I received an interesting email yesterday with a link to an Infographic put together by Jobvite. It is an illustration of the changing relationship between workers and employer and indicates the current average worker will have up to 11 jobs in their career. 

The Infographic was accompanied by a press release and the data was also incorporated into Dan Finnigan's presentation at SXSW entitled: "The Future of Work: Serial Monogamy." During his presentation he draws the analogy that in our generation, moving from one employer to the next every 4-5 years is like serial monogamy. But the next generation is moving so frequently it's more like speed dating.

Yesterday Cornerstone Ondemand, the leading stand alone talent management suite provider, announced the acquisition of Sonar6, a popular performance management application for the middle market. While it does not surprise me to see continued M&A activity, I think anyone would be hard pressed to show evidence that they would have predicted this combination. 

With the long awaited debut of the organically developed applicant tracking module, most of us (well... me anyway) are expecting a 1st generation ATS with limited capability that will pale in comparison to the established products. You would have thought Cornerstone might acquire some hot new social recruiting platform to accelerate the final pillar in the suite.

But this is a classic example of a company deciding to Zig while everyone else is Zagging! And I love it, here is why:

I remember when I was first introduced to the Internet at work. It was such a radical concept to be able to send an email to a person outside of my company. I remember searching my ATS for the keyword ".com" just so I could find candidates with an email address. And then I got Gopher, and was able to explore databases like Help Wanted USA, Online Career Center, and the Usenet News Groups. OMG - misc.jobs.resumes was like striking gold!

Back then the question was "will internet recruiting really take?" The issue being, should we really dehumanize such a human intensive process?

In the last 20 years companies have spent millions upon millions of dollars on applicant tracking systems. There are some organizations in their 4th generation of ATS, switching vendors about every 5 years.

The industry has come a long way, from proprietary to open databases, Client/Server to Web based, and now SaaS and Social. But even as the investment continues to rise there is one thing that will never cease to amaze me.

Recruiters treat the ATS as "optional." Why do companies let them get away with it?

Are you getting tired of the "Engagement" buzzword? It seems every time you turn around these days there is some new product with a marketing campaign that claims they will be able to jack your engagement scores. Driving employee engagement has definitely become the holy grail of any and all human capital management practices. 

But what if I told you that your traditional engagement scores might not be such a great predictor of your business performance?

Be it BYOD or use-what-we-give-you, organizations are giving more thought to how they're managing use of mobile devices.

I just finished reading a very interesting article from the New York Times Magazine entitled "How Companies Learn Your Secrets." It is an incredible account about the methods retailers use to analyze the habits of customers and then predict and manipulate buying behavior.

It is the essence of predictive analytics.  

We have been buzzing about predictive analytics in Human Resources for the last 10 years. Why is it that we have not been able to apply this science?

In the late 1990's the explosion of the Web revolutionized the applicant tracking market. There were so many ATS products and it seemed like a new one popped up every week.  The market expanded, inevitably consolidated, and then more recently it has been moving horizontally to become the Talent Management Suite. In the last few years there has been lot's of speculation about whether or not the ATS is dead or dying.

But I am here to tell you that the ATS Lives! Only now it's called the Social Recruiting Platform.

When SAP made the move to acquire SuccessFactors back in December, we all expected it would spur further consolidations. A few weeks ago Oracle counter punched and announced their intent to acquire Taleo, probably the most predicted acquisition in the history of mankind.

This is the most buzz the talent management technology space has seen since the hostile take over of PeopleSoft. Bill Kutik's HRTech Conference LinkedIn Group has created so much content, it is like reading a dissertation in HCM Technology.

One of the big questions in the discussion is: Who will be next?

Up until last week, you were living in bliss. Last year, you convinced your leadership team to purchase a full talent management suite to streamline hiring, onboarding, performance review and learning management across every department. And then it happened. Your beloved talent management provider was acquired.

When you talk about any technology these days there is one word that will inevitably enter your conversation.  

Mobile.

Everything is going mobile. It still amazes me how much computing power is now available in the palm of your hand. We no longer call them cell phones. They are now called mobile devices. You can still make phone calls if you want, just in case you get tired of texting.

While all of the discussion over the last few months has been about SAP/SuccessFactors and more recently the Oracle/Taleo deal, LinkedIn has been quietly going about the business of making money.

After the hyped up IPO there was a lot of speculation that the company was overvalued and no way it could meet expectations and the stock suffered. But with a very strong fourth quarter the stock price has been boosted and is approaching $90/share again.

The question is: Can LinkedIn sustain this type of performance? 

Well it did not take long for the other shoe to drop.

Today it was announced that Oracle intends to acquire Taleo. There has been a lot of speculation that this would be the next big acquisition and I think it makes a lot of sense. We took a poll here at InsideTMT and 50% of the respondents thought so too.

Here is the message from Taleo's CEO Michael Gregoire:

One thing I learned early in my career is that if you want to gain anything in this world you need to learn how to give. I attended one of those "self-help" seminars when I was 22 and there was a slogan emblazoned everywhere, on banners, coffee mugs, buttons and lapel pins: "Givers Gain."

While I left the seminar drinking the kool-aide, I was still a little skeptical and thought they really only meant the act of giving makes you feel good about yourself - and thus a gain. 

But it wasn't until I actually had the opportunity to put giving into practice and saw the results first hand that I became a true believer. Here is my story:

When I think about how far technology has come in the last 10 years I am always amazed. When you google the name of a restaurant on your i-phone, click the map to get real time directions from your current location with a hot link to dial the number, you wonder how we ever got by with phone books and maps.  

There is no question technology has changed forever the way we do certain things, and generally it is much easier.

But every once in a while something comes along that requires a new skill. Something you never expected you would have to do.