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On Friday last week, Gartner released its first “Magic Quadrant for Talent Management Suites” report. Of course, Magic Quadrant reports have been around for quite some time—offering readers a unique methodology for visually pinpointing leaders and visionaries in a particular business arena—but this was the research firm’s first exploration with talent management suite vendors.

I was curious to see what analyst authors Thomas Otter, Jeff Freyermuth, and Ron Hanscome had to say about this category. Apparently, the research firm has hesitated to highlight this area in the past because, as the three authors wrote, “the vendor community has over-hyped the talent management suite for some time.” (And we tend to agree—at Jobvite, we’re big proponents of the best-of-breed approach when it comes to finding the right recruiting and referral solutions. If you’ve seen our Can the Suite Compete? ebook, you’ll know why.)

Fans of the Magic Quadrant (like me) know that, normally, these reports are full of excitement and anticipation. They usually speak of the wonderful, innovative progress we can expect, and the ways in which all the profiled players are delivering on their promises.

But this, oddly, was not that kind of Magic Quadrant report.

Instead, this document basically told readers to stop expecting so much from the talent management suite. I’m not overstating that. Otter, Freyermuth, and Hanscome, known for their both insightful and practical advice, actually wrote, “No one vendor dominates all components of the suite” and “In most cases, buyers will need to make some compromise on component functionality in order to commit to a suite.”

Compromise on functionality? Really?  Yes, really.

Other areas where the three authors found fault with suites include:

·       Integration (“Gartner client inquiries cite issues with the level of integration between organically developed and acquired modules…”)
·       Complexity (“Customers report unnecessary complexity in the sales cycle due to the…acquisition…”)
·       Customer satisfaction (“Customer references for both support and products are in the lowest quartile…”)

Frankly, we at Jobvite think Gartner got this right.  We do believe compromises are made going the suite route.  We’ve written before about the risks of suite solutions, particularly following acquisitions. Big companies buy smaller companies and try to mash together applications that were never built to integrate. It causes frustration and delays, and it can make achieving ROI notoriously difficult. This Magic Quadrant report simply verifies what we’ve said all along: When you’re looking for innovative functionality and ease, along with focus on customer needs, suite vendors can’t really compete with best-of-breed solutions.

Another thing to note in this report is that recruiting solutions are not at the forefront of any talent management suite vendor’s offering. That’s because none of the so-called leading vendors are fully equipped at this point to handle the ways in which the “Nexus of Forces”—what the authors call the big trending influences such as social, cloud, and mobile technology—are affecting usage. Otter, Freyermuth, and Hanscome suggest that customers will be driven to consider solutions from those best-of-breed vendors that innovate in social, cloud and mobile, particularly when it comes to recruiting. (And, as one of those innovative best-of-breed vendors, we again tend to agree.)  I strongly believe that the way employee’s performance will be reviewed years from now, or they way they will learn on the job years from now, and of course, the way the are found, engaged and hired, years from now, will not be the way it is done today…and that way will not come from suite innovations, but instead from best-of-breed, focused companies that are committed to on-going, important innovation.

Have you read the Gartner report? What are your thoughts?

Imagine our satisfaction when we discovered that over two thirds of those frontrunners using third-party recruiting platforms are Jobvite customers.  Then imagine how we felt a few days ago when The New York Times revealed a list of start-ups currently valued in excess of $1B — and once again, the majority are Jobvite customers.

Yeah. We’re pretty excited.  And we think you should be, too.  Why? Because this is how today’s most innovative companies hunt for talent. And you can do what they’re doing.

Jobvite Hire has taken the industry by storm. The revolutionary recruiting platform combines the features that companies need with the innovation and interface they crave. The result is an astoundingly beautiful, straightforward and functional applicant tracking system that’s clearly preferred by thought leaders.  Want to try it for yourself?  Get your free trial today!

We at Jobvite asked why the companies that make recruiting software and cloud services don’t bother to meet these same consumer expectations.  So, we set out to do that very thing – create the same “out-of-the-new-package” glee one gets when they open their exciting new smartphone.  And, from what we are hearing from our first wave of customers, the new Jobvite Hire delivers on this promise like no other recruiting solution on the market today.

You can read all the details of the product announcement here, but I’ll summarize the key points:

• We completely redesigned the user interface to provide a faster and more intuitive experience for recruiters and candidates alike.
• We tailored the solution for seamless use across tablets, laptops, and smartphones.
• We streamlined navigation and added other useful features like dynamic dashboards, activity feeds, scheduling assistants, and real-time analytics—so data is always where you expect it to be, right within the application.
• We fully integrated social and collaborative tools, so candidates and recruiters can interact naturally.

In short, we have launched a new recruiting platform that not only everyone in your company can easily use – but will want to use.  Our founders’ vision was simple.  Hiring is everyone’s job.  I think this is a powerful idea.  First, more and more employees can now find the best candidates easily through their social network connections.   Secondly, recruiters are now responsible for supporting more and more hiring managers to fill their open positions with decreasing time and resources.  Finally, companies can ill afford to let top talent “fall through the cracks” of inattention and miscommunication when they are considering many opportunities at the same time.  In this hyper-connected, fast-moving environment, companies can only land the top talent fast enough by enlisting the reach and timely help from everyone in the organization.  I believe the new Jobvite Hire will enable this better than any recruiting solution available.

What you also get with this next-generation Jobvite Hire is something that our acquisition-happy industry has been lacking for some time: focus. Lately, we’ve heard a lot about super big companies buying out the smaller technology vendors in our industry.  After an initial period of chaos within the vendors organization and support services, what typically happens afterward is the acquired products are shoved into a larger “talent management suite” or bundle of loosely related, poorly integrated products.  Finally, all focus seems to move away from their on-going innovation toward the branding, marketing and selling of the whole product suite. No one’s thinking about innovating within the applications anymore.

This (understandably) worries recruiters and hiring managers. While recruiting is most typically a “part” of Human Resources organizationally, it can be very different from the other HR functions.  Recruiting is a challenging mix of branding, marketing, sales, collaboration and analytics.  Recently, BCG released a study ranking recruiting as the HR function that can drive the most positive ROI to the company.  Which makes sense.  Getting the best talent in is crucial for building growth, culture and improving performance.  But, it is also the easiest business process to track progress.  In other words, if the open positions are not filled, everyone knows it – and it costs the company a great deal – and perhaps recruiters and hiring managers their jobs.

So, it is our mission at Jobvite to remain focused on helping recruiters, hiring managers – and applicants – the highest quality experience in a rapidly changing, interactive world.  I believe the new Jobvite Hire is a reminder to the broader HR software industry that focus matters when you’re building technology. Without focus, you’re likely to miss opportunities for innovation. And without focus, you’re not close enough to your customers’ challenges and opportunities to innovate in the first place. I believe Jobvite clearly understood, for example, that trends involving social media or touch-screen capabilities presented opportunities to simplify the hiring process and give candidates and recruiters features they would find instinctive—and consequently, more efficient. The ability to focus on and seize these opportunities is what distinguishes a best-of-breed company like Jobvite from the big conglomerates and “suites” trying to do everything all at once. Best-of-breed vendors are nimble, and we turn out on-point solutions.  We at Jobvite strongly believe that when you buy our product, you are not just buying what it is today, but what we will become.  For that reason, we will stay focused for you, the recruiters and hiring managers, to continually improve and innovate our products to help you build the best teams faster.

I want to thank all the Jobvite employees and customers who helped make the new Jobvite Hire possible.  We are all excited, and I hope you will be, as well, when you take a look.  I invite you to read more about the new Jobvite Hire and explore the ways we’ve put innovation to work for you.

In our coverage of the 2012 Social Recruiting Survey, we’ve covered the growing popularity for social recruiting (92% will use it in 2012), and the power of online profiles now have (86% will review social profiles). The reason social recruiting has become a nearly universal tool in the war for talent is simple: it just works better. It’s an effective way to take a comprehensive look at a large candidate pool and quickly add high-quality talent.

In our press release on Monday, Eric Hollander, global recruiting manager at Chiquita Brands International, said, “Social recruiting became the norm because it works so well. At Chiquita, we use Jobvite to reach a pool of talent that we couldn’t access using traditional methods. We’re able to turn our entire company into recruiters, and we’ve gotten tremendous results from employee referrals and candidates we found via social networks.”

Chiquita is far from alone (and we want to note, just 13 survey respondents were Jobvite customers so the results aren’t skewed by using our platform for social recruiting):

• More than 7 out of 10 employers have successfully hired a candidate through social media (73%). This is up 15 points from 58% in 2010.
• Of those with social hires, 89% of respondents have hired from LinkedIn. Fewer have found success through Facebook (25%) or Twitter (15%), but this is likely to rise in coming years as recruiting usage grows on these networks.

Not only does social recruiting result in successful hires, it also improves the quantity and quality of candidates, increases employee referrals and reduces the time to hire – making it a tremendous return on investment.

• Since implementing social recruiting, almost half (49%) received more candidates from which to choose.
• More than 4 out of 10 (43%) say the quality of applicants has improved.
• 1/3 of respondents see more employee referrals, which tend to lead to the most valuable hires.
• 20% reported it takes less time to hire when using social recruiting.

As recruiters continue to collect more knowledge on social recruiting best practices, the number of quality hires acquired through social media increases. The role a candidate’s social activity plays in hiring decisions also grows in importance. Hiring in and of itself has broadened its reach to include a multitude of social media sources as companies continue to seek out new ways to find and hire the best talent.

To read the full report, you can download a free copy here. The infographic on our site is handy if you’d like to share the stats.

In our second installment on the results of our 5^th annual Social Recruiting Survey, we want to take a look at the growing role online profiles play in the hiring process. Since 2010, the number of recruiters that always review social profiles has grown 16 points, from 32% to 48%. Another quarter of respondents reported they occasionally review profiles, and 13% will look if they’re provided by the candidate, making social profiles part of hiring for 86% of recruiters.

With so many employers looking, we decided to find out what content can hurt and help job seekers. For the first time, we asked respondents how they would react to various content they might discover when reviewing social network profiles.

The top five topics recruiters react negatively to:

• References to doing illegal drugs (78% negative)
• Posts/tweets of a sexual nature (66% negative)
• Profanity (61% negative)
• Spelling/grammar errors (54%)
• Pictures of alcohol consumption (47% negative)

Two topics that stand out as strong positives are memberships in professional organizations (80% positive) and volunteering/donations to charity (66% positive). Political and religious content skewed mostly neutral (62% and 53% respectively), but beware, they both also generated negative reactions with 18% of recruiters turned off by politics and 26% repelled by religious content.

Jobvite’s committed to helping job seekers get more socially savvy to help them connect with employers and further their careers. We recently held a resume and portfolio bootcamp for UX designers, and we’ll also be announcing the results of our 2^nd annual Social Job Seeker Survey (2011 results here) – so stay tuned.

For tips on how to use social media to get a job, check out recent posts on using Facebook and Twitter; and keep this content list in mind:

The 2012 Social Recruiting Survey Part 1 post yesterday covered the growing adoption of social recruiting. In Part 3, on Thursday, we’ll cover the hiring results social recruiting can deliver. To read the full report before then, you can download a free copy here. The infographic on our site is handy if you’d like to share the stats.