Vendor Files: Conference Chaos Part One

Wow … what a busy month although not nearly as busy as some of my media friends like John Sumser and Gerry Crispin who continued after my 2-week trek for a couple more weeks also covering HR Tech in Europe …

So in 2 weeks I attended HR Tech in Chicago, and 4 events in Las Vegas: The American Staffing Association, LinkedIn, The Recruiting Conference, and The Direct Marketing Association. In between, I managed to sneak in a girls’ weekend and see the most spectacular concert of Elton John in Caesar’s Palace Colosseum. This theatre which was created for Celine Dion is truly spectacular and is a must see for anyone committed to seeing a music event in Las Vegas.

Here is a summary of some of my findings:

1.       It is really hard to make any sense of this industry. As a buyer walking the floor looking for products, not only do I have to worry about who is actually selling what (because it is not clearly defined on most exhibit stands), but I have to worry about whether the product suite is integrated, unified, social, mobile, your own or provided through a partner etc.… It’s all very confusing. Never mind how well they do it , if they are well funded and if the product actually fits my needs. All very confusing.
2.       Quality of Hire is HOT. These solutions are predominately Testing (Skill), Assessment (Behavioral, Cultural, Team) Screening (Drug, Criminal etc.), reference checking, and now Digital Interviewing. Firms such as DDI have been selling a product called Targeted Selection for years (helps manager s conduct more consistent, structured hires to determine best fit). The video interviewing platform and the reference checking verticals are 2 of the last parts of the pre hire process that have just recently gone beyond the early adopter stage and are seeing great traction with automated tools.

Video Interviewing:
So let’s start with the video interview firms. Hirevue is clearly defining the space in that they (thanks to a huge amount of venture funding) seem to be spending the most and creating the most buzz, partnering the most, and hiring the most. Bringing together many people with Talent Acquisition expertise like Kevin Marasco, Kate Leeson, Scott Fowler and others from Taleo/SAP/Successfactors/Monster, they truly understand the space, the connectors and the value proposition. At HR Tech they launched a pretty cool mobile app.

Others in this space include Montage, Green Job Interview, Interview Stream, Take Interview, Wowzer. So when you are looking at this you need to ask the questions: What ATS platform does it integrate to? Can candidates re-record videos? Does it come with structured interviews or do we make our own? How do we handle candidates without web access? Does it support multiple languages? How long are the interviews stored? How many people can be on a interview at a time? What are the legal complications of doing interviews on Skype? How do the collaborative notes work? Etc.. It’s hard to judge which one is the best platform after a quick demo from them all, but I can tell you the price does vary significantly depending on whom you are talking to.

Reference Checking:
SkillSurvey and Checkster seem to be leading the way in automating this very ineffective process.. Although LinkedIn says they play in the reference space, I believe that with their “endorsement announcement“ they are looking for validation on a single skill set or character attribute. You can endorse me as a great “Java Programmer” but that clearly does not mean I am hirable. In a panel discussion, the concept of traditional reference checking was demonstrated to be clearly a “broken process”. The automated reference screening offers significant advantages in terms of cost and time and accuracy of information over traditional reference checks and should be standard in any organization still using traditional reference checks.

I also had a quick conversation with the founder of Terefic. This is a totally different concept that I think has merit. As an individual you continually seek feedback and references, which are compiled into a “reference portfolio”. This lets you collect continual feedback WHILE you are on the job, not after your departure. You have a more comprehensive reference portfolio with actionable comments for the people who impacted your career the most. This is free for job seekers to use, and I am not sure of the model for corporations yet.

Next column … CareerBuilder , Monster and Linkedin .

Debbie McGrath