Before switching to BrassRing, my previous company used SAP E-Recruiting.

We previously used Kronos for our retail operation, we previously used Taleo for our corporate operation, and we used SuccessFactors for our career site.

For us, IBM evolving to be able to provide that end-to-end responsive experience was a lot of what drove our decision to go away from SuccessFactors, because we really utilized SuccessFactors or Jobs2Web to provide a responsive careers site and search engine optimization. The world's changed, and you don't need to be quite as intentional about that as you used to be, and then our real priority was a great mobile experience. That's something IBM could provide, and have it more naturally integrated with the ATS, which was why we went there.

The reason we went away from Taleo was we had implemented Kenexa for our entire retail organization successfully. After having two years of success with that in retail, it didn't make any sense to have multiple platforms. We like IBM. IBM has been great partners for us. They're really invested in our success, and they see us as a valuable client. I think when your vendor treats you like you're important, listens and responds, that's a differentiator, and that's something IBM does very well. We weren't getting that with the others.

We were previously using a home-grown system; one that was developed by Lockheed Martin. It didn't have the scalability or flexibility that we needed to modify and adjust to the growing needs of the staffing world.

There were really no other solutions available. Certainly, there is nothing out there for HR analytics today that comes close to this level of holistic capability.

It wasn't really my choice to choose Kenexa, but I was very happy when we did because of the experience I had with those competitors.

I did not previously use a different solution; paper. Ridiculous, I know.

When selecting a vendor, the most important criteria is whether they can manage a company our size. It's really about, can they scale? Are they large enough to support a really complex organization?

Before choosing this product, we looked at the top five, including PeopleNet and Taleo.

In 2011, the company chose Kenexa because they could do both RPO and applicant tracking system. We've since separated the RPO, so we are 100% applicant tracking with them now, but originally that one-stop shop is why we went with them.

Prior to Kenexa, we were on a homegrown system for recruiting, but our corporate recruiting was on another system. We switched to Kenexa because it was important for us to have all of our recruiting, both for corporate and our tax offices, under one system. We wanted to make sure all of our candidates were together; we were looking at a holistic candidate pool, really, one database for an applicant-tracking system.

Also, just the functionality that Kenexa provides in comparison to the other vendor that we were using.

We had used another survey provider, a great survey provider, Willis Tales Watsons. We'd used them for several years and they provided an excellent service to us as well. In 2011, with the appointment of a new CEO, with a slightly different focus, with a very clear vision of becoming the best bank for customers, with a very clear strategy and a series of values, it just kind of opened up our minds to saying, "We need to think about science, so we need to think about engagement or research in a much more scientific way than we've done before." Therefore, and it was not a decision that we took very lightly, we really challenged ourselves to make sure that we got the right partner. That was a change as well.

For us, I think in the past, so many organizations you speak to today, have got a supplier relationship going with someone. This is what we want. I think with a partnership, it enables us to be able to develop a two-way dialogue. A survey partner, whether it's IBM today or another provider in the future, that really challenges the way we think about, the way we conduct research. However many surveys we run, whether we go out to new joiners, whether we go out to leavers or somewhere in between, we've just got to make sure we've got a survey, a really robust process, and we go out and ask the right questions to really get the truth.

What you want is for people to be open and honest. You want the truth and you want to be able to understand the reality of what it looks like and what it feels like to work in an organization.

Our other tool was purchased by another vendor and was planned for retirement, so we had no choice.

The acquired pharmacy retailer was previously using Aon Hewitt. We were using another solution through a third party, and it was somewhat customized. Again, we're happy to really have that baseline from which we can compare across the entire enterprise, so that we know that we're comparing apples to apples.

The decision to invest in Kenexa was made before I arrived at the previous company.

Yes, we previously used a different solution. We switched because we placed as much weight on the vendor being a sparring partner, as much as providing a powerful system.

I have not used another solution prior to IBM Kenexa. I have been using Kenexa for a while.

We were using Kenexa at the time we separated and we had the opportunity to either decide to move away or to keep what we had. We did a quick look at the landscape and we balanced the cost associated with change and change management, what we thought the upside benefits were of going somewhere else, and we didn't see that the landscape offered meaningfully better solutions. We felt like Kenexa was robust enough and dynamic enough that it met our needs, so it didn't make sense for us to disrupt 700 locations and reteach them something. That was a primary factor why we stayed with Kenexa.

We were tired of thinking of what we wanted solved a year and a half in advance, because it took that long to get a project set up and get the budget approved and processed. The ability now to be able to take data, load it yourself, ask the business questions and get the answers on your own process with the business just made it a lot faster, and the cognitive solution gives us some insights for us to think about. It just made business sense in so many ways: time, money, etc.

We were replacing our HCM on our ATS. It was an outdated system.

When selecting a vendor, the most important criteria for me are consistency, configurability, being on the front edge. All those things.

We had used KRE, the other ATS offering from Kenexa before BrassRing and switched to this tool for better functionality.

I wasn't involved in the original decision to get Kenexa. I'm involved in our ongoing decision to remain with Kenexa.

I did not previously use a different solution. I just wasn't part of the HR talent acquisition world yet.

We had regional and local surveys, but there was a decision made to get global surveys and then we were looking for vendor.

We used ATS and switched to Kenexa to update to a web interface. Our company then switched to Taleo. We are switching to Workday.