18 November 2008

Angry Investors Dogpile on Taleo

Taleo Corporation, a major provider of applicant tracking systems and a publicly traded company (NASDAQ:TLEO), is experiencing a figurative dogpiling by investor lawsuits. It has only been a few days since auditors reported questionable practices over the firm's revenue recognition in relation to the completion of professional services as the measure for the delivery of Taleo's software. This matter resulted in the delay of Taleo reporting its quarterly financial results. Since then, law firm after law firm began investigations, with one filing a shareholder class action lawsuit. Taleo is now struggling to stay listed on NASDAQ.

I am no fan of Taleo. When I joined my current employer, I inherited the Taleo Business Edition system already in place. After many weeks of bona fide effort to reconfigure it, adopt its processes, and partner with the vendor, I concluded that Taleo's system was ugly, clunky and buggy, designed for the lowest common denominator customers, and the vendor was lousy to respond to customer problems in a timely or knowledgeable manner, and the pricing structure discouraged company-wide usage. Besides, the hiring managers and my team of recruiters hated Taleo. I was happy to dump Taleo as a vendor.

It also didn't help that back in 2001, at a previous employer, I attempted to reach out to Taleo back when they were named Recruitsoft, and their sales staff gave me the cold shoulder, indicating my employer was far too small of a company to be considered a potential customer.

Here's to Taleo being forced to lay in the bed they made.