In the previous posting we looked at how Google changed the Job Search industry. Today we will consider how Taleo and other similar talent management tools will change the Job Search industry.

As much as we saw three criteria yesterday, we believe in this case, that one core reason will prevail: quality of applications and hire.

Talent management software like Taleo enables something very powerful: knowing which source brings the most applications, short listed candidates, and hires. Once you compare this with your spend, it gives you, the employer the power to know which source is the best for which job.

We saw several employers starting to use it to its full power, but it is just the beginning of a tidal wave. This is often an ROI argument not even used for the implementation of a talent management solution, but it is in fact more than we think it is.

It has been already used to produce the new industry of referral tools like Jobster and H3. As referral is often the #1 source of new employees in many companies, it was only natural to focus on it.

So as search relevance for job seekers was critical for individuals, candidate relevance for employers is just as critical. It is a two-sided effort and the best matching tool from both the candidate and employer perspectives will win!

A couple of years ago, everyone was saying the game was over for the search industry. Yahoo! was declared winner and Excite, AltaVista, AskJeeves, and the others were far behind…until Google.

What was the difference? How about improved search relevance, simpler user interface, and a new business model.

In the job board or job search market today the big declared winner has been Monster, until…well, time will tell. Which factors will cause a transition, if any?

Lately the vertical job search we see a similar pattern as in pure search. Search relevance seems to be the first area that everyone attacked. Originating with the idea of DirectEmployers, today’s vertical search is everywhere. From simplyhired and Jobster to HotJobs and the recent relaunch of Monster’s flip dog

But from the user prospective, search relevance is not only the number of jobs available.
The interesting different approaches start with careerbuilder.com that approaches search relevance with their job recommendation engine, and Jobster with their social network approach. Jobster connects the concept of Vault or Wetfeet to the vertical search.

User interface is not always seen on the top of the list, except for simplyhired and indeed. Just compare their home page to Monster and you will get the feeling.

The last but most critical factor for long term success is the business model. There we have not seen any new strays from the traditional game. The only one we saw was covered in a previous posting we made here.

What has been learned from Google? Don’t sleep on your laurels.

The traditional metrics used in talent management are often either around performance or about talent acquisition.

While in Sydney with the growing Taleo user community in the Southern Hemisphere, we reviewed the metrics that they monitor today. Comparing this to a couple of years ago, we see a great improvement in the precision that all organizations can achieve today.

Our recommendation for years has been to take into account these five key principles when selecting metrics:
1. Business Alignment
2. Actionable
3. Consistent
4. Time Trackable (internal benchmark)
5. Peer Comparisons (external benchmark)

The most important thing for us is after you have made sure you are aligned with the business, you must make sure that those metrics are actionable. Today, tools are not the issue anymore for controlling the process. The key thing is what you DO with those data.

Root cause analysis is the tool that will lead you to the greatest impact. Take the time to do it.

When we were in Singapore, we were invited to an official ceremony called “A Memorandum of Understanding” between bodies representing two sides of the organization that often don’t really understand each other.

The SHRI (Singapore Human Resource Institute) and the ACCA (largest international accountancy body with 110,000 members and active in more than 170 countries) signed a Memorandum of Understanding. This summit meeting between HR and Accounting was engineered by an ex-head of HR that was trained as an accountant first and understood both sides.

An interesting remark was spoken during the introduction by Allen Blewitt, CEO of ACCA. He said that one of their studies revealed that female entrepreneurs tended to perform better. One explanation he suggested was probably the fact that females in general are better people managers!

Again this is the beginning of a trend that we see appearing. Some universities have started to provide programs to educate people across the board. Take for example the Exeter University program where ACCA played an active role.

We believe that when the finance profession starts to understand the levers of values that HR and specifically talent management are providing, they will only have one option: devote more attention to talent management!

Prior to asking this question, it is also good to ask: what is engagement? In a study done in Singapore, 86% understood it as job satisfaction and 80% as commitment to work. But only 62% as being productive or 13% as working hard.

So that begs these next questions: Is engagement enough? In other terms, as an employer is it enough for me to use it as a talent management metric?

We don’t believe so. It lacks one fundamental element: effectiveness.

So we created this 2x2 describing that indeed the best performers to have and work with are engaged and effective or an “engaged achiever”. But as a manager, to choose between an empty promoter and a cynical performer, I go with the latter anytime!

We are getting ready to speak at the SHRI Forum 2006 conference in Singapore on “Managing Talent for Maximum Performance”. The theme of this event is Engaging Your Workforce. Maybe it’s a reaction to the successive studies which have shown that engagement rates in Singapore are some of the lowest in the world!

I have been reviewing the literature on engagement and it is clear that superior engagement means better performance for the organization.

So organizations should strive to engage their talent as much as they can.
But what exactly is the impact? According to Gallup, it costs Singapore and its population of about 4 million people, billions of dollars in productivity loss.

We found a short intro by ISR that describes the impact on your margin:

Tomorrow we will ask the question: Is engagement enough as talent metric to monitor your business?

Often in the quest of finding the best talent, we are lured towards new tools that promise we will get even the most passive candidates. We often forget that a passive candidate is not synonymous with a good match.

A good match is way more important. So we decided to build a view of sourcing practices around two axes: X= Accuracy of Match and Y=Passive/Active.

What is the best practice for sourcing? Your new experienced recruits. Why? They are the most trusted sources for their ex-colleagues. Because everyone knows who the top performers are once you have worked together for a while.

Referrals at large can be a hit or miss and an organization’s resume databases are a powerful source if they are well structured such as Taleo’s Talent Master.

All talent departments are doing exit interviews. But how many are doing welcome/sourcing interviews?

Reminding yourself of the basics is always good. Peter Cappelli from The Wharton School where he heads the Center for Human Resources gives a simple though not simplistic reminder in a recent article from HR Executive magazine.

The key question all HR leaders are asking themselves: How can I become a peer with the decision makers in my company? In other words, why am I not at the table as well?
The answer to this question is another question: Do you know the HR related issues that impact the business goals set by those leaders?

Cappelli suggests three examples:
• “What will the culture of the company be?
• “How will we get key players in the company to buy into our goals?
• “How do we find and develop the type of talent that is of concern to the company leaders?”

That reminds us of a discussion with an executive one day where he was saying his organization’s talent is critical. But when asked how HR was helping him with that, he looked surprised and said that was not HR’s role.

So maybe we should pause and ask ourselves two more questions: Do we know what matters to our leaders? Do we know what matters and where we should be involved?