A Record June and a Map to Boot

Aside from some minor (but annoying) technical difficulties that occurred as a result of a data center migration (yes, we admit to these things and fix them right the first time), June was the best month ever at Newton Software.

Things are really coming together. Newton adoption rates are through the roof. This is a testament to Steve’s team designing the product to be easy for everyone to use. Companies that never envisioned having hiring managers use an ATS are adding dozens a month. Businesses that used to accept paper applications are using Newton to go digital with our customizable employment applications. And, we’ve partnered with a company that offers pre-employment screening tools, integrating their behavioral testing products into Newton creating a seemless experience for applicants and a clean applicant stream for businesses.

Here are some other June highlights.

• We released over 50 enhancements to the product this month.
• We signed up a record number of customers including some high-profile brands.
• Interest in Newton has never been stronger. More people contacted us this month than ever before. And, we are receiving referrals every week. This is a great sign.
• We were chosen as having the best technology, functionality, and usability in a competition that pitted us against some really established vendors in the applicant tracking space.
• We established 2 new strategic partnerships that we’ll announce in a couple of weeks.

Needless to say, we have quite a bit going on. The other day, Steve and I were talking about customers and the topic of where our customers are located came up.  I told him we have customers in places like North Dakota, Utah, New Mexico and up and down both coasts.  I don’t think he realized how geographically dispersed our clients actually are.  Wait until we hop the pond!

Steve likes maps so the marketing team built him a map of all of our applicant tracking software clients.

View Newton Applicant Tracking Software Customers in a larger map

Lucha Libre Tracks Trends in the Recruiting Industry

Seeing as I spend about 75% of my week on the phone with HR professionals, recruiters, and executives, I’m in a prime position to identify trends in the human capital industry. Naturally, through these conversations, I learn what people are interested in, what they think is important.  Next to my keyboard, I have a notepad with a lucha libre on it to keep simple notes, just concepts. Earlier this week, I started going through my notes to identify patterns.  I had some suspicions.

Here is what people are talking about now.



Size doesn’t matter anymore.

Not only has the labor market become increasingly dynamic, but the opening up of once closed networks via resources like LinkedIn, Jigsaw, etc. has fundamentally changed recruiting. It doesn’t matter how big your network is anymore. Every headhunter has access to pretty much the same information these days. Today, recruiting is about processing large amounts of information efficiently and marketing to prospects as effectively as possible.

Employment branding gets a little steak with that sizzle.

Frequently characterized by cheesy videos and faux employee testimonials, employment branding is being reinvented and this time it’s about actually improving job application processes, targeting and engaging micro-communities and promoting communication between employers, employees, and applicants (who are often customers too) to create and reinforce brand identities. In short, employment branding is getting more substantive. Traditional employment branding agencies are facing stiff competition from boutique new media firms and technology companies that operate independently or as partners to create employment branding 2.0.

Job advertising is trying to leave Las Vegas.

I’ve always looked at buying job postings as gambling. They’re a necessary evil in the recruiting world.   Throw some postings online and hope to see some return on investment.  Finally there are some alternatives.  Some job advertising companies are offering pay for performance job posting products and employers are taking notice.

It works like this. Employers set a budget for each job ad. Qualified views cost a few cents each. When the job is filled, employers pay only for the number of qualified views that job ad received. The industry needs more of this now. Indeed.com is a good place to start.  I hope to be able to endorse some others soon.

Automation sees its shadow

Before the recession began in 2008, human capitalists were buzzing about automating HR and recruiting processes. Many argue, including me, that these are the last business processes to be truly optimized in most organizations. As history shows, when a crisis ends the larger trends in place before the crisis usually resume. Automation, or taking what were once manual (paper) processes online, is back in full swing.

“We want to get rid of paper.” These words are being spoken all over corporate American. Whether it’s accepting online employment applications, integrating payroll interfaces or just generally streamlining, employers are making a push for increased productivity by putting processes on the web. It’s about time.

RPO moves the chains.

Direct-hire, executive search and staffing services all of which are more analogous to out-tasking are facing major competition from recruitment outsources that are structured to provide more cost effective, flexible services that compliment their clients overall recruiting processes. Just 5 years ago there were only a handful of national RPO’s servicing employers most of which with on-going, seasonal and generally iterative hiring needs.  Today, there are thousands of RPO’s many of which target high complexity environments ranging from healthcare to cleantech. RPO is the future of recruiting services.

Can Social Recruiting Lead to Discrimination and Equal Opportunity Issues?

Social media is changing the recruiting landscape. And while people are racing to figure out how to harness the power of social recruiting (and even define it), issues related to discrimination and equal opportunity employment are imminent. As you can imagine there’s information available on social networking sites that violates anti-discrimination laws. And, recruiting exclusively with social media can potentially lead to disparate impact. What does this mean? It means that it’s time to better understand the impacts of social media and the implications that it has on recruiting – and your recruiting program.

Simplicity – the ultimate sophistication

Our daily lives on the web have become more complex. People are looking for ways to incorporate simplicity into their jobs. But finding simplicity in the workplace is becoming increasingly harder every day. To make matters worse, many people still shy away from simple because they associate simple with a lack of power. Most software vendors still play to this fear. Their guiding principal is “features are power, add as many as possible”. This is especially true amongst applicant tracking software vendors.

There’s a misunderstanding of what it means to be simple. Many professionals associate simplicity with weakness or that which ignores complexities. At Newton, we look at simplicity as being synonymous with intuitiveness, clarity, and essentialness. Sure, we design features to add power but not if they risk simplicity. Features, first and foremost, must simplify tasks.

Our focus on simplicity from day one is our competitive advantage. We are ruthless in our efforts to simplify – not dumb down – applicant tracking software. We don’t just focus on design for aesthetic impact (it helps). We’re interested in the simplification of process. Others may add some window dressing from time to time but their beauty is only skin deep – slick. If you don’t start with simple it’s impossible to end up with simple. That’s the goal isn’t it?

Make everything as simple as possible but no simpler.
-Albert Einstein