How Does Hiring Software Reduce Time To Hire?

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Moving to a paperless hiring process can offer many compelling benefits to a small business, such as the ability to access data in a web-based environment, easy accessibility to social recruiting, and a reduction in the time it takes to hire employees. In this blog, I’ll outline ways in which hiring software implementation can improve recruiting and employee onboarding efficiency by and reducing time-to-hire. I’ll consider the time to hire calculation to include all steps from realizing the need for a job opening, to the time that an employee has started work–the initial onboarding process.

Easy External Job Posting

Can you quantify how much time you’ve spent uploading and formatting your job listings in external job board accounts in the past? And, I’m not just talking about the big paid boards like Monster, Dice and CareerBuilder, but also job posting portals at entities such as colleges and universities, as well as state workforce development and unemployment offices. An applicant tracking system should have an efficient means by which you can post your job listings to multiple external job boards with just a few clicks. Think about how much time this enhancement will save you when multiple job opportunities are available with your organization.

Source More Applicants Sooner With Social Media

Many times, organizations’ recruitment activities for some jobs can drag on multiple weeks, if not months, due to low applicant volume. If you are not receiving enough submitted applications, the odds are against you in terms of finding the right fit amidst a small applicant population. Utilizing social recruiting tools available in your ATS can greatly expand the reach and awareness for your job listings in a short period of time; and, since other potential applicants will hear about your postings from their trusted social media contacts/friends, you will be more likely to convert applications from this type of ad source.

Clarity For Your Applicant Management

Hiring software allows HR professionals to easily view lists of applicants for an employment opportunity in one screen, as well as narrow such lists using filtering criteria. This ease of use makes it quickly apparent which applicants have not yet been assigned a status to describe their level of qualification and/or placement in the selection process. Being able to quickly identify gaps allows recruiters to process applications in such a way that applicants won’t fall through the cracks and individuals can be moved through the process in a relatively short amount of time.

Be Responsive To Applicants

Even if your company receives a particularly high volume of applicants for each job, it can still be easy to protect your recruitment brand by sending personalized correspondence to each applicant when using an applicant tracking system. Your hiring software application should allow you to select groups of applicants based on certain criteria, and to then send mass email messages using existing templates. These templates should include the ability to automatically insert personalization strings so that the applicant still feels like a person and not a number when interacting with your organization in regards to the all-important employment decision.

Automation tools that help you to communicate to applicants rapidly will only encourage the top applicants to afford the same courtesy of responsiveness to your organization, as well. And, the faster stakeholders communicate with one another, the faster the overall time to hire for a position will end up being, as well.

Incorporate Assessments Into The Process Earlier

Sometimes the number of interviewing stages involved in the selection process for a job can become bloated…this might occur when a business fails to get enough objective information about the candidate up front. Particularly for frontline roles in your company, considering an employee assessment that is embedded right into your employment application might be just the resource your recruiters need to unearth more job fit-related information about applicants near the front half of the hiring process. As a result, perhaps one or two extra steps can be eliminated from the recruitment cycle.

Accessible Interview Feedback For Hiring Managers

It is hard enough to schedule interviews if you have two to three staff members involved, but it can be just as painful to get interviewees together to share feedback post-interview. A customized survey option in your recruiting software can allow managers to independently record answers to specific survey-style questions directly on an applicant’s record at their earliest convenience. These comments can be made visible to all participants and even provide score averages across all interviewees. Access to this data can move hiring decisions along more quickly so that the new employee can get hired as soon as possible.

Onboarding Process Head Start

Using employee onboarding software technology during the hiring process allows organizations to easily export, organize and process data that may be required for other HRIS and/or payroll applications in the company. By avoiding the pitfalls of manual entry, HR staff can operate more efficiently knowing that employee records won’t be missing required fields or have illegible information that requires more back and forth between the onboarding team and the new hire. After all, the last thing that a company wants to do during the onboarding process is take so long that the new hire starts to regret his/her decision to join the organization in the first place.

If you’d like more information about how ExactHire’s hiring software solutions might help improve your company’s average time-to-hire, please visit our resources section or schedule a demo today.

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But They Interviewed So Well…Don’t Fall Victim to Interviewee Jazz Hands!

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When you take time to write job descriptions, then push them to external job boards, then blow up social media with the #hiring hashtag and then finally conduct interviews, do you ever take the time to find out more about what society is telling applicants in terms of how to get the job or be great at interviewing? I think back to when I was looking for a job in the past few years…what did I do?

Well, I went online and read every single article I could get my hands on regarding completing employment applications effectively and being a pro at interviews. After all, by no means was I going to let the application or interviewer get the best of me. And while not everyone may approach the job search challenge with the researching fervor that I did, I’m sure you can think back to a time where an applicant looked great on paper, then charmed your socks off during the interview…but then fell flat when it came to meeting your on-the-job expectations for performance.

But how could that happen? He/she was so on point during the hiring process! In today’s society where anyone with an internet connection has access to oodles of information about job preparedness and networking expertise, making a great impression during the interview isn’t such a miraculous feat.

An Employment Match Made in Heaven?

So how do you avoid this slippery slope and see through their Oscar-worthy performances to ensure that they will also find great job fit within your organization? How do you see past the clever job seekers that read their articles and think, “my biggest weakness is ‘waking up late,’ but I am able to correct that weakness by setting two alarms.” Maybe in your mind they even shout Tah-dah! after that revelation and give you some jazz hands!

Or better yet…they breeze through your age-old question setup of “is the glass half full or half empty?” They simply say “Neither – I’m an opportunist”; or, if presented with an actual glass of liquid, they will happily drink it and then say, “I’m a problem solver!” Well, that’s pretty good, actually. After all, some of the great interviewers will actually be stellar employees too. So how do you tell the difference?

Download our hiring process questions guide

Consider pre-employment testing in order to see beyond the smiles of your eager interviewees. Make sure your selected tools are validated and relevant to the position. Also, take a group of your current top employees and use their assessment results to benchmark and create target ranges for various scales. Then, compare interviewees’ results against the benchmark to highlight any red flags which should then be further explored with the candidate during later stage interviews.

If you know what applicants are being advised to say or do, their ingenuity and wit becomes a little less charming and a bit more rote. Depending on the type of applicant you’re seeking to fill that position, this might be appealing. However, if you want to maintain a consistent approach to unearthing a candidate’s potential to thrive in your organization, then look into using employee assessments as a complement to your recruiting process.

I challenge you as an employer, to read about what applicants are being advised to do…walk a day in a job seeker’s shoes. Keep an eye out for those applicants using the suggested techniques…as anyone can be a great interviewer, but that doesn’t mean that one will be well-suited for your position.

Interested in exploring employee assessment tools with ExactHire? Contact us for more information

How Do I Choose the Right Applicant for My Company?

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In the June 2013 issue of Inc. magazine, you don’t have to get to page 30 to have a clear understanding that the differentiating factor setting companies apart from their competitors is which individuals they select to hire. The culture fit of a hire is one of the greatest make or break qualities the person can possess.

Luis von Ahn, the co-founder of Captcha, is very forthcoming about what he’s doing differently at his new company, Duolingo, in an article titled “Hire People Who Play Nice. This is Really Important,” Von Ahn mentions team dynamics and cohesiveness. A few pages later in the magazine there is an article, “How Do You Keep a Company Together When the Employees Are Thousands of Miles Apart?”, where Niner Bikes CEO, Chris Sugai, also talks about company culture-related elements such as bonding and diversity.

Don’t Teach an Adult New Behavioral Tricks

You can’t teach your preferred behavioral traits to someone who is old enough to enter the workforce…which sets us up for the ultimate question, “How do I find the right people for my organization?” Simple – you take advantage of the hiring process. Von Ahn spends an hour talking to people who come to interview at his organization. Also, at ExactHire we know that employee assessments that assess both cognitive and behavioral traits can be complementary to the interviewing process in terms of unearthing an applicant’s potential for job fit.

In addition, ask the odd questions up-front. I’ll never forget the day I interviewed with Harlan, our Chief Visionary Officer – he asked me what extracurricular things I was involved in during high school and college. Then he asked, out of those, which was my favorite and what position I held (the answer was soccer and I was either a full back or a marker – defensive positions). For what type of person was Harlan looking? What did my answer tell him about me? I think Harlan was looking for someone who wasn’t going to give up easily and was in it for the long haul.

I have a friend who is a hiring manager for his company and conducts oodles of interviews. He needs someone who is good with numbers and very technical, but also able to think on his/her feet. He will give the applicant several hard numerical questions back to back, firing one off after another, and then ask an off the wall question like, “What animal would you be if you were an animal?” What the answer is doesn’t matter in this situation, it’s if the applicant can think on his/her feet and provide an answer.

Avoid Hidden Hiring Costs

If you are using Applicant Tracking Software (ATS), you can ask questions similar to Harlan’s extracurricular one on the employment application. If you need to see how quickly people adapt to change – because people with those abilities thrive in your organization’s culture – ask during the interview. If you don’t, and you hire the wrong person, consider all of the costs – hard and soft – that have been expended. The soon-to-be employee’s fit with your organization is critically important.

Looking for technology for hiring tools to improve the results of your hiring process? Contact ExactHire today.

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Help! My Job Posting Isn’t Getting Enough Applicants!

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Occasionally clients will come to us in need of some insight as to why one of their positions isn’t receiving enough applicants. Their applicant traffic is falling short of what they would expect given the market, position type, unemployment rate, etc. In fact, here’s a recent inquiry from an ExactHire applicant tracking software client that was concerned about the number of employment applications being submitted for an arguably common, in-demand, type of position – Web Developer.

“We have been having a lot of trouble filling one of our open positions, and I wondered if you or anyone else at the ExactHire office might have some advice on how to pursue. The Web Developer position we know is a highly sought-after position. In light of this, we have considered the option of trying to attract international applicants, perhaps on an H1-B Visa. Are there any specific ways that you know of to attract these types of applicants since we see so little response from what we are doing currently?”

Check Your Job Listing’s Vital Signs With Analytics

There are many factors that could impact the popularity of a job posting, and so it makes sense to approach the situation from many angles and try some different adjustments to increase applicant volume. For this client, my first thought was to check their ATS site’s Google Analytics account…which we set up for all client portals. I logged into Google Analytics, and then looked up how many visitors had recently been landing on this particular job listing’s page URL. Visitors who landed on the job description page directly (for their first point of entry to the ATS site) would have been referred from other job boards (rather than from the client’s ATS portal’s external job listings page). This process gave us a snapshot into how easily the client’s job was being “seen” by external boards.
ExactHire ATS | Examine job analytics
For example, upon examining the data in Google Analytics, I could see that the Web Developer job’s URL (#19 on the list) had not received as many page views as some of the client’s other concurrent positions – even though the same job boards had been used for both listings. For example, #7 on the list for a Product Development Assistant position had received quite a bit more views (308 vs. 113). When I looked at that job’s description, it was not too long; however, it was at least double the length of the client’s Web Developer job description and so there were more opportunities for it to include keywords that external job boards could use to rank it higher in relevant search results to applicants. Plus, the Product Development Assistant position restated the actual job title in the first sentence of its description…this is a great way to get it appearing more prominently in search results.

The Web Developer position did not do that. I suggested that the client try putting it in the first sentence and making the description a bit longer. NOTE: At the time, the Web Developer description was only about 3 sentences long. While you don’t want to slip into the trap of making job listings too long – particularly for hard-to-fill positions where qualified applicants are difficult to find – you don’t want them so short that a lack of content leaves them unable to earn higher search engine result rankings, either.

What’s in a Job Name?

I also suggested, given that Web Developer is such a common job title, that the client be more specific in naming the position. For example, what kind of developer is it? Could our client include the primary programming language that would be required in the title, itself? This technique would help applicants who do specific searches for certain programming languages on sites such as Indeed to come across a related position more easily. For example, in this particular case, the client might have tried a title like “Web Developer – HTML/CSS – Jquery.”

Attracting H1B Visa Sponsorship Candidates

In regards to the client’s question about going the H1B visa sponsorship route, I advised my contact to make sure and mention those specific words in the job description to both set expectations with potential international applicants, as well as improve the likelihood that international candidates who may do a search including those keywords end up seeing your job listing in the results returned for the job board. For example, I Googled the term myself and landed on some SimplyHired search results showing job descriptions that did just that:
H1B Visa Keywords Job Listings

Diagnosing Your Job Description: A Review

So to recap, if you are looking to determine what ails your low-applicant-volume job listing, I would suggest:

  • Considering whether the length of your job descriptions is appropriate (hint: look at similar jobs that are at the top of external job boards’ search results and check the length of those descriptions)
  • Using a more specific job title
  • Restating the title of your job at the beginning of your job description text
  • Including other relevant keyword phrases in your job listing (i.e. h1B visa, etc.)

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Applicant Tracking System Cost: How Much Does Hiring Software Cost?

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A common question people ask when approaching an ATS provider is: “how much does an applicant tracking system cost?” The answer is challenging because many variables come into play when buying applicant tracking software. This often leads to the answer that no one wants to hear: “it depends.”

But let’s put that answer aside for now, and begin by helping you understand the variables that impact cost. Then, I’ll  give you a good idea of the pricing your organization can expect.

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Applicant Tracking System Cost Basics

Most pricing for applicant tracking software is based on the following criteria:

  • Size of the organization (based on sales or employees)
  • Number of locations and/or users
  • Hiring volume
  • Other complementary products wanted (employee onboarding software, video interviewing, etc.)

ATS Features

Below is a listing of some of the more common features that may be of importance to your organization. Pricing will typically fluctuate based on which of these items you need for your company:

Possible Limitations

The final component in determining price for applicant tracking software is understanding what restrictions or limitations exist in the solution. These limitations typically exist in lower-priced or “free” tools and are listed below:

  • # of open jobs at a given time (often 3 or fewer)
  • # of applicants in the system (often 200 or fewer)
  • # of system users (often just 1)

Similarly, many providers offer different tiers of pricing based on which features you need and what limitations you’re willing to accept. Be sure to understand exactly what you get in these “Gold” vs. “Silver” vs. “Bronze” packages. Otherwise, you may end up with a higher price tag or less functionality than you anticipated.

Applicant Tracking System Cost Scenarios

Now that you understand some of the parameters, let’s look at some examples of pricing. Please keep in mind, these are only examples and are not meant to provide definitive figures for your particular situation.

  • Scenario 1 — under 50 employees, single user, no more than 3 jobs listed and fewer than 100 applicants
    • Here you might expect to see little to no implementation fees and anywhere from $50 to $200 per month in ongoing access fees.
  • Scenario 2 — 100 to 200 employees, 3 users, unlimited jobs and unlimited applicants
    • Here you might expect to see $0 to $500 implementation fees and anywhere from $150 to $400 per month in ongoing access fees.
  • Scenario 3 — 300 to 500 employees, 10 users, unlimited jobs and unlimited applicants
    • Here you might expect to see $300-$1,000 implementation fees and anywhere from $300 to $650 per month ongoing access fees.

As you can see, shopping for an applicant tracking software solution isn’t a simple task. Determining if you’re really comparing “apples to apples” takes time and due diligence. I hope this helps in your efforts to find the best solution at a fair price for your HR department’s and company’s needs.

Contact us today to schedule a live demo of ExactHire’s applicant tracking software and discuss pricing for your organization.

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HEA 1482 Requires Indiana Employers to Update Employment Application Language Related to Criminal Record History

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Effective July 1, 2013, Indiana’s House Enrolled Act No. 1482 is a new law with which Indiana employers, including national employers based elsewhere that employ individuals in the state of Indiana, must comply. It prevents employers from discriminating against or refusing employment to a person based on his/her expunged or sealed conviction or arrest records.

Employment Application Requirement & Punishment for Failure to Comply

In Sec. 10(c) of HEA 1482, it explicitly states that in “any application for employment…a person may be questioned about a previous criminal record only in terms that exclude expunged convictions or arrests, such as: ‘Have you ever been arrested for or convicted of a crime that has not been expunged by a court?'” However, we urge you to consult with your employment law attorney for exact language appropriate for an employment application in your industry as in many cases asking about arrests of any sort on an employment application can be problematic.

It is critically important for Indiana employers to execute this change before July 1st as the law goes onto mention that any person that discriminates against an individual as the law describes, including soliciting information about arrests or convictions that have been expunged on an application for employment, is committing a Class C infraction and may be held in contempt of court.

What About Negligent Hiring Claims?

As a means to protect employers, the law allows for the introduction of an expungement order in judicial and administrative proceedings claiming negligent hiring, as evidence that an individual exercised appropriate care in the hiring process.

What if I Have Been Using the Same Employment Application for Applicants to Jobs in Different States, Including Indiana?

If your organization employs individuals in Indiana, as well as other states that do not require the new application language, please note that our applicant tracking software can create and support multiple external employment applications for your careers portal. Existing clients who are interested in learning more about this option should contact ExactHire Client Services.

How Can I Get the Conviction-Related Question Updated on my ATS?

Your ExactHire Client Services team can make this change very quickly and easily in your careers portal once you contact us and confirm exactly how you’d like the question worded. Again, we cannot offer legal advice and strongly urge you to contact your employment attorney to discuss how your application’s criminal record history-related question should be worded, as well as any examples of how Indiana state law HEA 1482 may be preempted by federal laws.

When we make this change in your portal, we can either reword the existing field on your application, or turn off the previous field and add a new field with the updated question text. Discuss these options with your Client Services representative to determine the best approach for your ATS application and organization. To update your existing application language, please contact us today at support@exacthire.com.

Still using paper applications, but ready for a web-based recruiting portal? Contact ExactHire today for a free 14-day trial of our applicant tracking system.

Improve Your Hiring Process: Bring Objectivity to Final Decision

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We’ve covered a lot in this blog series — a variety of ways to make your hiring process more efficient. At the same time, I’m very fond of pointing out to our clients that this process still ultimately boils down to people hiring people. As obvious as that sounds, it’s easy to be misled by various solutions in the talent acquisition space that seem intent on turning hiring into another algorithm. It’s not that simple.

Often, hiring people who have the right skill set and can work well with your team can feel like trying to solve a puzzle. No matter how well you interview or how much you trust your gut instinct, hiring mistakes happen. When they do, they’re painful and expensive. This is where objective data comes in handy.

Discover Behavioral Traits With Pre-Employment Testing

In the case of hiring, I’m referring to employee assessments. More specifically, I’m referring to behavioral assessments that are normed against the adult working population. In addition, these tools should always be validated to ensure that they measure what they purport to measure.

Using tools like these will allow you to get a better feel for how your final applicants are “hard-wired” — not just how they appear to be. Depending upon which assessments you use, you are able to gain insight on behavioral traits like assertiveness, communication style, willingness to change, rules adherence, team orientation, desire for recognition, etc. These so-called “soft skills” almost universally tend to be the reasons why employees don’t stay as long or produce as well as their counterparts.

Just as importantly, most all of the better employee assessment solutions available will allow you to assess your current top performers for these same traits. In doing so, you are then able to generate patterns or benchmarks of what good performers look like for your particular organization. As you can imagine, this significantly adds to the value proposition for these tools.

In most cases, you likely will not use assessments for all candidates — that is often cost-prohibitive. Rather, these tend to serve as another layer of information about your final candidates — information that you typically don’t have until someone has been employed for several weeks or months. Adding this objective data to all of the other information gathered in your process will improve overall hiring results and help you solve the puzzle of building teams.

Regardless of whether your company takes advantage of some or all of the previous efficiency tips offered in this blog series, the use of employee assessments in your hiring process should at least be considered. Getting the right performers in the right positions more consistently will pay huge dividends for your company.

For more information about ExactHire’s employee assessment and job skill test solutions, please contact us today.

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What if Applicants Charged You for Their Time?

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Recently I received an article forwarded from a friend that discussed applicants charging companies for their time during the interview process. Sounds a bit outlandish on the surface, doesn’t it? In summary, the article, “Ask The Headhunter: Should Employers Pay to Interview You?” (by Nick Corcodilos) is really about managing expectations.

There are tons of questions that could be asked if this were a serious threat:

  • What if you had to pay applicants for their time once they made it past the first interview?
  • What would you do differently?
  • Would your decision timeframe be shorter?
  • Would you make an external status code from your applicant tracking system visible so that applicants knew where they stood without having to ring you?
  • Would you send mass email updates to your applicant pool with personalized email templates?
  • Would you have a stricter selection process workflow with your hiring managers?
  • You told the applicant you would follow up…did you actually do it?
  • What about when the applicant followed up on the promise you made to follow up and you never returned his/her phone call?

Not every applicant has the luxury of disposable time. And let’s be honest, the ones who do, may not be at the top of your candidate list. I challenge you, for one month, to start acting as if your applicants would charge you for their time. If you were on the other side, acting as the applicant, would you prefer the manner in which your company already conducts the hiring process; or, would you likely prefer the way in which it is conducted during the one-month challenge period?

It is no doubt that the applicant experience is an extension of your brand. “More than one-quarter of US consumers (26%) say they are more likely to tell family, friends, and coworkers about a bad experience with a product or service than a good one (MarketingProfs).” Keep in mind, we’re all six degrees of Kevin Bacon and somewhere, somehow, your company will be impacted if your hiring process is lackluster.

Looking for ways to improve the applicant experience at your organization? Contact ExactHire for more information about our applicant tracking software.

Improve Your Hiring Process: Communicate With Applicants

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How often is your recruiting department fielding unsolicited calls from applicants that are inquiring about the status of their application with your company? Too frequently? Well, its time to proactively communicate with your candidates so they don’t even feel the urge to pick up the phone or shoot off that next email inquiry.

In the fourth installment of this “Improve Your Hiring Process” series, I talked about managing your pipeline of applicants effectively. A major component of that is keeping your applicants informed as they travel through your selection process. Otherwise, you will likely find yourself fielding numerous phone calls and/or emails from applicants wanting to know if they’re still being considered, what are the next steps from here, etc.

Similarly, this also ties in with the idea of protecting your brand — both your employment brand and your business/consumer brand. You don’t want to give people the ability to take shots at your organization. But if they feel their resume/application goes into a “black hole” or if they hear back a month after their interview (or not at all) that they’re no longer being considered for your position, you’re feeding the most common frustration of applicants. That complaint? Not hearing from you!

Keep Applicants Informed of Recruitment Progress

Now, if you fill 3 positions per year and only receive 5-10 resumes/applications per position, you likely don’t have this problem. You can keep your applicants up to date pretty easily with email and/or an occasional phone call. At the same time, if this is your situation, you probably lost interest in this topic long ago!

The more common scenario is that you have dozens (or hundreds) of applicants per position and multiple positions open at any given time. In this scenario, you have three options for keeping your applicants informed:

  1. Ignore the issue because branding isn’t applicable to your situation.
  2. Keep your applicants organized in a spreadsheet and utilize Outlook or Gmail templates to correspond with those applicants as you move them to different steps in your recruiting process. This is pretty involved and requires a good deal of effort, but it can be done.
  3. Use an applicant tracking software tool to automate this process for you.

This happens to be a pretty big sweet spot for quality applicant tracking system tools. Because you now have all of your applicants in a single spot, including where they are in your process at any given moment, the chore of logging that data is taken care of for you. From there, a good tool of this sort will allow you to automate mass emails in a one-to-one format to applicants as they move through your hiring process. You save time, applicants are kept posted as to where things stand, and you dramatically cut down the phone calls and emails asking for updates — everyone wins.

Next up is the final installment in this series — Bringing Objectivity to Your Hiring Decision.

Image Credit: By Einar Faanes (Own work) [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons