HireRight and USIS merging.

HIRE stock is booming.

Only one year ago, it went public .  

The Employment Guide has launched www.WiserWorker.com, an employment website dedicated to job seekers age 40 and older.

It says its mission is to connect older workers with appropriate jobs, but since when did 40 become old?  

If by old they mean "experienced," or perhaps simply, "wiser," then time will tell whether baby boomers and fringe Gen Xers find the site worthwhile.   

Jeff Littlejohn, vice president and general manager of The Employment Guide, says younger job seekers have better resources through college campus job fairs and other career helpers.

For recruiters interested in the life skills and experience that older workers bring, WiserWorker.com bridges this communication gap, explains Littlejohn.

The home page offers a bright "Font +/-" button that can make the font size really, really big or really, really tiny, depending on your vantage point and bifocal strength. Certainly a nice touch for those "wiser" workers, indeed.

The site has launched with more than 53,000 job listings, but a few search strings for random keywords (i.e., director, writer, editor) brought back an overwhelming number of postings from the same company, Talent6 Casting Network. This employer is of the "Actors, Extras, Models, Dancers (full and part time)" posting variety, so we're not sure that 53,000 is entirely brag-worthy.

Still, searches for other keywords (i.e., business, marketing, nursing, IT, engineering) brought back a variety of postings from scores of employers and staffing agencies.

The site certainly has a lot of potential, but it could be improved with more content (i.e., more blog postings, links to actual job fairs under the Job Fairs button), and more interactivity overall.

And in this day and age of $4/gallon gas and more and more smart employers embracing the power of telecommuting, there is a noticeably absent option to search for "telecommute only" jobs. Not a necessity for job boards, but certainly a nice green touch.

The Money Niche…

Some shoot for 100K+ jobs, other shoot for just half of that. And it's this market, those seeking a starting salary between $50,000 to $100,000, being tapped on the new 50kandup.com niche board. The company says this job board can help you filter out individuals who are under-qualified or over-qualified. The site is helpful, though not signficantly full of drastically different features that separate this niche board from its competitors. 

Still, the full-service site has been up and running for a month now and is gaining steam. John Ruppel, president of 50kandup.com, says he had no doubt this was a critical demographic "but there was just no predicting the amount of attention we would receive from human resource managers and recruiters around the country who wanted to find candidates within this salary range."

Smart MBAs Look for Perks…

Then there are those definitely seeking more than $50,000.

Take MBAs, for instance, who are still quite hot for Google. (The Mountain View, California-based company says it gets 1,300 resumes a day, but some top management has recently jumped ship for Facebook. Decide for yourself here whether the company is still hot or not.)

This is the second year in a row Google has won the top honor in the IDEAL Employer survey of 5,769 students from the nation's top 52 MBA programs. Following Google, which won 24% of the votes, was McKinsey & Company (16%); Goldman Sachs (15%); Apple (14%); and The Boston Consulting Group (12%).

As for career goals, it's a tie at 58% for "being competitively or intellectually challenged" and "having a work-life balance," followed at 55% by "being a leader or manager of people." Another 37% aspire toward "being entrepreneurial or creative/innovative" and 28% strive for "being dedicated to a cause or to feel that they are serving the greater good."

This talent doesn't come cheap, either, with most MBAs expecting $90,232 after the first year and $180,030 after five years.

Job Corps Changes Ahead…

Expect some changes to the nation's 44-year-old federally funded Job Corps program.

U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao released a new report from a blue ribbon Advisory Committee on Job Corps that recommends enhancements to education and training policies and management.

The Labor Department notes these changes will help make Job Corps more successful in "preparing students for real-world jobs in the 21st century worldwide economy." 

Along with recommendations for better "real-world" career and technical education and training curricula, the report also urges more postsecondary education for students.

Another recommendation is to build better partnerships with educational institutions, and especially high-growth industries, to showcase Job Corps youth as highly sought after students and employees.

Job Corps trains approximately 62,000 young people between ages 16 through 24.

Dice.com (profile; site) has signed on as "brand integration partner" with the National Lampoon, Inc. comedy franchise. Why would a niche IT job board partner with a company best known for Animal House?

Dice.com, which is sponsoring maniaTV's new sketch comedy show, National Lampoon's The Lemmings, gets some pretty unique branding out of the deal and a new way to talk directly to engineering and IT professionals.

And Dice will definitely attract more of these professionals online, as maniaTV, a new trend in online viewing, has nearly 4.1 million unique visitors a month, according to ComScore.

As part of the branded entertainment sponsorship package, show producers have created a recurring character called Dice Man, a super-hero who saves people from taking jobs for which they are over-qualified, helps people find fulfilling employment, and assists companies in search of valuable talent.

Dice Man also fights against the evil antagonist, Doctor Drudgery, and his henchmen Pink Slip and Dead End.

Amber Lawson, maniaTV head of comedy, says producers are excited to integrate Dice Man and the antagonists into the plot lines. Lawson notes that "it is fantastic working with a brand that gets the power of integration because it has empowered us to develop a set of characters that will maintain comedic integrity and achieve the goal of creating a lasting impression."

Others find it, well, rather lame. One poster on the Dice.com message boards sums up his feelings by stating that "National Lampoon is great, but it looks like they whored out a spot in order to make a couple of dollars, not their fault, money is money."

Dice Man (played by actor Andy Goldenberg), made his debut on the May 26 episode.

Fries with My Software...

Kronos has launched Kronos for Dining, a software platform designed to help restaurants recruit and retain the best people, forecast and schedule to meet customer demand, track time and attendance, and manage absences.

Beyond the recruitment and scheduling features, it offers a way to automate compliance tasks, which can help to reduce liability and let managers focus more time on taking care of hungry guests. 

Beaker's New Science 'Hood…

We first chatted about this new online community back at the ERE Expo Spring 2008, and now Beaker.com has launched its community for professionals in the life sciences industries.  

The site merges social networking, career advice, multimedia education, and online recruitment catering specifically to the life sciences industry.

The Beaker management team includes CEO Jeffrey Clark (former president/COO for Ken Clark International); VP of Sales Josh Akers (formerly with Monster.com and Direct Employers Association); and Chief Information Officer David Evans (formerly with America Online, CareerTours, Jobing, and Cendant).

Changing Face of Microsoft…

Watch for Microsoft to soon launch a campaign to showcase the diversity in its employee ranks, and ultimately attract more women and minorities to the company. (Todd Raphael has a more in-depth look at diversity coming up in the July Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership.)

In partnership with ad agency Worktank, Microsoft conducted focus groups of both internal and external employees to understand what was important particularly to Native Americans, females, Hispanics, and African-Americans. It learned to put authenticity first, and to ditch the corporate speak.  

In search of authenticity, the campaign is featuring rank-and-file employees, rather than Microsoft execs or an emphasis on Microsoft HR people. Among the employees featured prominently: one of the top-20 females in gaming in the country, as well as an African-American general manager who handles a 79-country region in the Middle East and Africa.

Microsoft will kick it off with a May 29 webinar.

TheLadders.com Says Bye to Bios…

TheLadders.com has unveiled new resume functionality, saying good-bye to "bios" and hello to the old-fashioned term resumes.

It's essentially a matter of semantics, of course, but the change now gives candidates a chance to upload or create a resume in one step before letting recruiters skim through the latest postings. Candidates will still have the option to keep their personal and contact information confidential.

However, the company is making a plea with candidates on behalf of recruiters. In a letter to job-seekers about these new changes, it says "we have heard loud and clear from recruiters that they much prefer to know your name and current company. If you must, please use this confidentiality feature; but please do realize that it comes at the cost of making your resume a bit less transparent to those who are looking for you."

Ever wondered how many online job boards -- and which sites -- professionals post their resume to when searching for a job? Beyond.com recently asked more than 6,400 visitors, "How many online job boards do you have your resume posted on?" and here are the results:

• 24% have their resume posted on one to two job boards.
• 29% have their resume posted on three to four job boards.
• 18% have their resume posted on five or more job boards.
• 29% do not have their resume posted online.

Of the professionals who currently have their resume posted online, 54% said geographic and industry-specific job sites are most effective when searching for a job, while the remainder chose general job boards.

Sure, you may be thinking that job boards have been absorbed left and right by larger boards, but let's face it: more keep appearing and the growth is not slowing down. No question, the use of niche-specific job boards has grown, so now the question remains whether -- and for how long -- general job boards can remain effective.

Peter Weddle, who came out this week with his 2008 Users' Choice Award winners, says most job seekers use a number of different sites, usually about five boards. In an interview with Fortune magazine, he shared his advice for how today's candidates should approach the job hunt:

"I recommend using two of the big general sites like CareerBuilder.com or Yahoo! HotJobs and three specialty sites -- one that concentrates on your career field, one industry site, and one that focuses on the location where you live or want to live. That way you're covered from all angles," said Weddle.

Under the "niche" category, he acknowledged the following best-of niche sites: CareerBank.com (accounting, finance), ComputerJobs.com, Dice (IT jobs), HealthEcareers Network, and JobsInLogistics.

New Niches

Here are a couple more that have sprung up recently.

If you're looking for computing or engineering professionals, read on. The IEEE Computer Society's newly launched job board is in partnership with the American Institute of Physics, a great way to scour the market for computer scientists and engineers. In addition, the site has a career center that offers candidates a "Build Your Career" option with career news, articles, online courses, and more.

If you go there in search of your dream whiz kid, you'll probably have luck: the Computer Society has more than 85,000 members around the world, while the AIP serves a global audience of 120,000 scientists and engineers.

Meanwhile, the newly launched JobsForPTs.com leaves no guesswork as to what niche it serves, with its specific focus on reaching physical therapists and physical therapy assistants.

These licensed physical therapists and physical therapy assistants may be interested in full-time traditional employment or hourly per diem or contract assignments. One cool feature is that the site links directly to every state licensing board and state professional PT association chapter.

JobsForPTs.com says it accepts payment through PayPal, with job posting packages starting at under $100. Annual membership subscriptions can be purchased at various levels as well. JobsForPTs.com is a service of JobsForAllTherapists.com, based in Greater Binghamton, New York.

And if you're looking for more established best-of healthcare-niche boards, Weddle's list of the best by this industry in 2008 includes Absolutely Health Care, AllHealthcareJobs.com, Bio Space, Hcareers (hotels, hospitality), HealthCareerWeb.com.

An eHarmony of Recruiting?

RealMatch says keyword matching is so yesterday, so it's out with a new profile-matching system that compares profiles of jobs with the profiles of candidates. While that seems potentially confusing, the company says it just means that the profile matching considers industry experience, title, and the skills that are associated with each job and each candidate along with their preferences.

What we like is how RealMatch's interface lets anonymous candidates see jobs in real-time, while recruiters can see candidates filtered and ranked according to their suitability for the position, all in real-time and without any cost.

What we don't like is how the company charges a fee when they want to reveal the contact information of the matching and interested candidate. On the other hand, RealMatch says its technology powers about 1,000 job sites, so a nominal fee may turn out to be money well spent.

HireVue Competitor?

Todd talked with Calgary-based Darryn Severyn, the CEO of InterActive Applicant (it'll be at this link, but don't expect much now beyond a construction site). Severyn hopes to launch in the next couple of months, marketing to a Canadian audience, and to the United States by year's end.

InterActive will be a video-and-audio-interviewing competitor to HireVue, though Severyn says he'll add features in 2009 that will differentiate his product. Also in this genre: interviewstream.com and interviewstudio.com.

Consultants continue to talk about whether the Taleo/Vurv deal is particularly good for the Vurv customer base, as one of the risks in becoming the customer of a rapidly growing private software company is not knowing what the ultimate exit will be for the investors.

"Being acquired by a leading talent management solutions company is a very solid outcome, and the customers should have confidence that their interests will be held in high regard," says Ed Newman, founder of The Newman Group (profile; site).

However, consultant Rick Fletcher with HRchitect (profile;site) mentions that some Vurv customers consciously chose to go with Vurv, instead of with Taleo, because Vurv has traditionally been the more innovative firm with some unique leading-edge product features. Some Vurv customers may initially balk at being asked to migrate to the Taleo applications over the coming year.

"Vurv's CEO, Derek Mercer, has great ideas and has been highly innovative, but Taleo has been the better-run organization with stronger professional services and customer support. Taleo is a very disciplined organization, while Vurv is a much more free-thinking organization," says Fletcher.

"One environment fosters innovation, while the other may offer stricter processes. The merger of the two cultures may ultimately be a really good thing for both existing sets of customers," says Fletcher.

And Newman points out that he expects Taleo (profile; site) to throw away as little as possible.

"Keep in mind, Taleo has two platforms today, Enterprise and Business edition. The parts that don't fit with Enterprise may well fit with Business Edition, making both platforms more complete in terms of the talent management spectrum," says Newman.

For its part, Taleo says its goal is to incorporate the best of the Vurv intellectual property and product line into the Taleo Platform, delivering a unified recruiting, performance, and compensation solution.

Taleo says its "new" customers will have a simple upgrade path to a unified talent management platform.

"Taleo will continue to leverage cross-company domain expertise to fuel innovation and product leadership as we drive toward product integration, which will likely occur in late 2009," says Dave Michaud, Taleo's VP of product marketing.

"Upon closing the acquisition, we will work closely with Vurv customers on appropriate migration strategies based on their business requirements," says Michaud.

Vurv's Strengths

Taleo says Vurv's Jacksonville, Florida, location will be a key North American operations hub for Taleo, including but not limited to, engineering, production, and support resources.

"We will be working through the entire portfolio of facilities over the next several months to determine how to best optimize our assets. In regards to staffing, we expect synergies between the two entities and some duplication of functions. We will not be able to give more specific information about any redundancies until after the close of the deal and organizational structures have been finalized," says Michaud.

While the company remains tight-lipped on the future of Vurv's current staff, Fletcher says he hears that some "Vurv people are out looking for positions, but I would love to see Taleo keep a lot of the R&D people from Vurv, and add some of Vurv's customer service representatives to Taleo in order to meet their increasing combined customer demand."

Business as Usual?

Taleo runs a well-disciplined machine, says Fletcher, though he points out Vurv's several strong areas.

"Vurv has stronger compensation, competency management, and workforce transition software, which is primarily an offboarding system," says Fletcher.

"I believe Taleo will throw everything else away. For them to support two applicant tracking systems makes no sense, so you go with the more stable one, which is Taleo's Enterprise ATS. And Vurv Express will also be wiped out by Taleo Business Edition," he says.

They have 48 of the Fortune 100 when you put them together, Fletcher points out. He also says there is room for both the talent management suites and the pure plays in the marketplace.

In fact, Fletcher says that when you merge Vurv and Taleo, it actually helps out other ATS pure-plays.

"Peopleclick, iCims, First Advantage, and even Sonic Recruit, for example, are going to end up ranking higher on the list and getting more market attention as you consolidate some of these top-tier companies," he says.

Taleo's Michaud notes that the company "will be working with Vurv counterparts to develop a detailed roadmap over the next several months to ensure we leverage the best capabilities of both companies. Once we have completed this roadmap, we will communicate our go-to-market plans."

Newman points out that this is certainly the biggest news we have had in our industry in quite a while, and the most substantial in terms of consolidation.

"Overall, I think this is quite an aggressive move and a decision that I am sure was not made lightly. As with everything though, success is about 10% decision, and 90% execution, so the ultimate outcome remains to be seen. I certainly hope it's a raging success," adds Newman.

Startup RiseSmart of Dallas recently landed a small infusion of new capital from angel investors. The $1.5 million lays the groundwork for a probably pursuit of institutional investment sometime later this year. It's also additional evidence that, despite economic clouds dimming the horizon, the recruiting sector continues to attract investors.

Among the private investors is Craig Stamm, best known as the former chief financial officer for CareerBuilder (profile). Said to be joining Stamm are fellow investors Mark Hamdan, founder and chief executive officer of HRsmart, and executive Louis Ramery of Sears Holdings Corp.

RiseSmart helps executives by providing personal "job concierges" that match their credentials to lists of vacancies. That's why RiseSmart markets itself as a "human-powered" search engine. The service is designed to take the drudgery out of searching through the passel of executive job boards, which as any experienced job hunter knows will indiscrimately return thousands of available opportunities. Thus far, RiseSmart has been extremely hush-hush about the news, perhaps not wanting to tip off competing job sites like ExecuNet (profile) or TheLadders (profile).

The company employs about 25 people in India to comb through the extensive Internet job postings and help executives target positions they really want. Executives pay a fee of about $44 to peace of mind. This is a company to watch, if only because of the origin of its founder, Sanjay Sathe. He used to be part of the top brass at Sabre Holdings before being jettisoned overboard. Sathe reportedly was inspired to launch RiseSmart after enduring endless scrolls of irrelevant jobs openings.

Slipping under the radar is Mzinga's acquisition of fellow social networking site Prospero in March. Both companies offer SaaS models designed to let consumers (and corporate customers) run polls and other interactive features. Therein lays an undeniably powerful recruiting tool: directly appealing to would-be/potential employees, while building a recruiting brand at the same time.

Mzinga clients include AOL, ESPN, Johnson & Johnson, Chevron, and a slew of other household names. Helping fund the takeover of Prospero: $32.5 million secured from private investors. Armed with the new cash, we expect Mzinga to roll out new offerings. And it's not unreasonable to assume Mzinga will be on the prowl for other takeover targets, especially in the ever-growing social networking game.

Speaking of CareerBuilder: the Washington, D.C.-based site is among five businesses being sued for patent infringement by software developer GraphOn Corp., based in of Santa Cruz, California. GraphOn alleges its "unique method of maintaining and automated and network-accessible database" has been copied and used by the "popular and widely used Web sites" of CareerBuilder, Yahoo, eHarmony.com, Match.com, and Classified Ventures, which is a joint venture of five major newspaper publishers. 

Authoria's (profile; site) president and CEO, Tod Loofbourrow, chatted with ERE about Taleo's recent acquisition of Vurv. He says this acquisition, part of an ongoing consolidation from 45 recruiting technology vendors to a handful, represents what customers want: a complete talent management solution.

Three best-of-breed vendors, Authoria, Taleo, and SuccessFactors, are going after that market seriously, but he says pure-play recruiting software vendors will not survive.

Here he offers additional insights into this latest round of talent management drama:

ERE: Do you think these acquisitions aid, or simply confuse, the typical recruiter?

TL: Short term, the consolidation from 45 to a handful simplifies recruiters' technology choices. But the factors driving the consolidation -- the broader talent management opportunity -- will force recruiters to go beyond a recruiting-only mindset, and come to grips with more strategic organizational needs and talent management opportunities such as quality of hiring; filling gaps in leadership pipelines; and retaining high performers.

ERE: What is "border-less HR" and how does it affect recruiters?

TL: Border-less HR is forcing recruiters to look beyond simply headcount metrics to business impact. In other words, successful recruiters already know that they must align to the business needs of the hiring manager. Likewise, next-generation recruiting approaches must be part of a more comprehensive approach to the full lifecycle to talent.

ERE: You say it'll be a $2.3 billion software business in 2008. Where is it headed in the next 5, 10 years?

TL: Industry analysts agree that talent management solutions will remain one of the fastest-growing segments of enterprise software. Employers are inescapably drawn to the value of optimizing one of the last and largest assets classes within their organizations, their people.

ERE: How does Authoria differentiate itself in the marketplace?

TL: We have three key areas of differentiation. [First, a] focus on the manager's success through simplicity and ease of use; breadth and depth of our comprehensive offering across Recruiting, Compensation, Performance, Development and Succession; and 11 years' experience meeting the complex talent management needs of the world's most demanding employers.

ERE: Any other insights you wish to share about the future of talent management?

TL: Authoria believes talent management will prove to be the largest software category ever. We see tremendous momentum with customers, and industry activity such as this is further evidence of the value organizations attach to optimizing talent.

In the hot and heavy world of executive recruiting, less sometimes is more. Of course, the "more" has to really be more -- as in more (and better) candidates with longer staying power. And not all executive-recruiting sites are created equal. (Who hasn't seen the Ladders tennis ball commercial, after all)?

Then there is RiteSite.com, which is to bells and whistles what Sparta was to Greek hedonists. Aimed at C-suite executives, the site is clunky and extremely non-intuitive - especially compared to sleeker, more streamline executive boards like eKornFerry.com or Heidrick & Struggles.

Obfuscation is part of the business plan at RiteSite, which was founded by Manhattan executive recruiter John Lucht in 2001 -- about the same time executive-recruiting websites were gaining momentum. Lucht fashioned the site to give C-level execs another option among the job-board scrimmage. Only execs looking for their next $100,000-plus gig need apply. They get membership to RiteSite.com for a yearly fee of $94 -- the same amount Lucht used to pay his secretary years ago to put together recruiting lists. For that nominal sum, members get e-mail alerts, job-hunting advice and other free information every week.

It's tough standing out from the crowd, especially if you're a niche job site. But RiteSite.com does offer a number of twists. For one thing, membership is not required for an executive to post a resume. RiteSite.com may be the only site to date to separate jobs by both industry and function. Recruiters don't have to pay to post jobs or review available candidates, and they can post as many jobs as they choose for free.

RiteSite.com actually consists of two databases of executive resumes, with preferential treatment shown to retained recruiters. They get to see an "identity-revealed" database that provides not only list of an executive's credentials, but also direct contact info.

Contingency recruiters aren't treated quite so generously. Although they are able to view jobs in RiteSite's "identity-concealed" database, they are restricted from the more exclusive listings. Still, Lucht estimates half to three-quarters of jobs listed on RiteSite.com are posted by contingency recruiters. This sounds surprising until you consider that RiteSite.com does not charge other sites to republish its internal listings.

Thus, recruiters can toss a dragnet around larger pools of candidates. Lucht boasts: "Nobody has the sorting system that we have. It's a great benefit to finding the jobs you want" if you're an executive, while recruiters are able to target specific industries.

Recruiter Larry White of Staffpointe tells me he receives more "measurable candidates" from RiteSite.com than all other Internet recruiting sites combined. He sends these people out for job interviews and almost always gets great results. That's quite an endorsement. This seems like a more-than-fair deal for recruiting professionals.

It's too bad RiteSite.com isn't a little more aesthetically pleasing. That probably would get people to linger longer. As it is now, the heavy black-and-red homepage is forbidding and a bit intimidating to first-time users. Some of the job descriptions also suffer from being a little too generic at times. Also, if you elect to use the site, be prepared for relentless self-promotion of Lucht's recruiting book. But if you're a recruiter, it's at least worth taking a look.

Gobble, gobble.

That's the sound you just heard as Taleo (profile; site) swooped in and gobbled up Vurv Technology (profile; site) for approximately $128.8 million in cash and stock.

Taleo says it opted to acquire Vurv to enhance its position in talent management and be able to meet the growing market demand for talent management solutions.

Taleo's announcement on Tuesday "marks an inflection point for talent management, making it easier for customers to realize the full benefits of unified talent management applications," said Taleo CEO Michael Gregoire, in a statement.

The combined company will serve over 3,400 customers around the world, including 48 of the Fortune 100, and more than 2,800 small- and medium-sized businesses.

Also on Tuesday, Taleo announced its Q1 results, noting revenues of $37.2 million, an increase of 30% year-over-year, and 8% quarter-over-quarter.

In addition, Taleo announced it signed 197 new customers in Q1, bringing Taleo's customer base to over 1,700 organizations around the world. New customers include Burns & McDonnell, CIBER, InfoPrint Solutions Company, and Vail Resorts. Internationally, Taleo grew 52% over the same period last year, adding Merck KGaA and Renault SA as new customers.

Challenging the Google Gods...

The new Fetch Footprint is promising recruiters "deep Web extraction technologies," which is a really fancy way of saying the company will scour public-data sources and lurk on social/professional networking sites to gather information.

The company's president, ex-ADP exec Jerry Thurber, says Footprint is designed to intelligently parse data relevant to hiring decisions.

In addition to vetting corporate employment candidates, the Fetch folks also can help with background checking, applicant tracking, and job fit assessments.

Stamping Qualified on Sales Candidates…

Go-To-Market Strategies, a sales and marketing online community with claims of about 150,000 users, has a new niche job board, promising recruiters access to "qualified" sales and marketing professionals.

One-part gimmicky, one-part unique, the process allows applicants who both meet the hiring company's qualifications and successfully pass Go-To-Market Strategies' prescreening process to be stamped "Qualified."

Because it does not blindly post jobs found across the Internet, the company says its members can trust the job board to find the best employers.

Despite it being free for employers to post their sales and marketing positions, the site is still pretty bare in the postings department.

If you visit, the site requires that each job include salary expectations. The website will also verify each week that the position is being actively recruited by the employer.

Learning to Share…

A new sourcing cooperative, JobScore is getting a lot of buzz because it allows recruiters to build a candidate pipeline and swap "war stories" with other companies over certain candidates and their resumes.

We like that the "JobScore SHARE plan" lets recruiters share resumes to earn credits, then contact as many candidates as they share for free. But the JobScore SUBSCRIBE plan doesn't allow sharing of resumes, so you pay a monthly subscription fee.

While you can use JobScore as your applicant tracking system, the company says its focus is on sourcing candidates and cooperative recruiting, not applicant tracking. But if you already use an ATS, you can still use JobScore by running your sourcing through JobScore, exporting the resumes from JobScore, then importing them into your ATS.

For a company that must be happy to put 2007 in the past, this week's Peopleclick user conference seems well-attended (about 175 registered), in a stunningly pretty but not-too-accessible oceanfront Ritz in Orange County ... Ed Newman asked the crowd, "Who thinks their company is doing a decent job of workforce planning?" and maybe two hands in the whole audience went up, sheepishly ... John Sullivan lists some of his favorite companies for workforce planning: Microsoft (partly because of its willingness to move people to partner companies), Intel, Aimco, Booz Allen (for its strength in moving people internally), Valero, and Sodexo ... At lunch, one customer tells ERE that Peopleclick's VMS is improving enough that he feels like he could someday scrap Fieldglass, which he says offers inferior reporting ... A Peopleclick partner says the apparent recession isn't all that severe; meanwhile, CareerBuilder, as usual, didn't seem to be tight on money either, as evidenced by the money it spent on a martini party  ... Who cares that the labor market is tight in Montana? Peopleclick client GlaxoSmithKline does, as it has critical operations there and is playing up the lack of traffic and outdoorsy lifestyle to candidates.

Neal Bruce, who recently departed Monster to join the Bedford, Massachusetts, office of First Advantage, will serve as the senior vice president of product management for the Employer Services division. He chatted with ERE about innovating in his new gig, his renewed focus on talent acquisition products, his blog, his legacy at Monster, and more.

ERE: Congrats on the move to First Advantage! Were you looking for a new opportunity, or were you pursued?

NB: I received a call about joining First Advantage, and the timing was right for me to take on a new challenge.

ERE: What excites you the most about this move?

NB: First Advantage has acquired several great talent acquisition companies/products over the last few years. Now we have a wonderful opportunity to drive toward a more integrated set of solutions for our customers.

ERE: What will you be doing overall, on a day-to-day basis?

NB: This is day seven for me, so I am meeting with people and learning more about our products and possibilities. My goal is to work with the rest of the executive team to clarify our long-term product and innovation strategies, while simultaneously focusing on near-term client product needs. We need to both "improve a moving train" and invent "a set of next-generation airplanes."

ERE: Will this be similar at all to your old job at Monster?

NB: I will be focusing on innovation, among other things. We are living in a period of explosive growth in knowledge. First Advantage will convert some of this new knowledge into practical solutions for our customers.

ERE: For people who aren't familiar with First Advantage, what's the 30-second elevator speech about the company?

NB: The Employer Services division of First Advantage helps companies hire great people. We provide a whole suite of talent acquisition products and services, from sourcing strategy creation all the way through background investigation services. When employers say, "We have a talent challenge," I want them to think, "Let's call First Advantage."

ERE: What's the company culture like at First Advantage?

NB: Friendly, energetic, informal, make it happen.

ERE: Is this a newly created position? Who will you be reporting to?

NB: This is a newly created position. I report to Valerie Osinski, president of the Hiring Solutions Group.

ERE: What are some products you're hoping to launch?

NB: On day seven, I have thousands of new products to launch, but seriously, stay tuned. We will be both improving existing and launching new products and services when they are ready to go. I would love direct customer feedback so if your readers have ideas about new or existing First Advantage products, please send them to me at ideas@fadv.com. I look forward to following up on these ideas.

ERE: What are some of your "innovative" ideas you're bringing that may shake things up there and/or change the status quo?

NB: I mentioned knowledge/information as a basis for innovation, and one obvious opportunity is the rich data sets that reside across all of our talent acquisition products. We will be working with customers to determine new products and services that can come from these rich data sets. We are exploring other ideas, that for now, I will keep super secret. Please stay tuned.

ERE: You were called the "face" of Monster, so does this mean First Advantage is looking for a new face, or are you done being a "cover guy," so to speak?

NB: First, let's be clear, I have a face for radio. Second, I think every employee at every recruiting vendor has a personal responsibility to be engaged with customers and the industry. How else can we know how to best serve the recruiting community? I can't express in words how deeply I feel about this issue, so yes, I will continue to engage with the community.

ERE: Tell me about your new blog! Is it related to your new job at all? And why did you start now? What are your plans with it?

NB: For years, my friends have said, "You should blog!" so yes, I will start a new blog. I am finalizing the design and plan to launch the blog in about one month at www.nealbruce.com. This will be a personal blog with my personal ramblings and will in no way represent the views of First Advantage. I will write about several topics including talent management from both the employer and employee perspective.

ERE: What do you think is your "legacy" at Monster? How do you look back on your years there and view your accomplishments? What do you want recruiters and the industry to say was your biggest achievement there?

NB: Wow, what a question! I spent 11 years as a recruiter before moving to the vendor side five years ago. Like many other recruiters, I regularly looked at my computer and screamed, "Why is this so complicated!" I made the jump to the vendor side because I was, and still am, convinced that recruiting tools are often too clunky, too difficult for both employers and job seekers. I have the crazy idea that I can help make these products better. To answer your legacy question more directly, I submit that if during my career I motivate people in the vendor community to engage more deeply with their recruiter customers, my time will be well-spent. Customers often have the answers; we simply need to actively listen to them.

Get schooled on background screening…

employeescreenIQ (profile; site) says its recently launched employeescreen University provides free background-screening information aimed to help organizations make better hiring decisions.

The interactive learning tool is designed specifically for human resource, risk-management, and security professionals. It features a free newsletter, employment screening news compiled from international sources, U.S. legislative news updates, industry white papers, background-screening media resources, and upcoming industry events.

Blogger Joel Cheesman calls the site "progressive," noting that it also "speaks to the heart of an industry clamoring for useful knowledge delivered in a convenient, unfettered manner." Not entirely surprising that Cheesman respects the company, as its chief marketing officer, Nick Fishman, is a guest contributor on Xtra Cheezhead.

Monster, msnbc.com team up…

Monster (profile; site) is back on the co-branding bandwagon, this time teaming up with msnbc.com. The job board is going to become the exclusive job services provider featured on msnbc.com, which includes listings on TODAYshow.com and msnbc.com's local news sections. According to Nielsen Online, more than 35 million unique visitors frequent msnbc.com.

Korn/Ferry's extreme makeover…

Korn/Ferry (profile; site) has a newly launched website and branding campaign, which is being touted as the "Art & Science of Talent," a message that will be tied into all of the company's worldwide efforts. The "art" part of this new brand is about understanding the intangibles of leadership, while the "science" part is about using assessment tools and development resources.

Michael Distefano, Korn/Ferry's chief marketing officer, points out that this message "embodies this evolving perspective on human capital."

One of L.A.-based Korn/Ferry's hottest groups is its outsourced recruiting subsidiary FutureStep.

Facebook vacation…

Virtual VayCay is a new Facebook application that lets users send their friends in dead-end jobs on a virtual vacation. Itzbig (profile; site) started this idea, which it says can reach highly qualified individuals who are currently employed in unfulfilling positions but are reluctant to pursue other career opportunities because of concerns over privacy and the lack of immediate feedback.

With virtual VayCay, itzbig says users can create anonymous profiles based upon their skills and desires. They then see in real time how they score against these opportunities.

Vurv Technology (profile; site) this week officially unveiled its new Vurv Perform 4.0, an on-demand solution designed to engage employees and improve retention.

Derek Mercer, the company's founder and CEO, recently chatted with ERE about a product he hopes will be "intuitive and accessible to everyone" to give everyone a role in a company's performance.

Specifically, Mercer notes that key enhancements from Vurv’s previous performance management offerings include succession tools for gap analysis and development plans; job modeling tools; and goal management capabilities, among other features.

In actuality, Mercer notes, the 4.0 system includes about 75,000 content objects such as job and competency models with behavioral indicators, coaching and mentoring suggestions as well as interview questions to help managers overcome "blank-page syndrome" and spend more time coaching employees.

Since Vurv first formulated the system in 2004, "it's now gotten to where the two are linked together all the way to compensation," says Mercer, noting that "version 4.0 makes it more of a defined flexibility that ties to candidates because career development is essential for employee engagement."

Some might call this the "perfect package" because it really seems to emphasize integration, while a lot of other vendors sell it separately as a stand-alone.

"I'd like to think so," says Mercer, "but the reality is these are two separate processes. They can get the benefit of the linkages between the two. It's a big thing to swallow when you're first trying to roll out a recruitment system and then a [performance management] system."

Some call Vurv the "defacto leader" in offboarding, having paved the way for this to be a priority, and given the economy, it will be interesting to see how the product grows in sales and whether other vendors choose to follow suit.

But Mercer points out that it's a "complex system, not one you can throw out and then you have one."

"I don't think anyone can jump into that marketplace," he says.

"If we do go into a recession, or even a depression, that system will sell a lot of them. A lot of people will buy it because it saves so much money in downsizing," he says.

For a company that started out as recruiting-only, but has now moved into performance, it can be difficult for all customers to understand the necessary integration. While it seems obvious that the vendor community "gets it," it remains to be seen whether all customers will integrate between identification and development with such ease.

But Mercer says "when we launched performance in 2004, we got a few customers. Now we have many more out there using it. And 2008 has companies buying both products: recruitment and performance. It's more of a multi-product year."

Four months into 2008, but it is still too early to see whether it is the "Year of the Multi-Product" or not.

Vurv's revenue was $39 million in 2006 and $49 million in 2007, and Mercer's predictions for 2008 are optimistic, noting that 2008 will be bigger, seeing "the same kind of growth and actually, a little bit better."

"It handles very large organizations and it's user 4.0, not 1.0. It's easy and fast and ready for the market to begin adopting worldwide," says Mercer.

Former Vice President of Alliances for Monster (profile; site) Neal Bruce is headed to the First Advantage team, according to several reports.

One high-level First Advantage executive spoke on condition of anonymity on Wednesday, and on Thursday, Rena Levin wrote on the Hire Calling blog that Bruce would, in fact, be joining the company's ATS team. The rumor started swirling on Tuesday, when Joel Cheesman announced it on his blog.

Levin wrote that while at Monster, Bruce "brought such a wealth of knowledge to the table. Monster customers sought out his opinions and trusted his vision. I had a great deal of success when the product was under his direction. My career path eventually lead me to First Advantage Corporation and I'm so thrilled to say Neal is joining our ATS team here. I can't believe Monster let him go. He is such a valuable asset. He will certainly have a dramatic and positive impact here at First Advantage."

Back in May 2006, Monster first announced its full product integration and availability with First Advantage.

"Monster is continuously in discussions with leading HR providers in order to steadily develop solutions that are more effective and valuable than independent offerings," said Bruce, at the time.

Monster also boasted that this would allow for joint products to help customers minimize the time required to post jobs, increase the number of qualified applicants, and more efficiently identify and upload candidates from Monster's database of more than 50 million resumes.

Apparently, it worked. First Advantage seems to have efficiently found one particularly qualified applicant to join its ranks.

Stay tuned for more coverage of Bruce's first steps on the First Advantage ladder.

The corporate site http://www.peopleclick.com has been down, for at least a substantial part of today.

A job search at least for one of its clients seems to not be working either. 

Now that Manpower has announced its plans to acquire recruitment process outsourcing leader CRI, the company is revealing more tidbits about its decision to strengthen its presence in the rapidly growing RPO market.

According to Kirsten Corbell, RPO product manager at Manpower, CRI will operate under Manpower Business Solutions, a line of customized recruiting initiatives in over 20 countries worldwide.

She says CRI has experience delivering a "high-touch candidate experience" and branding their clients as employers of choice. CRI started in 1997 by Ladd and Julie Richland, and its client base now includes Fortune 1000 and emerging growth companies. It was recently named Top RPO firm for the third consecutive year by HRO Today magazine.

After an "extensive" review of RPO companies, Manpower recognized that CRI best understood end-to-end RPO.

"Once we learned more about what they offered, we knew they had the right people and the proper investment to be able to really deliver. Also, they had the whole vision, values, and culture piece. We share a philosophy for being a global leader in RPO, so it was a great fit. Really, that cinched the deal," she says.

Corbell notes that CRI wasn't necessarily looking for an acquisition, but they had been getting a lot more interest from clients on global programs.

"They realized there aren't that many companies in the market who can do that without a partnership," she says.

She says the core group of about 75 in the L.A. headquarters will stay in place.

"Everyone is moving over to Manpower. Their expertise and strength of service is what we acquired, so their people are staying. That's what we're excited about. They have both strong talent and recruiting expertise," she says.

"Once we've gotten to know them even more, the strength of what they bring to the table will excite us even more," she says.

She says Manpower is especially excited by CRI's recruiter certification and hiring manager training offerings.

Manpower is buying recruitment-outsourcing vendor CRI, a Los Angeles company that CEO Ladd Richland has kept somewhat under the radar.

The folks over at Zoho are offering a free beta trial of its new Zoho People product, which Web Worker Daily says is "clearly overkill if you have only a few employees; it's aimed at companies who have 30, 50, or more employees and a continuing string of job openings to keep track of."

Zoho People offers things like employee files, workflow tracking of the hiring process, travel requests, employee announcements, multiple levels of security, and an employee portal.

It features automated checklists that triggers a sequence of tasks on a specific action like create/edit/approve of a request to complete a business process. It also enables your employees to keep track of the progress of their requests.

The company has also prepared this video about Zoho People:

View from a Tree

It also uses an employee reporting hierarchy so everyone can know the employee reporting hierarchy structure of your organization in a tree-based view:

This tree is constructed based on the "Reporting To" field of employee data, and when an employee moves to another team, you can use a "drag and drop" to update the system.

Zoho People is part of the Pleasanton, California-based company's suite of office and Web-based products, including Writer, Projects, Sheet, CRM, Show, Creator, Wiki, Planner, Suite, Notebook, Chat, Meeting, and Mail.

After the beta period, the pricing will eventually end up in the range of $50 per month for HR administrator, and possibly available as part of Zoho's suite of enterprise apps under blended pricing.

Zoho + Google Against Microsoft?

There are critics of similar enterprise applications, including Zoho competitor Google, which offers Google Apps.

Computerworld reports that 500,000 organizations are using Google Apps. Matthew Glotzbach, director of product management for enterprise at Google, acknowledges that large organizations are hesitant to join in.

"One challenge we've had is building that enterprise credibility," he said.

Gartner analyst Matt Cain notes that Google Apps won't be seriously considered by enterprises until the company can show it can support reporting, audit trails, and service-level agreements of large-scale commercial users.

Cnet reports that Zoho could "bump up against more established software-as-a-service HR offerings from well funded companies such as Workday, Taleo, NetSuite, SuccessFactors, and others."

Cnet says Zoho is most concerned about setting itself apart from Google, "which lacks the business applications. Google, as well as Microsoft, will be watching Zoho closely to see if it gains any traction with customers. If so, either one would be a candidate to acquire the Zoho, which is a subsidiary of India-based AdventNet."

According to Larry Dignan, editor in chief of ZDNet, Zoho is more enterprise-friendly than Google.

"For me, Zoho People raises one big question: Why hasn't Google acquired Zoho yet? Sure the spreadsheets and word processing overlap with Google Docs and Spreadsheets, but Zoho has turned into something much more enterprise-friendly. Something like Zoho People -- not to mention its CRM and other services -- could be a fine tuck-in for Google Apps."

LinkedIn Recruiter hit the market on Monday, and the five-year-old company is feeling confident that recruiters will like what they see.

Among other features, the product allows users to group candidates in folders and tag them with comments. This means that corporate staffing departments can know immediately whether someone on the team has reached out to a potential candidate.

In 2007, the Mountain View, California-based company hired George Seiters as its senior director of corporate solutions in product marketing. Seiters spent the better part of last year working on LinkedIn Recruiter, a product he says will "revolutionize the process of online recruiting for corporate staffing professionals."

What excites him the most, he says, is that users can download a search engine on their toolbar, a team-oriented approach that allows recruiters to view their team's efforts and cut down on duplicate efforts. The team can also create template-based emails and send multiple "inmails" to candidates at once. Each recruiter seat gets 50 "inmails" to use to contact potential candidates on LinkedIn.

"An inmail is a trusted email over the Linkedin network. You don't need to know the recipients' contact information. They choose whether to respond, and they can either disclose or not disclose their contact information," he says.

Users of LinkedIn Recruiter also can view up to 1,000 search results, instead of the 500 available in other accounts.

The company, which employs about 230, began its "Linkedin Corporate" side in 2007 (focusing on the business side as opposed to the individual) and has signed up about 500 customers.

Social Networks Growing in Popularity

A recent Classified Intelligence report, done in conjunction with ERE Media, shows that recruiters, especially those from large companies, are enthusiastic about social networks. Survey respondents said they spent about 41% more on social-networking sites in 2007 than in 2006, and 61% of those answering said they planned to spend even more in 2008.

The Classified Intelligence report explains that LinkedIn, which can be considered a social networking or a professional-networking site, was the most frequently mentioned site.

The report points out that recruiters receive inquiries about jobs from other LinkedIn members, and they like that it's a way to reach people who aren't in active pursuit of a new job. (Though the report finds that employee referrals are also important.)

OFCCP at Stake

If these numbers are an accurate indication, LinkedIn Recruiter may become even more popular for its auditing function.  Seiters notes that Linkedin Recruiter can also organize projects and help with certain auditing features. For example, LinkedIn Recruiter is building in OFCCP-friendly compliance tools, though most auditing tools will be available in future upgrades.

"All activity is audited and archived for a two-year period, giving recruiters a snapshot of their search results," says Seiters.

To get a visual of the new product, blogger Rithesh Nair shares a screen shot of what it looks like.

"The best feature I liked was the search alerts. You can now save the searches you are doing on Linkedin and have you alert when a new match is found as long as you keep the search alert ON," writes Nair.

Monster and iHispano announced an alliance this week that uses Monster's job search technology through iHispano's network of career channels.

As one of the fastest-growing segments of the U.S. population, Hispanics account for approximately 17.5 million workers in the United States. The two companies say this relationship will provide a stronger pipeline of candidates representing a broad range of talent.

Chicago-based iHispano.com says it reaches more than one million Hispanic professionals. These career channel partners include iHispano, the National Society of Hispanic MBAs, the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting, the National Hispanic Business Association, the Latinos in Information Sciences and Technology Association, and Latina Style Business Magazine Online.

The company has seen its share of bad news, but not today. 

ChoicePoint is being bought by the British company that owns LexisNexis. ChoicePoint's stock is up dramatically today, about 43%.