I would guess that, like a lot of people, 98% of my snail mail goes straight into the recycle bin. I’ve tried GreenDimes and 41pounds.org but it seems that marketers continue to find a ways to kill trees and burn oil in order to send me information about stuff I don’t want.
As far as I can tell, I get two important pieces of snail mail: save the date notices and stuff from the IRS. In the last 90 days, I’ve received one non-spam piece of snail mail. Snail mail is the de facto the vehicle by which people I don’t know and don’t trust attempt to communicate with me. Snail mail is a muddy communication mechanism.
Sadly, email isn’t much different anymore. Yet amazingly nearly every business application on the planet goes to great lengths to integrate with email (or tries). In fact, the single greatest technical ulcer-causer of any software web-based application is Outlook integration.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that email integration isn’t necessary. I’m just wondering if email’s dual-dominance of both the trusted and muddy communication channels is anachronistic. Why are messages from people and applications I know and trust being dumped into an unorganized file with untrusted messages? Why are critical alerts comingling with people trying to sell me email lists or consultants from overseas?
If you’re like me, your inbox is more like a “what do I do first?” box. I have documentation from my product team, invoices from vendors, people trying to sell me things, messages from dad, and most importantly, messages from my our applicant tracking software customers (which always get answered immediately I might add).
Many of these messages are coming from systems that are trying to boost my productivity: manage finances, complete projects, follow up with people and track progress. In essence, my productivity applications are taking their trusted communications (messages I definitely want to read) and dumping them into a message mud bog, then trying to clean them up after I deal with them.
Email needs a redo. How did I come to this conclusion?
Well, from a disclosure standpoint I have to admit that integrating with Outlook is really hard and pretty darn scary, and even though at Newton we’re probably going capitulate in some areas, we really don’t want to. Developers of software can control the reliability of their own environment, but once you start relying on someone else’s system you start touching all sorts of things you can’t control. That’s why every time someone says “integrates with outlook” they never use the words “easily” or “never breaks” or “no plug-in required” in the same sentence. Here’s a simple guide to probably the most integrated outlook application on the planet: http://tinyurl.com/cf6dae. This is the apparently shorter, “cheatsheet version”.
But, more important to me than the technical hurdles is this nagging belief that email might be the problem, not the solution.
Actually, I’m not even sure it’s the problem. I’m just starting to think that there’s a better path to productivity than dumping important messages into an uncontrolled, unorganized inbox and then forwarding them around like crazy, all the while trying to clean, reabsorb and reorganize them back into the system that created them.
Why doesn’t Twitter need email integration? Is it only because it’s a consumer application? Or is it because they are communicating with you by way of channels you already trust? I think it’s the latter.
It’s time to rethink how our business applications communicate with the people they serve. The mail paradigm is not just old, it is centuries old. I can think of some software companies already leveraging “clean” communication channels. Newton Software just became another.
In a few short weeks, we’re going to release a utility in Newton simply called “Tracking”. We’ll release more details on “Tracking” as we get closer to the release date. In the meantime, think “Twitter feed” for your recruiting program. This isn’t just any “Twitter feed”. This is a personalized source of the information that you want to see and need to see. It will be the only feature of its kind in the applicant tracking software world.
Effective user adoption is the absolute best predictor of a successful applicant tracking software purchase. You can have the most expensive software in the world, with the biggest name and the most features – but if people don’t use it, it isn’t going to add value. Today, the recruiting software industry is rife with vendors that continue to add frivolous features to their platforms to keep up with the Jones’ and to woo unsuspecting customers into impulsive buying decisions (this in turn makes their software more clunky and complicated so I’m glad they do it personally).
We’re marching to a different drummer at Newton. Adoption is everything. When users like hiring managers effectively adopt a corporate recruiting tool, productivity, collaboration, and efficiency skyrocket. Isn’t this the goal? We think so and we’re not alone. The Sandhill Group, a strategic management, investment and marketing group specializing in the SaaS industry, conducted a study and found that the most critical factor (70% listed it as number 1) for software success and return-on-investment is effective user adoption.
No software platform is magic. Some users will love it. Some users won’t. We design Newton to increase your chances of getting more users which ultimately leads to a more productive recruiting program and a significant return on investment. There are other benefits as well. The more users you get, the better off you’ll be as you’ll capture critical information that you’ll use to diagnose and solve problems (it’s nice to be a little proactive once in a while). You’ll also capture critical compliance information easier. When you have high adoption rates your recruiting platform will become the hardest working part of your solution.
Presently, the adoption rate for Newton is above 90%. We put together a short video to explain how we make this possible.
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.
Recently, I was invited to speak to a group of human resources leaders about trends in the applicant tracking software industry. I think my audience was a little shocked when my outline didn’t include Twitter or any mention of social recruiting for that matter. I’m just interested in talking about the bigger picture, the ideas that are going to connect the dots.
I am interested in technologies that will integrate each phase of the hiring process (acquisition, assessment, interviewing, screening, etc.) so they are coordinated, connected, organized and online. And, I am interested in how new design concepts and business models will reduce the buying risks for HR people.
Poor candidate experience remains one of the biggest missed opportunities in corporate recruiting. Companies don’t intentionally treat applicants poorly. Many organizations just don’t have the resources to create a positive experience for job seekers. So, how can companies improve how they treat job applicants and, at the same time, convey a positive brand image despite limited resources?
We’ve got a couple of ideas. Here are 3 tips to help you improve how you treat applicants. And, we’ve included a short video detailing our Thank You Letter feature now available in Newton, our popular applicant tracking software.
Think back to your last staffing meeting or the last time that you were asked for recruiting status. Where did you get the information? Spreadsheets? Better yet, how long did it take you to compile all the information? If you just sighed, you’re not alone.
Do you loathe those Fridays when you have to “update” your ATS or staffing spreadsheets? We did. So we built recruiting software that works the way recruiting works. Now capturing all of your recruiting information is simple. And, because Newton is easy for everyone to use, even your hiring managers will add data to the system allowing you to collaborate and store critical information.
Newton is designed to be like air traffic control for your entire recruiting program. See all the information that’s important to you at a glance, right from your home page. Now you’ll drill into detailed analytics anytime from your analytics dashboard to access real-time information like: candidate pipelines, conversion rates, average time it takes to move candidates from stage-to-stage, best sources of applicants, missed opportunities and more.
Give your hiring managers and executives logins. It’s free! Get ready to show all of your hard work, to point out bottlenecks and to make better decisions about your recruiting resources. With Newton you’ll be the envy of your company, running the most informative meetings with the best information at your fingertips.
Since May 2006, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has been enforcing a landmark ruling that sets explicit regulations on the collection, storage and reporting of Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) data for internet applicants. It also defines internet applicants, identifies electronic data collection methods, creates basic qualification standards and establishes recordkeeping requirements for compliance.
While OFCCP regulations are specifically for companies with federal contracts, it is the responsibility of every employer to eliminate discrimination in their hiring process. It is not enough to just consult an attorney (which clearly should be step 1). In today’s world, where applicants can easily apply to hundreds of openings with a few mouse clicks and each job attracts hundreds of candidates, using a spreadsheet to track all of this information is possible (maybe) but ensuring its accuracy or drawing any insight out of this information is impossible. Regardless, manually tracking this information has gotten increasingly more cumbersome and maintaining the integrity of this data has been riddled with human error (transcribing information from one form to another) as the volume of recruiting data continues to increase.
To help ensure that your company remains compliant with these types of government regulations, your organization should be storing, tracking, and analyzing hiring information with a solution that can handle large amounts of data while minimizing the need to copy information from one form to another. As such, this solution must have these 4 critical capabilities: ask every potential employee to identify their EEO info, capture the reasons why your employees have chosen NOT to hire someone (every time), continuously analyze this information in real-time and be able to create reports that you can use for compliance reporting.
But there is good news. Tracking the information that can help your company stay in compliance, perhaps even reduce hiring discrimination, has really never been easier….as long as you choose the right recruiting software vendor. Be careful, shop around and ask the right questions because not every vendor understands these regulations (and most have incomplete applications that will cause you to have gaps in your program).
What questions do you ask of your ATS vendor?
So, what should you be looking for? Here is a list of things that you need to consider. My first piece of advice is when choosing applicant tracking software make sure you not only ask the right questions; also take the time to see the feature in action, live, so you really know how everything works. This is important stuff; don’t just take the salesperson’s word for it.
Request EEO information for every job from your careers page. Just about any applicant tracking system will include a feature that requests voluntary EEO information from applicants during the online application process. If it doesn’t, don’t buy it. A good looking, fully-branded careers site, that displays your EEO disclaimer and asks for voluntary EEO/AA information should be easy to set up and simple to manage without support from IT.
Automatically capture “reasons for non-selection” for every applicant. Here’s where the rubber really meets the road. OFCCP regulations require employers to capture a reason for non-selection for every candidate they receive. When evaluating recruiting software, you MUST determine how it will capture reasons for non-selection. This information is critical and most legacy applicant tracking systems have no way of capturing this data. Those that do, often require you and your team to take time consuming extra steps and force you to enter loads of data manually. Choose a system that enables everyone in your company to easily, accurately and automatically capture pre-selected reasons for non-selection without creating extra steps in your recruiting process.
Ask minimum qualification question for every job. Asking minimum qualifications is best accomplished during the online application process. When applicants do not meet a job’s minimum qualifications the government does not require you to track them as an applicant. Choose recruiting software that allows you to automate this process, and you’ll save time by ensuring that you are processing only the applicants that are qualified for your jobs. A smart recruiting system will store each applicant’s minimum qualification answers with their record and will allow you to remove candidates of this type from your applicant flow logs automatically.
Create applicant flow logs automatically for any job. Every federal contractor must generate applicant flow logs that record all the information required by the OFCCP regulations for conducting an adverse impact analysis. If an applicant tracking system is already tracking all the relevant information that comprises a flow log (data received, name, position, job group, race and sex, veterans status, reason for non-selection, date of hire), generating a report should be simple. Ideally choose recruiting technology that’ll allow you to export applicant flow logs into the same form that you’ll send to the OFCCP.
Create Hire/Offer Logs instantly. The purpose of this report is to record each hire or job offer made by your company during the reporting period being analyzed as part of your affirmative action plan. Again, you’ll want to select software that automatically tracks all the required information to fulfill the OFCCP’s requirements (date of hire, date of offer, job title, job group, gender, ethnicity, race, veterans’ status). Creating a report should take one or two clicks, and should allow you to export the report to Excel.
Audit your EEO statistics anytime from an online dashboard. Now, it’s up to you to monitor and regularly audit your EEO/AA data. Proactive assessment and management can prevent costly litigation. Purchasing software that allows to view EEO data online and to generate custom reports is essential and is a good way to take preventative steps against risks. Make sure that you have access to all of your EEO/AA data, so you can ensure that your company is indeed an equal opportunity employer.
Finally, you’d probably expect that recruiting software that will capture, track and report EEO/OFCCP data automatically would be expensive and difficult to implement. But, thanks to new delivery methods and even newer business models, there’s technology available that you can set up in a matter of days and will only cost a few hundred dollars per month. Compared to the cost of a discrimination lawsuit, this is a no-brainer. So, get educated, know what you need to track, kick some tires, do the demos and choose modern recruiting software that can turn your OFCCP headache into nothing more than just another thing you’ve got under control.
Six months ago, one of our software engineers at Newton asked, “Why are you guys so obsessed with this EEO/ OFCCP compliance stuff? Is it that important?”
The answer was straightforward. We’d done some homework. The EEOC received more than 95,400 charges of job bias in the private sector in 2008, up 15.2 percent from 2007 and 26 percent from 2006. Given the number of layoffs, the amount of Federal stimulus pumped into the economy, the increasing diversity of the workplace and the EEOC’s new litigious administration, this is a issue facing employers of all sizes.
Last week, the 2009 EEOC report was published. They announced that 93,277 workplace discrimination charges were filed with the agency in 2009. That’s an average of nearly 256 claims filed every day. The 2009 data shows that private sector charges alleging discrimination based on disability, religion and/or national origin hit record highs while age-based charges reached the second highest level ever. You can read the entire report here: http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/1-6-10.cfm
Statistics don’t generally lie, the trends are clear. And, with the appointment of Jacqueline Berrien as head of the EEOC, employers should expect a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that is much more focused on enforcement and litigation. Some experts are even concerned that her administration may push the commission further in an anti-employer direction. None of this bodes well for companies that are still ignoring EEO/ OFCCP compliance issues.
Many will agree, it appears the economy is defrosting and we’re seeing the first green shoots of a recovery in the recruitment outsourcing industry. Recently, I’ve read several optimistic blog posts written by firms and individuals that offer hourly and project based recruiting services. While obviously still cautious, all are indicating a recent uptick in their businesses. Some even claim to be busy.
Recruiting outsourcers were among the hardest hit last year when the economy officially stalled. “It was like someone flipped a light switch last October”, said Michelle Rich, a Bay Area technical contract recruiter who is currently working 7 openings. “The work just dried up all of a sudden.” For those of us that survived the implosion of the tech bubble earlier this decade, this pattern comes as no surprise. Unfortunately, contract recruiters and recruiting outsourcers are historically the canaries in the coal mine.
The upbeat outlook of hourly recruiters appears to be substantiated. September figures published by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and KPMG showed the first rise in new starts for permanent hires in 17 months. Temporary and contractor hours, often seen as a barometer of the health of the recruitment industry, are up nearly 30% since the beginning of the year. At Newton Software, we’ve added more customers in the last 6 weeks than we did the first 4 months of the year. Many of our new customers, nearly 40%, employ either an individual contract recruiter or some sort of hourly recruiting service to manage their recruiting process. And, more and more, we are hearing about our friends and contacts in the contract recruiting sector landing new assignments, a trend that we hope continues into the holidays and beyond.
So, what gives you ask? Why are the recruiting outsourcers seeing increased activity? Jonathan Chenard, GM of the Union Hill Group, a client of ours that provides hourly contract recruiting services sums it up pretty well in his most recent blog post .
Employers don’t want to commit to a full time recruiting resource – yet.
HR is getting hammered with resumes and now that there are jobs to fill, they need recruiting support.
Employers are looking to do things as inexpensively as possible and hourly recruiting is a cost efficient and often effective solution.
Jonathan also points out that HR groups have gotten lean over the past year and are being asked to do more with less. Hourly recruiting services offer more flexibility and cost controls to HR folks looking to manage recruiting programs that are as dynamic as ever.
I’ll be the first to admit, times aren’t great yet. Many predict that the recovery will be jagged and slow. But, there are signs, both anecdotal and data driven, that show the worst is most likely over. For the recruitment outsourcers, it appears the growth cycle has begun and if history repeats itself, they will be the first in the recruiting industry to fully recover.
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.
Six months ago, one of our software engineers at 
Many will agree, it appears the economy is defrosting and we’re seeing the first green shoots of a recovery in the recruitment outsourcing industry. Recently, I’ve read several optimistic blog posts written by firms and individuals that offer hourly and project based recruiting services. While obviously still cautious, all are indicating a recent uptick in their businesses. Some even claim to be busy.