Crowdsourcing of Recruiting Advice: Instructions for Contest
Why the SAP move to On Demand Recruiting is a Good Thing
- Many clients use SAP E-Recruiting when they don't need it. The CIO says that "SAP is our go-to provider unless you have good reasons not to". Their processes are not terribly complicated, but it's the default option. The problem is that the implementation effort and support makes the time-to-ROI too long. A unified technology, prebuilt integration, single vendor throat to choke are good reasons to use SAP, but these mostly go away when SAP is the vendor for on premise and on demand.
- For SAP it's hard to innovate recruiting with 1) An installed base and 2) Releasing functionality as Enhancement Packs, though more flexible than an entire ERP release, is slow and difficult. SaaS vendors are agile, especially in the early stages of the product. I heard a joke on a podcast that god was able to create the earth in seven days because he didn't have an installed base.
- An on demand solution will enable SAP to measure how functionality is actually used, which functionality not to invest further in. Actual usage often varies from what customers say they need. How many RFPs actually reflect day to day usage of the system? This measurement will allow them to adapt the solution based on customer usage and metrics based action. With on premise solutions it's difficult to measure what clients are doing with solutions.
- The SuccessFactors recruitment solution is not mature. This is a good thing for innovation. The huge SAP HR install base is a ready-made validator of any upcoming innovations. A huge behemoth of functionality doesn't need to be supported so SuccessFactors can be more agile in creating cutting edge talent acquisition solutions.
- The experience from supporting SAP E-Recruiting can be used by SuccessFactors, if the SAP/SuccessFactors product owner collaboration is there.
- SAP can reach a broader range of clients, including those without the infrastructure and people to support the implementation and maintenance of an on premise solution.
- On premise clients choosing to use on demand clients recruiting clients with an on premise HR solution will no doubt need to sacrifice some integration, even though products are from the same vendor. The propensity is to do a 75% fit that can work with all vendors, instead of focusing on leveraging just SAP solutions.
- If the product is missing functionality, the client can't build it out. Clients have to adapt their processes and usage to standardized system behavior. They can't make it do whatever they want (yet).
- On demand recruiting solutions don't think in HR terms, don't leverage HR data and, can't enforce organizational and compliance rules. SAP and Oracle (with Taleo) may change this, but I doubt it. The recruiter-centric focus is great for the recruiters, but doesn't support HR policies. Workflow approvals are loosey goosey without the application of an organizational structure, job and job family rules and defaulting can't be applied. On the positive side, recruiters (the primary customer) love this lack of enforced processes!
On the Acquisition of Jobs2Web by SuccessFactors
The SuccessFactors Acquisition
- This is the biggest commitment SAP has ever shown to HCM since they built HR in the early 90s. $3.4bn for a company that does Talent Management. Wow.
- I didn't think it would happen, but if it did, I was expecting it to be Taleo. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for the due diligence process. On the other hand, Taleo is mostly recruiting.
- I'm happy to hear that SuccessFactors will be an "independent" company. Better to keep oil and water separate for now. I still wouldn't bet money on CEO Lars Dalgaard sticking around for more than 18 months. SAP culture and slow-moving machinery can takes its toll. I really hope we don't see a mass exodus of talent.
- Nakisa is screwed (well partly screwed). Why would SAP continue to use Nakisa when it doesn't own them and is not aligned with the rest of the On Demand platform? SAP may just leave it alone since it's an on premise solution that is already integrated and Nakisa do the maintenance and support. Only the integration is a technology burden to SAP. They would simply not co-develop and enhance with Nakisa.
- Career On Demand is dead. The performance management solution was scheduled for Q1 2012 release. SuccessFactors has a (good) product it already needs to support. The innovations from On Demand will be incorporated into future release of SuccessFactors.
- Any work done to date on an on demand recruiting solution will be channeled to the SuccessFactors product. The customer and partner feedback, mockups, and design work done to date will be leveraged to improve the SuccessFactors product. And currently, the SuccessFactors product looks like it has room for improvement.
- SuccessFactors Recruiting and Learning will be integrated into on premise SAP ERP HCM. SAP needs to have a very clear message to its ERP customers as to value differentiators of old SAP vs new SuccessFactors.
- It sounds like a channel mess from a sales commission perspective. Would SAP sales reps be incentivized to have on premise core HR customers integrate to on demand talent management solution? I think the simple answer is a lot of deals are lost because of implementation time, maintenance cost, and functionality. It's a simple matter of not losing core HR to Workday. This is a bigger problem for net-new deals.
- The CloudConnect infrastructure looks to be relevant for integrating existing third-party solutions to SuccessFactors, including services such as background and drug checks. I don't see a development platform that would enable the SAP ecosystem to build out new products from scratch. It will be interesting to see how SAP handles this if SuccessFactors is the new platform.
- For recruiting not much has changed in terms of product future. Development resources had already been largely transitioned away from on premise E-Recruiting. Whereas before, clients would be waiting for the new shiny on-demand solution, now SuccessFactors recruiting is an option for clients that have on premise ERP HCM for their core HR.
- E-Recruiting was never a great fit for SMBs. The implementation and support requirements only pay off when you really need it to be SAP. It shouldn't be a default choice. It is ideal for large or complicated customers that find no single SaaS vendor that is an idea fit for their processes. SAP allows for enhancements to meet specific client and industry needs.
Quick tip that could save you 100s of hours on SAP Smart forms
“Change is Bad” and Creating Custom Worklists in SAP E-Recruiting
Often SAP products are prejudged as being too complex and hard to use even before users get a chance to really try them out. Sure, there is room for improvement, but there is with any product. SAP has come a long way in improving the user experience of it’s products. It’s like I often joke when talking about how users feel when told they have to change from one software product for another – “change is bad”.
Some end users assume that changing to SAP products is a bad thing. But you could argue that changing to any new software can be difficult, especially if you’ve used a product for years. Take myself, for example, after years and years of using PCs, I’ve recently switched over to a Mac. I know so many people swear by Macs and applaud how useable they are and how they are just the bees’ knees. I’m still not totally sold. Even after months of using a Mac, I still get frustrated by the Mac navigation and long for my old PC. User experience is so subjective.
One way SAP has made SAP E-Recruiting more usable is to make it easy it is to create custom worklists. This means recruiters are able to define worklists with the information they want to see in case it’s not already pushed to them in one of the many standard delivered dashboards. Below is a video tutorial I recorded on how you can easily take the My New Applications dashboard worklist and set up a filter to only show new employee referrals. But remember, this is just an example and you can create custom queries or worklists based on any of the worklists in SAP E-Recruiting. Try it out and have fun!
You can this and more videos on our Resources page as well as our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/kimlessley. If you subscribe to the channel you will be automatically notified when I post new content.
Cheers, Kim
kim@ingramtalent.com
Twitter: @KimLessley
Personalizing the Layout of Worklists in SAP E-Recruiting Part II
As mentioned in my last post, today I want to talk about how you (the end user) can create a custom view of the New Applications worklist so that you can be alerted to applications that come in from employees of specific companies. Recruiters worth their salt know the companies that their own organization competes against and who the leaders are in their industry. It goes to reckon that they want to pay special attention when employees of those companies apply for jobs they are recruiting for, especially in very specialized industries and positions.
This is just an example of how SAP E-Recruiting allows recruiters to create their own custom views of worklists. I recorded the video below to show how to create a custom view of the New Applications Worklist filtered by the applicants’ last employer, but know that you can create custom views of any worklist.
You can this and more videos on our Resources page as well as our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/kimlessley. If you subscribe to the channel you will be automatically notified when I post new content.
Cheers, Kim
kim@ingramtalent.com
Twitter: @KimLessley
Personalizing the Layout of Worklists in SAP E-Recruiting Part I
In a previous blog post I talked about the introduction of dashboard worklists in Enhancement Package 4. One of the coolest features introduced for end-users was the amount of personalization enabled in Enhancement Package 4. Users can control what columns of information they see in worklists and how it is presented to them.
I recorded the video below to walk through how users can tailor the columns shown in worklists to meet their needs, how they can create their own custom views for lists and how easy it is to toggle between their own views and the standard views. This is just another example of how easily the solution can be tailored to end-user’s needs.
You can this and more videos on our Resources page as well as our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/kimlessley. If you subscribe to the channel you will be automatically notified when I post new content.
In my next post I will talk about how you (the end user) can create a custom view of the New Applications worklist so that you can be alerted to applications that come in from employees of specific companies.
Cheers, Kim
Twitter: @KimLessley
The Evolution of SAP E-Recruiting Dashboards
In Enhancement Package 4, SAP rewrote the user interface of SAP E-Recruiting from Business Server Pages (BSPs) to WebDynpro for ABAP. This technical rewrite was accompanied by a large initiative to revamp usability and process flows. I was part of a multi-disciplinary team of product managers, developers and user experience specialists that visited prospects and existing SAP E-Recruiting customers in multiple countries to gain better insight into how recruiters really work. We all learned a lot by sitting with recruiters and watching how they work with applicant tracking software, whether it was SAP software or something else. I highly recommend this approach to anyone developing software products, or any product for that matter. Sit with end users and watch how they use it. When you ask end users about how they work, they will generally tell you the party line of how the process is supposed to go, but when you actually watch them work, they generally take shortcuts and “streamline” the process. You can use these insights to improve your own products.
All of this research fed into the rewrite of SAP E-Recruiting in Enhancement Package 4. One of the key elements introduced was the concept of dashboard for recruiters. The dashboard contains worklists (or queries) grouped into categories that push relevant information to recruiters. SAP delivers five categories of worklists – Requisitions, Postings, Applications, Tasks and TRM. Customers, and even end users, can rename and create their own categories and queries. I will cover this in upcoming video tutorials.
For now, have a look at how you can navigate the dashboard and personalize the layout in SAP E-Recruiting.
You can this and more videos on our Resources page as well as our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/kimlessley. If you subscribe to the channel you will be automatically notified when I post new content.
Cheers, Kim
New Video Series for Tips on Using SAP E-Recruiting
As part of my campaign to get the message out about SAP E-Recruiting (see my related my blog post from July 18,), I have set up a new YouTube channel where I will be publishing video tips on how to use SAP E-Recruiting more effectively. You can find the YouTube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/kimlessley. If you subscribe to the channel you will be automatically notified when I post new content.
The first published video is on how to use the filter row that is available in most queries in SAP E-Recruiting. I cannot tell you the number of times prospects or even existing users have gotten excited by this feature during a demo. It’s one of those really useful features that not everyone is aware of. I’ll be posting more video tips as time goes on. Feel free to send me a request too if there is something you’ve always wondered about and I’ll see what I can do.
For now, have a look at how you can use the filter row in
SAP E-Recruiting.
Cheers, Kim
Twitter: @KimLessley
E-mail: kim@ingramtalent.com