ERP (e-recruit solutions)

This series is aimed at organizations that own an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution (i.e. Lawson, Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP) and are deciding whether to publish an RFP for their e-Recruiting solution needs or use the one offered by their ERP. Part one recommended that HR departments perform basic due diligence before deciding how to acquire e-Recruiting technology for their organizations.

In this part, weíll take a closer look at some of the ERPs ó what they have to offer now and their vision for the future. Some part of the decision should be based on your ERPís future plans and whether you think your ERP will keep up with or lead advancements in e-recruitment.

PeopleSoft, Oracle and SAP all have fairly mature human capital management (HCM) components to their software. Each has more recently developed e-recruitment modules as part of their e-HCM packages. None has had a Web-based, reasonably comprehensive solution available longer than a few months, whereas tier one e-recruit vendors like RecruitSoft, Peopleclick, Hire.com and BrassRing have, for three years or more. It stands to reason then that the e-Recruit specific or ìpoint solutionsî vendors are likely to offer better featured, more robust and more bug-free solutions at this stage of the game.

The ERP vendors donít often deny this (junior sales types might stick to the lines theyíre given, but seasoned vets will speak more frankly). Where ERPs have the advantage is integration, pricing and momentum. Itís true that top e-recruit vendors can integrate their solutions with your ERP software. And, if you have the patience and money, they can often integrate at numerous points and make most things seamless. Nevertheless, they must concede that ERPs, by default, have the advantage in offering seamless integration.

Another advantage ERPs exploit is there ability to play with the price they charge for their e-recruit tools. PeopleSoft, for example, bundles some e-Recruit components into the license of its other HCM software. HR departments often learn that they already ìownî e-Recruit software when they approach their IT or procurement departments on the topic. Thus, the HR department may find they only have to purchase a fraction of what they expected. This sometimes makes the process much more convenient, cheaper, and less time consuming. And, as per Part One, gives the ERP vendor a head start with the CFO and CIO, if not necessarily the HR department.

Iíve looked at PeopleSoft and Oracleís latest e-Recruit modules and have also learned what they have planned for the future. I was impressed with both vendors. In Oracleís case, it has built a globally capable, Web-based e-Recruit solution that is available and already deployed with customers. More impressive is its vision of what I would call ìtotal workforce managementî, for the future. Iíve checked my impressions of Oracle (iRecruit) against those of my colleagues at the Talent Market Group and theyíre at least as impressed as I am.

My main caveat at this time is Oracleís lack of screening and sorting tools. iRecruit is one of a very few top solutions that you cannot build pre-screening questionnaires into on a requisition-by-requisition basis to eliminate or rank applicants as they come in off the Web. Its search tools are powerful (Oracle after all) but they lack intelligence. You can perform field searches against your profiled talent pool and key word searches against unstructured documents (resumes, cover letters) but there are no advanced A.I. type tools, nor can you use a job requisition or model resume as search parameters. Oracle is presently working on adding the questionnaire feature. Until itís in place, I would caution an HR department that is flooded with resumes to be careful in selecting it.

PeopleSoft has had its Web-based e-Recruit solution available longer than Oracleís iRecruit. It is currently being deployed in hundreds of organizations. Until very recently, though, it was difficult to get reference clients from them. I have participated in several large conference calls over the past few months in which companies and government departments across North America have discussed their experiences in implementing eRecruit. Frankly, the comments made in these calls were enough to scare me, and the clients Iím working with. Many users experienced serious difficulties implementing the software and had encountered numerous bugs. Others found that unless they had other PeopleSoft HCM modules implemented and operational, e-Recruit would not work properly.

Since then, Iíve had the opportunity to meet with PeopleSoft on a few occasions and my worries have abated to some degree. For starters, it now offers a list of reference clients and is willing to connect you with representatives from those organizations. Second, it can now demonstrate that eRecruit compares with tier-one point solutions in terms of its major functionality. Like Oracle, however, its vision for the future of the product is the more impressive element.

PeopleSoft plans to release version 8.8 of eRecruit in December. It will add job agents for applicants and enhance existing functionality for interview scheduling, resume indexing, workflow, and for posting job requisitions. eRecruit already offers good screening and sorting tools, good skills capture that is tied to its competencies tool and an excellent employee referral plan (ERP) component.

Candidates experience an easy to use profile builder that lets them extract information from their resumes into the profile fields for faster completion of the application process. eRecruit also offers hiring managers and recruiters the ability to perform powerful searches against the talent pool (using the Verity search engine) and they can use their job descriptions as search parameters. I like PeopleSoftís portal-like interface for hiring mangers (Managerís Desktop, sold separately) and its personalized on-line help tool that can be built on and searched so that it can perform an HR knowledge management role.

PeopleSoftís vision for the future of eRecruit, like Oracleís is encouraging. PeopleSoft plans to integrate its interview module with Outlook and Notes mail systems. More importantly, it will further integrate workforce analytics with recruiting and vendor management (for the temporary/contingent workforce) with eRecruit (for permanent hiring). PeopleSoft also plans to introduce more tools to support their clientsí talent relationship management (TRM) efforts.

In speaking with Oracle and PeopleSoft, I got the sense that it doesnít reckon itíll have much competition in the e-Recruit arena long-term. Whether this means it plans to win through superior technology and better service or by creative pricing and other tactics is anybodyís guess. It seems to me it holds many of the cards already and will hold more (at least where the installed ERP segment of the market is concerned) when its e-Recruit solutions improve. The only wildcard in favor of pure play e-Recruit point solutions may be the rapid adoption of Web Services architectures and .Net/J2EE. If these technologies spread rapidly so that integration becomes a real non-issue, it could spark a trend in which consumers choose best-in-class point solutions for everything, and build their own ERP solutions in that fashion.

In the short-term, tier-one point solutions are still the better pick if itís mainly experience, functionality and service youíre after. In the longer-term, point solutions may need to evolve to become enterprise HCM solutions providers. In doing so, they will be able to solve an HR departmentís problems more holistically while staying away from the complexities and interoperability problems that plague organizationsí management of ERP systems. Peopleclick, Workstream and others have started down this route, though none are close yet. A smaller player, NuView systems, is further along for the small to mid-market.

A segment of the talent management solutions industry that may be unaffected by the rise of the ERPs is the job board/ATS segment. Monster Office HQ, HotJobs/SoftShoe and Workopolis are poised to capture a big segment of the market by tying their popular job boards to backend talent management functionality. More about that in part three.

Allan Schweyer
aschweyer@hr.com
www.hr.com

Allan Schweyer has been involved in Internet recruiting since 1994 when he pioneered e-recruitment solutions for Human Resources Development Canada. From 1995 to 1999, Allan directed the award-winning National Graduate Register, Campus WorkLink and SkillNet.ca programs with Industry Canada, which introduced the concepts of applicant tracking and advanced screening to job boards and ìcareer networksî to job seekers. In 1999, Allan formed the On-line Recruitersí Association of Canada. In 2000 and 2001, he worked with Cahners Business Information in Boston to build information portals for technical professionals and attended graduate school at Harvard University. Allan currently consults with large organizations on HR strategies and specializes in e-recruitment projects. He is a senior researcher and analyst with HR.com and the guest editor of the HR.com staffing vertical.