Infographic: The Evolution of Newton Software

We like pictures. They tell a story. Our story is unique. Newton is designed by recruiting industry veterans to solve the problems that haven’t yet been adequately addressed by other vendors.  In short, we were  frustrated with existing corporate applicant tracking software so we decided to do something about it. Instead of trying to compete in the “feature arms race”, we focused on usability and simplicity not fads, not gimmicks. Today, our mission remains the same as the day we decided to build this company,  to help internal recruiting departments become more efficient, more effective, more strategic – leaner!

Old vs Newton [Infographic]

Click the infographic to enlarge.

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.

Customization: You Shouldn’t Have to Teach Your Applicant Tracking Software How to Work

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 simply work. 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.

New in Newton: Automated Job Approval

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

Supersized Applicant Tracking Software

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.

7 Tips for Promoting Applicant Tracking Software User Adoption

This is going to sound crazy to the old guard enterprise software enthusiasts out there. Ready? It’s not about more features anymore. The game has changed. The features arms race is dead. More features is increasingly taking a backseat to better functionality, a close relative of usability. This is where user adoption comes into play, a concept that’s become the focal point of the business software industry. The less features an application has, the less confusing it is and consequently, more people are willing to use it. There’s a concept – people other than just recruiters actually using applicant tracking software and not just finding ways to work around it.

What we’ve learned is that when recruiting software achieves something valuable without being distracting or requiring hours of training, only then will it live up to its potential (those enterprise guys call this concept “return on investment”). Let’s face it: it’s usually harder to do simple things exceedingly well, than to just pile up features. The 80/20 rule applies here too: do well what 80 percent of your users do all the time, and you’ll create a good user experience that promotes user adoption. That’s the goal isn’t it?

Here are some tips that we put together regarding promoting adoption for applicant tracking software. These concepts can be applied to just about any technology.

Say goodbye to the age of more features. Say hello to the age of the killer usability.

Here are  7 tips for promoting applicant tracking software user adoption

1. Your users don’t care about the technology. What counts is what it does for them.

2. Forget about that one killer feature. Say hello to the age of the killer user-experience.

3. No one likes software training. Any ATS that requires extensive training will only be adopted by a small number of users

4. Avoid confusion. Its a deal-breaker.

5. Remember, only features that provide a good user experience will be used.

6. The 80/20 rule applies to user adoption. Choose an ATS that does well what 80 percent of your company does all the time.

7. Shop for usability. You won’t make ATS software easier to adopt by shopping for the most features.