As all HR professionals know, talent management is a crucial component of achieving organizational success. A talent management system is a subset of HR software that’s designed to help you manage your best talent–your current and future employees–to ensure they remain happy and engaged in their roles
The best talent management solution will support the entire workforce management process, including finding the right talent, identifying top performers, providing internal development and upward mobility opportunities, and assisting with succession planning.
This article will help you quickly compare and evaluate the best talent management systems to help you recruit, retain and develop your team members successfully.
The Best Talent Management Systems
Here’s a shortlist of the best talent management software I’ll discuss in this article:
EddyBest all-in-one HR software for small, local businesses
- Cegid
Best for collaborative recruitment
- ADP
Best cloud-based HR suite
- SAP SuccessFactors
Best for enterprise-level talent management
- Recruitee
Best Android and iOS mobile apps
- HireEZ
Best talent management system for diversity and inclusion initiatives
- PeopleStreme
Best for compensation management
- Bullseye Engagement
Best low cost talent management system
- Oleeo
Best for redeployment and internal mobility
- Lattice
Best for performance management & 360 degree feedback
Talent Management System Comparison Criteria
What am I looking for when selecting talent management platforms for review? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:
- User Interface (UI): Is it clean and attractive?
- Usability: Is it easy to learn and master? Does the company offer good tech support, user support, tutorials, and training?
- Integrations: Is it easy to connect with other tools? Are there any pre-built integrations? Does it connect with pre-existing job boards and professional sites like LinkedIn?
- Value for $: How appropriate is the price for the features, capabilities, and use case? Is pricing clear, transparent, and flexible?
Talent Management Systems: Key Features
Here’s what I look for when I’m selecting the best talent management systems for review.
Hiring Process Automations
Does the talent management software system offer any artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), or automations within an HRIS workflow?
Talent Pool Searchability
Are hiring managers and HR teams able to quickly, thoroughly, and reliably search their talent pool according to relevant field data like experience, skills, education, and so on?
New Talent Onboarding Process
Is the HR management team able to easily onboard new talent and provide them with accessible documentation, resources, and training in-app to get them started?
Document Management and Storage
Is there a way to upload, track, sort, and search relevant candidate documents (like CV, portfolio, certificates, etc.)? Will it identify duplicate applications?
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Overviews Of The Best Talent Management Systems
Here’s a brief description of each talent management platform that made our top 10 list:
Eddy - Best all-in-one HR software for small, local businesses
Eddy's drag and drop hiring pipeline and automated stage actions simplify the hiring process.
Cegid - Best for collaborative recruitment
Reward your employees for referring candidates from their network using Cegid’s co-option app.
Cegid’s Talentsoft platform (formerly Hello Talent) combines the functionality of an employee engagement platform with a talent acquisition and management platform. Beginning with recruiting, the system encourages collaboration between managers and employees throughout the search for new talent. By using their co-option app, employees can recommend candidate profiles from their personal networks in just a few clicks. To help facilitate recommendations, you can even embed a point system for employee referrals that is customized for your business.
To bolster employee retention, Cegrid designed an intuitive internal mobility tool to help existing employees identify new career opportunities within their organization. Other features also allow teams to promote cross-disciplinary projects to help employees remain proactive in their own skill development.
Pros
- Customizable onboarding process
- 350 flexible fields for employee data management
- Easy-to-use internal tools
Cons
- No pricing details available
- No free trial
- Lack of specific tool functionality details on website
ADP - Best cloud-based HR suite
Jack-of-all-trades suite, including new hires and succession planning.
ADP Workforce Now maintains a system that is easy to use, despite the fact that it covers quite an extensive amount of HR functions. A subscription is near limitlessly customizable, too, with users being allowed to add and remove functions to suit their needs.
Their talent acquisition and management capabilities include an intuitive dashboard to monitor employee performance and align employees with team goals. This helps HR teams identify competency trends, flag candidates for career growth, and reward high performers using a customizable merit and bonus process.
Their professional website has a usability issue, with endless menuing blocking easy access to information and frequent dead ends for basic info. This problem carries through to their software, which lost them marks in the evaluation consideration for Usability.
ADP Workforce Now starts at $17.50/user/month with a minimum of 1000 users and has a free demo.
Pros
- Robust mobile app
- Company, state, federal forms all in one portal
- Super easy to verify time
Cons
- Entering hours in military time
- High minimum user requirement
- Lag when manually updating multiple times entries
SAP SuccessFactors - Best for enterprise-level talent management
Core HR for the enterprise employee lifecycle.
SAP supports talent management success at the enterprise level by tapping into the four pillars of talent management: recruiting and onboarding, performance management, learning and development, and compensation management. They also have a variety of tools that can integrate with their talent solutions. For example, they have connections for common document authoring, document management, and identity management systems. This scored them well in the Integrations segment of the evaluation.
A few cons to note are A) the cost of the software can really add up if you need various services/packages and B) reporting could be more intuitive and automated and, as it stands currently, requires significant manual intervention.
SAP SuccessFactors has solutions that start at $2.18/user and has software packages starting from $1000+/package. The tool offers a free trial.
Pros
- High quality reward and recognition
- Robust career path development tools
- Engaging onboarding portal
Cons
- Busy administrative scenes
- No AI for sourcing candidates
- Limitations to customized rating systems
Recruitee - Best Android and iOS mobile apps
HRMS in real-time using fully featured mobile apps.
Their open API allows you to integrate Recruitee directly with your pre-existing software and platforms. Therefore, you can add-on tools for chat, project management, or CMS. This scored them highly in the Integrations section of the evaluation outline.
A critique of this tool is that it suffers from some interface issues when it comes to integrating and parsing external documents like PDF CVs, for example, which navigate poorly and require magnification.
Recruitee starts at $79/month and has a free 18-day trial and a free demo.
Pros
- Access to 1250 free and paid job boards
- User-friendly candidate pipelines
- Includes talent sourcing Chrome extension
Cons
- Multi-language job sites limited to higher subscriptions
- No custom careers site URL for entry plan
- No functionality to send external emails
HireEZ - Best talent management system for diversity and inclusion initiatives
Develop HR processes and projects according to specific needs.
As you can see from the tool screenshot, HireEZ has a clean, intuitive, and modest user interface. The simple list of tools in the menu bar makes it easy to gauge what you need at a glance. This helped them evaluate favorably in both UX and general usability.
A downside of HireEZ is that paid plans tend to be on the pricey side with no ideal options for the case of having multiple recruiters in a single company.
HireEZ starts at $149/month and has a freemium Starter plan. HireEZ also offers customized pricing plans.
Pros
- Bi-directional ATS/CRM integrations
- AI candidate sourcing from 40+ platforms
- Great Chrome extension
Cons
- Only 10 contacts per week on free plan
- Gmail and Outlook integrations limited to enterprise plan
- No pricing package for multiple recruiters in a company
PeopleStreme - Best for compensation management
Talent management system with a focus on rewarding employees based on reviews, risks, and potential.
Pros
- Ability to personalize responses to candidates en masse
- Payroll for complex configuration and requirements
- Can manage a very high recruitment workload
Cons
- Limited custom branding options
- Best reporting features limited to higher plans
- Inability to identify same candidate twice
Bullseye Engagement - Best low cost talent management system
Employee development and onboarding with flexible, low costs.
The feedback loop of this tool is easy and satisfying, engaging users with notifications, role-based appraisals, comments and notes, employee history access, an organizational chart, a social media wall, direct reports coaching, and communication tracking.
With a dated and clunky user interface, Bullseye Engagement lost some marks in the UX category of the evaluation criteria section. The software looks much older than it is and does nothing to create a seamless, clean experience.
Bullseye Engagement starts at $3-4/user/month and has a free demo.
Pros
- Streamlined check-in and performance evaluations
- Interfaces with all ERP systems
- Multiple locations, currencies, and languages
Cons
- Comment and communication pages tricky to find
- More HCM and L&D systems welcomed
- Hard to find pricing information
Oleeo - Best for redeployment and internal mobility
Track employee performance and plan internal upward mobility.
A stand-out quality of this software is that it works well as a high-volume applicant tracking system (ATS), allowing flexibility and scalability to design a solution around your pre-existing process. Other useful features include debiasing tools to reduce gender-bias in job postings, and programmatic job ad campaigns you can automate.
Lack of pricing transparency and no free trial offerings lost Oleeo some marks in the Value for Cost section of the evaluation criteria, in which at least one of these two items is highly recommended for a perfect score.
Oleeo offers pricing upon request and has a free demo.
Pros
- Well-established training agenda
- Intelligent automation for volume recruiting
- Easily schedule interviews from the system
Cons
- Large focus on campus recruiting
- No scheduling integration with Outlook
- Can’t change month/day/year format to suit region
Lattice - Best for performance management & 360 degree feedback
Lattice’s deep career coaching tools turn managers into growth guides for their teams.
Lattice supports talent management and employee satisfaction with their platform built on employee engagement, performance management, and employee development. Their check-in tools make it easy for managers to transform into coaches for their employees, by integrating continuous feedback systems with transparent goal management and performance reviews that include 360-degree feedback.
Their user interface is clean, clear, and colourful, giving them high marks in the UI category. They also scored well in the Usability category as they offer in-app chat support, plus an online help center, how-to documents, webinars, videos, and tips for best practices in performance management.
Lattice starts at $9 user/month plus an annual agreement cost of $4,000 to start.
Pros
- User-friendly and fun interface
- Engagement tools are comprehensive, including eNPS and surveys
- Access to over 140 video lessons via Lattice University
Cons
- No tools for compensation management
- High cost for starting annual agreement
- Dedicated account manager only for premium level
Need Expert Help Selecting The Right Talent Management Software?
People Managing People has joined forces with the software comparison platform Crozdesk.com to assist you in finding the best tool for your needs. Crozdesk’s Talent Management Software advisors can create a personalized shortlist of software solutions with unbiased recommendations to help you identify the solutions that best suit your business’s needs. Through our partnership you get free access to their bespoke software selection advice, removing both time and hassle from the research process.
It only takes a minute to submit your requirements and they will give you a quick call at no cost or commitment. Based on your needs you’ll receive customized software shortlists listing the best-fitting solutions from their team of software advisors (via phone or email). They can even connect you with your selected vendor choices along with community negotiated discounts. To get started, please complete the form below:
Best Talent Management System Software Summary
Other Talent Management Systems
Here are a few more that didn’t make the top list. If you need additional suggestions for handy talent management systems, check these out.
- Zoho Recruit – Best executive talent management system
- Trakstar – Best for identifying high performers
- Saba – Best for onboarding plans and checklists
- ClearCompany – Best for built-in background screening
- JazzHR – Best for interview scheduling with reminders
- Blue by Explorance – Best talent management survey software
- Vibe HCM – Best unified HCM engagement platform
- Ascentis – Best for compensation planning
- Glint – Best talent management for small businesses
- Qualtrics – Best to measure employee engagement and sentiment
- BreezyHR – Best for automated job postings
- PeopleFluent – Best global talent management for multinational enterprises
- OrangeHRM – Best open source talent management system
- Bamboo HR – Best performance management software
- Dayforce by Ceridian – Best workforce management with flexible rules engine
- Workday – Best enterprise performance appraisal
- UKG (was Ultipro) – Best workforce planning & recruiting software
- Oracle HCM – Best candidate-centric experience & onboarding
- Cornerstone – Best talent management for SMBs
Talent Management Software Solutions FAQ
Have some questions before moving on? This FAQ is a great place to start.
What is a talent management system?
Talent management is often defined as the following four pillars: recruitment, performance management, learning and development, and compensation management. All four pillars play a very important role within a business strategy. The best-integrated suite of HR technology will cover all of your hiring and development needs, providing everything from an applicant tracking system to identification of your best employees and succession planning tools.
Why is talent management important to HR?
Talent management is a vital HR function as it plays a major role in the overall business strategy of the company. It is the commitment to hire, manage, develop, and retain employees. This allows businesses to retain and recognize top talent within their teams that will in turn help with organizational success.
The best talent management solution will bolster the employee experience within your organization, providing career development opportunities, and boosting employee engagement and retention.
Related Read: Talent Management Versus Learning And Development
What Do You Think About The Above Talent Database Software?
Have you tried out a talent management system listed above? Is there any training management system you would add to this list? In your opinion, what is the best talent management software? Let us know in the comments.
Only need software to help with recruiting? Take a look at our suggestions for the best online recruiting software.
Looking to overhaul your performance management profess? We’ve compiled a list of the best performance management tools to save you time.
Looking for even more software to better suit your needs? Find out what an HRMS System can do for your organization, here.
Check This Out: Why And How To Create A Proper Talent Management Strategy
