Taleo Releases Business Edition 6.1 for small and mid-sized organisations

Taleo, a worldwide provider of on demand talent management solutions, today announced the release of Taleo Business Edition 6.1. This low cost, highly configurable solution allows small and mid-sized organisations to automate the sourcing, assessment and selection of talent. Available immediately, Taleo Business Edition is designed for companies with less than 5,000 employees.

With Taleo Business Edition, companies can significantly cut costs and increase the quality of hire throughout the organisation. A free 30-day trial is available online at www.taleo.com for interested users.

Taleo Business Edition is delivered via a ìsoftware as a serviceî model, available on demand, so there is no traditional software to buy, install, upgrade or maintain. More than 80 percent of new Taleo Business Edition users are up and running in a matter of days.

ìTaleo Business Edition has allowed us to cut costs and improve the quality of our hiring process,î said Joe Huffman, corporate recruiter, ProLogic, Inc. ìWe are facing an increasingly complex labour market that takes more time and resources to manage. Taleo Business Edition gives us an edge in todayís economy by allowing us to increase the efficiency of our overall talent management process. With easy self-service configuration, Taleo Business Edition can rapidly scale to support our growing talent management needs.î

ìTaleo Business Edition 6.1, unveiled just several months after our last release, is a testament to our commitment to our customers and the marketplace to continually develop solutions that provide value and business performance to organisations of all sizes,î said Brad Benson, EVP, Products and Technology, Taleo. ìWe look forward to helping our customers increase retention and productivity, decrease costs and increase the quality of hires through our talent management solutions.î

Taleo Business Edition 6.1 includes several new features and enhanced functionality including interview, task, event, and shared calendar management. Additional configurability options are also included in this release, as well as an expanded version of Taleoís Web Services API, allowing customers to quickly reap the benefits of easy configurability throughout the solution.

Specific highlights of Taleo Business Edition 6.1 include:

Interview Functionality
Taleo Business Edition 6.1 features new configurability options for interview scheduling and feedback. In addition to existing features to capture interviewer feedback and display it in the candidate profile, customers can now configure the interview process and schedule to fit their individual needs. Additionally, interviews can easily be added to a userís Outlook calendar.

Task Management
Taleo Business Edition 6.1 allows users to easily schedule and track tasks, such as a follow up phone call with a candidate or client months in advance, with a virtual ìto doî list. Tasks can be assigned to multiple users with varying due dates, ensuring key actions items are completed. For example, hiring managers and recruiters can set reminders for quality candidates that they wish to follow up with in the future for potential job opportunities.

Event Management Features
With new event management features, Taleo Business Edition 6.1 allows customers to easily schedule and assign meetings, interviews, orientations and other events associated with specific candidates, new hires, clients or vendors. Users can schedule or assign meetings to multiple participants and events are easily added to each participantís Outlook calendar.

Calendar Management
New daily, weekly, and monthly calendar views allow users to manage their events and interviews in an intuitive calendar format. Single and group views into each calendar screen provide an easy mechanism to check a specific userís availability and review upcoming staffing activities throughout the company.

Expansion of Configurable Framework
With a strong base of configurability, Taleo Business Edition 6.1 provides even more configurable features, allowing customers to easily adapt the solution to their changing, global talent management needs. For example, customers can now easily configure what information is captured and managed in a candidateís profile for interviews, reference checks, and background checks by adding user-defined fields and changing page layouts. In addition, this information has been added to the custom ìad-hocî reporting tool and exposed via the new version of the Taleo Business Edition Web Services API.