PointHR announces partnership with Hirebridge.
For more than 17 years, PointHR has been providing unmatched screening services to thousands of companies nationwide in virtually every industry. PointHR is fully integrated with Hirebridge Recruiter, and has firmly established itself as the logical Background Screening choice for forward thinking companies. PointHR provides all background screen services, including: Criminal Records, Drug Screening, Electronic Offer Letter and Biometric Form I-9, Digitized Personnel Files, Automated Instant Employment Confirmation, Anonymous Employee Hotline, and More. By selecting PointHR as your Total HR Services partner you will save time and money by ensuring that you hire the best candidates, with the least risk, in a fast efficient manner. Streamline your screening now. Explore how easy it is at http://HireBridge.PointHR.com.
Hirebridge helps organizations maximize their HR resources and expand their opportunities with an affordable web-based recruiting platform. We understand that every business is unique, which is why we provide a range of on-demand services to meet the unique needs of your business. No matter the industry you are in or the size of your company, Hirebridge has a solution to meet your specific needs and can help reduce the time and cost to hire and fill your open positions.
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Showing posts with label Applicant Tracking System (ATS). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Applicant Tracking System (ATS). Show all posts
Thursday, 21 July 2011
PointhHR Partners with Hirebridge
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
4 Traits Separate a Great Recruiter From a Good One
Recruiting is unfortunately often a way station in a career. It is one stop on the way to becoming an HR executive or to moving on to other things. There are often very limited opportunities for advancement as a recruiter within most organizations, which further limits the number of people who choose to dedicate themselves to doing it well. Success also requires abilities that are not necessarily the strengths of those who choose traditional human resources as a career. I have found that many of the most successful recruiters had no intention of working for or in HR. They were interested in sales, marketing, communications, or similar areas and found themselves accidently being asked to do recruiting.
If you take the time to talk to recruiters who have garnered a reputation for success, you will discover that they share a few traits in common.
It is these common interests, inclinations, or skills that differentiate them from all the others. It would be useful to look for these traits whenever you are trying to find more recruiters or to identify those most likely to add the most value.
These recruiters are not real people. They are composite people that I made up from some of the best I have seen and worked with.
Trait 1: Great at networking because they have a strong interest in people
I know this sounds trite, but it is true. Every great recruiter has a need to be around and with people. They like to meet new people and seek out opportunities to do that even when they are not recruiting.
Bill Warren is a great example. He began recruiting when he was just 23 and a new college hire. The college team asked him to help out on campus and he immediately put the network he had developed in his fraternity and social activities to work. As he worked in a technical industry, he put together an on-campus special interest group sponsored by his company. They sent engineers to talk and demonstrate uses for their products in applied situations. With the blessing of his boss, he was able to spend several weeks each semester in campus building the reputation of his firm and their research. Recruiting was easy after the first year and remains that way today. Bill, meanwhile at 28, has become a full-time recruiter, where he is quickly becoming a star. When you ask him why he is successful, he just says: “I like people and want to help them do what they want to do.”
His networking skills are massive both in person and online. He cultivates relationships and understands that all solid relationships are built on quid pro quo: doing something for someone who, in turn, does something for you. It is this give and take that makes for success, and he is willing to share his career advice, mentoring skills, and technical expertise. In return he gets the loyalty and commitment of many candidates.
Trait 2: Marketing and influencing skills
Sue Smith is ranked as the top recruiter in her retail organization. Hiring volume is aggressive and needs are changing all the time. Turnover is often high and seasonal hiring presents many challenges. She has to recruit contingent as well as full-time staff, and is involved in lots of internal politics.
Yet, Sue is able to ride these waves and still make progress. While she is a good networker, where she really shines is in influencing and selling. Sue aims to get candidates interested in the work, project, and hiring manager by identifying and communicating their positive aspects, pointing out challenges when appropriate, and generating excitement. She presents well-vetted candidates to the hiring manager whom she has “presold.” Through Facebook, email, and phone calls, she uses her networks as marketing channels and targets them for specific functions and sometimes even for specific hiring managers.
Trait 3: Personalizing and leveraging uniqueness
They transcend brand by personalizing each hire and each hiring manager. Each of these recruiters has found the power and importance of personalization. Rather than rely on a generic recruiting brand, they instead brand every job and manager as unique. They know how to steer the right candidates to the right managers because they have deep knowledge of the needs and capabilities of each through their networking skills and ability to influence. While each takes a different approach, there is lots of overlap and commonality between them. They can push and pull candidates and managers toward a mutually desirable end.
Trait 4: They use technology; they are not consumed by it
Neither of these recruiters is a technology nerd. They use what works for them and whatever they can understand. They make sure both candidates and hiring managers also understand and are willing to use the tools.
Bill does this by creating special interest groups that can be either virtual or face-to-face. He lets candidates and managers gravitate toward those that match their interests and abilities. He has leveraged more technology than Sue because his primary candidates are dispersed and distant, but he is not a “techno freak” in any way.
Sue uses technology to enable communication. She has the amazing ability to implement a technology seamlessly by starting out small, experimenting with a few candidates and hiring managers, and growing it slowly when it works. She probably spends no more than one or two days a month where technology is her focus.
Great recruiters are focused on getting results, but what is more important to them is that both the hiring manger and the candidate feel that they have had a real exchange of information and that both are comfortable with the decision. I am amazed that their candidates have few regrets about accepting a job and the short-term turnover is remarkably small. Hiring managers, too, are content and pleased with their hires.
The recruiting process is not about individual recruiters, though. It is about making good matches in a seamless and efficient way. Great recruiters figure out how to do this while appearing almost in the background. The greatest praise you can get is when the hiring manger says, “Wow! Did I make a great hire last week.”
by
Kevin WheelerMar 22, 2011,
If you take the time to talk to recruiters who have garnered a reputation for success, you will discover that they share a few traits in common.
It is these common interests, inclinations, or skills that differentiate them from all the others. It would be useful to look for these traits whenever you are trying to find more recruiters or to identify those most likely to add the most value.
These recruiters are not real people. They are composite people that I made up from some of the best I have seen and worked with.
Trait 1: Great at networking because they have a strong interest in people
I know this sounds trite, but it is true. Every great recruiter has a need to be around and with people. They like to meet new people and seek out opportunities to do that even when they are not recruiting.
Bill Warren is a great example. He began recruiting when he was just 23 and a new college hire. The college team asked him to help out on campus and he immediately put the network he had developed in his fraternity and social activities to work. As he worked in a technical industry, he put together an on-campus special interest group sponsored by his company. They sent engineers to talk and demonstrate uses for their products in applied situations. With the blessing of his boss, he was able to spend several weeks each semester in campus building the reputation of his firm and their research. Recruiting was easy after the first year and remains that way today. Bill, meanwhile at 28, has become a full-time recruiter, where he is quickly becoming a star. When you ask him why he is successful, he just says: “I like people and want to help them do what they want to do.”
His networking skills are massive both in person and online. He cultivates relationships and understands that all solid relationships are built on quid pro quo: doing something for someone who, in turn, does something for you. It is this give and take that makes for success, and he is willing to share his career advice, mentoring skills, and technical expertise. In return he gets the loyalty and commitment of many candidates.
Trait 2: Marketing and influencing skills
Sue Smith is ranked as the top recruiter in her retail organization. Hiring volume is aggressive and needs are changing all the time. Turnover is often high and seasonal hiring presents many challenges. She has to recruit contingent as well as full-time staff, and is involved in lots of internal politics.
Yet, Sue is able to ride these waves and still make progress. While she is a good networker, where she really shines is in influencing and selling. Sue aims to get candidates interested in the work, project, and hiring manager by identifying and communicating their positive aspects, pointing out challenges when appropriate, and generating excitement. She presents well-vetted candidates to the hiring manager whom she has “presold.” Through Facebook, email, and phone calls, she uses her networks as marketing channels and targets them for specific functions and sometimes even for specific hiring managers.
Trait 3: Personalizing and leveraging uniqueness
They transcend brand by personalizing each hire and each hiring manager. Each of these recruiters has found the power and importance of personalization. Rather than rely on a generic recruiting brand, they instead brand every job and manager as unique. They know how to steer the right candidates to the right managers because they have deep knowledge of the needs and capabilities of each through their networking skills and ability to influence. While each takes a different approach, there is lots of overlap and commonality between them. They can push and pull candidates and managers toward a mutually desirable end.
Trait 4: They use technology; they are not consumed by it
Neither of these recruiters is a technology nerd. They use what works for them and whatever they can understand. They make sure both candidates and hiring managers also understand and are willing to use the tools.
Bill does this by creating special interest groups that can be either virtual or face-to-face. He lets candidates and managers gravitate toward those that match their interests and abilities. He has leveraged more technology than Sue because his primary candidates are dispersed and distant, but he is not a “techno freak” in any way.
Sue uses technology to enable communication. She has the amazing ability to implement a technology seamlessly by starting out small, experimenting with a few candidates and hiring managers, and growing it slowly when it works. She probably spends no more than one or two days a month where technology is her focus.
Great recruiters are focused on getting results, but what is more important to them is that both the hiring manger and the candidate feel that they have had a real exchange of information and that both are comfortable with the decision. I am amazed that their candidates have few regrets about accepting a job and the short-term turnover is remarkably small. Hiring managers, too, are content and pleased with their hires.
The recruiting process is not about individual recruiters, though. It is about making good matches in a seamless and efficient way. Great recruiters figure out how to do this while appearing almost in the background. The greatest praise you can get is when the hiring manger says, “Wow! Did I make a great hire last week.”
by
Kevin WheelerMar 22, 2011,
Sunday, 21 February 2010
Do Applicant Tracking Systems Really Help Humans?
Human Resources is a lovely discipline occupied by thousands of wonderfully insightful intelligent people. Formally, the field is referred to as Industrial/Organizational Psychology (or the name on your degree). The science behind Human Resources aims to make organizations more productive while ensuring productive and healthy lives for its workers. Translation: workers happy, company thrives. They even used to call it PERSONnel!
But then the HR folks wanted a part of the technological revolution and they upgraded themselves in a big way. A marriage formed between HR + IT and it formed a whole new world (HRIS). But somehow the technology tornado swept through and sucked the Human out of Human Resources.
The HR departments are no longer filled with “people people.” Instead, the pressure to keep up with the Technology Jonses has forced traditional HR folks into bits and bytes decoders.
Back in the day … and by back in the day, I mean back in the day when I first graduated college (1996), I was still thinking about the quality of paper upon which I printed my resume. I wore a navy suit with pantyhose and pumps. I carried a leather portfolio and sent a handwritten thank you note.
Today our job hunt begins and ends with the computer; it is our porthole into the market. We log on to let the world know that we’re looking. We have to be our own email marketers and drive our own viral campaigns. We network online, we apply online, we click to send our saved resumes and the upload yet another cover letter. We always email to follow up. We summarize decades of experience with a maximum number of characters and we send it out into the online abyss.
I worked at a recruitment advertising agency for 7 years so you figure I’d be able to navigate some sort of back end armed with the inside scoop. Wrong. Turns out I don’t have the formula any more than anyone else does.
Most large companies have applicant tracking systems (ATS), which are databases designed to hold and process the millions of resumes. When you are applying to a job online or via email, your resume is automatically going into this database. Often you may be applying to a position that isn’t even available; the company just wants to build a “pipeline” of candidates.
When the company is ready to hire someone, the first order of business is to have the HR folks search through this ATS. The hiring manager provides the HR person with cryptic keywords and then they go into the massive database, laden with millions of our career histories and conducts a keyword search. Code given, code entered, resumes served.
If you know the correct code that will yield your resume, hurray for you. The rest of us better figure out the code. The current economy means companies can get the best bang for their buck; employees come cheap. It’s the simple principle of supply and demand.
When I worked for the recruitment advertising agency, my clients often wanted me to advertise hard-to-fill jobs on very obscure Websites. One client was seeking a highly specialized nurse. The position was so distinct – there was only 18 known practitioners in the country. I thought a better approach would be to call the 18 nurses and give them a personal pitch. The client preferred to psychologically guess which Websites they might be visiting. In this instance, technology brainwashed (and trumped) the human.
The online job-hunting marketplace has gotten so overwhelming, they created a search engine to further simplify the process. Or so you think. These one-stop shops (like Indeed and Simply Hired) let you enter a title and a location and voila – jobs at a click. But how many of these jobs are legit?
It’s often the same job on different sites. The job boards have gotten very nepotistic and have created relationships and partnerships all over the place. When a company advertises on one site, they get a dozen others as a bonus. What this means for a job hunter is same job, different www.
Oh the online forms! Some of the big sites like Monster and CareerBuilder let you store your resume and apply to jobs with a click. Many of the large companies mandate you fill out their own profiles on their company’s career page. Fun!
You cruise around the Fortune 500 Online world filling out forms ad nauseam. Hours of virtual paperwork to earn some space on a database. You spend countless clicks inputting your life into online boxes. You indicate your gender, your nationality, if you’re a veteran. Have you ever been convicted of a crime? Have you ever worked here before? Sometimes the experience will lend itself to a little “pre-screen” interaction where they give you a series of questions and you click off some buttons answering what they want to see.
You customize a cover letter with their words.
I feel ahead of the game. The older generation is at a disadvantage in this technologically dominated new job-hunting universe. It is not enough to maintain expertise in your profession of choice; you also have to be proficient in navigating the Web 2.0 and Social Media world. Without it, you might not stand a fighting chance.
But for the thousands of those currently unemployed, they should use the technology rather than compete with the technology. Candidates have to be louder than the technology. They have to integrate a little human back into the mix.
If you find yourself enthralled in a slightly older school of job hunting, you may find yourself busting out the suit, pumps and folios and doing the headhunter dance. That scenario usually plays itself out like so:
You find a job online and apply for it, often unknowing that you’re really applying to a headhunter. Said headhunter will call you and ask you a series of questions and then hopefully deem you worthy of an in-person interview.
When you come in for your in-person, you use your tiniest handwriting to fill out a 10-page archaic paper application. This is the exact same content you filled in when you sent in the “application” online. You wait to be called and then get escorted into a cubicle conference room. There you make small talk and answer the same questions the headhunter asked you over the phone. This time they write it down. They put it in a file with your name on it. They tell you all about their unparalleled opportunities. They direct you to complete the online application at home. The say they’ll be in touch. Sometimes they are.
… And that’s what happens when you add the human element.
The Rest @ Hearts Everywhere
Lee Royal
On Twitter
But then the HR folks wanted a part of the technological revolution and they upgraded themselves in a big way. A marriage formed between HR + IT and it formed a whole new world (HRIS). But somehow the technology tornado swept through and sucked the Human out of Human Resources.
The HR departments are no longer filled with “people people.” Instead, the pressure to keep up with the Technology Jonses has forced traditional HR folks into bits and bytes decoders.
Back in the day … and by back in the day, I mean back in the day when I first graduated college (1996), I was still thinking about the quality of paper upon which I printed my resume. I wore a navy suit with pantyhose and pumps. I carried a leather portfolio and sent a handwritten thank you note.
Today our job hunt begins and ends with the computer; it is our porthole into the market. We log on to let the world know that we’re looking. We have to be our own email marketers and drive our own viral campaigns. We network online, we apply online, we click to send our saved resumes and the upload yet another cover letter. We always email to follow up. We summarize decades of experience with a maximum number of characters and we send it out into the online abyss.
I worked at a recruitment advertising agency for 7 years so you figure I’d be able to navigate some sort of back end armed with the inside scoop. Wrong. Turns out I don’t have the formula any more than anyone else does.
Most large companies have applicant tracking systems (ATS), which are databases designed to hold and process the millions of resumes. When you are applying to a job online or via email, your resume is automatically going into this database. Often you may be applying to a position that isn’t even available; the company just wants to build a “pipeline” of candidates.
When the company is ready to hire someone, the first order of business is to have the HR folks search through this ATS. The hiring manager provides the HR person with cryptic keywords and then they go into the massive database, laden with millions of our career histories and conducts a keyword search. Code given, code entered, resumes served.
If you know the correct code that will yield your resume, hurray for you. The rest of us better figure out the code. The current economy means companies can get the best bang for their buck; employees come cheap. It’s the simple principle of supply and demand.
When I worked for the recruitment advertising agency, my clients often wanted me to advertise hard-to-fill jobs on very obscure Websites. One client was seeking a highly specialized nurse. The position was so distinct – there was only 18 known practitioners in the country. I thought a better approach would be to call the 18 nurses and give them a personal pitch. The client preferred to psychologically guess which Websites they might be visiting. In this instance, technology brainwashed (and trumped) the human.
The online job-hunting marketplace has gotten so overwhelming, they created a search engine to further simplify the process. Or so you think. These one-stop shops (like Indeed and Simply Hired) let you enter a title and a location and voila – jobs at a click. But how many of these jobs are legit?
It’s often the same job on different sites. The job boards have gotten very nepotistic and have created relationships and partnerships all over the place. When a company advertises on one site, they get a dozen others as a bonus. What this means for a job hunter is same job, different www.
Oh the online forms! Some of the big sites like Monster and CareerBuilder let you store your resume and apply to jobs with a click. Many of the large companies mandate you fill out their own profiles on their company’s career page. Fun!
You cruise around the Fortune 500 Online world filling out forms ad nauseam. Hours of virtual paperwork to earn some space on a database. You spend countless clicks inputting your life into online boxes. You indicate your gender, your nationality, if you’re a veteran. Have you ever been convicted of a crime? Have you ever worked here before? Sometimes the experience will lend itself to a little “pre-screen” interaction where they give you a series of questions and you click off some buttons answering what they want to see.
You customize a cover letter with their words.
I feel ahead of the game. The older generation is at a disadvantage in this technologically dominated new job-hunting universe. It is not enough to maintain expertise in your profession of choice; you also have to be proficient in navigating the Web 2.0 and Social Media world. Without it, you might not stand a fighting chance.
But for the thousands of those currently unemployed, they should use the technology rather than compete with the technology. Candidates have to be louder than the technology. They have to integrate a little human back into the mix.
If you find yourself enthralled in a slightly older school of job hunting, you may find yourself busting out the suit, pumps and folios and doing the headhunter dance. That scenario usually plays itself out like so:
You find a job online and apply for it, often unknowing that you’re really applying to a headhunter. Said headhunter will call you and ask you a series of questions and then hopefully deem you worthy of an in-person interview.
When you come in for your in-person, you use your tiniest handwriting to fill out a 10-page archaic paper application. This is the exact same content you filled in when you sent in the “application” online. You wait to be called and then get escorted into a cubicle conference room. There you make small talk and answer the same questions the headhunter asked you over the phone. This time they write it down. They put it in a file with your name on it. They tell you all about their unparalleled opportunities. They direct you to complete the online application at home. The say they’ll be in touch. Sometimes they are.
… And that’s what happens when you add the human element.
The Rest @ Hearts Everywhere
Lee Royal
On Twitter
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