The Recruiting Guru (@recruiting_guru) is passionate about all things recruiting: tricks, tools, tips, technology and beyond. As an avid blogger and recruiter at heart (day job), the Recruiting Guru is a sleuth, a social media junky and an all around curious guy seeking out the next big things in recruiting. He asks the tough questions and isn’t afraid to speak his mind. Interview taken from The Recruiting Guru - ‘Interview with Joel Passen of Newton Software’ 3/10/2010
[Guru] Joel, thanks for agreeing to the interview.
[Joel] The honor is mine. I read your tweets.
[Guru] You guys claim to have the easiest to use applicant tracking software. Easy-to-use - I hear this all the time. What makes Newton any different?
[Joel] Frankly, most vendors can’t really explain what makes their software easy-to-use. We can. Newton is easy-to-use because it has recruiting DNA built in. This is particularly evident when you look at Newton’s workflow. It’s flexible and is designed to work the way that recruiting works. So, from day one, our customers get an application that is smart and understands what they are trying to do. This smart, flexible workflow also allows us to enable critical features like automatically tracking EEO and OFCCP data, sending thank you letters to every candidate and providing real-time analytics.
With Newton, on day one, you get a login, get your job listings online, do a short walk-through with one of our product specialists and that’s it- you’re ready to go. Giving Newton to hiring manages is simple too. And, it takes just minutes to get them entirely set up. Tell them to hit the green button if they like someone and the red button if they don’t. They love it and they use it which makes life easier for recruiters.
[Guru] So, you can activate Newton in a day?
[Joel] To us, easy-to-use translates to easy to activate – easy to get started. We don’t require customers to wade through paperwork or sign their first born away to get started. And, even better, it doesn’t take much training at all to get started with Newton. Recruiters are up and running in an hour and training a hiring manager takes a matter of minutes. We activate 95% of our customers, soup to nuts in less than 24 hours. And, activating Newton is 100% free – no activation or implementation fees. Oh, and we don’t charge for support either.
[Guru] Ok, so what do you charge for?
[Joel] (laugh) We have tiered pricing plans at Newton and charge for only staffing users. Hiring managers, interviewers, executives and HR stakeholders are all considered general users and we encourage companies to create as many general users as they want for free. And, we never require long-term contracts. Newton is a month to month service, pay as you go. This forces us to earn our customers’ business every month and holds us accountable. We’re forced to provide a stable platform and to continually strive to make Newton better, to be innovative, to listen. We have a saying here: “We design software that we’d want to use and we sell it the way we’d want to buy it”
[Guru] With this type of model, how do you make money? How do you compete?
[Joel] Well, my simple answer is that we charge people to use our software Guru. And, we have quite a few customers so we’re doing really well. But, I know what you’re really asking – how can we survive? Listen, we’re pioneering a trend that’s taking place not just in the applicant tracking space but in the software industry as a whole. With the availability of common platforms and open source tools combined with pure internet distribution models, delivering software is getting more efficient every day. Simply put, it’s gotten cheaper to offer better technology and we’ve built our company and business model reflect the times. Plus, we don’t have the baggage that our competitors have, the debt, the huge teams to support, the fancy offices, the tradeshow booths. We don’t need to charge exorbitant prices or charge for training implementation or any of that peripheral stuff that makes buyers weary.
[Guru] What do these new models mean for the recruiting software space?
[Joel] Well, for the buyers of applicant tracking software, these new trends are great. There’s finally some innovation in the market. It means that software is getting better and less expensive at the same time. Buyers like that. It’s a buyer’s market and it will remain this way.
As for the vendors, this means that they are going to have to find ways to adapt. The competition is going to continue to increase as new vendors come on line offering innovative technology delivered in more economical ways. It’s going to get harder before it gets easier for vendors that aren’t prepared to adapt to the new software economy.
[Guru] So what’s next for Newton Software? Are you guys heading into Talent Management or the HRIS space?
[Joel] Well, as you know, we just released Newton RPO, a version of Newton designed for recruitment outsourcers. We’ve actually had customers using this edition since 2008 but just recently started to market it. We’re comfortable in the recruiting software space. We know recruiting and there are other opportunities in this space. Otherwise, we have a full product roadmap for scheduled for Newton for the rest of the year consisting of some really killer new features that continue to focus on improving and simplifying recruiting. Beyond that, we have some plans for a new product that we’re not talking about at the moment. You’ll have to stay tuned.
This installment of The Proactive Employer with Dr. Stephanie Thomas features Joel Passen, the Vice President of Marketing at Newton Software. Topics include: Recruiting software best practices and trends, EEO and OFCCP compliance, and recruiting software analytics.
Favorite out take:
“Newton is pioneering this trend in the recruiting software space and other vendors will either have to adapt or will fade away. New vendors in the space will definitely perpetuate this trend. ” – Joel Passen talking about the new business model in HR technology: Providing easy-to-use, affordable, best-of-breed, collaborative products with a pure internet distribution model. “
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.
EEO Compliance. Make you nervous? Applicant flow logs, hired/offers logs, reasons for non-selection for every applicant, minimum requirements for every job. Tracking all of this is nearly impossible let alone actually reporting it – until now.
We’ve designed an elegant, powerful feature in our recruiting software to track and report all of your EEO data for you - automatically. No more going back in time to add missing data, no reason for spreadsheets and no extra work for your team. Newton’s EEO / OFCCP tracking feature is the most advanced on the market and we’ve designed it to be the easiest-to-use too.
Track reason for non-selection for every candidate, build appropriate minimum qualification questions for every job, ensure that you’re being an equal opportunity employer and build the same reports that used to take you weeks or months in minutes. Sign up with Newton, it’s like insurance for your recruiting program.
Newton now automatically captures reasons for non-selection.
EEO Compliance. Make your stomach turn? Applicant flow logs, hired/offers logs, reasons for non-selection, minimum requirements - how do you capture and keep track all of this information? Until now, we know it’s been a time consuming struggle. So, we’ve designed an elegant, intuitive new feature in our recruiting software to track all of this data for you - automatically. No more going back in time to add missing data, no reason to maintain multiple spreadsheets and no more extra steps for your hiring managers. Newton’s EEO / OFCCP compliance feature is the most advanced on the market and we’ve designed it to be the easiest-to-use too.
With Newton you’ll automatically capture, store and track required EEO information without ever creating more work for your team. You’ll build the right content with your labor attorney or HR experts ahead of time so you’ll never scramble when your number comes up with the auditors. From now on, avoid the headaches and never worry about costly fines, EEO / OFCCP compliance is at your fingertips. Newton’s EEO/ OFCCP tracking feature is like insurance for your recruiting program.
Newton Software’s EEO / OFCCP tracking feature is going to be available January 1, 2010.
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.
So here’s the deal. For the past couple of months, our customers have been asking for an efficient way to acknowledge candidates that don’t make the cut. At first blush, this seemed easy enough. But, as our product team began researching and designing the feature, all sorts of complexities became evident.
Some interesting questions were raised. Questions like:
What if a candidate has applied to or is assigned to more than one job? And. What if she is active on multiple other jobs?
Who should send thank you letters? Should hiring managers be able to? Only HR?
Thank you letters should be stage specific. How can we make them more intelligent?
Should thank you letters come from HR or an individual’s email account?
What if you’ve already sent a thank you letter to someone in the past? Should you send another?
If hiring managers are not permitted to send thank you letters but your company still wants to send them, how should you store them to be sent later?
What if you source passive candidates? Will Newton help you determine whether you’ve spoken with someone before sending a thank you letter?
Yeah, some stuff to think about huh? So, what we thought would take a couple of weeks to design, has taken nearly three solid months and a lot of brain cells. But, the good news is Newton’s Thank You Letter feature is super thoughtful and ultimately will improve life for both employers and applicants. That’s the goal!
Right now, we’re just making sure everything works great. Look for Newton Thank You Letters in two weeks.
Today we released a new feature that allows you to ask applicants to submit additional documents during the job application process. Now you can further customize your application process by hiding, requiring or giving applicants the option to upload additional documents when they apply to jobs.
To customize your application process, go to the “Administration” tab and then select “Careers Page”. See all documents associated with each applicant including their original resume, cover letter, references, etc.
Now, when you are looking at an applicant in Newton, you will notice that on the bar above the applicant’s profile, there is a list of the documents associated with that applicant. For example, Bobby Filet has his original resume, a cover letter, and another document attached to his record. Upload any document to store with an applicant’s record. It’s easy!
Pulling from the emerging movement of evidence-based management, Newton helps people answer important questions that arise in recruiting programs with real-time data. Simply put, Newton helps people solve problems and make decision based on the most up-to-the-second information available.
Next week we are releasing the newest version of Newton Analytics. Expect a formal announcement on September 23rd. In the meantime, here is a sneak preview.
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.
The Recruiting Guru (@recruiting_guru) is passionate about all things recruiting: tricks, tools, tips, technology and beyond. As an avid blogger and recruiter at heart (day job), the Recruiting Guru is a sleuth, a social media junky and an all around curious guy seeking out the next big things in recruiting. He asks the tough questions and isn’t afraid to speak his mind. Interview taken from The Recruiting Guru - ‘Interview with Joel Passen of Newton Software’ 3/10/2010
This installment of The Proactive Employer with Dr. Stephanie Thomas features Joel Passen, the Vice President of Marketing at Newton Software. Topics include: Recruiting software best practices and trends, EEO and OFCCP compliance, and recruiting software analytics.
