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Define “Best of Breed.” That’s rhetorical, but think about it because it illustrates a point about the direction of HR software that was part of the “Great Technology Debate” at HR Tech this morning.

It wasn’t among the questions posed to debaters Jason Averbrook, CEO at Knowledge Infusion, and Gartner’s Managing VP Jim Holincheck, though it lurked behind their generally affable agreement on most of the talent management issues that arose during their time on stage.

For instance, when show co-chair and debate moderator Bill Kutik asked about the meaning of strategic human capital management, and, later, about just what workforce planning is, there wasn’t much debate.

The former is the linkage of employees, their skills, training, performance, management, compensation, and deployment directly to the business goals and needs of the enterprise. As Holincheck said, it is “more than talent management,” and as both agreed, it is well more than the mere automation of HR functions.

Workforce planning was a little more complicated. keep reading…

Using live and recorded video, 1,000-employee Deloitte New Zealand is trying new features that’ll make its Facebook page more interactive.

The latest feature is a “Deloitte NZ Fan Showcase,” which you can find on the company’s Facebook wall. One of the company’s “fans” is interviewed with a little camera — an idea one Sodexo observer seems to like. keep reading…

Lucky that the recession ended last year. Otherwise it might be hard to explain all the shoppers here at the HR Tech show in Chicago.

I met a guy this morning at breakfast who runs the HR analytics department for a major financial institution. We talked data and he told me about the challenges of getting usable data out of multiple systems — not to mention the various ways systems allow information to be entered. He’s here shopping for tools to help solve the problem and improve analysis.

To my left at the table was an HRIS manager for a specialty retailer with more than 12,000 employees looking at new talent management systems.

At the opening reception Tuesday night I met a team of two HR professionals who came to look at comp management systems. And on the shuttle ride to McCormick Place an HR generalist with tech savvy said he’s at the show to scope out a new recruiting system. He won’t be looking at anything from the current vendor because, he confided, of its poor customer support.

The 13th annual HR Technology Conference & Exposition opened in Chicago this morning with a rousing welcome from show co-chair Bill Kutik. The HR Executive columnist exuberantly declared it the “largest HR Tech show in history.” keep reading…

When you lift that first cup o’ Joe this morning, give thanks to Kaldi the Ethiopian goat herder who made graveyard shifts possible. Without his accidental discovery centuries ago, 43 per cent of your colleagues at work would be less productive.

Pause for a moment to take in the heady aroma of furans, pyrazines, carbonyl, and alicycliin compounds, and the other ingredients that give coffee its distinctive aroma. Then drink up, and just because it’s National Coffee Day, have a cup more than the statistical average of 3.1.

You’ll have plenty of company. The National Coffee Association says 56 percent of Americans drink at least one cup a day. keep reading…

Employee referrals and social media have begun to blend together. Could background checks and social media be next?

A new company called “Social Intelligence” says it’ll “track the worldwide network of social media, including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, individual blogs, and thousands of other sources.”

Social Intelligence will, within 24-48 hours, produce a report on a job candidate using both automation as well as humans, the latter there to make sure there aren’t “false positives.” It says it will weed out “protected class” information it finds, such as race and religion. The company is also offering a version to monitor what existing employees are up to.

As far as the hiring version, a screenshot, which you can click on to enlarge, shows that the employee profile screens for such things as: ”Gangs,” “Drugs/drug lingo,” “demonstrating potentially violent behavior,” and “poor judgment” — something we could all agree can be found in ample supply on social media.

I asked the company’s CEO, Max Drucker, whether this judgment thing is kind of subjective. “We err on the side of not flagging something,” he says, adding that “serious red-flag issues” are what they’re really looking for. He also notes that the firm has three people review information before the profile’s done. So, “Todd beat Sean in the 600-meter dash” shouldn’t show up as a Todd-beats-people flag. I hope. keep reading…

Starting today at noon Eastern, the sourcing world will turn its attention to Washington, D.C. as SourceCon kicks off from the International Spy Museum. I don’t think anyone can argue that there is a more fitting venue at which to host the premier sourcing event than the spy museum.

If you can’t make it in person, you can still catch much of the great content by watching the live stream carried here on the ERE.net homepage or at www.sourcecon.com.

Things will get kicked off at noon Eastern on Tuesday, September 28th and will continue on Wednesday starting at 8:45 a.m. Eastern. You can find the full schedule of sessions here.

You can watch the stream online right here on ERE.net, or you can watch on the SourceCon homepage, participate in the live chat, and follow the event on Twitter using the #SourceCon hashtag. Just click the ‘play’ button on the uStream box and you are all set!

keep reading…

Foodservice giant Sodexo has gone live with what its talent acquisition VP Arie Ball calls an “absolutely huge” implementation of a recruiting system to manage candidates, resumes, and interviews, including internal employees, external employees, and alumni.

Though Ball admits any company would say this, Sodexo, she says, is highly focused on talent. Indeed, that’s what increases curiosity about Sodexo’s ATS selection process and all else the company does with human resources: the outfit has won multiple awards for human resources and recruiting, including the ERE Recruiting Excellence Award for the recruiting department of the year in 2010.

“This is a big deal for us,” Ball says. “We’re in a growth mode. We need to have the right tools. Our ATS is kind of like the plumbing in the house.”

The plumbing wasn’t broken, but it was aging. Sodexo had tinkered so much with its Kenexa system, which as of this year was nearly 10 years old, that it didn’t have easy access to Kenexa’s system upgrades. “Because of the tremendous degree of customization as technology evolved,” Ball says, “we were still working with old technology. We knew we wanted to do something different. We wanted to start from scratch.”

keep reading…

In part one of this two part series I indicated that now is an opportune time to evaluate new strategies and tools with regard to college recruiting. Leading talent functions in corporations around the globe are migrating their approach to college recruiting away from being a game of chance to a more serious function that embraces cutting-edge marketing and sales tactics designed to deliver highly targeted students.

Establishing a science-based college recruiting program requires using market research to more thoroughly understand your recruiting target and to test time-honored assumptions that have guided efforts in years past. keep reading…

Six leading high-tech companies have agreed to settle an antitrust claim arising from an arrangement among them not to poach each other’s employees.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced the settlement in Washington a few hours ago and simultaneously filed a civil antitrust action. Brought against Adobe Systems, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, and Pixar, the lawsuit details the alleged hiring arrangements. Accompanying the civil complaint was a proposed settlement in which the firms agree not to engage in anti-competitive no solicitation agreements.

The DOJ says the settlement “prohibits the companies from entering, maintaining or enforcing any agreement that in any way prevents any person from soliciting, cold calling, recruiting, or otherwise competing for employees.   The companies will also implement compliance measures tailored to these practices.” keep reading…

This week we were joined by Goerge Bradt of PrimeGenesis to discuss long term succession planning initiatives. Learn how to create a strategy that will prepare your employees to smoothly transition from role to role, from the onboarding process all the way to leadership positions.

For more podcasts, webinars, and articles on recruiting be sure to check out ERE.net!

For as dreary as August was for the weather and investors, it turns out the month may have been a bit better than expected. The Conference Board’s Index of Leading Economic Indicators rose .3 percent, which was more than the .1 percent a Bloomberg survey of economists expected.

But as we’ve come to expect from the economic news, this morning’s good news was tempered by an unexpected rise in unemployment claims. The Labor Department said this morning that claims rose by 12,000 last week to 465,000. It was the first rise in five weeks.

The market, more spooked by the unemployment rise — and worries about the European economy — than encouraged by The Conference Board’s rising index, reacted by closing down for the day. keep reading…

Silicon Valley, California is one of the most competitive recruiting environments anywhere. And if you’re a recruiter there, the competitive pressure can make you lose perspective and make you terrible at your job if you let it get to you. The opening keynote from Carol Mahoney at the Seattle SMA Staffing Symposium was both inspiring and cautioning in its message today.

I had the chance to catch up with Mahoney (who’s speaking this Fall in Florida) after her presentation to talk to her about recruiting in Silicon Valley, getting out of the rat race, and finding perspective to recruit better.
keep reading…

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Not being Valentine’s Day, nor the 24/7 romantic, some of you might be confused. Of course, in this case I’m referring to quality of hire. It’s a worthy topic, but like a cloud, it’s hard to get your arms around. When should it be measured is as difficult to answer as how. “Why” adds another set of variables to the mix. I’ve just volunteered to help HR.com develop a curriculum for a new Quality of Hire educational program it’s launching, so I figured it might make sense to get some discussion going on this important topic, starting with what, when, why, and how. My viewpoint follows, but don’t hesitate to add your own to the conversation. keep reading…

There has never been a more challenging time to be a corporate recruiter. Hiring managers are very demanding and expect fast, personalized service by knowledgeable recruiters. Given the current unemployment rate and the perceived availability of talent, they may be unrealistic in what they expect. Nonetheless, they are the primary customer and need to be provided service at a high level. Candidates, too, are not what they used to be. The talented and highly in-demand candidates also want to be given fast, personalized service by an ethical and in-the-know recruiter.

All of this means that the skills that once defined a successful corporate recruiter are not sufficient. Indeed, those skills may even be detrimental to success. keep reading…

In this webinar, we were joined by Tracey Parsons and Kristen Neubert of DaVita to discuss how the company has successfully implemented a social media strategy that engages their audience on a new level. Learn from one of the most forward thinking organizations in healthcare how you too can utilize social media to its fullest potential.

For more podcasts, webinars, and articles on recruiting be sure to check out ERE.net!

A committee of the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers announced late yesterday that it will consider a request to reconsider the decision to expand the use of the .jobs domain.

The nearly opaque two-sentence announcement is the only one of its kind among the 39 reconsideration requests posted to the ICANN website. What the committee typically does is to simply issue a recommendation, which is usually that there be no reconsideration.

Here’s the announcement as posted by ICANN:

“At its 20 September 2010, (sic. presumably, the missing word is ‘meeting’) the Board Governance Committee (BGC) agreed to proceed to consider Reconsideration Request 10-2. The BGC will proceed with the Reconsideration Request in conformity with the ICANN Bylaws, Article IV, Section 2.”

Confused? You’ve got company. keep reading…

In an upcoming Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership I talk about the perils of “hiring slow” and “firing fast.” As I’ve been doing, I wanted to give you just a taste of the “hiring slow” part here. keep reading…

One of Jobvite’s strengths has always been its ability to track an “invited” candidate back from the application to see how they came to learn of an opening. Now, Jobvite is adding more depth and breadth to its tracking, giving recruiters data about their job postings and the effectiveness of their own career site.

Announced today, the real-time recruiting intelligence can tell you how many people saw an an ad or visited your career site, what they did and, if you have Jobvite Hire, which includes an ATS, what you did.

For instance, if you distributed a job through social sites, sent a Jobvite to your employees, and posted it to traditional job boards, the recruiter intelligence part of the Jobvite dashboard can give you the number of visitors to each page where the ad appeared; how many then opened it; how many of them applied, and how many were interviewed, and, finally, if a hire was made, from where. keep reading…

Family-owned talent management vendor Softscape has been acquired by SumTotal Systems, a talent development and e-learning provider.

The announcement was made this morning by the two companies. No price was announced.

SumTotal’s acquisition now gives it a major presence in the growing market for integrated talent management systems. Softscape was one of the earliest technology companies to promote a comprehensive approach to what was — and still is for many employers — a siloed system.

Formed by the merger of Docent and Click2learn in 2004, SumTotal began broadening its product line almost immediately. It bought Pathlore, an e-learning firm with a focus on healthcare training and learning for midmarket businesses, in 2005. Adding Mindsolve Technologies the following year added employee performance management tools.

Last year, SumTotal, then trading on the NASDAQ, was itself acquired by Vista Equity Partners, which paid $160 million and took it private. keep reading…

The current lull in college recruiting is an opportune time to evaluate new strategies and tools. It is no secret that the vast majority of organizations that recruit from college campuses globally do so tactically, employing little or no strategy. To even the casual observer, the approaches used are predictable, pedestrian, and in some cases laughable, but all of that is about to change.

From the vantage point of someone who has been involved in college recruiting for more than 40 years, either representing a corporation or a university, it is clear that we are approaching a strategic inflection point with regard to the amount of strategy supporting college recruiting. keep reading…