Running Recruitment Bases—Homerun Review

Homerun is an applicant tracking system (ATS) designed for small- and mid-sized businesses of up to 250 employees. It’s primarily aimed at the European market, but the platform can also accommodate companies from overseas. The software allows you to create a custom job post, move applicants through the funnel, send automated emails, and collaborate with your hiring team members.

Source: Homerun

In this review, we’ll discuss Homerun’s key features, downsides, and pricing plan. We’ll also introduce Workello, an ATS that uses written tests as the go-to pre-hire candidate assessment method. 

Homerun Key Features

Every hiring process starts with a job ad, and Homerun’s creators made sure that you’re fully covered in that regard. The software allows you to create a custom job post with visuals and widgets to make your ad stand out among potential applicants. The best part is that you can do this without ever leaving the platform, by using Homerun’s page editor. The editor feature is straightforward and can be used with zero coding and technical knowledge.

You can also set up the application format, i.e., set requirements regarding necessary documents (resumes, portfolios, etc.) and prescreening questions. If you’re unsure how to structure your job post, you can use one of Homerun’s templates. The platform also offers job description templates if you’re struggling to write your own.

Regardless of where you sourced your applicants, every application will appear in the same Homerun database—in the “New” stage of your hiring funnel. You can customize your hiring funnel by adding stages and labeling them any way you want. Each stage comes with a set of triggers you can add, edit, or remove.

You can also use Homerun’s Talent Clipper—a Google Chrome extension. With it, you can visit someone’s social media profile and create an entry in your candidate database quickly. It works with LinkedIn, Facebook, GitHub, and Twitter.

You can message candidates within Homerun directly and set up email templates to speed up the process. Homerun creates reminders about candidates that have not received a reply to their email so that you don’t miss out on a candidate due to an error in correspondence.

Collaborating With Hiring Managers

Homerun is designed for companies with internal hiring teams or at least several people involved in the hiring process. When you visit a candidate’s profile, you can leave a rating (up to five stars) and notes so that other team members can see your impressions.

When you move a candidate to a different funnel stage using the drag-and-drop feature, you can create a to-do task for a team member. For example, you can task your recruiting officer to prepare questions and conduct the interview. If you have limited experience conducting interviews, you can use one of Homerun’s interview question templates.

Any notes made during the interview (or any other stage of the funnel) will be visible to every member of your team, so you can jot down information like particular salary expectations and notice periods.

Homerun Downsides

Homerun is a well-thought-out platform you’ll have little quarrels with. One element that could be improved is the UI. Some features are several clicks away and may feel hidden until you learn how to use the software correctly and get accustomed to it.

Another downside is that only the confirmation email is automated. While Homerun has templates for other types of emails, you’ll need to send them manually. This leaves room for human error, even more so if you deal with hundreds of applications.

If you want to close down a job position for any future applications, you’ll lose the ability to communicate with current candidates and continue with your hiring process. To avoid such a scenario, you’ll have to keep the ad live and continue receiving new applications even after you determine you have a sufficient number. Although you can reject the new candidates in bulk, the unwanted applications will still clutter your hiring funnel and make your recruiters’ jobs a bit more complicated.

Homerun also doesn’t disclose what (if any) integrations it supports. When it comes to distributing your job ad on various job boards, you can do so automatically on Indeed and LinkedIn only.

Homerun Pricing

Homerun offers a 15-day trial of all their plans (you can choose which version you get during the trial period). Afterward, you need to opt for one of their pricing plans:

1. Free—Free
2. Light—€69 per month
3. Basic—€139 per month
4. Plus—€239 per month

Source: Homerun

These prices change if you decide to get billed annually, in which case you get a 15% discount. 

The most expensive plan—Plus—has a limit of 10 active job slots. If you require more than that, you can pay extra for the slots without getting any additional features. The pricing for extra job slots (for the Plus package) is as follows:

Feature per Plan

The free plan doesn’t require you to leave any credit card information, but it’s pretty limited in what it offers, especially in terms of candidates you can process and team members which can use the platform. If you want to unlock additional features and have unlimited users and candidates, you’ll have to pick one of the three paid plans. 

Check out the table below to see what you get with each plan:

Homerun Customers

Homerun focuses on the EU market and offers its software in the following languages:

• English
• German
• Dutch
• Russian
• Danish
• Swedish
• Spanish
• Portuguese
• Norwegian
• Latvian
• French
• Italian
• Turkish
• Polish
• English
• Finnish 

Hundreds of companies use Homerun for their recruiting needs, including:

• Decathlon
• Tiqets
• Vanilia
• Geckoboard
• Volkshotel
• Tony’s Chocolonely
• Dopper
• Patta
• Blendle
• VPRO
• Poki
• BYBORRE
• Fabrique
• Hatch
• TBWA\NEBOKO
• Dentsu
• Your Majesty Co.
• Hike One
• Fashion for Good
• Molliež
• It’s Nice That
• DENHAM
• Spaces
• Moooi
• Open Social
• Critical Techworks
• TicketSwap

Alternatives to Homerun

Homerun is an excellent option for EU companies looking to hire new talent. But if you want to ensure that the candidates you pick perform well in their future roles, you’ll want a system with various assessment methods. Homerun does not offer much in this area besides pre-screening questions and interviews. 

The good news is you have thousands of ATS solutions to choose from, and we’ve reviewed many of them. Check out our other ATS reviews:

Workello vs. Homerun

Workello is a two-in-one ATS with pre-hire assessment features that allows you to set up a fully automated and optimized hiring funnel for high-volume recruiting. The platform focuses primarily on SMBs looking to hire content team members, but you can also use it to fill different kinds of vacancies.

Workello is easy to use, and you can complete the entire hiring process without leaving your one-page dashboard. Like Homerun, it has a template library (assessments, emails, and job descriptions) that lets you speed up the setup. You can create a careers page and distribute your ad on all major job boards. Once candidates start applying, they’ll instantly appear in your centralized database.

You can easily move candidates through the funnel by changing their candidate status from the drop-down menu. Unlike Homerun, Workello supports automated correspondence at every stage of the funnel.

With Workello, assessing your candidates is critical. You can send tests to applicants automatically and evaluate their quality of work before you hire them instead of relying on their portfolios. 

Another difference between the two systems is the pricing model. All of Workello’s features are available in its introductory plan, and you don’t have to pay extra for any additional capabilities. The only difference between Workello’s subscription models is the billing period and the number of applicants you get to assess:

1. Growth—$299, billed quarterly (up to 30 assessments)
2. Scale—$597, billed annually (up to 300 assessments)

Homerun vs. Workello: An Overview

Check out how the two ATS platforms compare:

Summary

If you’re an EU-based company that has multiple people involved in the hiring process, you’ll love Homerun. The platform optimizes collaboration and lets you set up individual and team reminders, tasks, and alerts. Homerun allows you to create a unique job post that will stand out from bland job ads that job boards are littered with. Besides, moving candidates through the funnel is effortless, and you’ll have a clear overview of the recruitment process at all times.

But if you want to set up written assessments easily and have automated emails available throughout the pipeline, Homerun will not live up to your expectations. Instead, you can sign up for Workello for free and try out some of its many automated features. Using the platform’s pre-configured settings, you’ll be able to launch your hiring funnel in under 3 minutes and make the most of your next hiring cycle.