A Consultant's Talent Management Challenge

A recent email announced that a white paper is available from Taleo. It describes how you can take advantage of Web 2.0 technologies to improve your hiring process, Career Site 2.0: Taking the Lead in the War for Talent. A white paper! More information in order to stay informed and aware and upon which to base recommendations and opinions. The time was ripe to download yet another white paper for a projected review.

As with most downloads, there are data accumulation questions to screen for various demographics. However, one of the questions allowed a narrative response, "Please tell us what issues you are facing in talent management:" This was a most delightful request to fulfill.

• Keeping job seekers aware of where and how to find the right situation and be engaging enough to not only be invited to interview but also be offered the job;
  
  
• Keeping employers and recruiters aware of what job seekers desire in order to attract, recognize, and hire the right talent;
  
  
• Keeping those who desire to advance in their careers aware of what is necessary to make hiring authorities aware of their talents so that they may continue to grow their skills and knowledge as well as their company'S ROI.

During these past eight years, I've had a few opportunities to interact with the Taleo interface. I was impressed. It is definitely intuitive. The password system is painless. Once the resume is uploaded, an applicant can move through the various fields with speed. From what I recall, there is some fudge room for adding highlights to the information already enumerated on the resume.

I can only speak from one type of user experience with the Taleo platform and look forward to learning more about the recruiter as well as the employer experiences. I don't doubt that if the ease of access is as comfortable as it is for the candidate, the other two views will earn high marks.

Meanwhile, the download is emailed to the address with which you registered with the site. Since there are some longstanding email difficulties I'm having, it would have been better to be offered a chance to download the white paper from the site. But the emailed version is probably another layer of data collection and a type of email confirmation. This is also probably an accommodation to those visitors who cannot receive attachments over a particular megabyte size. Either way, my copy didn't arrive. It was necessary to register again with a Yahoo! address.

One other thing that's particularly good about getting this download is where the destination page leads the visitor. Instead of a mere confirmation page devoid of any additional information except the standard site navigation links and the words "Your download is complete; thank you for your interest in XYZ's free download," the visitor is taken to a page that offers additional information, research, the site's blog. It offers stickiness and a reason to keep the visitor engaged and informed. Very well planned and executed.

If you read the white paper and have comments about it or your thoughts about Taleo's product before a review is produced here, please share those thoughts and comments.