1.
Features:
Recruiting and Applicant Tracking (Resume Management, Candidate
Management, Client and Contact Management)
Industry:
Non Specific
Customers:
Small and Medium Business (Staffing Agencies, HR Departments)
Geography:
All markets
Languages:
English, Italian, German, Russian, French, Spanish, Dutch, Korean,
Portuguese, Swedish, Polish
Cost:
Free 1 Recruiter, Standard Edition starting at 12US$/Recruiter/Month
Review methodology
This review constitutes an analysis based on a product demonstration and software review by qualified system
software experts at Eval‐Source The demonstration Eval‐Source received from the vendor was based on their own
custom vendor script, designed to validate and/or disprove vendors’ claims. The script was specifically prepared to
identify functionalities and form an impartial analysis and software review for Applicant Tracking.
Business Problems Addressed
Zoho Recruit is a unique module in the Zoho platform, which provides solutions for a specific industry type, namely
job sourcing and recruitment. Organizations depend greatly on internal and external recruiters to find them people
with specific skill sets and experience. Due to the high demand for these recruiting services, small recruitment firms
are very prevalent. With so many independent recruiting firms on the market and the adoption of internal HR
recruiters, business management systems have become essential so that companies can stay competitive, manage
processes and collaborate effectively.
Business problems for the recruiting industry can be divided into two components: internal and external recruiting.
External recruiting signifies an independent firm or staffing agency that manages different clients and fulfills their
sourcing requirements. Internal recruiting refers to organizations that have a team or department on staff to fulfill
the company’s sourcing needs.
When looking at external recruiting, a firm must manage their candidates, clients and job orders. These three
elements are core aspects of recruiting. To be effective in the field of recruiting scheduling, prioritization,
collaboration and candidate management, clients and job orders must be handled with ultimate efficiency in order
for the company to remain competitive and retain business. Firms must be able to access, update, categorize and
schedule their clients, associated job orders and candidates accordingly, and each recruiter must have full visibility
of these processes. A major challenge in recruiting is consolidating every candidate’s resumes in one location and
being able to access and update their information at any time. Zoho Recruit provides a solution to this problem.
When looking at internal recruiting, the client is taken out of the equation and the company must manage
candidates and job orders. Candidate sourcing, resume management and scheduling are key issues that
organizations must address when bringing in an internal recruitment department. Whether sourcing is internal or
external, applicant tracking is the common component that must be managed and executed effectively. Zoho
Recruit provides solution to both these problems
Zoho Recruit Review 25/02/2011
3.
Total Cost of Ownership
Eval‐Source has identified 18 key areas that organizations should consider when purchasing SaaS and cloud
technology. These items reflect areas that will determine the monthly cost of the subscription. The component
checklist below demonstrates how Zoho Recruit fared:
1. Tenancy ‐ Multi or Single: Multi‐tenancy
2. Cloud Structure Public or Private: Public
3. Subscription Terms: Monthly and Yearly
4. Data Center – Online/Offline Online
5. Data Security standards by vertical: No specific verticals, data security at network level. See
https://www.zoho.com/privacy.html for full details
6. Business Continuity / Data Recovery Yes
7. Encryption Type: 128/256 bit SSL encryption
8. Version release schedule: Customer feedback incorporated into new releases
9. Current Version Released: 2.0
10. Session Management: Yes
11. Application Level Security: Yes
12. Are there any User Limits: No
13. Offer data migration services: Yes (on request for additional charges)
14. Offer free trials/sandbox testing: Yes upon request
15. Application customizable by user: Yes (Change Logo, Time zone, Tabs, Fields, Page layout, Customer
Portal Home Page, Search Layout)
16. Application customizable by vendor: Yes upon customer request for additional charges
17. Is there a setup fee (admin fee): No
18. Charge for additional space: Yes see pricing chart
Solution Analysis
Organizations should be aware of the type of software selected for their recruiting and human resources
requirements as they vary greatly in this space. When selecting a recruiting and human resources software
application, organizations should be alert to what types of requirements are actually needed and differentiate
between “must haves” and “wants”. Most importantly, they should ascertain whether the software solves the
business problems it should.
Zoho Recruit Review 25/02/2011
4.
Functional Modules
Zoho Recruit consists of seven modules: Candidate Sourcing, Resume Management, Job Requisition Management,
Client and Contact Management, Business Process Automation, Calendar/Event Tracking and possibly three add‐on
modules of Zoho Mail, Resume Grabber and R‐Chili Resume Parser.
In order to gain a better understanding of ZOHO Recruit, we will analyze each module’s functional capability. A brief
description details the functional capabilities and key features found within these modules:
Candidate Sourcing – This module allows the organization to gather resumes from multiple sources and manage
them from a single place. Being able to search candidates specific to job requirements simplifies the overall
sourcing process, making them easier to reach and manage.
The Candidate Sourcing module includes convenient features like embedding of resume forms, creation of
hotlists, bulk candidate import/export, mass mailing functionality and candidate status tracking. These features
allow the recruiter to track the entire lifecycle of the recruiting process specific to each candidate.
Having the functionality to create a hotlist enables companies to prioritize the urgency of positions. Once a
position is categorized as “hot”, recruiters can take action to quickly fill the position by sourcing new candidates
or create a mass mailing list that matches specific candidates to an opportunity.
Resume Management ‐ The Resume Management module allows for effective management of resumes
including gathering, scheduling interviews and enables users to add notes and log capabilities.
A major problem that organizations face is how to collect resume information. Zoho Recruit solves this by
enabling a web‐form to be created on the user’s website, which is directly inputted into the Recruit application.
Zoho provides the source code for this operation so that companies with limited IT personnel can easily
automate this process. Candidates can be tagged to facilitate specific categorization.
The flexibility of Zoho Recruit allows for interview scheduling, candidate activity logging, alert notifications,
candidate locking and creation of candidate history, encompassing all changes made to the resume and status
updates as they occur. Zoho Recruit makes Onboarding easy. You can quickly convert the selected candidates to
employees and make them productive members of your organization. Once converted, the employee details are
automatically added to Zoho People, where you can track the employee's progress, leave details, training
details, etc.
Job Requisition Management – This module manages all aspects of the job order within Recruit. Typical
functions for this module include creation and publishing of job openings and document management.
Job orders can be customized to specific criteria stipulated by the hiring manager or client and published to a
user’s website. Once the web‐form captures that information, it becomes available for use within Recruit.
Requisitions allow any supporting documentation from the client, notes or attachments to be appended to the
file.
Client and Contact Management – As the name implies, this module manages clients and client contacts. The
Client Contact module also serves as a document management area in which companies can attach any
documentation specific to a client in terms of contracts and other necessary documents, such as supplier
regulations, service level agreements or compliance based documents. A central repository for client
information companies can tag and categorize their information and export data in the form of Excel, CSV, TSV
etc. files for back up purposes or to create additional reports. Zoho CRM Integration bridges the gap between
Zoho Recruit Product Review 25/02/2011
5. Sales and Recruiting. Zoho CRM helps to Identify and acquire your customers ‐ from creating leads to converting
them to business opportunities and finally to signing them ‐ and getting paid! Once the right Clients and Client
contacts are identified for the organization, the recruitment process is handled by Zoho Recruit. For more details
refer to: http://www.zoho.com/recruit/applicant‐tracking‐system‐with‐crm.html
Business Process Automation – This module allows organizations to customize their business processes within
Zoho Recruit. A major problem Recruit solves is the automation of disparate workflows that are often
duplicated throughout an organization. The drag and drop capability, ability to customize fields, custom status,
creation of workflows, mail alerts and logo customization are tools used to automate and manage workflows.
Calendar and Events Tracking – This module enables recruiters to track candidates and employees by roles, job
openings, colleagues and active and locked candidates and provides an overview of all occurring events and
interviews according to statuses that are created. Employees can check the status of colleagues within this
module, which proves especially useful when recruiters are based in different locations and employees are not
familiar with one another.
R‐Chili Resume Parser (Optional add‐on module) – The R‐Chili Resume Parser further automates Zoho Recruit
and is available for the Free and Standard editions. When receiving resumes from many different sources, the
formats are often unusable and gathering specific information becomes difficult. R‐Chili Resume Grabber
aggregates multiple candidate specific details from these sources and seamlessly integrates them to Zoho
Recruit. Fields can be mapped automatically once they are setup and can accept DOC, DOCX, PDF, RTF TXT and
HTML formats. This option reduces manual entry and allows for organizational efficiency thanks to its
centralized database.
E‐Grabber Resume Parser (Optional add on module) ‐ This module is sold separately and is only available with
the Standard Edition. However, customers receive a 20% discount when combined with Zoho Recruit. E‐Grabber
Resume Parser is a resume data entry tool. It automates data entry tasks such as name, postal code, email,
phone number etc and creates a new record in the database. E‐Grabber can capture information from multiple
formats and sources such as job boards, attachments, folders etc. and can enter information directly into the
CRM system.
Zoho Mail Add‐On (Optional add‐on module) – The Zoho Mail add‐on allows organizations to fetch emails from
Zoho Mail to Zoho Recruit, view emails pertaining to candidates and interviews through the Recruit interface,
share email and user drop‐down lists and view all reply options, as the communication between Mail and
Recruit is bidirectional. Zoho Recruit doesn't restrict you from emailing your candidates, clients and clients
Zoho Recruit Product Review 25/02/2011
6. contacts from other e‐mail systems. You can send/receive emails not only with Zoho Mail client, but also
from other email Clients like Gmail, Yahoo, etc.
While the Activities Stream is not a module, it provides additional functionality to allow role‐based user sign‐on that
enables multiple levels of system security. Additionally, users can browse all candidate and client information, view all
job openings, view active candidates, check colleague information and schedule candidate interviews.
Additional features include mass mailing list creation to notify potential candidates of open opportunities, data export
capabilities in the form of ZIP files, creation of logs and history for candidates, interviews and clients, advanced search
capabilities by allowing users to select specific search criteria, tagging for organizational categorization for candidates,
clients and job orders, charting to see open job orders in a graphical format, and auditing – which allows a history to be
captured for all activities and tasks within the software.
Technical Specifications
Zoho Recruit integrates to Zoho Mail, Zoho CRM, any POP email services such as Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail etc. Google
Apps, Corp‐Corp, Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet and any other system through its REST API. Upcoming version plan to include
social media integration and other major Job Board like LinkedIn, Indeed and Simplyhired.
Client and Contact data can be exported directly from Zoho CRM into recruit so that double data entry is eliminated.
Since the data flow is bidirectional, customers may also access from the ZOHO CRM or Recruit application. This works
the same way for Zoho Writer, Sheet and Mail.
Zoho Recruit also features integration with Corp‐Corp. This service is sold separately but can be bundled with your
monthly subscription. For special offers refer to http://www.zoho.com/recruit/post‐jobs‐corp.html This feature allows
the creation of a job posting and candidates are then provided based on requirements. The user pays for retrieval of
identified candidates.
Google Apps Integration
Zoho Recruit is available from the Google Apps Marketplace as an add‐on to Google Apps. Google Apps integration
allows for the following features:
• Single application sign on using Google Apps
• Access to Google Contacts, Users and Calendar information in a centralized place
• Import of Google Contacts into Zoho Recruit
Zoho Recruit Product Review 25/02/2011
8.
Conclusion
Zoho Recruit offers small organizations an effective tool with which to automate and customize their business processes
without a large price tag or expensive system management costs. Zoho Recruit is a comprehensive applicant tracking
system that incorporates the functionality of candidate sourcing, resume management, job requisition management,
client and contact management and calendar event tracking for internal and external recruiters.
By compounding/combining disparate tasks into one application, it solves many of the pain points typically experienced
by smaller companies and internal HR departments. Zoho Recruit includes integration to Zoho Mail, Zoho CRM and
Google Apps. This integration offers recruiting and applicant management capabilities to extend suite functionality. A
single point of entry/entry point for entering/keying in client information and one interface with which to interact for
scheduling, applicant tracking, client interaction, and contact management is a beneficial feature for all users as it
greatly simplifies application usage.
Zoho Recruit is tool that internal and external recruiters can use in their organization that will implement best practices
and enhance business processes. Because of the array of functionality for applicant tracking, Zoho Recruit will help
staffing agencies and hr departments become more efficient and automate many manual processes.
The ability to consolidate and manage resumes and candidates with collaborative functionality in one application is a
major benefit of Zoho Recruit. The deliver model of Zoho Recruit is also ideal for the size of staffing agency or company
it caters for. It offers a low cost of entry without a major need of IT resources and upfront investment for a software
system.
Whether you are an independent recruiter, a staffing agency or an organization with an internal recruiting department,
Zoho Recruit can offer an applicant tracking system to manage candidates, clients and job orders effectively.
Zoho Recruit Product Review 25/02/2011
9.
About GetApp.com
http://www.getapp.com
GetApp.com is a business software app store for buyers of enterprise applications. It offers a simple way for buyers to compare and evaluate
applications and a low cost channel for providers to be found online. Software buyers come to GetApp.com for the convenience of researching
enterprise applications in one place. Application providers come to GetApp.com to reach out to a worldwide audience of active buyers, receive
qualified traffic to their website and sales leads relevant to their target markets. GetApp.com also operates AppDoubler, a software partner
network dedicated to Cloud applications, where vendors offer affiliate opportunities to re‐selling partners. Please visit www.getapp.com
and www.appdoubler.com for more information.
About Eval‐Source
http://www.eval‐source.com
Eval‐Source is consulting firm that provides enterprise software selection and strategic consulting services for organizations to achieve success in
their IT initiatives. Our Tru‐Eval selection system allows organizations to avoid IT failure, receive greater ROI and provide accurate decision support
for enterprise software. Our strategic consulting practice encompasses cloud computing services, cloud evaluation services, technology planning
and business process optimization. Eval‐Source is an industry leader in the analysis of software technology and our thought leadership has placed
us in the elite of consulting /analyst firms. As technology changes the need to understand your options and find the best fit for your organization is
more important now than ever before. What sets us apart is our unbiased best in class consulting services that provide our clients with value,
direction and success in selection, planning and optimization of their technology systems. Eval‐Source provides the professional services that put
your needs first and allow you to achieve success in your IT initiatives. We are the source for your solutions.
Zoho Recruit Product Review 25/02/2011
