As seen on the T in Boston recently. Of course the answer is super simple. The questions on the website get tougher. Of course you have to email your answers. ]]>
Taleo is an industry giant and they will continue to cement this position as it relates to the "enterprise" customers
This was most efficient way to get VURV customers. Beats the hell out of battling it out with VURV in the sales cycle.
They will migrate VURV customers to the Taleo platform.
The battle for SMB's will be the one to watch.
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As seen on the T in Boston recently. Of course the answer is super simple. The questions on the website get tougher. Of course you have to email your answers. 
A recent HR Consulting firm client comment(s) after Vurv and Taleo did their respective pre-demo pitch and follow on 4 hour ATS product demonstration--
]]>I have a lot of unanswered questions and all I see are red flags...
Forrester has some new research summarized by the NYT here. Quick hit here..
]]>..companies need to design career sites with the user in mind and begin revamping by first fixing problems that inhibit site usability.
I was checking out the Searchme a new visual search engine that displays web site cover shots for search results instead of (or in addition to) basic text links. It is in beta now, but the experience is top notch. Let's say you are a job seeker looking for all of the information you can find on a company, instead of hitting up Google for the 20th time today; you could toggle through all of the content in Searchme instead. Just for kicks. You will find keywords highlighted-which recruiters really love, plus all types of social media in addition to meta text. Julian Stopps had this to say over on the Jobboarders community:
I can see it now, the ability to see all of the jobs that match a user’s search criteria laid out on the screen. With interactive Ajax driven software that allows vacancies to be quickly reviewed, dropped into an ‘apply’ folder or discarded. No more clicking backward and forth between the results page and the detailed job description.
I can totally appreciate the comment. Extending the thinking to job seekers, here is my take:
Job seekers are rapidly turning the social media "weapon" around. Instead of looking at a stale job post, or working around the job boards stranglehold on search optimization for job posts, the growing expectation is to look at all the social media that exists about a particular company. From there the logical next step is to use networking tactics to find someone you know in the company with the social capital or economic incentive to get you to the actual hiring manager versus depending on the resume vortex that exists today.
Sign up for the Searchme beta.
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I was in a "vendor evaluation" for 3 days straight in North Carolina recently. I started keeping track of the number of times terms were used by the ATS vendors giving the demo/presentation and the hr consultant facilitating the evaluation. Yes, I was getting bored. Here is the tally:"Socialize" - In HR speak or organizational speak this means "convince people buy something that has no clear benefit" According to Wikipedia it has a another definition. This term was used 112 times over 3 days of meetings. I asked the client what "socialize" meant to them at the end of the session one day and the response was "uhhhhh not sure.."
"Center of Excellence" - OK. I don't get it. If you are not part of this "center" of "excellence" are you just average? If i change my title to "Center of Excellence Manager" does my street cred increase magically? This term was used only 62 times over the 3 days. Phew.
"Transparency" - Mentioned a whopping 142 times. That's about 8 times per hour. Roughly. Recruiters and managers alike really seem to latch on to the term. "Our ATS will create radical transparency into your talent management pipeline" one vendor stated...like 100 times. Awesome!
"ROI" - Used 178 times. This is the most bullshit business term in HR. Trying to rationalize purchase of a piece of HR technology on some impossible measurement. All 3 ATS firms predicted an increase in EPS based on using their solution as if there are not other variables that determine the stock price and value of a company. As if.
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We had a meeting with HR one day with about 100 people in the room. They were explaining all of the resources available to us and how anything we discussed would be confidential. They began to tell us about the hotline and services available for alcoholics. With that, one of my co-workers proceeds to raise his hand. He tells us that they are very helpful with alcoholics and everything was confidential. Needless to say, we were crying with laughter as he realized the mistake he had just made...
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Jobfox acquired a C Round of $20 million according to PEHub. According to the Sept 07 press release on the company website Jobfox...
"Takes Aim at Poorly Performing Job Boards, Introduces First Career Site to Brand Professionals Rather than Job Listings"
The release goes on to help you visualize your personal branding success:
"Imagine: Your own personally branded career space that intelligently drives companies to your unique brand of skills, strengths and career aspirations. A resume that alerts your mobile phone, via text messaging, whenever it is viewed by a potential employer. Being just an instant messaging chat away from landing your next dream job"
Sounds reasonable. So, I get the text message. Log in to my profile. And then what? Is there an actual corporate recruiter or hiring manager online waiting to chat with me? Or will they simply request my resume?
Well, lets find out! I have asked 10 people I know that are living in a market that Jobfox serves. My results on the Jobfox test drive next week.
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So Deloitte put video cameras in the hands of employees for "employee engagement" and "campus recruiting" purposes. As Cathy Benko, Managing Principal of Talent, Deloitte & Touche USA LLP says: "With the explosive growth of social networking sites and the mass democratization of film-making (hand held cameras, user-friendly software), it’s very clear to us that the integration of self expression opportunities through film and other media are essential to recruiting and retaining top talent. Plus it's a heck of a lot of fun!"
I agree with Cathy. And I suspect Cathy has a larger strategy. However, the trend towards social media for recruitment marketing will largely remain tactical, and not part of a larger strategy.
I had a phone call with a staffing leader of a Fortune 100 firm recently, and I asked her:
"What is your social media marketing strategy for recruiting?"
she promptly replied:
"We don't have the budget for a strategy...but we did spend $25,000 on creating video job advertisements; each with its very own URL that is hosted by the vendor..."
I expect it will be very fun [at first] to have some videos. However, not having a plan in place could cause challenges you never imagined as college graduates, Gen Y, et al start to turn the social media weapon around without your permission.
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