I attended the first HRchitect Beauty Pageant today that was all about talent acquisition systems. We blogged about it last week and received some interesting commentary as well (see comments).Kudos to HRchitect for making it happen! There were only a few minor technical bumps and otherwise was a fine event with brief but comprehensive presentations.
For those of you keeping score at home, these pageants are a series of 90-minute webinars where up to six vendors will compete for the votes from an estimated 200 HR professionals in attendance. They're hosted by HRchitect, an HR technology consulting firm that helps companies select the right technology for their HR and talent management needs.
Each participating vendor has about 7 minutes to show their stuff: Evening Gown, Swimsuit, Talent, and Interview sections. In this first one today – Authoria, Silkroad, ADP VirtualEdge, MrTed and iCIMS – all competed in the talent acquisition system pageant. I was expecting some cool creative things today.
I listened to each presentation with primarily a marketing ear, but also as a potential buyer. I'm sure all the vendors in the pageant have quality TA solutions for their respective markets, but man, what's with the jargon?
Egads. I won't call anybody out in particular, but overall I thought the sales pitches just weren't very good. Before I tell you who I thought won though, and who really did win, let's discuss the word globalability.
What the hell is that? Do HR and executive management use terms like that? This and many others were pervasive in the presentations.
So even though each vendor made their own case for:
Most of them lacked clarity and marketing creativity. The workflow productivity improvement solutions were confusing; I'd sooner stick with mailroom couriers for HR, recruiters and hiring managers (think Secret of My Success), and spreadsheets for tracking applicants and employees.
However, Authoria was strong with their live product demonstration and iCIMS (who won) gave a clear albeit not very creative presentation.
For my money, Silkroad had the strongest pitch based on clear messaging, scope of solutions/modules, little jargon and a very creative, engaging presentation. I'd give them a test drive if I was in the market.
I look forward to more HRchitect Beauty Pageants. This is good for a noisy, ever-increasingly commoditized and competitive (and somewhat anemic) talent management marketplace.
Now step it up, folks, 'cause I'll be watching.
Bump, bump – oh yeah – chick-a-chick-ahhhhhhhhhh.
Post by Kevin Grossman
Labels: HR Tech, jargon, marketing, marketing and PR, talent acquisition systems