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Jason wrote about Taleo a few weeks ago, and in a rare moment I completely agree.  Actually, I usually do agree with Jason which is a bit disappointing since I like picking fights.

My only concerns with Taleo are 1) they are showing up late to the broader talent management party and 2) talent management “suite” buyers today are not “beach-heading” in recruitment.  Buying recruitment + performance simply isn’t happening in the market right now.  They are buying performance and compensation and performance + learning + succession.  They are not buying recruitment and performance.

Taleo keeps stating that they are about to move into the broader talent market, and other talent vendors have picked up recruiting platforms.  Think Authoria and hire.com, Vurv overall beginning a long time ago as RecruitMax, Kenexa and webhire.  There would seem to be some linkage between talent acquisition and talent management.  In fact, at this moment there is not.  The linkage has to go through the core HR system, something that none of these point solutions are currently providing and don’t seem to plan to.  The only thing all of these vendor have going for them is that recruitment should share the same backbone of competencies throughout the talent lifecycle.

Here’s what I wrote about Taleo last year.  I think it still applies:

I can’t tell if I like what’s going on at Taleo or not.  Hurry up already and release (or buy) the rest of the talent management system.  While the rest of the talent vendors increasingly gain market share, Taleo is sitting on the sidelines being satisfied with recruiting.  It’s hard to get into talent management (performance, comp, succession…) when you’re two years late.

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One response to “Taleo Love Fest (But…)”

  1. Martin Snyder Avatar

    DD, you hit something key with

    “The only thing all of these vendor have going for them is that recruitment should share the same backbone of competencies throughout the talent lifecycle.”

    Competencies is one word, but more specifically, its the underlying data model that places recruitment (as opposed to other TMS components) into a dyad with HRMS to serve as the core of most systems.

    The centrality of the ‘person record’, ‘job record’, ‘entity record’ and ‘event record’ set that make up the primary data model for both recruitment and HRMS has meant (at least until now) that those were the defaults to build TMS around.

    As we move forward, interfaces and data models are becoming decoupled, and its customers driving the change with more advanced analysis, portal, and presentation technologies. Today, the means are available to create tailored information experiences for end-users within corparate wide frameworks encompassing ERP and other outside and inside solutions, like best of breed point stuff, suppliers, etc.

    The race is not between TMS and point vendors- its between TMS and empowered corporate IT- and those are the competencies that will shape vendor offerings in the next decade.

    That said, for the reasons above, recruitment will have a leg up on other solutions as the core of most TMS offerings.