A few years ago I read a blog every single day. It was written by Joel Cheesman, who was the unofficial watchdog of the employment and career software and recruiting space. He was sharp, witty, and uncensored.
He called things like they were, without any sugar coating. If I heard of some big news in the papers, I’d see what Cheesman had to say about it. His opinion was worth 1ox anything I’d read in other articles. But he moved on… 🙁
I miss him. I would love to know what he thinks about Oracle buying Taleo for $1.9 billion. You can read about it on ZDNet or eWeek or TechCrunch (or many other places).
Here’s what I think: this takes it more levels away from the job seeker.
Job seekers across the country have told me how much they HATE Taleo and Brassring. Don’t know what those are?
If you have ever had to apply for a job on a company website, it is likely powered by Taleo or Brassring.
I remember my frustration with this 6 years ago… the process was ridiculous. I would upload my resume, and then I had to fill out a form what basically was copy-and-paste from my resume. It could take an hour to fill out the form. And sometimes it crashed during the process.
You know how frustrating it is to be in a job search. And apply to jobs. And all the frustration that goes with that. Now, imagine spending an hour applying, only to have the system crash, and you have to start over.
I think my record was spending 2.5 hours trying to apply to a job.
I wanted to pull my hair out by the end of that time!
Will Oracle fix it? I doubt it… but there is plenty of opportunity for a smart entrepreneur to make software that is much, much better than the competition… 🙂
Oh Cheeshead, where are you to comment?