Applicant Tracking Systems Evaluation Assistance by Mark Berger
Many of you may be going through the laborious and
frustrating process of evaluating a new ATS
(Applicant Tracking System) for your office. I know
this as in my role as the technology columnist for the
Fordyce Letter I receive many calls and emails from
subscribers asking for my advice in this endeavor.
While nothing I can say or do can alleviate the
majority of your anxiety, I have listed a few of the
major areas you should be especially attentive to
below.
Design – One thing I always look for is an
easy, uncluttered interface that is easy to learn and
easy to navigate. Some of these products can be so
complex and hard to learn that the users never make
use of the important features. It should be easy to
look at. You should be able to click on a candidate
and view most of that candidate’s critical information
without lots of additional clicking. Some offer
customizable screens, which is a very nice feature,
but most don’t so make sure the interface is one that
suits you well. I like about 20-30 data fields per
candidate record. More than that and you have to do
a lot of clicking and scrolling to get the right
information. Screens for companies, hiring managers,
and job orders should be very simple as well.
Data Entry – Most every product or service
on the market today offers some type of resume
parsing feature, which is one feature you cannot live
without. These features vary from one product to the
next. Check to see how much data is parsed into the
new record. Some parse contact information only.
Other will parse almost everything on the resume.
Parsing too much can be a double-edged sword as
many times everything on a candidates resume is not
relevant to his or her current job search.
Sharing Methods – Most systems these days
have an “application service provider” design,
meaning there is little or nothing to install locally and
you data is stored and accessed over the Internet.
For those of you leery of this configuration I always
tell people your data is probably safer there than it is
in your own office as most providers use third-party
hosting companies that take great pains to secure
your data. There is also what I call a web-enabled
design where you can host your own data and still
use the Internet to access the data wherever you
are as long as you have an Internet connection. This
is usually an installed program that requires updates
and you are usually responsible for your own
maintenance and backups, unlike the ASP model.
See Mark's entire article here...
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Hello!
Welcome to 2007! We hope this issue finds you and
your recruiting efforts already off to a fast start.
Now is a great time to check out the fastest growing
recruiting network in the staffing industry. HireAbility - The Recruiting
Network . With over 300
staffing agencies and independent recruiters
participating in our Recruiting & Candidate Exchange,
we have open positions offering over $5M in fees
posted in our system. Also now available are
memberships for Corporate Recruiters,
and Virtual Recruiters
Are you going to be in Miami on March 13th for the
2007 Staffing Industry Executive
Forum? If you are please stop by and say
hello as I will be presenting a workshop
on: Talent Wars 2007: How to Turn
Your Company into a Recruiting Powerhouse. The
Executive Forum provides access to
the top industry thinkers, leaders, and innovators, a
focus on the staffing industry’s strategic issues,
developing trends, future opportunities, and current
challenges.
Enjoy this issue of Recruiter News, which
is
now read by over 35,000 staffing professionals. Have
a great 2007!
Craig
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The Science of Recruiting by Lou Adler
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Part
#9 of 10: Negotiating and Closing Offers
Now we’re down to one or two final candidates, and
the offer process is about to begin in earnest. If
you’ve uncovered the candidate’s key concerns as
described in earlier articles in this Science of
Recruiting series you know what you have to do to
move the process to closure.
Again let me reinforce the point that when dealing
with top people, expect resistance. This is because
top people don’t look for jobs or accept offers the
same way most candidates do. Since they’re looking
for a better job, not another job, they want proof
that it is better. This includes more details about the
job, the company, and the people involved. They’ll
balance long term growth against short term issues
like compensation, job scope, and location. They’ll
also decide with others, so you not only need to
convince the candidate, but also all of his or her
advisors. This is time consuming, and often
frustrating, but essential.
When recruiting, negotiating and closing offers here
are the steps you need to address. We'll cover these
points in detail in these final two articles in this series.
(continued...)
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Choosing Wisely by Margaret Graziano
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The Shoemaker’s kids go around with holes in their
shoes. I hear this repeatedly as an analogy for how
recruitment companies run and operate. People,
production, performance, motivation and integrity
issues, dysfunction, no teamwork, inconsistency, and
turnover are rabid epidemics. When a consultant first
challenged me on my internal human resources issues
I found that I was first a bit defensive, then
apprehensive, and then frankly – depressed.
I was making more money than ever before, had my
own business, had fourteen employees, and had what
was thought to be a viable business model. I was
dealing with constant employee issues, complaints
from customers and employees, inconsistent
performance, processes that were continually not
being honored or followed, turnover, and more.
Throughout these few years I was taking myself on,
going to management training seminars, taking on
personal transformation, working with a coach,
assessing myself, trying to get better at managing as
to avoid or limit my “employee crises, issues and
drama” any way I could. You name it, I was taking it
on...
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Miss J. - Fun & Advice
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Click on Miss J's photo to email your
recruitment questions and problems to her!
Happy New Year
The air is cold, the sun is bright and Miss J breathes
in the New England winter – a little too quickly
leaving her spluttering and coughing – but boy, how
she loves a chilly morning. Nothing like it for cleaning
out your pipes and getting the old thought processes
going, jump starting the ‘little grey cells’ culminating
in a spewing forth of a fountain of ideas. Well, maybe
we exaggerate a little but nonetheless out they
come, those little nuggets, small gems of notions that
will grow into initiatives. So go on, run out onto the
lawn, fling your arms wide, hold your head up to the
sky and breath in!! Go on off you go. Come back
Dazed of South Dakota, you can’t go out dressed like
that!! Boxer shorts, not advised for 10 degrees below.
Mornings like this remind Miss J of those mornings
back in Blighty when she leapt onto her horse
Bucephalus, and followed the fox hunt as it galloped
across the downs south of Upper Boyleonthabum, the
unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable (Oscar Fingal
O'Flahertie Wills Wilde). Those mornings when
accompanied by Uncle Humphrey and the Lady Lavina
Fitzallen they trotted out of stable yard ready for the
chase (you really need to see Miss J in jodhpurs – it’s
the talk of the Cotswolds)
So where am I going with all of this? Well the topic
is ‘Hunt and Chase’ but this time it’s for humans not
for our little red friend.
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