By Ed Newman On December 29, 2010 · View Comments

One of the things I like most about the Talent Management Technology market is that as it matures and consolidates, simultaneously there is proliferation.

The niche solutions from ten years ago used to compete with the large HRMS products by being nimble and extremely deep in one vertical function (like Recruiting, or Learning, or Performance). But now that they have gone horizontal to create the integrated suite, they are becoming the same behemoth they used to run circles around.

Yesterday I covered some of the consolidations of 2010, today I will focus on some of the the recent proliferations they have enabled. This is not intended to be an all inclusive list, but an illustration of the market dynamics.

Sourcing Channel Management: This category is like the wild wild west and has grown out of the explosion of social media and public access to information about people. It is no longer about funneling people into your private database, but how effectively you can tap the wide open database on the Web.

Tweet a Job and Tweet My Job. Hard to believe but there are two companies with services focused on leveraging Twitter for job advertising.

Job Shouts: Another job distribution and candidate generation tool, but covering all social media platforms.

LinkedIn Recruiter: Linked-in has come so far that they can offer their own private service just to tap all of the people with Linked-in profiles (and I hear its Killer). I bet Facebook will follow suit.

Jobs2Web: I give credit here for bringing some structure to this category. J2W started out mostly in the SEO business, but have grown to offer an industrial strength infrastructure to connect all these fragmented pieces, from SEO to Microsites, to social media platforms, job board aggregation, to your own (old fashioned) corporate Career Site.

CRM Tools: Airs SourcePoint and Salesforce.com have been around for a while, but Avature has made a relatively big splash of late making CRM more of a category.

Reference Checking: Small category with two competitor SkillSurvey and Checkster. This is such a simple concept and yet so powerful. I have read a lot recently about how useless reference checks are, but these tools are bringing back a lost art and offer new opportunities. First, you get an electronic database of names, titles and contact info for all the references listed. Can you say passive candidate? Imagine the pool of candidates you would generate if you conducted these on all candidates before the interview? Second, if you conduct a competency based pre-hire 360, you can use the same content post-hire to compare and develop a meaningful quality of hire measure. This is an untapped opportunity in my opinion.

Video Interviewing: We are finally starting to see HR lighten up a bit and recognize that its OK to use video in the recruiting process. HireVue, Green Job Interview, and Interview Stream (I know there are more) make this the hottest new category. You think of the time and money saved from flying candidates around, it pays for itself.

Applicant Tracking; Crazy as it seems, we are seeing new Applicant Tracking products emerge. Jobvite, built around the new technologies social media. and InView built with Video interviewing as the centerpiece. Not that these products will compete with Tier 1 anytime soon – but a great illustration of how advances in technology will spur new versions of old products. If the Legacy products don’t keep up with the technical advances, eventually they get steamrolled (can you say Personic?)

Performance Management: The fully integrated suite is still being formed, and already we have new PM products that aim to disrupt the status quo. Rypple is all about delivering timely feedback, Sonar6 a performance review that doesn’t suck, and keep your eye on Talentsphere who could potentially transform the concept of Performance Management.

OK – I could go on all day – but this post is long enough. Ultimately these categories will mature and continue to stand on their own, or be absorbed in the consolidation of larger platforms. In 2011 look for more posts about these products and the innovative companies that are driving us to new horizons.
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