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Financially battered Workstream has changed leadership again, bringing back its co-founder and board chairman Michael Mullarkey as chief executive officer. He replaces Steve Purello, whose resignation was announced this morning. keep reading…

RiseSmart, a self-described disruptor of the “the $3 billion-plus corporate outplacement market,” announced this morning that it got a $4.6 million infusion of venture capital.

Norwest Venture Partners, a $3 million participant in an earlier round of financing, put in $1.8 million. The balance of $2.8 million came from new investor Storm Ventures.

Originally based in Dallas and now in Silicon Valley, RiseSmart cleverly developed a technology approach to classic outplacement, focusing on providing job leads, resume editing, and networking suggestions. Its Job Search Concierge uses offshore researchers to scour online sources for job leads matching candidate interests. Instead of searching, candidates spend their time contacting companies and networking.

The Job Search Concierge is a consumer-focused service which individuals in the $100k salary category can subscribe to for $43.95 a month. The service has been likened to The Ladders, with the searching and filtering done by others rather than the job seeker. keep reading…

Making the news this week are announcements from Jigsaw about an overhaul of its forums to bring them into the world of Web 2.0, a coup for outplacement upstart RiseSmart, and some good news for CEOs.

JIGSAW

The business intelligence and sourcing site has upgraded its community forum, giving it a cleaner look and implementing such to-be-expected features as tagging and contributor ratings. Tags are especially welcome, given that forum posts aren’t easily searched.

No one is going to mistake the new community platform as avant garde; think of it as functional, especially so if it adopts the name “The Corner,” which is beating out “Puzzleville” in the name voting.

The company also has an iPhone app that’s going into beta. Jigsaw is looking for iPhone users willing to provide feedback to the team in exchange for being the first to use the new app to “search, download and export contacts directly.”

CEO LONGEVITY keep reading…

Two early stage recruitment tech firms — EnticeLabs and HireVue, both based in Utah — reported this morning that they’ve received investment dollars to finance their growth.

EnticeLabs, whose first product is an online advertising platform, got an infusion of $2 million from a group of investors lead by First Advantage. The company says the money “will be used to accelerate system development, accommodate higher-than-anticipated sales, and build out the infrastructure warranted by the rapidly expanding client base.”

It also gained the expertise of former Monster VP Neal Bruce, who joins its board of directors.

HireVue, which facilitates video interviewing, received a Series A round of funding led by Peterson Ventures joined by The Garber Fund of Penn State University, and others.

The company didn’t say how big the investment is, though it did say the money would be used to expand management, “strengthen market awareness, and make product enhancements.” keep reading…

Remember Jobster? Of course you do. How could any recruiter forget the soap opera story of this company founded by a former White House staffer who, as CEO, burned through $46 million before he departed at the end of 2007?

Besides spending like it was 1999, Jobster changed, enhanced, modified, enlarged, annexed — choose your favorite adjective — business models often enough that the enterprise resembled Mrs. Winchester’s house. All of this playing out quite publicly via leaks, corporate PR, and the CEO’s own (defunct) blog.

In fairness to the now departed Jason Goldberg, he was a visionary. When Jobster launched in 2004 it tapped into the then-unnamed and not even  recognized phenom we now all know as social recruiting. To briefly, and only inadequately, explain it, Jobster was a corporate recruiter’s tool to tap the connections of the company’s employees; a digital employee referral program.

Over the next three-plus years Goldberg made well-timed investments, buying a job search engine called WorkZoo, a job tagging service called Jobby, and the blog Recruiting.com. Jobster would eventually relaunch as a career networking site, loosely tying in the referral program of its youth and bits and pieces of the acquisitions. Much of the best parts, however, languished, suggesting the visionary lacked a vision. keep reading…

Jobvite is introducing what I hesitate to call a new sourcing tool, only because the term doesn’t really do it justice.

Google is a sourcing tool, but while it may get the job done, how long will it take to sift through the results? Jobvite Source is more of a blend of the best attributes of ZoomInfo and Broadlook with access to the social networks as well as the entire Web.

Last week, during a demo, Chief Product Officer Jamie Glenn did a search for an online marketing manager and came up with the resumes of, maybe, a couple hundred possibles from all the Web’s free sources. A similar search on Google turns up results in the hundreds of thousands.

The difference is Jobvite Source can compare the results to the job req, sifting out the job listings and other stuff, leaving you with resumes that match the requirements. It does the same as a well-structured query to your ATS or a resume database.

keep reading…

Did somebody forget to tell Taleo we’re in a recession?

The Dublin, California-based company has been on a tear this year, tripling its stock price as it declared itself officially on a shopping spree. As if to prove it isn’t just blowing smoke, Taleo, Tuesday, spent $16 million buying its strategic partner Worldwide Compensation Inc., which sells global compensation planning solutions.

The deal was announced in Las Vegas at the annual TaleoWORLD user conference, where the company also unveiled Taleo 10, the newest iteration of its integrated talent management platform. Taleo unabashedly describes its new platform as “the fastest, most social, and mobile talent management system on the planet.”

It’s a major play for Taleo, giving it a product with which it can correctly claim it has an end-to-end solution. keep reading…

Entice Labs, the Provo, Utah, company that set out to create a better recruitment marketing system, is suddenly getting industry buzz.

Earlier this year, John Sumser described the company as a “game changer.” In June, Susan Burns, president of Talent Synchronicity, said the company’s TalentSeekr product is “a sleek and effective approach to targeted employment brand positioning.”

Now, TechCrunch has said of the company, “it still beats hiring a headhunter.” OK, so that’s not as scintillating an endorsement as either Sumser’s or Burns’, but then TechCrunch is a site for geeks, not recruiters. But you gotta figure that a product that wows both techies and recruiters is worth taking a look at. keep reading…

Just a little buzz floating around sticky Hollywood, Florida:

• Amazon is live with a new talent acquisition system, courtesy of iCIMS.
• Cytiva, whose product is SonicRecruit, says its third quarter will be the best of the year, and says it is seeing a “definite loosening of budgets.”
• JobTarget has bought Career Liaison, a company that’ll help it keep better track of source of hire, such as whether applicants arriving via Craiglist are less likely to complete an online job application. Word has it another acquisition by JobTarget may be coming.
• McLeod Health saw an uptick in applicants, according to the folks at SilkRoad, after it added a video to its careers site touting the fact that it helps employees with financial education.

Recruitment technology provider Jobvite has garnered a second round of financing, giving it $8.25 million to use for product development and to meet customer growth.

The company announced the Series B funding tonight. The round was led by ATA Ventures, whose co-founder and managing director, Hatch Graham, will join Jobvite’s board of directors. In December 2007 Jobvite received $7.2 million in Series A funding from a group led by CMEA Capital.

Jobvite says it grew its client count by 300 percent in the last year and now counts Accuweather, Mozilla, TiVo, Yelp, and Zappos among its customers.

One reason for Jobvite’s success is its versatility. Not only has the company built a nicely featured ATS, but it took care in the development to include the kind of networking capabilities that recruiters want. The recruiting platform allows for internal collaboration, encouraging employees to make referrals and, to the extent company culture and hiring managers allow, they can participate in the hiring process.

Making this a more active exercise is Jobvite’s behind-the-scenes job matching capability. Employees can choose to connect Jobvite to their Facebook friends,  LinkedIn connections, and Twitter followers. Jobvite analyzes the profiles of those connections and suggests good matches with company openingx to the employee, who can choose to send a “jobvite” invitation to their friend, follower, or 1st degree connection.

Jobvite is an on-demand system with a yearly subscription fee priced for the SMB market and designed to be less demanding of recruiter time.

“This recession is fundamentally changing recruitment, pushing companies to become more cost-effective, innovative, and strategic. Companies are looking to the technology industry to make this possible,” says Dan Finnigan, president and CEO. “Our growth this year proves we’re serving a big need and delivering immediate ROI to our customers. With this new investment, the strong additions made to our team this year, and the on-going advancements in our technology, I’m looking forward to what Jobvite will do for our customers.”

Recruiter of the year Dan Hilbert must have found the smartest 4th graders on the planet for his OrcaEyes focus group. He says that it took them no time at all to navigate through the OrcaEyes console, generating reports on the cost of vacancies in an Exult Energy division and on the financial impact of an 80 percent improvement in time to hire for that group.

After taking a whirlwind tour through some of the things OrcaEyes can do, I have no hesitancy in admitting that “I’m not smarter than those 4th graders.”

Of course the significance of those reports was lost on the kids. Hilbert just wanted to make sure the navigation was easy to use and the red-yellow-green alert system easy to understand. And they are.

But it’s those reports that make the $200k a 20,000-employee firm can spend on OrcaEyes seem like a bargain.

Before I get into how, here’s a bit about the what, as in just what is OrcaEyes? Hilbert describes it as HR System Management Software. You can think of it as ERP for HR. Either way, the system provides an overarching view of how human capital impacts the enterprise. It does this by connecting to a company’s existing business systems — hooking into finance, sales, operations, supply chain, or an ERP (if there is one), the HRIS, HRMS, and whatever others may be there.

OrcaEyes crunches the data it extracts from these systems and combines it — for certain uses, like recruiting and salary setting — with data Hilbert obtains from such external sources as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Census, and private data providers. Thus, in an instant, literally, an HR recruiter and a division VP can tell the cost in lost business for staffing shortages in the North Sea unit of Exult Energy’s refining and petrochemical division.

I thought that was nice information to have, but no special feat since any CFO can do revenue averages per year-end headcount. But as every CFO and line manager knows, being down one position doesn’t translate into a direct or immediate loss of revenue. Depending on the size of the unit, other workers will pick up the load. keep reading…

Kenexa is being sued (again). Elance, an IT and contract outsourcing firm, has been hacked, and user information stolen. And just in the nick of time, Cytiva is out with a white paper on (what else) ATS SaaS security.

Now, the details. keep reading…

What did you do the last time you invested in a new HR system?

If you’re at all similar to the thousands of other HR leaders that have gone through the process, you probably assembled an inter-departmental group from across the company and began creating lists of all the features anybody suggested.

Like other companies, that list probably didn’t include such vendor questions as:

• What is the turnaround time on resolving system problems?
• What is the turnover in your customer support staff?
• Can we request a change in our primary customer representative?
• When do we have to pay for system upgrades? Can we refuse an update and still receive support?

An article in the September issue of the Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership addresses the issue of post-sale service and support for HR technology systems. The article (available only by subscription) talks about the advice experts like Leighanne Levensaler of Bersin and Associates and HRchitect’s Rick Fletcher and Matt Lafata have for companies planning an investment in HR technology. (Incidentally, they all agree that mere lists of features is the WRONG way to go.)

They, and, surprisingly, the vendors I spoke with for the article, all agree that the most overlooked area in systems acquisition is customer service.

After the system is up and running, the most important feature becomes service and support. That the systems have user-defined fields and configurable screens matters hardly at all if you can’t get the vendor to help you batch post job listings to multiple sites.

That’s why Andrew Curtis, director of customer support at iCIMS, suggests that once you’ve got a short list of vendors, and are making a decision, the post-sale support and service “should carry a 100 percent weight.”

OK. So that might be overkill, but SilkRoad technology’s COO, Brian Platz, says, “How much weight would I give to post-sale issues? I would give it 50 percent of my criteria.”

Now that you’ve got some sense of just how important the post-sale service is, how do you go about checking out the vendor? The Journal article offers more detail, but here are some tips from the consultants and vendors. keep reading…

Lawson Software, seller of ERP and human capital acquisition and management software, reported a stellar financial year, more than doubling its 4th quarter net income from 2008 and ending the fiscal year with an $18.9 million net income, about 38 percent over 2008. Fourth quarter profit was $9.8 million. keep reading…

New LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner

LinkedIn named a new CEO today, as expected tapping its president former Yahooer Jeff Weiner for the job. Reid Hoffman, a LinkedIn founder and its first CEO, moved out of the CEO job he re-assumed in December after a company shakeup. Hoffman will become a full-time executive chairman.

Weiner’s chief focus, according to a report on TechCrunch, will be to create “an independent public company, with three key revenue sources: premium subscriptions, corporate solutions, and advertising.” All three revenue streams are already in place, generating enough cash to bring the company to relative profitability. All that’s necessary to catapult the company into solid margins is an upturn in hiring.

Weiner is former EVP of Yahoo’s Network Division, the unit responsible for the company’s search, mail, and other key operations. He left in June 2008, during the company’s brain drain. Weiner joined LinkedIn in January after a stay as executive in residence with two VC firms.

His appointment as president came after Dan Nye, LinkedIn’s second CEO, left in December. Hoffman retook the CEO reins he had relinquished to Nye not even two years before.

In a press release, Weiner says, “Working closely with Reid and the team over the past six months exceeded all of my expectations coming into the company. I couldn’t be more excited about our progress to date, and the opportunity ahead of us.”

Hoffman, meanwhile, says in a blog post he will concentrate on “some big picture strategic issues for Linkedin — how Linkedin evolves to become more and more essential to professionals seeking to stay informed and find the right resources to accomplish their tasks fast and effectively.”

Here’s a question I bet didn’t come up at the Social Recruiting Summit on Monday: Should I add my boss as a Facebook friend?

What prompted this question (which I encourage you to comment on at the end of this article) is Hunch. That’s right, Hunch, a dot-com that launched out of beta on Monday. It’s not exactly a search engine. Nor is it an oracle. It’s, well, here’s how co-founder Caterina Fake explained it to CNN.com: “It’s something new.”

We’ll call it a decision engine, since that’s what others are doing and it’s as good a descriptor as any. The first time you use Hunch, you’re confronted with 20 questions. More will come later, but Hunch starts easy. You can skip these profiling questions, but like talking with a shrink, any question you ask will be answered with several from Hunch.

When I asked Hunch about where to look for a job, it presented me a with a list of topics and question options including, “Should I look for a job or wait?” Not exactly what I was looking for, but interesting enough. The first question Hunch asked when I agreed to that topic was “Do you need the money?” After working my way through the decision tree, Hunch advised me to “wait a bit.” But the split between that answer and start looking was 55-45.

Besides being fun, Hunch has a serious side. Though it isn’t going to replace a search engine for sourcing candidates, it can help cut through the clutter to help you answer questions like “Do I need an in-house person for my U.S. business?” Or “Is it OK to ask my co-worker on a date?” keep reading…

Bucking an industry trend caused by the recession, Cytiva Software, maker of the SonicRecruit line of talent management software, has posted a first-quarter increase in revenue while reporting its smallest loss in at least five quarters.

The Canadian company, which trades on the Venture Board of the Toronto Stock Exchange, reported today that it lost $148,000 (CAD) on revenues of $1.88 million (CAD). Revenue for the same period in 2008 was $1.52 million (CAD), with a loss of $299,000 (CAD).

Cytiva first reported its financials in May. The current release is of audited financials, which are nearly unchanged from the initial numbers.

“Despite a highly challenging selling environment, Cytiva’s first-quarter results show strong growth in our key success indicators: Revenue, deferred revenue, and positive cash flow from operations,” said Jason Moreau, CEO of Cytiva Software.

The press release announcing the first quarter results doesn’t include any financial numbers. The numbers used here come from InvestorPoint.

We interrupt today’s wall-to-wall social media coverage to bring you this bit about something old school in the way of promotion: The human billboard.

We’re not talking here about the sandwich sign guys or even the athletic sign spinners you see on street corners pointing to check cashing businesses, tanning salons and new home developments. (Though you would be surprised at how much the jobs pay and just how cutthroat the business is.)

Nope. We’re talking about the president and founder of a technology sales lead company wandering around the showroom floor at SHRM’s upcoming conference in New Orleans handing out $100 bills. All you have to do is find Clay C. Scroggins, a/k/a Claydough, walk up to him and say “Hi, Clay” to get one of the five hundreds he’s going to be handing out. keep reading…

A class action suit has been filed against Kenexa alleging the HR technology provider and RPO firm mislead investors in 2007 by not disclosing problems it was having with international sales and with its RPO business.

The action, brought in federal court in Pennsylvania by Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP, claims that between May 8, 2007, when Kenexa issued its first quarter report and Nov. 7th of that year, when the third quarter financial report was released, it “failed to disclose material adverse facts about the Company’s true financial condition, business and prospects.”

As a result, the law firm claims that shareholders who bought stock between those dates lost value when on Nov 8th, the day after the third quarter results were announced, the stock plummeted 40 percent, dropping from $27.84 per share to $16.61 per share. That day, 8.4 million shares of the company traded hands. The average volume in the weeks before was around 300,000 shares.

A Kenexa spokesperson could not be reached for comment.

Coughlin Stoia is a 190-lawyer firm with offices across the country that specializes in class action litigation on behalf of investors and consumers.  The firm was lead counsel on behalf of Enron investors, suing banks and others that backed the energy firm. Coughlin Stoia has also played a key role in cases as diverse as an antitrust action against the NASDAQ exchange, settling it for more than $1 billion, and in litigation against tobacco companies.

In the Kenexa case, Coughlin Stoia says in a press release that the company:

“… failed to disclose the following adverse facts, among others: (i) that sales cycles for the Company’s Employment Process Outsourcing (“EPO”) and assessments lines of business were lengthening, causing sales to be pushed out and revenue growth to slow; (ii) that the Company was experiencing problems with its international sales and would need to revamp that sales force; (iii) that the Company was experiencing problems with a significant EPO client such that the client was requesting to be released from its contract with the Company; and (iv) based on the foregoing, defendants lacked a reasonable basis for their positive statements about the Company, its earnings, operations and prospects.”

No specific amount of damages is detailed in the complaint.

Kenexa’s stock was trading at $13.47 at midday today, down 38 cents from Thursday’s close. For 2008 Kenexa reported losing $120.9 million, mostly due to a writedown of company goodwill, which many HR tech and services vendors have been doing. For the first quarter of this year, Kenexa posted a $33.6 million loss, after another goodwill hit of $33.3 million. Not counting the writedown and certain other minor one-time expenses, Kenexa would have had a $3.9 million profit from operations.

One of the largest employers in the world has embraced cloud computing for HR in a way so big that Siemens AG will have one of the largest, if not the largest, enterprise cloud computing deployments in the world.

The lucky beneficiary of the German electronics and electrical engineering giant’s decision to replace its multiple talent systems globally is SuccessFactors, which will see most of its performance and talent management modules deployed to Siemens’ 430,000 employees in 80 countries and 20 languages.

Dr. Norbert Kleinjohann, head of corporate information technology for Siemens, says in the press release announcing the deal, “The enterprise cloud computing business model is a strategic direction for us. It not only lowers IT costs, and creates faster end-to-end processes, but can also grow with our requirements both globally and locally.”

SuccessFactors says the Siemens deployment will include its compensation, goal, performance, and recruiting management, career development planning, variable pay, and succession planning tools. SuccessFactors willl replace Siemens’ existing multiple talent systems globally. keep reading…