Taleo Reviews

Last week in class we had a demonstration of how Taleo works. I was interested in finding out what users actually thought of this product. Most reviews were positive, and I was only able to find one negative one. I would like to discuss the issues that the users had, and the positive aspects of the product.

"Taleo Business Edition™Summary: From the beginning of our relationship with Taleo we experienced trouble and miscommunication with their sales team as well as customer service. If their product fits your current workflow it might be a better match as we struggled with its inability to be customized. They improperly scoped our company from the beginning costing us an extra $500 in implementation fees with a third, outside resource. Although we pay for upgraded customer service, they insist on all initial contact being through email and often take 48-72+ hours to respond. They also had numerous server failures with no apology to users who went without service for hours and on occasion, days. They don't currently have any integration with Monster, CareerBuilder, Dice, LinkedIn, etc. Overall we have had major problems with the way they choose to conduct their business and haven’t been impressed by the product. Would not recommend."

This user clearly had issues with Customer Service, which I feel is the backbone of their discontent with the product. Had customer service been more responsive to their needs, maybe, they would have been happier with the product experience. As for the integration with Monster, CareerBuilder, Dice, LinkedIn, etc., I thought that that is something that can be integrated into the system. If I am incorrect, that is something that the company should have looked into before they purchased the product. There are other products that can do that, like Avature. They also talked about the fact that you cannot customize it. You can customize it, within limits. It's a SaaS based product, that is much less expensive than a tradition ATS. You cannot have it all, customizability and low cost.

"As a user of Taleo Business Edition for over 4 years I have found it to be an excellent product. The entire system allows me as a Recruiting Manager to modify the system to fit our recruiting workflow and practically anything else we need to do. It also allows us to have an additional career site so that our own employees can apply through the system before we post to the outside world. I find the interface to be very simple to use and to configure. Our old system required us to call the vendor every time we wanted to add a new custom field, e-mail template or just to change the recruiting workflow. After getting hit with surprise charges in the $1000's several different times we are definitely happy we switched to Taleo. They don't charge us for these changes that only take me a minute to make! I have used Taleo software as the only recruiter at a technology company and then later as part of a recruiting team at consulting firm. I was able to easily make adjustments and changes to the software and customize it to each environment."

This user was much happier with their choice of product. They felt that the customizability of it was what set it apart from their old system. They also felt that they got a deal in comparisons to what they were getting charged for with their old system.

I believe that every company has different needs, and those needs should be explored thoroughly before any decision is made regarding the choice of an Applicant Tracking System. We have seen two demonstrations so far, and I have thought about which system would be better for my company, but I would like to see more so that I can make a confident choice when that time comes. I have already made the mistake to purchasing software, which is very difficult for me to customize. I do not want to make that same mistake again.