Improve your job advertisements by Newton Software
1. HR and Recruiting professionals need to be the Chief Marketing Officers for jobs.
Write concise, narrative job descriptions that tell the story about the position. Some employers are still inclined to advertise job requisitions designed to screen candidates by listing every skill, requirement and degree imaginable. It’s time to get more scientific and strategic about job advertisements. Put emphasis on the word “advertisement” and tell your story. Avoid the obligatory laundry list and get higher click through rates. That’s right, make your job ads interesting and more people will read them.
2. Emphasize unique qualities that show you appreciate employees.
Tell applicants what makes your company a great place to work. Free flowing artisan coffee and all you can eat snacks are nice. Gaming areas and nap rooms fine too but in many circles, these “perks” aren’t really that unique and furthermore, they aren’t things professionals look for in a job. It’s time to tell applicants about the meaningful things that you do well. Maybe it’s an education stipend, some sort of special training, great benefits or simply flexible hours. The key is to share the unique and valuable qualities that let applicants know that you care about all of your employees. Above all, job seekers want to know that they will be treated well, compensated fairly and appreciated. Tell them.
3. Make the transaction easier.
Creating a cumbersome application process is restrictive and ineffective.For example, requiring applicants to create a user name and password to apply for a job not only presents a barrier but it also predicates that the applicant will come back and apply for other jobs, check on the status of their application or update their profile with new skills, degrees or certifications. They won’t. Very few companies have the brand equity to command this type of interaction with top applicants. People have too many other places to update their professional profiles these days to expect them to come back to visit your careers “portal”. And, while this may make me wildly unpopular with some of the HR crowd, when was the last time you hired someone that applied to 6 jobs at your company or came back to update their original profile, resume or application? Top applicants aren’t going to come back and “login” and they don’t knock twice.
4. Less is better.
Tailor your application process to capture the information that will allow you to assess applicants.In short, an online application behind a job ad is NOT a true application for employment. Employers shouldn’t ask for date of birth, social security number and other sensitive personally identifiable information (PII). Most applicants won’t provide that type of information. And, more importantly, why collect risky information from every applicant you receive knowing that you won’t even speak with 90% job posting respondents?
Ask for information that will allow you to better access applicants’ skills and experience to determine if they meet the minimum qualifications necessary to be successful for the job. And, remember, there’s still no better initial assessment tool than a resume.
Streamline you application process this year. The shorter your application process the better. Our research shows that every step added to the online application process diminishes completion rates. Use applicant tracking software to make your online application process leaner, smarter and faster.
5. Communicate with every applicant.
Whether an applicant is a go or a no, employers are obligated to communicate with every applicant. This is especially true for consumer brands, nonprofits and any other employer whose applicants can be their customers. The application process doesn’t end when the applicant clicks the submit button anymore. This isn’t 1990. We don’t have to send applicants a rejection letter via the USPS. A simple email goes a long way and there are applicant tracking tools available that make the entire communication process nearly effortless.
Aside from doing the right thing, employers that notify applicants about the status of their candidacy mitigate risks and protracted inefficiencies by reducing duplicate applications and follow up calls to HR and hiring managers. And, in our age of social media and the overall democratization of public sentiment, it doesn’t hurt to treat others like you’d want to be treated.
The annual HR Technology Conference and Expo is a lot what the “Speech From the Throne” must have been like during the middle ages when the reigning monarch would lay out the condition of the nation and decree the agenda going forward. Read into this opening however you choose. All politics aside, this is an important event and really does serve to illuminate the trends and trendsetters in the HR Technology industry.
This year I attended the event specifically to connect with partners, to strengthen alliances, and to meet new people. And, while I didn’t have a lot of free time, I did get a chance to wander the expo floor, mingle in the press room for a bit, and towards the end of the show, just sit in the hall, observe and listen.
What happens in Vegas never really stays in Vegas. Here are some of my takeaways from this year’s conference.
On the lighter side
1. Viva Las Vegas. Ok, I personally both fear and loath “The Vegas”. It’s not a place for those of us with little self control. But, it is the perfect venue for an industry conference. It’s designed to get in and out of easily. It’s relatively inexpensive and there are plenty of places to meet, greet, eat and be entertained. The accessibility of the venue allowed me to cram in more meetings than I thought possible. Step into a lounge or a semi-quiet corner (there is no silence in Vegas) and you could get a private 30 minutes with that important someone.
2. Free Wi-Fi or rather Wi-Fi free. This is one of my only logistical gripes about the event. The availability of public Wi-Fi was a joke. I couldn’t get an email in or out over the free Wi-Fi brought to us by ADP (clearly not ADP’s fault) let alone try to demo Newton ( our applicant tracking software). If I were ADP I would have been steaming mad that I sponsored free internet access and it ended up being a huge failure. Given that just about every product at this year’s show is delivered over the internet, the organizers should have ensured that there was a big honkin’ pipe running to the conference.
3. You are What You Schwag. I am still sort of amazed by conference schwag. I guess I don’t really believe that vendors are going to lure, or even start a conversation with their next customer by offering free Smarties and flashing key chains. If you do feel schwag is still necessary, why not raffle off an iPad or Kindle Fire? Give away something that won’t end up as a chew toy or as instant landfill. For more on the state of schwag, read William Tincup’s most recent contribution to Fist Full of Talent.
The meat.
4.Get Ready for the Suite wars. I read one analyst’s review of the conference this week in which he predicts that suite adoption is in the “very early innings”. I agree. However, this space is definitely going to get more interesting over the coming months and years.
I detected a sense of urgency amongst the traditional suite vendors as many are gearing up for a multi-front war. The talent management vendors have gone on the offensive and are quickly encroaching on the more traditional HRIS vendors’ turf. Where they were once partners, now many camps are leery and concerned that they may be sleeping with their enemies. I predict competition for the same seats is going to get really heated as more vendors start extending their functionality in order to address the middle of the talent chain.
5. OnConsolidation: the Writing is in the Cloud. There was quite a bit of talk and speculation last week about M&A activities in the HR Tech industry. I believe this will continue to be driven by the aforementioned suite vendors and their fight to compete across the talent chain. It’s clear that several vendors have realized that they only have a few core modules that are in their suites that are complete features. And, they’ve realized that in their race to claim “we have that too” (I saw one group wearing shirts that said this) they’ve shipped some pretty “thin” modules.
More specifically, I predict that there will be strategic acquisitions made in the talent management space as most of the major suite vendors are pretty lean on both the very front (talent acquisition/recruiting) and late stages of the talent chains (secession planning). Given the target customer size of many of the suites( mid to upper-mid market), I am guessing that the most demand will be for talent management (performance, review, retention) applications that come later in the talent chain. Plus, as companies like Successfactors close in on the middle of the talent chain and gear up for a full confrontation with the HRIS establishment, the suites will continue to look for opportunities at the beginning and end of the talent chain (ATS and Performance respectively).
Finally, I want to give a special shout out to our partner OneSource VHR, the exclusive reseller of Workday for the mid-market. Thanks for letting me hang around your booth. You make the Newton team feel like part of your team. We are grateful.
Newton is modern, easy-to-use applicant tracking software designed to organize and improve internal recruiting programs for small and medium sized businesses (30-3000 employees). Newton features best-of-breed dashboards that create unparalleled visibility and transparency. And, Newton is the only ATS designed to drive the decisions that drive hiring taking into account all users in the corporate recruiting workflow. Industry leading adoption rates (+90%) ensure easy collaboration and powerful performance driven metrics allow HR and Recruiting users are always in control.
Here’s an interesting fact about Newton. All of our 300+ customers use the exact same core workflow. Yeah, that’s right, Newton customers don’t customize the core recruiting process. Why? Because they don’t have to and no one ever really complains. The reason that customization doesn’t come up is because Newton works. We designed the platform to work the way recruiting works. Our customers don’t have to tell Newton how to do recruiting. In other words, there is more than just a little recruiting DNA in the product. A native understanding of corporate recruiting is a huge advantage of Newton’s and our customer’s.
A recent blog post by Steve Boese, a popular HR technology product strategist, instructor, blogger and HR community leader got us thinking about the topic of customization. In his post, Steve writes,
“While choice, options, and freedom to adapt technology are all necessary components in the modern enterprise and consumer software age, let’s not forget there is quite a lot to commend software and hardware solutions that simplywork. Turn them on, activate them, answer a few questions in configuration sure – but the sooner solutions can start solving business problems and delivering positive impact to users, without asking users to morph into armchair software developers is really the hallmark of a great solution.”
We couldn’t agree more. When applicant tracking software integrates into your day to day without massive customization only then does it really live up to its potential. And, when you deliver customers a product that’s designed to address a specific set of business functions, (in our case corporate recruiting at small and medium-sized organizations) there is immediate impact, little support required and it’s easy to teach others how to use it.
Newton Software, the developers of smart, corporate applicant tracking software, just revealed another key feature aimed at helping human resources and corporate recruiting departments in the creation and improvement of their online requisition approval process. The new feature empowers organizations to better control recruiting resources with an automated, email-driven job requisition approval tool.
Job requisition management isn’t t just for large companies anymore. Now small and medium sized businesses can leverage Newton to create user friendly, effective job requisition approval processes. Designed by recruiting industry experts (like the rest of our product), our latest feature enhancement is our answer to the rigid, nonintuitive requisition management tools prevalent in most applicant tracking systems.
Our products team has been working on this feature for over a year and they’ll be the first to tell you that Job Approval Management is a full product in itself. Those of us on the marketing side of the house are proud of our product team’s effort and congratulate them on shipping their 4th major release of the year – unheard of in the HR Technology industry. And, they’re not done. Rumor has it (hint) they’ve started working on Newton Mobile and a host of other useful features that we know will be equally elegant and thoughtful.
Here is a preview of Newton’s Job Requisition Approval Manager.
Newton Software develops corporate applicant tracking software for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs). Unparalleled usability, industry leading user adoption rates and exceptional customer service set Newton apart.
UK-based Dylan, a marketing recruiting agency, collaborated with Tom Fishburne (a.k.a The Marketoonist) from San Francisco to create this comic. When we saw it, we couldn’t help but think about all the dollars that organizations poor into corporate recruiting and how few resources are actually spent cultivating a culture around retaining talent.
Apparently, Fishburne, who frequently speaks about marketing, is preparing for an event with Dylan where he’ll focus on how the best brands and businesses “market from the inside out”. His premise is that the HR Director is the new Marketing Director. Fishburne goes on to say, “recruitment is as important to how a brand is marketed as creating a marketing plan”.
Unfortunately, I don’t think our team will make it to London for the talk in September. Something tells me we’ll be in San Francisco hammering our new mobile functionality for Newton, our award winning applicant tracking software. Hopefully, the nice folks at Dylan will record the presentation.
Automated Job Approval features aren’t a new thing. We’ve decided it’s high time to make the job approval process better. We’re excited to announce the arrival Newton’s Automated Job Approval feature, the latest addition to our popular corporate applicant tracking software.
First, we have something to admit. This was the hardest feature for us to design to date. We’ve been redesigning and enhancing this feature for nearly a year. We could have shipped our original design months ago, most vendors would have so they could add Job Approval to their feature matrix ASAP. Instead, as with all of the enhancements we make to Newton, we wanted this feature to work great.
3 reasons to love Newton’s Automated Job Approval feature.
1. Easy for Hiring Managers and Approvers
What we’ve learned is that when applicant tracking software achieves something valuable without being distracting or requiring hours of training, only then will it live up to its potential. The 80/20 rule applies here: we want to do well what 80 percent of your users do all the time and together we will create a great user experience that promotes adoption. With Newton’s Job Approval feature, managers can simply login and request to get a job approved with a few simple steps. And, job approvers will love the easy approval process: Green is go. Red is no.
2. Ultimate Flexibility
Hiring is dynamic. Your tools need to be flexible. Newton’s email driven Job Approval Process is the most flexible on the market. Some companies don’t really want to reinvent the wheel. They have a ‘requisition form’ that works well and they just need a vehicle to expedite and track the actual process. We do that. Some organizations want to start over and create an optimized automated requisition process. We do that too.
3. Ultimate Visibility
If you know anything about Newton Software, you know that we are the ones that bring transparency and visibility to corporate recruiting programs. If you don’t know us, we used to be corporate recruiters and we understand that having visibility into all aspects of the recruiting process is not only critical – it’s power. True to form, we’ve provided our users with a dashboard that allows them to see where all their approvals are in real-time. Anything less would be…..annoying.
If you’re a Newton user, please contact our support team to enable the Automated Job Approval Process starting on Monday, August 1st. Support@newtonsoftware.com
If you’re investigating Newton for your organization, please know that we may not have every feature that other ATS systems have. BUT, the features we do have, the 80% that people use all the time, are easy-to-use, intuitive and work great. Please contact us for a demo today, we’ll prove it to you. Sales@newtonsoftware.com
This past weekend, our technical team made some final adjustments and now, Newton, our popular applicant tracking software, joins services from industry leaders like Microsoft, IBM and Netflix in Amazon’s AWS cloud computing environment. Our decision to move to the cloud was as much driven by the growth and success of our business (quite profitable) as by the operational efficiencies that the Cloud offers. Amazon Web Services provides us the scalability and agility for continued fast-paced growth and the reliability to continue to exceed our customers’ expectations.
This isn’t another one of those ‘all hat no cowboy’ marketing stunts. Newton’s product team has been testing and preparing for our Cloud activation since Amazon announced its public availability in 2009. We’ve anticipated moving to the cloud for since the beginning and our development team has meticulously architected our applicant tracking software to take full advantage of the cloud computing infrastructure.
Moving to the Cloud gives us a huge advantage over our peers. We will continue to innovate and scale with better infrastructure, fewer resources and less operational overhead. Translation: we will continue to offer cutting-edge, easy-to-use applicant tracking software to more customers with less effort at more affordable prices.
Why should Newton customers care?
Scalability:
Amazon AWS enables us to increase capacity within minutes, not hours or days. We can commission one, hundreds or even thousands of server instances simultaneously. This allows us to automatically scale Newton up and down depending on our customers’ needs. This scalability critical as Newton Software averages nearly 20 new customers a month and is by all accounts the fastest growing ATS in the marketplace.
Reliability:
Amazon AWS offers a highly reliable environment where database instances can be quickly and predictably commissioned. If a server fails (because they just do from time to time), Newton will just bounce to a server that is working without a noticeable service interruption. Amazon AWS service runs within Amazon’s proven, SAS 70 datacenters. That’s right, if you can buy a book on Amazon, you can status a candidate in Newton. The Amazon AWS SLA commitment is 99.95% availability in any Amazon AWS region. This means that Newton is ultra-reliable all over the world all the time.
Speed:
This is where our product team gets really geeked up. By switching to the Cloud, Newton has become even faster. And, it allows our team to do some really innovative things too. Most recruiting software bogs down when running complex reports. Not Newton! We leveraging extra computing power and read-only database technology to enable users to run complex customized reports instantly.
Security:
Amazon AWS has some of the world’s most trusted brands on the platform and Amazon takes security very seriously. Amazon Web Services’ security controls are evaluated every six months by an independent auditor in accordance with Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70 (SAS70) Type II audit procedures.
Newton Software has only begun.
We’ve worked hard to establish Newton Software as an innovator in a space that has for two decades purely focused on processing and storing resumes. Today, we stand, for the most part alone, as the only modern, pure-play ATS on the market. As our peers continue to drift (rather aimlessly) into talent management and human capital management, they now purely just maintain their applicant tracking modules, all but abandoning new development. Not us. We just invested in the infrastructure necessary to help us more effectively solve the problems that still linger in corporate talent acquisition departments, hiring managers’ cubes and executives minds. We’ve just begun.
Occasionally, folks will send us screenshots of Newton but this takes the cake. Check out how this Newton user is using their living room wall as a monitor. Our team got a real kick out of this. We love when people take our popular applicant tracking software to a new level – literally. Oh, and yes, Newton works on a Mac.
Here’s an interesting fact about Newton. All of our 300+ customers use the exact same core workflow. Yeah, that’s right, Newton customers don’t customize the core recruiting process. Why? Because they don’t have to and no one ever really complains. The reason that customization doesn’t come up is because Newton works. We designed the platform to work the way recruiting works. Our customers don’t have to tell Newton how to do recruiting. In other words, there is more than just a little recruiting DNA in the product. A native understanding of corporate recruiting is a huge advantage of Newton’s and our customer’s.
Newton Software, the developers of smart, 
