HR Technology Vendor News by HRchitect

Earlier today, the first HRchitect beauty pageant took place on Talent Acquisition Systems. Participants included Authoria, ADP-VirtualEdge, iCIMS, MrTed, and SilkRoad Technology. At the end of the event, iCIMS was crowned “Ms. Talent Acquisition Systems 2008” and Authoria was the runner-up. The runner-up would take over in the event our new Ms. Talent Acquisition Systems cannot fulfill their duties, whatever that may be. SilkRoad received an honorable mention for most closely following the suggested pageant guidelines and best use of pageant-based graphics. Congratulations to iCIMS and thank you to all the vendors for participating.

For those that missed out on the event, here is a quick recap.

The pageant started with an introduction by HRchitect and an overview of the Talent Acquisitions System marketplace. From there, we moved into the ground rules of the pageant itself.

Starting off was a presentation by Authoria, then SilkRoad, MrTed, ADP-VirtualEdge, and finally iCIMS. The order was chosen at random prior to the contest beginning.

HRchitect developed a format to help guide each vendor on an outline of what should be covered during each portion of the pageant.  Since we have billed this as a beauty pageant, we tried to come up with pageant categories for vendors to loosely follow. Of course each vendor was free to follow their own format as this was simply a guideline:

Evening gown – To start off each portion, we asked the vendor to come out in their best ‘outfit’ – corporate overview, history, specific identity, financial viability, marquee clients, leadership team, etc. This will be the grand entrance.

Swimsuit – Here the vendors will show some skin in this portion – usability, configurability, etc.

Talent – This portion will cover functionality, technology/integration, global ability, etc.

Interview – This will be the Q & A section from the audience. 

Although HRchitect crowned a winner at the end of the pageant, based on the votes of the attendees, it is important to note that we are not asking the audience to make a decision as to which product to purchased based on the pageant alone. This beauty pageant is designed to provide exposure to a select group of qualified vendors in a short, informative and fun format. That being said, HRchitect implores anybody contemplating an HR Systems purchase that they go through a software evaluation and selection process with the use of Decision Drivers before making such an important buying decision. HRchitect quickly touched on that process during the webinar.

HRchitect would like to thank the large number of attendees which included practitioners, vendors, consultants, analysts, members of the media, pageant groupies and more. It was standing room only and attendance exceeded our expectations.

Here is the schedule for upcoming beauty pageants along with instructions for registering:

November 21 – 11am CST – TMS (Talent Management Systems)

December 12 – 11am CST – HRIS (Human Resource Information Systems)

December 19 – 11am CST – LMS (Learning Management Systems)

January 9 – 11am CST – Mid-market ATS

January 16 – 11am CST – Onboarding

January 23 – 11am CST – EPM (Employee Performance Management)

February 6 – 11am CST – Mid-market HRIS

February 13 – 11am CST – T&A (Time & Attendance Systems)

February 20 – 11am CST – Workforce Planning

March 13 – 11am CST – Compensation Management

March 20 – 11am CST – Succession Planning

The following vendors are confirmed to participate in the second beauty pageant in this webinar series:

November 21 – Talent Management Systems 
Cornerstone OnDemand, Halogen Software, Plateau, Salary.com, Workscape

Matt Lafata, HRchitect