What Is the Best iCIMS Alternative for Attracting and Hiring the Best Professionals?
Small and big companies equally want one thing — to reach out to top professionals and hire them as fast as possible. Succeeding without the right people by your side is unthinkable.
This is the reason why recruiting tools like iCIMS are gaining so much traction for the past decade. It might seem that this vast choice of various communication channels could have simplified HR professionals’ jobs. But it’s quite the opposite!
How do you find the right approach to each candidate? How can a company stand out and attract people’s attention when there are so many options everywhere you go? And how to choose a recruiting solution that has all the features to cover your needs and doesn’t cost a fortune? Let’s find out!
the best candidates faster
Table of contents:
- What is iCIMS?
- Why look for iCIMS alternatives?
- Why 100Hires is the best iCIMS alternative
What is iCIMS?
iCIMS is a recruiting solution covering the entire hiring lifecycle — from sourcing to attracting to recruiting and nurturing. You can see such companies as Lynden, Hard Rock Hotel, and AmTrust Financial among their clientele.
Frankly speaking, iCIMS isn’t trying to deceive anybody here. Their website clearly states that the solution is enterprise-oriented. This usually means that end-users can find all possible features for their needs and customize everything in any way they need. However, it also means that small and midsize businesses won’t find a pricing plan that will fit into their budget.
Compared to other recruiting tools, the iCIMS pricing may look way too unreasonable. For instance, 100Hires offers a free subscription plan with unlimited seats and jobs, while its paid plans’ prices vary from only $129 to $289 per month.
We can speculate further on this, but there are real users that have been utilizing iCIMS to recruit employees. They can say a lot about the tool. So, what are the main reasons many companies look for iCIMS alternatives?
Why look for iCIMS alternatives?
Based on 450 comments, iCIMS scored 4.1 out of 5 stars on G2. There are several concerns people usually mention in their reviews on G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius. We decided to compile the following list with all the common complaints:
Poor and clunky UX/UI
Tastes differ, and software design is a rather subjective matter. However, it may be a big problem when customers start feeling confused and can’t find what they need fast enough. It seems that some users have such a problem with iCIMS.
People mention that their dashboard can be overwhelming and complicated. The dashboard with all its rich features looks busy and hard to navigate. For instance, if you want to open a candidate’s profile, it will take too many actions to get there. There are an overwhelming amount of features within a candidate's profile, too.
Quote 1:
I wish ICIMS had more appeal, design-wise. It's very bland looking compared to other recruiting software I have used before.
Quote 2:
It can be very complicated and does require training or the new user to have an in-depth manual to not make mistakes and impact the recruiting process.
Quote 3:
The structure is too confusing for our small teams of staff and supervisors. It seems to be best suited for larger companies that would benefit from all the features. We ended up going with a smaller and less expensive platform.
Quote 4:
When I move the candidate to the next bins in the recruitment workflow, I can’t find an update button. If I reload the page, it will show up the main dashboard and I have to go back to the particular job profile again.
Some reviewers mention frequent software updates that iCIMS rolls out on a regular basis. So, it’s not for lack of trying. Apparently, the team is trying to modernize the solution and keep it intuitive and convenient. Not all users are satisfied, though. People are writing about the negative impact of such updates on their recruiting workflow:
Quote 5:
I am not a fan of the continuous updates that occur; some are not relevant to our needs and have changed some of our posting and reports on the back end without notice and then we have to review all external postings to ensure that nothing has changed and only the details we want to be posted externally are posted.
Glitches and downtime
Some reviews mention that iCIMS may experience occasional downtime, which blocks entire departments’ work for hours. Rare glitches are inevitable with any software. But it seems that companies that position themselves as enterprise solutions should be more reliable than a startup with no experience and weak infrastructure.
Quote 1:
Our recruiting department relies heavily on iCIMS, and there have been times where iCIMS has been completely down for hours. It's hard for them to do their job when the system they use does not work at times.
Quote 2:
One of the biggest cons we frequently have with iCIMS is when the entire system shuts down for hours at a time. This is the software they were solely using for our recruitment process and when the system is down we do not have access to candidate contact information, etc. which causes delays in the process.
Indistinct roles and permissions
People tend to think that different roles and permissions inside a business tool are something that only enterprises use. While it’s true that it’s crucial for big companies to distribute responsibilities, SMBs can benefit from this functionality, too.
By defining everyone’s scope of work early on, you can easily keep tabs on success criteria as well as failures and mishaps. But if this functionality doesn’t work properly or can’t be adjusted, it can lead to a lot of confusion. Unfortunately, that is the case with iCIMS.
Quote 1:
There's a "person", "candidate," and "manager" profile — ALL for the SAME individual. Why? Why can't you just have one person and they are either a candidate for a role or they're not? I've worked with so many other Applicant Tracking Systems and this was never an issue or even a "thing."
Quote 2:
Job descriptions are unable to be edited by users, only admin users can do so.
Quote 3:
Seemingly-arbitrary limitations on security rules make it difficult to create the access-control environment we need.
Emails don’t work properly
While it’s true that there are many communication channels available for businesses nowadays, emails haven’t lost their popularity over the years. I think we can all agree that seamless communication between a recruiter and a candidate is the one most vital thing in the entire recruiting process.
It’s not always the case with iCIMS, though. Users complain about lots of different issues with emailing functionality. For instance, you can face such problems as a clunky interface or witness your letters ending up in a junk folder. Some also mention the issue with syncing emails with the entire system.
Quote 1:
Also needs improvements in terms of the auto-generated emails capabilities.
Quote 2:
While iCIMS offers the opportunity to send follow up and/or rejection emails to candidates, the interface is clunky and sometimes does not work, especially if a candidate has provided an invalid email address — this brings down the whole email response feature.
Quote 3:
Emailing select groups of past candidates is still a little awkward. Would love to be able to sort the candidates and create more specialized groups and touch points to email them and create stronger ties and talent source pools. Would love to be able to tailor and send out newsletters, blog posts and specialized job announcements to them. May be create and advertise special events.
Poor search for candidates
If your database of candidates consists of a dozen people, you can find any necessary information with your eyes closed. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like this when you deal with hundreds of candidates.
Each job opening will have many applicants, which is why it’s crucial to be able to search through the entire recruiting software in the blink of an eye. There can be occasional problems in this department with iCIMS, too. It seems that the boolean search doesn’t function as it should, and this causes some drawbacks.
Quote 1:
The sourcing feature could use more work. It's hard to find specific candidates because the search feature does not search exactly what the Recruiter is looking for when doing a boolean search.
Little or no integrations
According to the research by Siftery, top companies use 37 different solutions on average to manage their day-to-day activities. Without seamless experience across all of them, effective work is impossible.
While many recruiting platforms (or any platforms in general) are trying to create entire ecosystems around them, iCIMS decides to limit their third-party integrations.
Quote 1:
The software does not integrate into anything else, meaning that in addition to the thousands of dollars our team has paid for it every month, we have needed to utilize many other platforms to achieve the same results.
Quote 2:
More integrated solutions with other products for a seamless experience.
Reports aren’t flexible enough
This is a classic case when too many options are not always a good thing. Some iCIMS users mention in their reviews that the tool’s reporting is so robust, it can be daunting to figure it out. While it’s probably a good thing for enterprises, small businesses will be better off with something more tight and condensed.
Moreover, some clients complain about iCIMS’ limitation on customization. Basically, you can’t adjust many things according to your needs, and this can cause many inconveniences.
Quote 1:
It's hard to customize the reports to how you want it. They have default reports, but if you want it more customized to your company, it's not as user-friendly as the standard reports.
Quote 2:
Applicants are counted every time they are in the Identified Bin. So that if they have applied to more than 1 job, they are not 1 applicant but rather counted several times over. Within reporting, we wish there was a way to identify these individuals on certain reports or to not have them count multiple times on certain reports.
Pricing and limitations
It’s not that you’d expect anything else from an enterprise-oriented solution, but still, iCIMS pricing might give a shock to even the most well-prepared users. They’re not disclosing their pricing unless you request a quote, but there are some third-party researches that can demystify the issue a little bit.
According to Siftery, iCIMS prices range from $6,000 per year (51 to 100 employees) to $140,000 (5,000+ employees). However, the tool also charges additional fees for third-party integrations (for video interviewing, skills tests, credit check) which can also reach $1,000+ per month.
Quote 1:
Lots of features require additional spend. It is quite costly and not as affordable for small or medium sized companies.
Why 100Hires is the best iCIMS alternative
For one thing, 100Hires will be a way better solution for small and midsize businesses. It doesn’t have so many limitations, costs considerably less, and still offers a full range of features for efficient recruiting.
On top of the modern and intuitive dashboard, here are just a few advantages of 100Hires as an iCIMS alternative:
- Integrations with all the most popular job boards
- The ability to create your own career site
- Bulk emailing and customizable email templates
- Customizable Kanban board for your recruiting pipeline
- Unified database with all candidates and their info
- Chrome extension for sourcing candidates on the go
100Hires prices range between $0 and $289 per month with unlimited users and jobs included in every subscription plan.
You won’t need any special training to get a full overview of 100Hires. The tool is divided into six sections: Candidates, Jobs, Mailbox, and Tasks, Reporting, and Settings. There’s also a separate section to manage your career site. Just sign up and start using 100Hires to hire the top talent in every niche.
the best candidates faster
