MIPRO Unfiltered » hr technology

PeopleSoft 9.1 Recruiting Management: An Overview

Pamela Brown — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:06:12 +0000

As any HR pro has learned from the past 18 months, sweeping changes in the economy create changes in recruiting concerns. Chief among these is the misperception that talent is easier to find now because of a saturated, supply-side market. That is correct, but it’s also largely irrelevant when it comes to smart recruiting.

Getting talent is not the issue; the raw applicant pool isn’t the clear answer. Finding the right talent, for the right position, at the right time is still the key. The challenge to HR is now to get to the right person instead of sorting through a hundreds of resumes in brute-force fashion. Having an solid, systematic way of putting the best candidates on top of the pile is even more important than ever; in other words, smart filtering and screening processes matter.

If an organization is looking within its own walls, sourcing right internal candidate is equally important. Why? These days, the candidate’s old job may not be available if placed in the wrong new position. Productivity is not lost just by a new (and wrong) person in a job but also as a result of lost productivity in the old job.

If you’re a PeopleSoft shop, how nice would it be to be able to tie these requirements directly into your PeopleSoft applications and business processes? Well, that’s what PeopleSoft Recruiting Management is all about.

General Description of PeopleSoft Recruiting Solutions

Applicant’s online experience

PeopleSoft’s Candidate Gateway allows applicants to set up personal profiles, upload resumes and attachments, search job postings, save searches and apply to positions, all within a secure environment. With version 9.1 your applicants will also be able to receive offer letters and related documents and accept or decline their job offer online.

Recruiter’s online experience

Talent Acquisition Manager (TAM) accommodates standard requisitions as well as continuous openings. In 9.1, there are integrated workflows to make the job opening process seamless, reducing the amount of time that the recruiter spends on the administrative aspects of recruiting.

Additionally, recruiters can review applicant or job opening information in a single view. To dig deeper in a particular area, the navigation is designed such that most detailed information can be accessed in one click. Actions are easy to see and track so that decision making is an efficient process.

The interviewing process can also be managed within PeopleSoft. Interview schedules can be set and guides and notes maintained online for the applicant. With version 9.1 these schedules can be directly integrated with Outlook 2007. The recruiter can check the availability of internal applicants, interviewers and locations and update their statuses as appropriate. There is also the ability to send one way messages to those without Outlook 2007.

It’s fairly well known that PeopleSoft’s TAM gives recruiters the tools to be able to quickly and efficiently screen and rank applicant information. How? Examples: applications that do not meet the minimum required standards can be quickly and easily isolated and responded to with a system-generated response. Those that do meet the minimum qualifications can be ranked according to the criteria that your organization deems important. This allows you to quickly focus on the top tier candidates first using an objective screening method.

With 9.1 these processes are made even more efficient. Prescreens can now be put into place to review and prevent an applicant from completing a formal application. The candidate will be notified immediately of their status. If the recruiter links an applicant to a job that they have not applied for, the applicant will be notified that they must complete an online questionnaire. In addition, candidate responses can be accessed directly through the candidates’ record.

Very cool stuff.

Other PeopleSoft 9.1-centric HR/Reporting Goodies

In no particular order:

All of the information you need to comply with OFCCP regulations is contained in the system. All applicant information (including self disclosures) is maintained, as are all generated system searches. PeopleSoft provides delivered reports that make it easy to comply with these requirements.
Successful applicants can be quickly and easily transferred to HR for hiring. The applicants’ data and information about the job opening will follow the applicant through the entire hire process.
PeopleSoft Recruiting Solutions can be integrated with external recruiting vendors. Using Oracle’s Open Integration Framework you can integrate this solution with any vendor you choose.
PeopleSoft delivers tighter integration with Profile Manager in version 9.1. Recruiters can do searches on more types of information. Profile searches can be run that will compare job vs. applicant/employee profiles and show the recruiter where there are gaps. People and job profiles data can be used to update requisitions making them more targeted and specific without increasing the time it takes a recruiter to complete this activity.
PeopleSoft delivers other, more generalized enhancements in version 9.1. Recruiting team members can now directly print job opening information and applications. Your organization can decide if the offer letter will be prepared in recruiting or HR. There is also rich text formatting allowing you to customize the look and feel of your posted job openings. Fairly minor stuff, but their value, UX-wise, is more than the sum of their parts.

I realize this is a high-level overview of a topic many HR professionals are asking us about. This is not meant to be a definitive guide. PeopleSoft 9.1 Recruiting Management is efficient and user-friendly, offering modern amenities such as powerful search capability and other workflow refinements. In the end – especially in today’s job market – it goes a long way towards making a tough job considerably easier.

If you’re looking at PeopleSoft Recruiting Management or just want to know a bit more than this blog post offers, please email me (seriously!) and I’ll be happy to chat with you. This is a hot topic among the PeopleSoft 9.1 chatter, and nearly every conversation I have with clients leads to other areas of consideration. The rabbit hole is deeper than you might originally expect – in a good way.

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Related whitepapers (PDF):

PeopleSoft Maintenance Management: An Introduction and Overview of Benefits

Related web content:

MiPro Consulting: PeopleSoft Services
MiPro Consulting: Resources

Study: Spending on HR Technology to Hold Steady

Jeff Ventura — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:30:51 +0000

Workforce Management:

The bottom isn’t falling out of the HR technology market, according to a recent survey from the International Association for Human Resources Information Management professional group.

Forty-two percent of the nearly 210 respondents reported that their human resources information technology budgets will remain the same in 2009 as in 2008, the association said in a release Friday, November 21. Another 21 percent of participants said budgets will increase by an average of 23 percent, while 37 percent said their budgets will decrease by a median of 15 percent.

“For companies in a good financial and cash position, they should take this opportunity to extend their market share and make long-term investments,” John Greer, senior vice president for HR and Development at Smart Financial Credit Union and incoming chair of IHRIM, said during a Web conference event Nov. 19. “Those without as much cash are waiting to see what happens. There is still a lot of uncertainty right now.”

As I’ve written about before, it’s not all black clouds and dour headlines when it comes to critical IT spending. There’s a tremendous amount of doubt and hesitation out there right now, but for those who have been conservative (from a business and personal perspective), there are opportunities out there right now that you may never see again. Whether that means you can squeeze a prospective HRIT vendor or take the overseas vacation of your dreams, chances are that if you have the cash and the immediate compunction to spend, you will land a phenomenal deal. And I’ve heard CIOs and VPs say as much, too.

But if you’re an HR software vendor, you could be feeling the pinch:

But there’s evidence HR software vendors are facing tougher going. This month, Kenexa said its third-quarter net income slipped by 24 percent to $5.4 million. Kenexa chief executive Rudy Karsan also said that during the last several weeks of the quarter, “the business environment deteriorated further and caused customers to pause as they evaluated how the changing economic climate would impact their business.”

Like everything else, changing economic times creates a different system of behavioral leverage. When things are booming, vendors have the leverage and are able to give shallow discounts as they work hard to meet demand. When things get tight, IT buyers have the edge because of the obvious oversupply scenario. It’s classic economics and behavioral psychology.

Still, for those looking to understand the landscape for 2009, consider this one more datapoint to help refine the picture.

Cut Back vs. Charge Ahead in Today’s Economy: You’d Be Surprised at Who Comes Out Ahead

Jeff Ventura — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:55:26 +0000

Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful…What is likely is that the market will move higher, perhaps substantially so, well before either sentiment or the economy turns up. So if you wait for the robins, spring will be over.

—Warren E. Buffett (discussing when to buy)

I was at the HR Technology conference last week in Chicago, and I want to share with you a few thoughts about the tenor and mood of the vendors and attendees at that show. If you off-the-cuff think everyone was walking around with a gun to their heads, you’d be wrong, full stop.

First and foremost, yes, people were incredibly willing to talk about the economy and the state of the nation in both financial and political terms. That’s unavoidable. We’re well into reality-land these days, and the question of whether or not things are going to get tighter isn’t a question anymore. People were voicing their concerns to me in the plain light of day, which I found to be refreshing. People weren’t holding their cards close to their vests; they were openly discussing how to weather the storm and trying to get their heads around how long it might last. I think people realize that everyone is sailing in the same uncertain waters.

Some folks told me that they’re cancelling or deferring their remaining 2008 HRIT/ERP projects and putting 2009 in a holding pattern to see how things shake out. I think it’s safe to say a lot of people are fearful, and when fear happens, the standard corporate organizational response is to flow into pure cost conservatism and horde. I know firsthand, because I’ve seen it in spades in my former life.

But what impressed me the most is how many said that this is the time that they’re moving forward, in some cases very aggressively. More people than not simply smiled and said that yes, times are rough and we have to hunker down, but we are in a fantastic place of leverage. We can invest at bargain prices, squeeze software vendors for incredible deals, and at the end of this financial weirdness, come out of it ahead. Ahead as a company, of course, but more importantly ahead of our competition, which is letting their fear compromise their strategic vision outright.

And let me tell you, this wasn’t one or two people with this outlook. More people than I ever expected said they are investing now so they can reap the benefits on the back end of this financial storm rather than waiting it out and hoping necessary projects begin again sometime down the line.

Sometime down the line.

While some companies will wait for “sometime” to become “the right time,” other companies will carry forward and implement their next-generation of HRIT/ERP software applications. And these folks not only will get a deal of their lifetimes, but they’ll also have strategic momentum when things open back up. Their competitors will be just coming up for air, and meanwhile the more shewd organizations will be in full stride.

What are your thoughts? Which way are you leaning as you look to close out 2008 and move into 2009? Would love your thoughts in the comments or via email directly.