At Newton Software we’re passionate about recruiting. We’ve been members of the recruiting community for over a decade and what motivates us day in and day out is continuously learning about and trying new things. This is why we created NED, a series of web-based discussions, that showcase recruiting industry influencers and innovators who share their tips, tools, techniques and knowledge with our diverse audience.
Whether you’re a recruiter, HR professional, business leader or someone generally interested in talent acquisition, we provide valuable information relevant to the business of recruiting.
In this installment of The Proactive Employer with Dr. Stephanie Thomas we’ll be discussing recruiting technology with guest Joel Passen. Joel is the Vice President of Marketing with Newton Software. Topics include: Recruiting software best practices, EEO and OFCCP compliance, and statistical analysis of recruiting and hiring practices.
About Newton: Newton Software is a leading provider of on-demand applicant tracking and recruiting software solutions. Newton software delivers an easy to use, fast-to-deploy, affordable solution for creating, managing and improving corporate recruiting programs with no hardware to buy or software to license. Featuring the most modern, intuitive application on the market, Newton is not only pushing the boundaries on how recruiting software is designed, it’s also changing the way business software is delivered and purchased. Newton is not just another recruiting tool-kit. Rather, it’s an application that works like recruiting works from day one- no massive customization required. Requiring very little training to get started, Newton can be activated in less than 48 hours and implementation is always free. Tiered pricing, no long term contracts, no hidden costs and free seats for standard users all make purchasing Newton hassle-free – a unique experience in the HR Technology space.
Join Matt and Joel for an internet WebMingle and open discussion on Friday, December 8th at 1:00pm CST. It’s sure to be a lively talk covering topics ranging from evidence of the improving recruiting market, to emerging trends in the recruiting software space. This is a live broadcast and you are invited call in during the show to ask Joel questions.
As the leading HR Systems consulting firm, HRchitect created this weekly WebMingle to provide some insight into the puzzling world of HR technology. Matt Lafata, VP of Sales & Marketing at HRchitect hosts these weekly broadcasts and Tiffany Appleby, Director of Marketing & Corporate Communications serves as Program Director for the WebMingle.
Newton Software, a startup building innovative, easy-to-use, applicant tracking software, presented to a packed house last night at DLA Piper’s Silicon Valley headquarters. The event, a monthly showcase of new technology startups, drew a diverse crowd of Silicon Valley engineers, business people, vendors, lawyers and venture capitalists. Newton was among the 4 lucky startup companies selected to demo their applications this month.
As the co-founders of Newton led the audience through a short demo of their product, it became evident that design and usability are indeed the knockout features of their system. Newton is designed to help you organize and manage your corporate recruiting program so nothing slips through the cracks. When you sign up for one of their affordable pricing plans, you’ll receive a fully branded careers page, free job advertising, an easy-to-use collaboration platform, and amazingly powerful, real-time analytics dashboard all the same day.
Newton’s VP of Marketing, Joel Passen, emphasized that Newton requires very little training to get started and that you can be up and running the same day you sign up for the service. During the demonstration, Joel took attendees through a 30 second mock training of Newton to emphasize Newton’s ease of use. “If you like the candidate, press the green button. If you don’t wish to continue with an applicant, push the red button. Green means go. Red is no. It doesn’t get much simpler than that”, chimed Passen.
While the founders started the company in January of 2009, they’ve been developing and improving Newton since 2004. Originally conceived to run a recruiting services business, Newton has been deployed to thousands of users prior to the official launch of the company. The current version of Newton is designed for corporations, mainly small and medium sized businesses, to manage internal hiring programs. The founders say they are working on a version for recruitment outsourcers that may be ready for release as soon as Q1 2010.
So what can Newton customers expect to see before the end of the year? Steve Hazleton, Newton’s CEO and Head of Products, promises his design team has been anything but complacent lately. “We’ll be shipping a feature later this month that’ll significantly improve the applicant experience while also allowing recruiters to be more efficient. And, for companies that need to track EEO information, we’re releasing the industry’s most advanced EEO/OFCCP compliance and reporting feature before the end of the year.”, said Hazelton in a post-demo interview. Hazelton also hinted at an extensive roadmap that will feature additional thoughtful features designed to continuously improve recruiting and to constantly enhance the applicant experience.
We are proud to have been selected to present at the Silicon Valley New Tech MeetUp on Tuesday, November 3rd. Joel Passen, our VP of Marketing, will lead entrepreneurs, investors, bloggers, and tech enthusiasts on a 5 minute live tour of Newton, our popular applicant tracking software. Our team will also be fielding questions following the presentation.
The Silicon Valley New Tech Meetup is a series of monthly events for techies, recruiters, investors, journalists and anyone else who just wants to see the hottest new technology in the Valley up close and personal. At 4,200 Members strong and growing, the Silicon Valley NewTech Meetup, is one of the largest Meetup groups in the country.
Come join Newton Software and others for an hour of exciting tech demos. Afterwords enjoy a full hour of networking including free pizza donated by gracious hosts DLA Piper.
Details:
When: Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
Where: Palo Alto, DLA Piper 2000 University Ave, Palo Alto, CA
How to attend: It’s FREE!! Join the Silicon Valley New Tech Group. Follow this link, http://bit.ly/D5Jr8
Joel Passen, Newton Software’s VP of Marketing addressing the members of the Silicon Valley NCHRA
Last week we joined the Silicon Valley chapter of the NCHRA at Hakone Gardens in Saratoga, CA. The evening event billed as the Summer Social brought together members of the regional HR community including some interesting guest speakers and local vendors.
We want to quickly share some of our takeaways from the event.
Project Hired is a great organization and it’s time to get involved
For those of you not familiar with Project Hired, it’s time to learn more about them. Project Hired’s mission is to assist individuals with disabilities to gain and sustain employment, in partnership with businesses and the community. During the event a Project Hired alumni explained how the program not only helped him find the confidence to look for a new job after a debilitating accident but, also how Project Hired’s placement service helped him find a great job. For more information about volunteering opportunities visit Project Hired at: http://www.projecthired.org/volunteer_how.html
Recruitment outsourcing is alive and growing
Recruitment outsourcing seems to be gaining momentum. At the NCHRA event last week, I met representatives from 3 recruitment outsourcing companies. In years past, I knew of only 1 or 2 companies in the Bay Area providing RPO services. While the space still seems pretty fragmented (every RPO has a different focus), more and more of these firms are emerging to offer creative recruiting services to customers of all sizes. This is definitely a segment to watch as recruiting once again becomes a front-burner issue.
HR professionals are hungry for metrics
Throughout the evening, we presented a live demo of our latest release of Newton’s real-time performance management / analytics platform. It was amazing how many folks we had come up and ask questions about the product. Based on the response, it is evident that HR people are hungry for metrics that can help them make decisions and improve the service they offer their internal customers. We appreciated all the attention, feedback, and suggestions for future metrics to capture.
Join the members of the Santa Clara Regional (Silicon Valley) Chapter of the NCHRA and Newton Software for an evening of great food, networking and prizes. Get reacquainted with old friends and network with other HR Professionals at the beautiful and renowned Hakone Estate and Gardens. We are expecting nearly 100 HR professionals from all over Silicon Valley. Space is limited. Make your reservations now.
Open to members and non-members:
Where and When
Thursday, September 17th 5:30 - 9:00pm
Hakone Estate and Gardens
21000 Big Basin Way
Saratoga, CA 95070 http://www.hakone.com/
Silent Auction
A portion of the evening’s proceeds will be donated to Project Hired, a non-profit dedicated to assisting individuals with disabilities to gain and sustain employment.
Prizes
Come to the event and enter a drawing to win a free annual subscription to Newton’s web-based applicant tracking software. The prize includes free activation, free training and free support – everything’s included, even free job advertising.
We want to thank the people that gave us feedback this week after SF New Tech. And, we want to give a special thanks to Loren Cheng who works on the PayPal Platform Product Management team and writes for X.com. On his blog “Geek out With Us” he wrote a review of our recent Newton demo.
Here’s an excerpt.
“Their software looked like a fairly run-of-the-mill (but cleanly designed) process control package — calendars, candidates, blah blah –until they got to the metrics: buttery smooth graphic representations of data sliceable in lots of different ways to figure out where your candidates stalled or fell out. The power of Flex. Who knew recruiting software could be sexy?”
So, thanks Loren and cheers to you! We knew recruiting software could be sexy.
We had a great time at SF New Tech this week though our presentation started off a little bumpy. Someone disconnected our internet connection before we got on stage. In the video, you can see Steve lean over and mouth, “we don’t have a connection”. You may be able to hear people yell for me to tell jokes. I didn’t. Truth is, the delay loosened me up a bit. And a man I consider to be wise, once told me, “don’t make comments or jokes when you don’t know who in the audience you are going to offend.” I survived. Watch the video and see for yourself. Add a comment to tell us what you think.
If you are interested in technology, SF New Tech is a good event supported by an enthusiastic community. Cheers Myles!
Steve Hazelton presenting to the Boston Area Cloud Computing Group
Our recent trip to Boston was a great opportunity to speak with several prospective clients and to address the Boston Area Cloud Computing Group. Steve, Newton’s chief product officer spent nearly 30 minutes addressing a packed house at Microsoft’s Waltham campus on Monday night. Offering a unique perspective on why we have chosen to forego the cloud for now, Steve kept the crowd intrigued with his recount of Newton’s recent evaluation of Amazon’s cloud computing services and the challenges specifically around what he referred to as environmental variability. As Steve put it, “We have every intention of utilizing the cloud in the future but, we could not with 100% certainty, ensure that our customers would not see some amount of service interruption had we made the decision to go with AWS.” “Furthermore, reliability is one of our core business tenants and just can’t be compromised at any cost.”
Due to time constraints, we were not able to demonstrate Newton’s online recruiting software to the attendees but, Steve did deliver well received remarks regarding our business model and specifically how we are making business software easier to buy, activate, and use.
Thank you Wayne Pauley, Matt Rudnick and the entire Boston Area Cloud Computing community for being such gracious hosts. We look forward to returning to Boston soon.
