same level, so we declare them both winners.
Category Winner: Both
Price
Well, if we were looking for a solution for free, we would be in luck just with Zoho Recruit. Its free version can be used just by one recruiter who can have up to 5 active job openings.
If in need of extra work force using the software, count in $19/Recruiter/Month, but you’ll get some more functions such as broader product customization, unlimited job openings, or mass email communication. However, there is still functionality you have to pay extra – Email integration or Document Parser – with a price tag of $3/Recruiter/Month and $6/Recruiter/Month respectively.
The Resumator doesn’t offer a free version, but you can try whatever paid plan you choose by using a 14-day trial. There are 3 paid plans for $49/month, $99/month, and $199/month with 2, 5, and 10 active job openings respectively. There’s not all the functionality in cheaper plans, but it can be bought separately if needed: User Groups & Permissions and Custom Design & Domain (missing only in the cheapest plan) are for $19/Month, and Reports & Analytics (available only for the most expensive plan) are for $39/Month.
To sum up, for companies with a small number of people who want to have access to the software, we’d recommend Zoho Recruit. For the rest, The Resumator will probably be cheaper.
Category Winner: Both (Depends on the number of users.)
Summary
One thing is sure – this was a close match! We don’t feel comfortable picking just one winner, because what these applications do, they do great. Zoho Recruit seems to be more technical, functionally deeper, and more focused on recruiting professionals (personal or recruiting agencies). The Resumator draws its strength from a great design and broad up to date functionality. Choose what is closer to your heart.
Overall winner: Both (Zoho Recruit for recruiting professionals, The Resumator for more diversified HR departments.)