We often hear many terms used in the industry. People set products in different categories according to the need they fulfill. The three most commonly used terms are ATS (Applicant Tracking System), HMS (Hiring Management System), and TMS (Talent Management System).

I am asked, how would you categorize Taleo today? The short answer is Taleo is a Talent Management System. Why say that? Read on.

What is an Applicant Tracking System or ATS? The term appeared with the first generation systems started by Restrac (resume tracking) in 1984 and Resumix (I guess mix the resume ;-) and served one major purpose: get rid of the filling cabinets that recruiters were keeping to store the resumes received from candidates. It helped most companies as well to track the applicants during the recruiting process, hence the name ATS.

The second act of this industry came with the growth of the Web and the fact that most of the resumes were not scanned into a system but coming straight from the Web. Indeed today scanning resumes is an activity that is performed less and less. In this transition the big buzz was the new relationship that was made possible directly with the candidate, saying we can process resumes online as well and maintain a relationship with you.

The true issue of this Web resume-centric approach (still central to many systems today) is that it started to send unqualified email to candidates. It is during that key period that the term HMS was used. It was not a simple tracking system anymore, since it was helping to track and maintain relationships for the sake of hiring.

More recently we have seen the term TMS, or Talent Management System, in which the focus is around Talent. Often though it is used as a term for everything and anything that touches talent (see our definition of Talent Management). At the core is a system that deals with employee talent, however not with employee payroll, benefits or accrued vacation time.

It is a system that helps employees to first categorize their talent; second, find the most appropriate job for their unique profile (that can be inside or outside the organization); third, help organizations understand their talent inventory for planning and alignment purposes; fourth, reward and train where the need is felt for each talent resource to contribute to the organization at its full potential. Of course, this vision of a complete integrated view is nowhere to be seen today (except on some slideware). So the question today for us is what makes a TMS, if none have what a full system would require?

The primary role of a TMS as a system is to manage talent (not resumes). It is not to track applications even though it can do that. Does it need to have a performance management component, an applicant tracking component or a learning management component? Not necessarily, but in all cases it needs a talent inventory tool or “Talent Master” in order to perform every single future step with any hope of success. In our eyes, the Talent Master is what creates a true foundation of a Talent Management System and Taleo is probably one of the best.