Tellent Review: Smarter HR Decisions Through ATS, HRIS, and Performance Tools

HR software only “works” when it reduces friction in real workflows: hiring managers moving too slowly, candidates ghosting mid application, payroll data living in spreadsheets, performance reviews that arrive late and add little value, and an HR tech stack that grows into a patchwork of logins and integrations.

Tellent positions itself as the antidote to that patchwork: a People Decision Platform that brings together applicant tracking (Tellent Recruitee), core HR (Tellent HR Manage), performance and engagement (Tellent HR Grow), and a layer of AI and automation (Tellent Intelligence). The promise is simple: less admin work, more consistency, and better decisions across the employee lifecycle.

Here’s what this review covers

• Introduction
• Overview and company background
• Pricing and plans (with tables and hidden cost considerations)
• Setup and onboarding experience
• User experience and ease of use
• Core feature breakdown (ATS, HRIS, performance, engagement, automation)
• AI features and roadmap direction
• Integrations (with practical top integrations table)
• Performance, reliability, and security
• Customer support and resources
• Pros and cons
• User reviews and ratings summary
• Alternatives and comparisons
• Who Tellent is best for (and who should avoid it)
• Final verdict and recommendations
• FAQ (15 questions)

Introduction

The pain point: HR “tools” fail when they don’t fit real workflows

In most organizations, HR friction isn’t theoretical—it’s operational:

• Hiring managers move slowly and feedback arrives late.
• Candidates drop mid-process because communication and scheduling break down.
• Payroll inputs live in spreadsheets and handoffs are error-prone.
• Performance reviews happen late and add limited value.
• HR tech stacks become a patchwork of logins, tools, and inconsistent data.

Tellent’s product thesis is that you fix this by consolidating the workflow surfaces that matter—recruiting, HR operations, performance/engagement—and then layering in automation and AI to reduce admin work and improve consistency.

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Overview and company background

What is Tellent?

Tellent is a modular HR platform built around two core product pillars:

• Tellent Recruitee: an applicant tracking system designed for collaborative hiring and automation.
• Tellent HR: a core HRIS with built-in performance management, sold as Manage (HRIS) and Grow (performance, engagement, development).

On top of that, Tellent is layering Tellent Intelligence, focused on AI-assisted writing, summarization, translation, candidate insights, fairness controls, and an emerging conversational interface for employee self service.

How Tellent was formed (and why it matters)

Tellent is a platform that emerged from the combination of multiple HR software products. In 2022, Recruitee (ATS) and Javelo (performance management) announced the acquisition of KiwiHR (HR management system for SMBs) and joined forces under a new group leadership called Tellent.

Tellent also expanded capabilities through acquisition in 2025 with FunnelBridge, adding WhatsApp-based hiring workflows for deskless and high-volume hiring use cases.

Why this matters for buyers:

• You are adopting a platform that is actively converging multiple products into a more unified experience.
• Some parts of the suite are still in transition (for example, references to migrating Javelo into Tellent HR in 2026 signal ongoing consolidation).
• The upside is maturity: each module comes from a product with its own market fit before becoming part of a broader suite.

Market positioning and target audience

Tellent is best understood as a mid-market and scaling-company platform. The strongest fit tends to be:

• People teams that need a serious ATS plus solid HRIS and performance tooling, without a heavyweight enterprise HR implementation.
• Organizations hiring across multiple teams that want structured collaboration and automation in recruiting.
• European companies (or global companies hiring heavily in Europe) that prioritize compliance posture and clear data governance.

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Pricing and plans

Tellent pricing is modular. You typically buy:

• Tellent Recruitee (ATS) in one of three tiers
• Tellent HR in one of two modules (Manage and Grow are priced separately, and you can run them together)
• Optional add-ons (SSO, texting, Journeys, WhatsApp Hiring, AgencyHub, payroll integrations)

Tellent Recruitee pricing (ATS)

Below is pricing as presented in the provided brief (starting prices; expected to rise with company size):

Tellent HR pricing (HRIS and Performance)

Tellent HR is sold in two modules:

• Manage: core HRIS
• Grow: performance management and engagement

Add-ons and hidden costs to plan for

Tellent is modular by design. Common cost drivers include:

• SSO add-on (if needed outside included plan features)
• Texting add-on (candidate messaging)
• Journeys add-on
• AgencyHub add-on
• WhatsApp Hiring add-on
• Payroll integrations (HR Manage)
• Implementation/services (Optimize includes enterprise onboarding support; complex rollouts may require structured onboarding)

Value for money: who each level suits best

• Start: minimum viable setup for standardizing hiring (careers page + job distribution + collaboration + automation basics).
• Advance: best “platform leverage” tier (API/webhooks, better reporting, deeper CareersHub controls).
• Optimize: governance and scale (audit logs, permissions, BI connector, enterprise support).
• Manage: centralizes HR operations (time off, attendance, payroll readiness, employee records).
• Grow: adds performance and engagement cadence (reviews, objectives, feedback loops, survey insights).

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Setup and onboarding experience

Tellent promotes fast starts, including trial access for Recruitee (commonly positioned as no credit card required). That said, “easy to start” and “easy to scale correctly” are different.

A realistic onboarding path for Tellent Recruitee (ATS)

Week 1 goal: run one hiring process end-to-end in Recruitee.

1. Create roles and permissions: set up access so recruiters, hiring managers, and interviewers can collaborate cleanly.
2. Build one structured pipeline: start by copying your current stages, then simplify.
3. Launch CareersHub + publish one job: validate the end-to-end candidate experience.
4. Connect email and calendar: reduce scheduling friction immediately.
5. Pick one automation that saves time: focus on eliminating repetitive work (auto-assignment, templates, reminders).
6. Add one integration that reduces context switching: typically Slack/Teams, e-signature, or scheduling.

A realistic onboarding path for Tellent HR (Manage and Grow)

Phase 1: HR foundations (Manage)

• Employee database and org chart
• Time and attendance tracking and absence policies
• Payroll readiness workflow (data accuracy, pay run review, pay sheets)

Phase 2: Performance layer (Grow)

• Define review templates and cycles
• Establish objectives and progress tracking
• Add engagement surveys once you have a rhythm for acting on results

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User experience and ease of use

You can usually tell who a platform is built for by where it tries to remove friction:

• Recruitee reduces friction between recruiters and hiring teams (pipelines, collaboration, automation).
• Tellent HR reduces friction between HR operations and employee self service (time off, attendance, journeys, reviews, surveys).

Recruitee UX: hiring-first workflows

• Pipeline-centric navigation
• Candidate profiles as the hub for communication and evaluation
• Automation triggers that act on stage movements and events
• Collaboration surfaces for feedback and decisions

Mobile experience

Two mobile use cases matter in HR software:

• Managers reviewing candidates and providing feedback quickly
• Employees interacting with HR tasks (time off requests, time tracking, surveys)

Learning curve: feature discovery vs process design

Feature discovery is usually straightforward (especially for recruiters using an ATS). Process design is where complexity appears at scale: roles, permissions, pipelines, reporting structures, and governance.

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Core feature breakdown

Because Tellent is modular, the clearest way to evaluate it is by product pillar. If you buy the full platform, your experience will be the combination of these modules.

1) Tellent Recruitee (ATS)

A. Employer branding and CareersHub

Start includes a no-code CareersHub site. Advance adds multi-page customization and branding controls (custom fonts, colors, domains). Localization support is positioned as a strength for multi-region hiring teams.

B. Applicant management and pipeline automation

Recruitee is designed around pipeline stages and workflow automation. A good ATS keeps the process consistent (so nothing falls through cracks) while staying flexible (so different roles can follow different paths).

C. Collaboration and hiring team alignment

Recruitee’s differentiation is collaboration-first hiring: structured feedback, shared visibility, and multi-channel candidate communication (email/SMS/WhatsApp, depending on configuration).

D. Interviewing and evaluation

Advance includes video interviews, and marketplace integrations commonly cover Teams/Zoom/Google Meet. A strong operating model keeps the ATS as the system of record and the meeting tool as the execution layer.

E. Automation and AI writing support

AI features in Recruitee are positioned to start with productivity accelerators (email and feedback drafting, translation) and scale up to governance-heavy tooling (fairness controls) at higher tiers.

F. Compliance and governance

Governance features (2FA/SSO, granular permissions, auditability) become increasingly important as recruiting teams scale and data access requirements tighten.

2) Tellent HR Manage (HRIS)

A. Employee database and org structure

Manage positions itself as an HR system of record: employee database, org chart, and HR reporting.

B. Time, attendance, and absence management

Time tracking is a common HRIS failure point because policy variance is real (contracts, overtime, shift work, and country-specific regulations). Manage emphasizes time tracking and a clock-in station for deskless workflows.

C. Payroll readiness (not payroll replacement)

Manage is framed around payroll readiness: consolidating payroll inputs so payroll runs and payslips are less error-prone. In many environments, the best architecture is HRIS + payroll provider + integrations.

D. Journeys (employee lifecycle workflows)

Journeys function as reusable templates for onboarding/offboarding and internal employee lifecycle events. This is where HR systems begin to behave like operational runbooks.

E. HR reporting

Reporting becomes valuable when it is decision-oriented (headcount/turnover/tenure segmentation aligned to how leadership runs the business), not only compliance-oriented.

3) Tellent HR Grow (Performance, Engagement, Development)

A. Performance reviews and check-ins

Grow positions performance management as a cadence: review templates, automated cycles and reminders, secure storage of notes, and dashboards for HR visibility.

B. Objectives and alignment

Objectives are useful only if they are simple enough to maintain and leadership references them. Grow appears positioned to connect objectives to reviews and feedback loops (instead of treating OKRs as a separate universe).

C. 360 feedback

360 feedback works best when piloted with a short template and a narrow group first. The value comes from consistency and follow-through, not form length.

D. Engagement surveys and sentiment analysis

Grow emphasizes recurring surveys, anonymization, dashboards, filtering, sentiment analysis, and auto-generated charts to reduce analysis time. The operational win comes from the action loop (collect → interpret → change → communicate → repeat).

E. Development planning

Development becomes strategically useful when it connects review outcomes to skills mapping and training plans—so learning is tied to business needs and employee growth.

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AI features and roadmap direction

Tellent Intelligence (AI): what it does well—and where to be cautious

Tellent Intelligence is framed as purpose-built AI and automation to save time and improve decision-making. Common use cases include:

• Writing job descriptions faster
• Translating job postings
• Generating professional rejection emails
• Summarizing evaluation feedback
• Candidate insights and risk flagging
• Bias reduction (e.g., removing sensitive resume details)
• Survey summarization and sentiment analysis
• Workflow automations (triggers, conditions, actions)
• A coming conversational assistant (“Ask HR”) for employee self service

A practical AI evaluation framework

• Category 1: Productivity accelerators (drafting, translation, summarization) — usually safest and valuable quickly.
• Category 2: Decision support (matching, red flags, sentiment insights) — valuable but requires governance and auditability.
• Category 3: Process automation — high ROI when configured well; riskier if triggers are misconfigured.

Roadmap direction: screening assistant and HR assistant

The product direction described in the brief emphasizes an AI screening assistant for recruiters and an HR assistant concept for employee questions and HR ticketing-style workflows. If these land well, they strengthen the suite story; if partial, you may still rely on external chatbots and knowledge base workflows.

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Integrations

Integration ecosystem

Tellent’s marketplace is positioned as a major strength, providing faster time to value and less custom integration work. Native integrations typically deliver faster setup, better reliability, and clearer support pathways when something breaks.

Top integrations table (practical picks)

For broader automation, system integrators (Zapier/Make) provide “glue” across tools when native integrations are not available.

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Performance, reliability, and security

Uptime and reliability signals

Tellent operates a public status page for Recruitee, Tellent HR, APIs, and supporting components. Transparent uptime reporting is a positive maturity signal (though not a substitute for contractual SLAs if needed).

Scalability

Tellent is positioned for mid-market scale. The more important scaling question is whether product depth matches your HR complexity (countries/legal entities, payroll architecture, permissions, analytics needs, and high-volume recruiting operations).

Security and compliance posture

Security posture is positioned as a strength in Recruitee (governance controls such as 2FA/SSO, permissions, audit logs, and compliance signals like GDPR/ISO/SOC). For regulated environments, validate through your formal security review (DPA, subprocessors, data residency, audit logs, SSO/SAML, etc.).

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Customer support and resources

Support quality is best validated via a pilot (response time, configuration support, and escalation handling). In the provided brief, Tellent is described as offering multiple help centers and higher-tier support options (priority support and dedicated CSM on higher ATS tiers), as well as local support emphasis in some European regions.

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Pros and cons

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User reviews and ratings summary

User sentiment is most reliable when sample sizes are meaningful and themes are consistent. The provided brief cites the following directional ratings:

What to do with this: Treat ATS ratings as more statistically meaningful. Treat HRIS/performance ratings as directional and validate via structured pilot and customer references.

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Alternatives and comparisons

ATS alternatives to Tellent Recruitee

• Greenhouse
• Lever
• Workable
• Teamtailor
• Ashby

HRIS and performance alternatives to Tellent HR

• BambooHR
• Personio
• HiBob
• Factorial
• Leapsome (strong for performance & engagement)

When Tellent is the better choice

• You want ATS + HRIS + performance in one ecosystem without enterprise implementation overhead.
• Collaboration and automation in recruiting are priorities.
• You want strong integration breadth and modern messaging-based hiring options (e.g., WhatsApp workflows) for deskless recruiting.

When an alternative may be better

• You need enterprise-grade global payroll and benefits administration across many countries.
• You require deeply customized HR workflows and advanced people analytics as the primary requirement.
• You want a fully unified “single-suite” experience immediately and do not want to adopt during a convergence phase.

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Who Tellent is best for (and who should avoid it)

Best for

• Scaling companies that want one ecosystem for hiring and HR operations: replacing an ATS + HR spreadsheets + separate performance tool with a more unified platform.
• Teams with deskless or high-volume hiring needs: especially where WhatsApp workflows improve engagement and conversion.
• HR teams that want time tracking and payroll readiness without a full HCM: HRIS + integrations architecture.
• Organizations that want governance without enterprise overhead: permissions, SSO/2FA, auditability, and compliance posture.

Not ideal for

• Very large enterprises with complex HR and payroll requirements: multi-country payroll complexity and deep customization needs may exceed suite depth.
• Buyers who want a single fully unified suite today: consolidation signals suggest a convergence journey is ongoing.
• Organizations that want everything included in one price: modular add-ons can accumulate quickly.

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Final verdict and recommendations

Rating breakdown (publication-friendly):

• ATS features and hiring workflows: 9.0/10
• HRIS and HR operations: 8.3/10
• Performance and engagement: 8.4/10
• Integrations and ecosystem: 9.2/10
• Security and governance: 9.0/10
• Pricing clarity and packaging: 7.9/10
• Reliability signals: 8.8/10

My recommendation

Choose Tellent if you want a modular, mid-market platform that can credibly support:

• Structured, collaborative recruiting (Recruitee)
• Central HR operations with time/attendance and payroll readiness (HR Manage)
• Performance and engagement systems that run on a cadence (HR Grow)
• Practical AI assistance for writing, translation, summarization, and emerging governance features (Tellent Intelligence)

Recommended evaluation plan (structured pilot)

If you’re unsure, the most reliable evaluation method is a structured pilot:

1. Run one role through the ATS end-to-end.
2. Run one month of HR operations through Manage (time off, attendance, payroll readiness).
3. Run one lightweight survey or review cycle through Grow.
4. Validate your top 5 integrations early (Slack/Teams, e-signature, HRIS sync, and one automation tool like Zapier).

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FAQ (15 questions)

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