Looking for a job can suck. It can suck quite a bit, especially if you are unemployed and need basic things… like money.

But what I find frustrating even more is that outsourced talent management companies haven’t quite figured out how to make the application process convenient to the job seeker. Companies like Taleo and Kenexa (formerly Brassring) have these great systems… for companies.

Kenexa looks like it was designed 10 years ago on an aging platform that has long been put behind a barn ready for execution and disposal. However if you go to Kenexa.com, you are introduced to this slick looking interface that is sleek and sexy. And speaking from experience of a person who has worked inside a company that used it – it blows. I don’t know if it is driven by user-filters or some kind of monkey who cuts words out of the job requisition and then compares them to resumes submitted but just getting a resume seen appears to be close to impossible. And if the company isn’t smart enough, you’ll never hear another peep. No – sorry, this job was filled. Not even a “thanks for your submission but you suck.”

This isn’t all Kenexa’s problem. Some of it comes down to those same monkeys that run the so-called “human resources” department. Yes, those loveable fools who get to hear us nag  them about fun topics like ’sexual harassment’ and the guy who sits two desks away that smells like he sits right next to you.

Now, being the guy that I am, and knowing what I know about Kenexa, you really have to read the requisition closely. Find keywords in the job description and re-write your resume to target those key words. If you don’t, you might as well be sitting at the bottom of the ocean without a hope of getting a lift back to the surface.

Now. Taleo gets on my pet peeve list – in fact, it often makes me twinge a bit when I hit a Taleo site. I’m just tired of going through the process of having to re-fill out every single form all over again. In much the same way Kenexa is very keyword-driven, you end up having to still churn through form fields.

Sure, every employer is going to have their own “special” fields they need answers to. In fact, one of the sites that seems to work around the primordial HR-black hole are companies that have explicitly asked: “Do you have this experience in your work history.” What a great question most companies don’t think to ask. Instead of letting the system parse out the crap from the methane, it actually gives you an inch to get your resume looked at even if it smells like a pile of… crap.

Now this might not be all Kenexa’s and Taleo’s fault. But their brands are heavily present in the process. And if their end users are doing a poor job of implementing the system, you might think you would consider making sure your brand, represented by your client, looks pretty damned good.

Ok – I’ve been ragging on these talent management companies long enough. The good parts of Kenexa and Taleo from my perspective: Resume parsing. Give it a word document that looks like spaghetti and it will straighten most noodles out. But this comes with a downside – with all of the filtering, uploading your resume is a waste of time if you have to re-write the damned thing to make sure it targets the company’s keywords.