How do you know if your employees have a sordid past?

The most recent case of the past coming up to bite someone was the firing of Miss Sprint Cup Paige Duke for nude photos of herself popping up on the internet. Emailed to an ex-boyfriend when she was just eighteen, the pics, considered harmless in some circles, cost the young lady her job. Does this count as “sordid” behavior or just a mistake of youth, one that many of us could have made if we grew up in the computer age? As an employer, you’d probably want to know if those pictures were out there, particularly if you were putting an employee in a public position like Paige had.
You will of course ask questions about the past when you interview, but how do you know if all the truth comes out? Someone who needs a job isn’t going to admit to having been photographed naked if they don’t think the pics will ever come out. Do you think Paige expected those photos to leak the way they did? Of course not, unless she leaked them herself (it happens). No one wants to have a company’s recruitment tracking system tagging them as a “nude model”. You’re not likely to have to deal with that issue specifically, but background checks can only protect you so much. How do you know what the real truth is?
Look at any job recruiting software and you’ll find pre-designed fields for criminal background checks and drug testing. These are both a good idea if you’re a small business owner or hiring manager. The potential personnel pools are large right now because of high unemployment, so you can afford to be picky. Still, it’s not a crime to snap a few naked pictures, unless the object of your photos doesn’t know you’re doing it. It’s also not a crime to think like a deviate, drink too much at home, or be difficult to get along with. These are character traits that won’t come out in one interview.

Check references. Ask specific questions when you do. The dates might match up and the job description is probably accurate, but what about the candidates performance on the job and relationship skills with co-workers? There are ways you can phrase these questions so that they won’t seem overly personnel. The answers are critical to whether or not you hire the candidate, right? Ask what their job applicant tracking said about this person. Maybe the recruiter’s first impression over there matches your own.
Truth comes out when the person is relaxed and feels he or she is among friends. If you’re looking for full disclosure in an interview, create a relaxed atmosphere in your interview room that will make candidates feel more comfortable. If Paige Duke had come clean on her nude pics when she was first interviewed, would she have kept her job today? Probably not – she wouldn’t have gotten it in the first place (morals clause), and the employer (who could be you) would not have been faced with the embarrassment and media backlash of the whole affair.

Are Your Employees Part of Your Company Inventory?

Every company does an inventory at some point. Retail companies need to do them regularly, as do manufacturing firms. Companies that are mainly administrative need to inventory supplies and assets. Corporations need to inventory to be accountable to their shareholders. The need for an inventory process is clear, but what do you include on the list when you do your company inventory? If you’re manufacturing or selling a product, it’s easy to come up with a list of materials or finished wares that need to be counted, but what about the people who work for you? Should they be counted on your inventory? It may sound strange, but the answer is yes.

The objective of any inventory is to come up with numbers that tell you what you are taking in and what you’re spending to get it. Far too many companies look at the cost of raw materials and the wholesale pricing of retail goods, but then keep employee salaries and benefits as a separate number. You can do it that way if you like, but how will you know when the time comes where to make cuts if you start to take losses? Your product inventory will break down by department. Why not your personnel inventory also? The people themselves aren’t numbers, but the salaries you pay them are.

The employee inventory process begins with applicant tracking software in your human resources department. By tagging each of your employees in a certain category when they’re hired, you’re better able to see how many in each category are assigned to each department. If you have ten machine operators in your plastics division and plastics is losing money, you know one area where you can make cuts. Without an applicant tracking database, you won’t be able to inventory where those machine operators are and you might make cuts in the wrong places.

If you’re a new company, it’s much easier to implement this. Buy some job recruitment software and start from scratch. If you’ve been established for a while and don’t have a system in place, you’ll need to create one. That starts with an inventory of your employees. Go through your files and talk to each of your supervisors. Find out who does what and how long they’ve been working for you. When you inventory the products for a department, make sure there’s a list of the production and support people who are responsible for those products. Get it all down in one database and you’ll have a more accurate picture of what your company consists of.

The top applicant tracking systems have categories and sub-categories that you can use to run reports. When someone is assigned to a certain department, make sure it’s logged. If they are moved or promoted, log that too. Use the subcategories to list the products or services they are responsible for. Once it’s all in one place, you can do your personnel inventory in minutes. That should make the shareholders happy.

Recruiting Email Templates

Today’s business environment thrives on email.  Almost every correspondence, deal, thank you letter, appointment, sale or solicitation touches an email inbox at some point during its life cycle.  You may have heard whispers of upcoming ‘competition to email’ – such as Google Wave or some other social networking tool that might some day replace email all together.  I wouldn’t worry about that happening any time soon – email is as ingrained in our business minds as is using a keyboard.

One sector where email correspondence is particularly important is in the hiring and recruiting arena.  A hiring manager or recruiter at any company has a very difficult job.  There are a million different tasks for a person in this role to juggle – from keeping track of applicants, screening high quality talent, planning interviews, and complying with equal opportunity hiring statutes – to name just a few.

Much of this work and collaboration takes place via email.  The average recruiter sends hundreds (to even thousands) of emails per week in every direction possible – thank you letters, follow ups, meeting confirmations and more.  Just as with any other job, a recruiter often ends up sending many similar emails over time- with a standard introduction, conclusion and even many common themes throughout the bulk of the composition.

Wouldn’t it be great if someone with this role could simply choose from a number of standardized email templates to save countless hours in drafting?  In fact, modern software technology has allowed for such a beneficial program to exist. Cutting edge email assistance software now allows recruiting industry professionals to make the best of their time by providing a number of pre-designed recruiting email templates for a variety of tasks, including scheduling interviews, confirming meetings, sending thank you letters and more.

Clearly some emails need to be highly targeted and detailed based on the applicant’s specifications and the job in question.  A pre-created template may not cut the mustard when it comes to dealing with a very specific company.  Luckily, modern day recruiting email assistance software also provides the ability for a recruiting professional to customize their own templates.  With this feature, a recruiter can hone in on email correspondence with a long term client and save countless hours throughout the communication life cycle.

Clearly, email is here to stay.  It makes sense that there are tools that can now help us make the email collaboration process easier and more efficient.  Particularly within sectors like recruiting and hiring, where email correspondence represents the backbone of client and candidate communications, utilizing a tool that can give you the edge makes all the difference.

Newton’s Applicant Tracking Software

Newton Applicant Tracking Software

Back when IBM was referred to as International Business Machines, they would fill up an entire office floor of computers just to handle the most basic of computations. Now all that power and much more can be carried around in your cell phone. On some level, the same advancements have been made in the  recruiting sector. There was a time when it would take several file cabinets to hold the paperwork of various applicants for any given position. Add to that the numerous work hours needed to sift through even a simple hiring project and it’s easy to see how recruitment was associated with a bog down of efficiency.

The days of old are gone -  with Newton Software, the applicant tracking process has never been easier or more efficient.  Whether you’re running your own in-house recruiting program or you are a recruitment process outsourcing company, you’ll be able to access a state of the art applicant tracking program from anywhere in the world.

Newton Software has long been the leader in developing smart recruiting software that is extremely adaptable no matter how big or small a  company’s needs are. Of course every hiring process starts with the solicitation of qualified talent.

As the resumes start to come into your Newton applicant tracking program, you’ll be able to instantly sort through them and select the most qualified applicants. With Newton Software, you’ll be building a complete database of all your potential hires. This recruitment database can be categorized in the manner that best suits your company’s specific needs.

Following up is key to any successful business and that’s the same in the recruiting arena. With Newton’s Applicant Tracking Software, you can customize a series of e-mail drafts that will let you send out requests for interviews or a polite “thank you for your interest” response. It’s this level of professional courtesy that will help you generate a positive response for your efforts.

Today, running a successful hiring process also means having the ability to launch a careers site across a variety hiring portals. Newton’s Applicant Tracking Software helps you manage and control your customized careers site without the need of any IT support.

With Newton, you’ll also be able to incorporate real-time analytics with the talent information you’ll be gathering and assimilating.  This can help you make sure that your can continue to make your hiring process more efficient.  Nowadays, you’ll also need to make sure your company is in compliance with EEOC/OFCCP guidelines.  This requires thinking ahead and gathering the correct information so when the time comes to file you’ll be ready.  Newton’s Applicant Tracking Software makes sure that EEOC compliance is an integral part of your hiring database.

Software is no good to you if it’s hard to setup or manage on an everyday basis. With Newton’s Applicant Tracking software you can be setup and operational in no time. There is no excessive training needed because the interface is extremely user-friendly.  The day to day operations of the software are a breeze.

Your goal is to find the most qualified talent for any given position without having the hassles associated with hiring back in the day.  That’s what Newton Applicant Tracking software is all about: competent management of the applicant process to provide you with the best hires.  And if you’re hiring the best, shouldn’t you be at your best?

Online Recruiting Software

For many folks, the internet has become both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is obvious: it has created a global social network for people to meet, stay in touch and conduct business with a mere click of the mouse. The internet has also expanded our ability to research various topics and has provided a broad range of entertainment possibilities and news resources. The curse is that as the technology advances (and it is always advancing!) anyone who is in the business needs to constantly stay on the cutting edge in order to remain competitive. With the right software, this is not an insurmountable task. This is especially true in the area of human resources and recruiting – online recruiting software can enhance the abilities of hiring managers and recruiters and create a positive work experience.

A complete online recruiting software solution will instantly broaden your opportunities for finding qualified applicants. No longer will you need to rely on a handful of resources to find new hires. You’ll be able to instantly approach literally hundreds of potential applicants. The challenges that a business puts on their employees today could mean increased work hours along with increased productivity goals. Everyone is cutting corners which mean they need strong and capable recruiters to live up to these challenges.

As with every other element of business today, the first stop with recruiting should be the internet. Online resources instantly give reach to hundreds if not thousands of potential applicants. Online recruiting software can assimilate all of the resumes you’ll be collecting into one comprehensive database.

The other feature online recruiting software can provide is the ability to easily access your newly formed database by collating the resumes into categories that you design. These can be based on an applicant’s training or work history. The goal should be to weed out those candidates who aren’t qualified in order for you to focus on the applicants who can become successful hires.

Keep in mind that a thorough online recruiting software solution should be a two way street. Not only will it help you collect resumes from applicants with your own postings but you should be able to post to the variety of job boards across the internet, as well as create your own customized careers sites.

Working with a powerful online recruiting software program will free up hours of administrative duties that prevent you from doing the job you were hired for: finding the best talent suited for the job. Integrating an online recruiting software should be seamless for your business, installation should be a non-factor. Whether you are currently working as a hiring manager or recruiter for a company or want to use your skills as a freelance recruiter you’ll want to prove yourself to be invaluable to your employer. Let an online recruiting software program do the “busy” work, while you get to shine.

Business Resolutions for 2010

So 2010 is almost here.  Just as individuals make New Year’s resolutions – lose some weight, spend more time with the kids, finally clean out that part of the cellar – companies across a variety of industries also make resolutions for the New Year.  This New Year is especially symbolic as the recession’s clouds begin to part and we can begin to see some sunshine.

As companies take this opportunity to get back on track, management is sure to make a number of decisions for the New Year.  I’d like to take a moment to scope out some of these potential business resolutions that could benefit an organization going into the new decade.

Keep Things Trim : The recession may have hurt, but it also showed many businesses how to run a bit leaner.  Some of these lessons learned may not only apply during a recession.  Try and glean some of the more efficient tactics from the downturn and apply them to a regular year in business.   The best business officers should always be looking for places to cut costs.

Circle Back: Many ‘deals’ of 2009 may have fallen through due to the survival of the fittest conditions that companies faced throughout the year.  Whether you were trying to close a sale or create a partnership, circle back and reach out to some potential contacts from 2009.  These people may be more willing to listen to your pitch now that they’re out of the fire.

Think Re-branding : Think about your target market’s view of your company going into a new decade.  Are you still relevant?  Has your target market changed – is it younger or older?  If so, how can you re-brand your company to reach out to these people?  Re-branding doesn’t always mean hiring an expensive marketing firm, it simply requires logical and creative thinking combined with a bit of elbow grease.

Hire Intelligently: There are certain positions  and people within a company that are absolutely integral, and 2009 has allowed these people to stand out.  Your company needs to continue to attract this type of key talent, people that fit perfectly into a given role and make your business that much more successful.

So how do you intelligently hire?  A cost efficient way is to utilize cutting edge applicant tracking software.   Many modern day hiring solutions offer simple yet incredibly efficient ways to improve your company’s hiring process by providing features like analytics, collaborative tools and automated job board posting.

Reward Your Employees: After a tough year that saw far fewer company parties and perks, let your employees know that you are glad to have them on-board by giving back.  In 2010, it will be well worth the cost to reward employees every so often with perks that let them know they are appreciated.  Whether it be a new espresso machine in the office or a outing to wine country, employees could surely benefit with a bit of relaxation after the grind of 2009.

EEOC Compliance in the Modern World

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was established on July 2nd, 1965, under the wing of former president Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. Although the EEOC has sustained some criticism over its practices throughout the last five decades (too much oversight / not enough oversight / backlogs of complaints), it has proven an overall success. The EEOC has helped usher in a modern, diversified world of employment, where companies that discriminate against gender, ethnicity, age, religion and disability are to be held accountable.

Although the system is still far from perfect in rooting out all discrimination, EEOC compliance still holds a huge sway over the hiring practices of businesses across the U.S. Companies must comply with a number of complex and in depth forms and logs, such as the EEO-1, which the EEOC will analyze to determine if compliance standards have been met. For many companies, the time of year that such hiring compliance deadlines must be met coincides with taxes, annual reports, and other time-consuming filings.

For small business and start ups that are closing in on 100 employees, the EEO compliance process can be quite confusing and daunting. During the scramble to raise funds, build infrastructure, get the company off the ground, and hire the best talent out there, equal opportunity record-keeping often falls to the wayside, which can come back as a big problem if a discrimination charge were to be leveled against the company in the future.

So how can companies make sure that they are keeping their ducks in a row as far as EEOC compliance and filing? In general, keeping the necessary data in order is the first rule of thumb : With the proper data entry practice and ongoing upkeep, reports like the EEO-1 should be a bit less scary when the time comes.

A new option is to take a modern technological approach to EEOC compliance best practices. There are a few commercial options out there for EEOC compliant software solutions that track hiring and recruiting practices. These automated solutions not only save time for hiring managers, labor attorneys, and executives, but also alleviates the stress of scrambling to tie up loose ends. Many of these EEOC compliance fixes are packaged as specific features within applicant tracking bundles.  So, not only can a company make their hiring and applicant tracking process more efficient, but they can also make sure they are staying on track for EEOC compliance throughout.

Top 5 Analytics Software Solutions

Humanity’s true advantage over any other species is our ability to build on past information.  We have a keen sense of observation to determine how the world around us works, and we possess language to record and pass on those observations.   Thousands of years of compiled information in  mathematics, science,  architecture and engineering has steadily advanced cultures around the world.

When simplified, much of this observation, trial-and-error and progress boils down to one word – Analytics.   Our ability to analyze past records and utilize the resulting statics  has been paramount to our species’ progress.   In a sense, analytics has existed since our modest beginnings, sitting around a cave fire:   “Note to self.  Eating rotting meat does not bode well for digestion. I will tell Grok of my findings. Next time, we won’t eat rotting meat.”

Today, analytics has progressed to a technological art form built on decades of information compiled into networks of computer databases.  Cutting-edge computer software allows massive amounts of information to be analyzed, compared and directed towards executing a strategic ‘next step’ in a fraction of a second.   Governments, economies and industries sway to the beat of analytics to determine their next logical step.

There are a number of analytics software solutions today that specialize in a variety of industries.  I’d like to highlight five great solutions below, each pertaining to a different industry.  Feel free to add to the list with any other top-notch analytics software that you know of.

1.  Google Analytics:  Google is the king of analytics with its easy-to-install, in-depth and widely used online software package.  Google Analytics allows a web site creator to easily track their site’s statistics :  from basics like average visitors and time on site to more specific stats like browser-type and geographic breakup.  Any webmaster that doesn’t have Google Analytics installed might as well be sitting by the fire eating rotting meat.

2.  Mint.com : Mint is a user friendly personal finance application that lets you download, categorize, and graph all of your finances on a day-by-day basis.   The site offers seamless analytics: from graphs that project what your savings will be in 6 months to comparison charts that determine whether you are spending more than the average person on coffee.  A must have for anyone that needs help during this economic downturn to track and curb their spending habits.

3.  Newton Software: Newton is an intuitive online recruiting software solution that allows a company to manage and track hiring, announce job openings and review resumes.  One if its best features is a cutting-edge analytics module that allows a business to easily evaluate its recruiting program:  from pinpointing bottlenecks to determining the average speed of hiring.   It enables a company to view their hiring and applicant management from either a birds-eye-view or from the lens of a microscope.     Newton is essential for any business that wants to improve their recruiting process.

4.  TubeMogul.com: TubeMogul is a nifty web 2.0 site that allows you to upload your user-generated video content to multiple  sites in one fell blow (YouTube, DailyMotion, Vimeo, Revver, Brightcove, and many more).  Its most impressive feature is an extensive analytics suite that lets you track various statistics across multiple sites, including view minutes, viewer attention, per-stream quality and syndication tracking.  In-depth viewership statistics is an invaluable feature for companies that are trying to virally spread their brand message.

5.  Power E-Trade Pro: E-Trade’s Power Pro Online Stock Trading software enables even the most savvy investor to improve their performance by utilizing a well-crafted analytics suite.  The analytics includes advanced charting features, unlimited customization, and a range of technical studies to help capitalize on every potential market opportunity.

How Small Business can compete in Big Recruiting

In today’s economy, as industry giants are faltering, much of our hope rests with the small and medium sized business owners across the country.   Small businesses have the ability to adapt to the current economic environment and provide consumers or other businesses with exactly what they need at this integral moment.   Small businesses can rapidly change direction and point their bottom-line at goals that fit niche necessities.   Big business wears the iron-clad boots of shareholders, age-old assembly line processes and unwavering corporate management;  they are hardly in the right position to navigate the narrow straights of this economic downturn.

The question is:  how can small and medium sized business (SMEs) stay competitive with larger firms, who posses far more resources to hire the best talent out there?  It is in the talent acquisition arena that SMEs need to utilize every advantage that they can get their hands on to lasso the brightest minds available.  They must guarantee that productivity is at a constant increase and that all of their human capital is being utilized to the utmost.  This is harder said than done, considering that the pool of job applicants for SMEs is dwindling due to international outsourcing.  It is a never ending challenge for SMEs to increase the quality of their hires, while at the same time keep their costs at a healthy minimum.

The key to an SME’s advantage is the utilization of technology- more specifically web technology.  Web 2.0 is a term thrown around quite a bit, but for small businesses it has a very specific meaning.  New web technologies symbolize the new-found ability for SMEs to compete with big business in various arenas – from hiring and recruiting to mass production and advertising.  Need to get out a press release?  No longer does a small business need to hire a fancy PR agency.  They just need utilize a web product like PR Web, which enables a business to blast out news to thousands of online sites for a fraction of the cost.   Need to design some brand apparel like a T-shirt of coffee mug?  No longer does a business need to outsource to an expensive design firm.  Online start-ups like Cafe Press or Zazzle enable SMEs to mass design and produce apparel on pre-set molds.

The situation is no different for hiring.  New web technologies enable SMEs to handle their applicant management, applicant tracking, and recruiting needs for minimal costs.  Cutting-edge, yet easy-to-use,  new Recruiting and Applicant Management solutions enable small businesses to manage and track a a central database of potential candidates.  Many of these solutions live completely online, much like their Web 2.0 brethren, which cuts down the barrier to install and access hires.

Also like modern Web 2.0 social networks, new recruiting software solutions promote collaboration.   The ability for hiring mangers and recruiters to collaborate with one another with the end goal of finding the best hire is probably the biggest advantage that web technology bestows on SMEs.   Even though big businesses have more resources to put towards hiring, modern recruiting technology allows small business to gain the edge.

Taming the Beast: Get a hold on your recruiting software

In today’s age of human resources enterprise technology, everything seems to revolve around utilizing software to get ahead in the business world.  Whether it  be making work flow more efficient, cutting costs, or organizing team collaboration- there are a myriad of functions that enterprise recruiting software and applicant management systems can serve.  However, with the number of options for software out there and the number of features per piece of software, it can often be a daunting and confusing process to pick and set up the perfect solution for your company.

We need to remember that the technology is there to serve us- not the other way around.  So the question is, how can we create a work environment where our recruiting software is serving us, making us more efficient, and boosting the collaboration our company requires?

The first step is to find recruiting software that is dead simple to set up. The setup is often telling of how smooth the whole process will go- so make sure your recruiting and hiring solution fulfills the requirement of simplicity first.  No matter how many bells and whistles the software touts, if the process is too complicated for your hiring managers and recruiters to utilize, nothing else matters.

In today’s technological age, software that you need to install directly to your hard drive (the type that comes as a CD installation disk) is an artifact of the past.  Utilizing HR software that lives in the cloud (or online) will save you a ton of hassles and will work to keep your company’s applicant management process simpler.  There are a number of reasons that working online can save your company time and money.  It is as simple as your employees logging in and accessing data from any computer that has internet access.   Greater access to your applicant management system means greater efficiency- whether a hiring manager is working from home and needs to collaborate with a recruiter downtown, or a manager is away on vacation and needs to deliver urgent data.

Collaboration is king in the recruiting software field, I cannot stress this enough.  No matter how fast a piece of software runs, or how many bells and whistles it has, its primary function needs to be a conduit that your employees can communicate through.

Sometimes it helps to look at your recruiting software like any other nifty online applications or social networks that people utilize on an everyday basis for communication.  Imagine if Facebook or Myspace lacked the functionality to make it super-easy to communicate, message, post and browse.   No matter how many other bells and whistles the social network had (video uploading features, location based technology, etc.) it wouldn’t matter- the application would not get any users.

Recruiting and Applicant Management software should not differ from your everyday social networking site in this manner.  It needs to fulfill its basic needs before it can offer anything beyond that.  When you are shopping for an enterprise HR software vendor, make sure you keep this in mind as you demo and preview their product.