I’ll be honest - I have never liked Taleo’s so called Talent Management platform. Over the years I have encountered Taleo a number of times when considering career opportunities with medium size companies. After the first couple of (negative) experiences I have more or less avoided using their interface whenever possible.

As a one of the talented being managed, I can see that the system is designed primarily for HR users, with little regard to the talent’s user experience. Today I was about to ignore my own better judgement (the position looked pretty good) when I was reminded anew why I avoided Taleo:

Huh?

I guess it’s better to be stopped in your tracks at the beginning, rather than to find out much later that the system crashes your browser (as it did mine) or otherwise fails to make your life the least little bit easier.

I’ve had a LinkedIn profile for a few years now. I first created my account at the request of a former co-worker who “invited” me to join. I found the information gathering process as invasive as the worst HR portal (Taleo comes to mind) and I didn’t like not having control over how that information was used. As a result I’ve left the majority of my profile incomplete, and if anyone is so interested they can come here and look at my resume. I’m also highly suspicious of the whole reputation concept, with it’s recommendations.

I have to think that in some ways facebook got their privacy features (and their business model) right, and that LinkedIn could have learned a thing or two.

Oh and another thing - I hate that they send me an unwanted “Network Update” email each week. The email claims in the fine print: “Don’t want to receive email notifications? Adjust your message setting.” Only there’s nothing in my message settings that allows me to stop said email.

Just try turning off that email!

I had a similar experience with Plaxo, which is why I eventually deleted my profile there… Every time I made the least change to my profile an email was sent to everyone of my contacts alerting them to the fact, unbeknownst to me.

“Some users have discovered that it is nearly impossible to remove themselves entirely from Facebook, setting off a fresh round of concern over the popular social network’s use of personal data.”
How Sticky Is Membership on Facebook? Just Try Breaking Free

It’s tempting to think of the situations facebook finds itself in as being an indication of some darker intent… What occurred to me when I read the above article is how immature facebook is as a platform and a company - they fumble their way from one User Experience faux pas to another.

Then, a few days later…

“We’re always working to improve the user experience,” Katie Geminder, director for user experience and design at Facebook, said in a statement sent by e-mail.
Quitting Facebook Gets Easier

Oh “it’s a feature!”

Apparently facebook needs to do it become more proactive about their User Experience.