Take a gander at these unemployment statistics:

• 70 Metropolitan Areas (out of 369… about 20%) have unemployment rates below 4%
• 170 Metropolitan Areas (out of 369…about half) have unemployment rates below 5%
• 45 Metropolitan Areas (out of 369, 12%) have unemployment rates over 7%

There is trouble in non-coastal California, the rust belt and relatively rural areas.  There is a boom economy in Washington DC, Texas, and interesting parts of the northern Middle of the country.

The thing to notice is that, in spite of all of the rhetoric, there is no such thing as a national economy.

The response to the first couple of articles in this series is interesting. Significantly, a number of credible market leaders think that the game is locked. Companies (vendors) who enter the Recruiting Software market will end up having to deliver ATS functionality if they want to stay in the game. Companies (customers) know how to buy job ads, ATS products and screening and assessment tools. So, that’s what they buy.

The hundred or so ATS vendors are stuck within the limits of customer purchasing policies and protocols..

The rush to Talent Management Systems, aggressively championed by the analyst community, doesn’t seem to have caught fire just yet. Lots of buzz but few sales.

Another group suggests that buyers segregate along three lines: Value, Early Adopter and Functional. The Early Adopters and Functional buyers focus on performance while the Value buyer concentrates on cost savings. HR buyers are prototypically Value Buyers. Innovation and the political risk associated with embarrassment are not for them. For this group, innovation seems to enter the marketplace through its most entrepreneurial windows (the staffing industry)

Meanwhile, the candidates are changing their game. In the Western world, anyone looking for a job uses the internet as a part of their search. Companies get Googled and "background checked" as a matter of course. Word of mouth is more important in employment branding than any other factor. Branding, referral programs, social networks, avatar based VR, new sourcing and optimized utilization of the 50,000 job boards are simply not a part of the standard ATS configuration.

There are, therefore, two ways to think about the role of the Applicant Tracking System.

• It is the platform for all Human Capital Management systems because it is the first place that data about an employee hits the organization,
  or
• It is a buffer between the organization and the outside world where legal defensibility is established.

It is either a platform or a buffer.

Picking up where we left off on Friday, the Taleo-Vurv merger is a yawner. The Applicant Tracking Systems industry, home to a hundred niche providers, is moribund. The closest thing to innovation in the game are the predominantly ridiculous attempts to jump on the Talent Management bandwagon.

The merger takes two lethargic bundles of functionality and prays that a single, more profitable process will emerge. Vurv supplies its customers with a hundred variations of the same thing. The company grew quickly by accommodating the whims of its customers. Sadly, that’s the single best recipe for losing your shirt in the software industry.

The hope at Taleo is that they will be able to jettison the bad customers. (Oh, you forgot that some customers are bad? They are really spoiled over at Vurv and used to getting vastly more than they pay for.) Once the cost sinkholes have been filled in, they will shepherd in a brand new day of a single software configuration.

It’s the best news the ATS marketplace has had in a decade.

As the result of the merger, lots of big customers will be looking for new providers. Some of them will be from the Vurv base, some of them will be from the Taleo base. You’ll see stepped up advertising and lots of attention to little slips in customer service.

Now, I am decidedly not saying that Taleo is a lethargic company. They have managed to build a near monopoly in the Fortune 500 enterprise software environment. Their idea is to cement that position. Their customer service is strong and disciplined. They’ve provided our industry with needed stability.

But, the raw functionality of their software is nearly unchanged since its first iterations. Lots of attention to managing the customer software configuration problem mentioned above took all of the energy away from meaningful improvement.

A strong focus on customer feedback and benchmarking as a method for building  new functionality has left them stranded. You simply can’t follow customers into a leadership position. You have to lead. Great customer service and mediocre product innovation equals vulnerability.

Over the coming weeks, I’m going to take a close look at the real requirements for Recruiting software.

The signs are auspicious.

Monster, long the sole provider of industry leadership, turns away from the industry. HotJobs flounders in the midst of employee evacuations caused by merger talk. CareerBuilder, the best blue collar job board becomes the highest trafficked employment destination.

Talent Management, a broadly integrated approach to human capital acquisition and deployment, takes center stage. People, like other investments require maintenance and development after they are acquired. The HR Software Industry is taking note. Vendors and consultants are flocking to the new Mecca.

Yesterday, Taleo bought Vurv.

(more…)

Mayday, Mayday. I am writing at a small table in a Kroger’s in Mansfield, Ohio. My last day in the state (following the Cleveland Recruiting Roadshow). It’s an odd experience, different from anything I’ve seen on the coasts.

Kroger’s, an old line grocery chain, is clearly updating itself. More Walmart like than you could imagine, it’s a cluster of lawn furniture and produce. The Starbucks is in the middle of the beer aisle. The Starbuck’s tables are occupied by giggling elderly women.

I struck up a conversation with one of them. (more…)

Job postings don’t work very well in certain markets. For instance, seasoned working investment brokers with formal certification simply don’t cruise the job boards. (more…)

“You can’t pick up where you left off.” So spoke a frustrated recruiter on the phone late last evening. In Metro New York, job ads are starting to produce fewer and fewer results.

When the pipeline breaks, companies scramble to hire contract recruiters. False bravado fills the halls as CEOs assume that they know how to recruit in today’s environment. Old time recruiting consultants will chime in as well.

These days, I am experimenting with Linked-In. After years of pooh-poohing the service, Shally and Don Ramer persuaded me that there was real value in the system. I’m fairly certain that a well groomed Linked-In network can be the foundation of a solid recruiting practice.  I’ll take a long look at LinkedIN in a future article.

(If you’d like to join my LinkedIn Network, please send me a note at “john at johnsumser.com”. I’ll respond quickly) (more…)

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