5 Tips To Help Your Company Stand Out When Hiring Employees

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Quick preview of what’s coming below — the picture shown here is not how you want your applicants to react when applying for a position with your company!

The labor market is no longer flooded with people looking for any type of job they can find. For employers and HR folks charged with recruiting, the landscape is changing. Posting open jobs and forcing applicants to jump through hoops to simply be considered for those jobs no longer works the way it did in 2007, 2008 and 2009.

A big part of what’s changing is the expectation applicants have about how they should be treated when applying for work with an organization. The ability to apply online is a given at this point, but how can your company look different and have a more positive brand in the hiring marketplace? Below are 5 things any size organization can (and should) do to compete for great talent:

Be honest about your workplace

There’s nothing wrong with emphasizing the strengths of your company or the job you’re trying to fill. At the same time, don’t paint an unrealistic picture. Applicants appreciate honesty and expect that not everything is perfect with any job or company. Promoting transparency from the beginning of the process (day in the life, pay, work hours, etc.) will serve you well.

Make it easy to apply to your company

This is directly opposite of advice you received when the recession hit. Applicant volume was so overwhelming that many organizations intentionally asked for more information upfront in the hiring process to try to cut down the exorbitant number of candidates. As the applicant market has corrected, this no longer makes sense. If you’re still requiring applicants to provide a full application to be considered for openings in your company, now is the right time to reconsider that approach. Things such as shorter applications, multi-step applications, applying with social media profiles (LinkedIn, Indeed), etc, are all things that are very attainable with today’s technology, and all create a more favorable impression with potential job applicants.

Clearly explain your hiring process

This doesn’t need to be any top secret endeavor. Let applicants know upfront what will be involved in your unique process. This ties in with the honesty tip in #1 above. If applicants know what to expect, they’re more motivated to apply and more likely to stay engaged as you go through your cycle. Publish this in your Careers section or make it part of the online employment application process.

Stick to your process

Be sure to follow what you layout to your candidates. Meeting expectations is important, as this will quickly help applicants form an opinion about your organization. Try not to deviate from what you’ve laid out and do everything possible to keep a good pace/momentum to the process. This will keep you top of mind for those better applicant targets and help keep people from dropping out of your funnel.

Communicate with your applicants

Nothing kills momentum or great impressions like failure to follow up. Ask any job seeker their number one complaint and it’s almost assuredly the lack of response after a resume or application is submitted. Don’t fail to capitalize on the time and effort (and dollars) spent to get good applicants into your cycle. Keep them informed about next steps and timing for those. You’ll stand out relative to other potential employers and establish goodwill with your applicants.

There are more specific strategies for any of these core items listed above. These are simply big-picture ideas to use when framing out or revamping your hiring process.

To learn more about ExactHire’s applicant tracking and onboarding software products, please visit our resources section or contact us today.

Image credit: Zelda was Kicking my Butt xd by Ashley Sturgis (contact)

Which Recruitment Metrics Are Right For You – Time to Fill?

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Would you say that you are proud of the efficiency with which your company approaches the hiring process? Do you get excited about the opportunity to welcome new teammates onboard; or…you can admit it…does it make you cringe just a little bit thinking about how long it will take to get everything ready, round up all the interviewers to be involved and pore through all the applications? It all comes down to Time to Fill. In this second installment of my series about determining which HR KPIs work for your company, we’ll examine this telling metric.

In my previous blog about Cost per Hire, I indicated that there is generally a direct relationship between CPH and Time to Fill…in particular, as it relates to the cost of your staff members’ time to be involved in a drawn out hiring process. Take too much time to hire and the business could suffer due to lower productivity, and rush through the process and risk hiring the wrong candidate which will just negatively impact your turnover metric down the road.

How critical time to fill is relative to other HR metrics for your organization only you can determine, but consider this: just because you are a small or medium-sized organization doesn’t mean that you should get by with fewer steps in a shorter hiring process. Small companies can’t afford to “wing it” as it really can take the whole village to hire and onboard a new employee. Any size company can be diligent in making the many steps involved in the recruiting process turnkey; however.

Where Do You Spend Your Time to Hire?

If you’re like me, you manage by what you measure. And when I’m trying to lose a few pounds you can bet I’m recording my calories on my FitBit app…or if our household wants to save up for the next remodeling project, we’re entering our daily expenses into a spreadsheet. Even if I choose to indulge myself every once in awhile, overall by watching my behavior I change it for the better. Having the data in front of me helps me more intimately consider cause and effect. The same is true for the hiring process. Its easy to let a day turn into days and days into weeks when you are progressing through various milestones such as applicant review and interview scheduling without really monitoring your timeframe closely. That can easily translate into disengaged applicants that pursue other companies…and its a vicious cycle, your process then becomes even longer.

A Well-Oiled Time to Fill Machine

So, in the spirit of hiring introspection, let’s look at some basic hiring process stages and ideas for making them thorough, yet as time sensitive as possible.

Job description development

    • Have up to date job templates for frequently hired positions in place and then use them as a base from which to create more specific job listings
    • Use the job listing as an opportunity to set clear expectations about role requirements so that certain candidates self-select out of the process if its clear it won’t be the right fit
    • Create a Job Success Factors page to accompany the job description to paint a more vivid picture about a day in the life of this position

Post jobs to external boards & social media

Review applications and resumes

  • Set aside blocks of time throughout your week dedicated to application review so it doesn’t fall by the wayside
  • Use filters attached to job-specific screening questions to quickly view only applicants that meet basic qualifications
  • Have a comprehensive list of applicant status codes or dispositions already in place so that its easy to assign and continuously update applicants’ place in the hiring process

Conduct pre-screens

Applicant correspondence

Prepare notes & feedback

  • Use a form or otherwise standardize the manner in which you present candidate information to others – people will get used to quickly looking in certain places for certain information
  • Highlight applicants who are the best prospects to hiring managers by sharing their electronic records – keep it timely by requesting others’ response by a certain date/time in your notes or subject line

Pre-employment testing & assessment

Schedule coordination for in-house interviews

  • Request access to the calendars of others involved in the hiring process internally so that you may quickly see when they are/aren’t available
  • At the onset of the hiring process, reserve blocks of time on potential interviewers’ calendars in advance so that you know you can count on them tentatively being available during those times (even if it is a few weeks out)
  • Utilize video conferencing tools (i.e. basic ones could include Skype, Google Hangouts or GoToMeeting to name just a few) to schedule interviews earlier than they might be otherwise if the candidate were to have to travel to your office

Collect hiring manager feedback

Candidate communication – yays & nays

  • Engage applicants by proactively communicating to them about their status in your selection process
  • This can be done quickly by using email templates that include personalization strings (to populate the first name of the person and the position to which he/she applied, for example) and the ability to update applicant records in mass groupings within an ATS

Extend conditional offer of employment

  • Again, have a template for the language you typically use in offer letters/packages ready to go in an existing template
  • Give the candidate a clear deadline for responding
  • Explain the process of collecting information necessary to conduct background/reference checks, etc. in advance to the candidate should he/she accept

Conduct background and/or reference checks

  • Utilize a web-based form for collecting information necessary to run checks…embed the URL address for the secure form into a template in your ATS and quickly invite applicants right from the applicant record
  • Alternatively, check if your provider has a web services integration with your background check and/or reference check resource

Coordinate onboarding logistics with staff

  • Create an email distribution list of all the employees in your organization who should be involved in the onboarding of a new employee – that way, a quick message and/or checklist can be initiated with these people when the time is right simply by emailing one address
  • Incorporate employee onboarding software into your process so that, based on the division to which the new employee is hired, the appropriate staff members are automatically prompted of onboarding process and receive notification when new hire paperwork forms must be approved and/or electronically countersigned

Finalize start date details with new hire

  • Communicate with new hire to confirm start date and if onboarding software is in place, go ahead and explain that applicant will be receiving email prompting him/her to login and approve and sign various employment paperwork files

If you aren’t already employing many of these tips in your process, before you start consider documenting your average time to fill. Then, once some additional time-saving measures are put into place and in action over a period of a few months, measure your average time to fill metric again and see to what extent your organization’s efficiency has improved on that front. Share the success with your team and your CFO…as quantitative KPI info like this is exactly what you need to justify the cost/time involved with future process improvements. The ROI is there when you can create a turnkey process based on sound fundamentals.

ExactHire’s hiring software applications help small and medium-sized companies automate and improve the recruiting and onboarding processes. For more information on how our tools can impact your time-to-fill KPI, please visit our resources page or contact us.

Education – What Employers Really Want

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I have four children, with the oldest getting ready to head off to college this fall. Like all 18 year olds, he’s trying to decide what interests him and can engage him as he enters the workplace. Having talked with him over the last several months about this, it’s opened my eyes to how much education is likely to change over the next few years.

For people my age, going to college after high school was the only viable option to making a good living. Without a college degree in the 80’s and 90’s, it was nearly impossible to get any type of professional position anywhere. At the same time, though, college was fairly affordable for most families — even those in the lower-middle-class range.

Fast-forward to today and everyone knows the cost of college has far outpaced inflation. Beyond the economics, however, there has been a significant shift in the workplace regarding what skills/training/expertise are considered valuable.

Skills That Are In Demand

It’s clear in today’s environment (and future, by most accounts) that specialized skills are in demand more than ever. The obvious example is technology — development, database administration, user experience/graphic design, etc. are all things that tend to always be in demand. Other non-technology examples include advanced manufacturing, medical equipment repair/maintenance, engine repair/maintenance (aviation, diesel equipment, locomotives). These are just a few examples of positions that are understaffed today, but weren’t even on the radar 10-15 years ago. Human Resource leaders and their recruiting teams have seen these changes and are starting to adjust to them with different recruiting strategies and sources.

So there are literally millions of jobs that go unfilled each year, yet many college graduates can’t find a job. We read about them every day. See the disconnect?

My point is that college degrees are still very important for many professions — medicine, accounting, pharmacy, teaching, finance, etc. At the same time, general degrees (like the one I earned — Business Administration) aren’t nearly as valuable as they were previously. My contention (and I’m not alone here) is that they don’t provide graduates with the tangible skills so often needed in today’s workplace. In short, it’s hard to show a great ROI to parents (or graduates), each of whom are often racking up huge debt, for these types of degrees.

Education That Employers Seek

Employers and their staff involved in the hiring process want applicants who can show an ability to contribute to the bottom line right away. What degree they earned (or didn’t earn) or from where it was earned isn’t nearly as much of an issue as it was in the past.

Here are trends I see happening now (and hopefully continuing as we move forward):

  • Specialized degree programs (usually 2 years or less) that prepare graduates for a specific function or industry
  • Kids who pursue 4 year degrees taking core classes online or at local community colleges (usually for the first 2 years) — then transferring those core credits toward their ultimate degree from a 4 year institution
  • Apprentice programs for those who want to work in a chosen profession and need specialized training to get there. This allows them to have that training provided at little to no cost, in return for a commitment to work for their employer who paid for that training.
  • Online degrees — they’re far less expensive and allow people to earn degrees while working
  • Self-learning — this tends to apply more to technology and involves kids skipping post-secondary options completely. Instead, they learn by doing through online tutorials, meet-ups, etc.

It’s hard to predict how quickly these changes will be embraced by society. Traditional colleges and universities have much at stake to stave off these alternatives as long as possible. However, as the price tag continues to escalate at traditional institutions, making the option less attainable (even for upper-middle-class families), my prediction is the alternative trends emerging will continue to become a much more accepted option for both employers and society.

Jeff Hallam is Co-Founder of ExactHire, an Indianapolis-based firm that sells software to help employers automate and improve the quality of the hiring process. For more information about our products, please visit our resources section or contact us today.

Image credit: Harvard University by David Paul Ohmer (contact)

Which Recruitment Metrics Are Right For You – Cost Per Hire?

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In the age of Big Data, we have access to crunch numbers and draw insightful conclusions in many situations. The recruiting and human resources realm is no exception thanks to ATS, HRIS, LMS…and many other alphabet soup acronyms. But sometimes having that much information at our fingertips can be disabling and intimidating if we aren’t sure which metrics are worth our attention for our specific company. And let’s say you do know which KPIs will serve you well…how do you then decide on appropriate benchmarks for each metric for your business?

It may not be as simple as relying on comparisons for your industry because many factors can come into play such as your company size, geographic area, organizational culture, compensation and benefits package, number of steps in the hiring process and brand reputation. But, you’ve got to start somewhere…and as my favorite high school Composition teacher Mr. Barlowe often reminded me, “you’ve got to know the rules before you can break the rules!” Or for our purposes…know the meaning of various metrics before deciding which ones to throw out the window.

With that in mind, this blog series will provide a run-down of some metrics, AND mitigating factors, that might influence your decision on whether each could be a powerful piece in your recruitment dashboard. First, we’ll examine…

Cost Per Hire (CPH)

The average costs associated with hiring an employee for your company are comprised of both tangible expenses and the opportunity costs of various individuals’ time tied up in the selection process. While its easier to calculate the former by tallying expenses such as external job board postings, staffing firm services and criminal background check fees, figuring the cost of your staff members’ time is a little trickier as it varies with individual role and employee. While I’ll focus on some quick basics in this blog, for a comprehensive look at the CPH metric, check out this collaborative effort between ANSI and SHRM.

Why Hiring Costs Matter

CFOs love numbers like this as it directly relates to the bottom line and, over time, can keep you honest if recruiting expenses begin to inflate without generating improved efficiency in the selection process and/or quality of hire. You can use it to look for trends over time and across positions, as well as give your hiring managers a gentle nudge urging them to make up their mind more quickly if their indecision (or lack of sense or urgency to responding to applicants quickly) affects this indicator. Here are just a few examples of items that may contribute to your cost per hire calculations:

The cost of time to…

  • Write a job description
  • Push a job listing to various external job boards (will vary depending on hiring software that may or may not be in place) – and maybe you’ll need time to research which job boards will be best suited for your role, too.
  • Review applications and conduct phone interviews. An applicant tracking system (ATS) – though an expense – might save one enough time in shortening the screening process to be worth it.
  • Develop interview questions
  • Correspond with applicants to schedule interviews and send rejection notices
  • Prepare materials to recap applicants’ initial pre-screen for hiring managers
  • Make up for any revenue lost from stakeholders involved in the process that were pulled away from any normal money-generating activities
  • Coordinate the logistics involved with onboarding a new employee prior to their start date

The hard cost for…

Mitigating Factors for CPH Benchmarking

There is a direct relationship between cost per hire and time to fill (another metric to be discussed in the next installment of this series). So, the longer it takes you to find someone for a position, the higher your cost per hire figure will climb. However, while keeping expenses in line should naturally be important, you probably don’t want to pinch pennies so much that you are unable to successfully hire the right individuals. Here are some potential factors to consider:

  • If you historically just can’t find enough applicants for a position that is open frequently, then it’s reasonable to expect that your company might need to fork up the money for paid job boards or booths at job fairs.
  • If certain positions in your industry are uber-competitive, then grab your share of the limited candidate supply by considering a signing bonus.
  • Despite time being money, if you have previously rushed through the selection process to fill a seat with a warm body, then slowing down to make sure you find the right candidate for not only the position, but the company culture, just makes sense.
  • If you are a small company, it may be hard not to have a CPH that is especially weighed down by the opportunity cost of employees’ time. With fewer people on the team, everyone must wear many hats and contribute a great deal of time to the hiring process. Each new employee is that much more critical in a small business that may not be able to afford to make hiring mistakes.

Cost per hire may very well be an important element in your analysis of recruiting efforts. Looking at the fluctuations to this metric over time for your specific organization will allow you to make the appropriate adjustments and decisions to propel your business forward.

HireCentric applicant tracking software from ExactHire is specifically geared toward the SMB market. For more information on how this tool can impact your CPH, please visit our resources page or contact us.

Candor & Accountability: Dynamic Duo for Employee Engagement

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Hopefully you’ve been in an organization…maybe right now…where you felt as though you were on the precipice of something exciting. Maybe you can tell by an intangible buzz or rhythm to how things get done on a daily basis…all the pieces have finally fallen into place and work is productive, a fine-tuned machine. If you’ve ever read Jim Collins’ Good to Great then you might consider this the “Flywheel Effect” in which, through diligent effort and discipline, an organization may turn the arduous task of spinning a giant, heavy flywheel into a task that later requires less effort simply thanks to the momentum that was gained by pushing the wheel steadily from the start. I guess you could call it the “snowball effect,” too.

This spirit of teamwork and focused discipline doesn’t happen by accident, but rather through successful employee engagement. I could probably brainstorm ten to fifteen different core attributes that tend to lead to this coveted internal synergy, but I’d rather just focus on two in this blog. Two things that organizations should do, and conversely that employees should do in return, to start moving that wheel.

Candor is King

For those that know me well, they know that I lovingly embrace the virtue of candor. While I’ve always been wired this way, it wasn’t until I read Winning by Jack Welch a handful of years ago that I really understood how an organization could use frankness as a competitive advantage…simply by creating a culture that understands it as an expectation. Now there’s a fine line that can sometimes be drawn between being direct and being too abrasive, so care should be taken in crafting the appropriate delivery of information to employees.

Nevertheless, for an organization that is at least somewhat transparent and doesn’t try to placate its employees with vague, general statements, it is highly likely that its efforts will be rewarded by employees who appreciate being respected and trusted to handle the truth. I mentioned setting expectations earlier…for this type of culture to work it is imperative that individuals understand into what they are getting themselves. An environment of candor works when you are candid in the moment, as well as candid about the company’s expectations of its teammates and operations.

Accountability…Is It Really That Hard?

My niece is a junior at Indiana University, and will be doing her first internship this summer…her first taste of the real working world. Recently, she and I were chatting and, in one of my more forthright moments (no surprise), I decided to lay some advice on her and indicate that all she really needed to do to be more successful than many others in the working world was to just follow through. Period.

How often do others (hopefully not you, too) say they will have this report to you by Thursday, or that they’ll text you about getting together for lunch, or that they’ll get back to their co-workers about that research by next week at the latest…only to never actually do what they promised? I get that things happen and circumstances change…so what always impresses me is when one follows up prior to the deadline to acknowledge that he realizes an item was due by tomorrow, but that XYZ happened and now the new deliverable date will need to be moved to next week. That’s okay, too…because he communicated the change to me instead of just allowing the deadline to come and go without saying a peep.

Does your company follow through with the little promises it makes (maybe without realizing it) regularly? More importantly, is it up front with employees when something can’t happen as originally planned…including the reasons why? That’s a true measure of showing your employees they matter and deserve to have an explanation for why you may have fallen short on your part.

Accountability makes your reputation, and instills trust in your organization. What other core principles does your organization practice to further engage employees?
ExactHire sells Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications that organizations may use to improve job fit across the organization. For more information, please visit our resources page or contact us today.

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Finding Your Niche… Job Board

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Each day, you’re in a fast-paced race against your competitors to try to fill vacant positions with qualified candidates who fit well within your organization. Specialty positions with sought after key skill sets can be especially hard to fill. Job seekers often use job aggregator sites (often called spider boards that pull job listings from many sites) such as Indeed and SimplyHired to search for jobs.

Aggregators are great for companies to use as a tool to find qualified candidates, but sometimes the number of candidates for a particular vacancy can be overwhelming. With this in mind, ExactHire offers a great way for companies to filter candidates leaving you with the candidates that meet the basic requirements you establish so you can move forward with interviewing a select group of qualified job seekers.

Consider Using Niche Job Boards

Aggregators are not the only route to explore when posting jobs. Another route to consider when posting your company’s vacant positions is to find your niche…that is find your niche job board. These types of boards offer a company a way to focus its efforts on finding job seekers who possess a particular type of expertise.

Finding the most qualified candidate for your company depends on a variety of strategies and techniques. Word of mouth among your networks, job aggregators, and niche job boards are starting points to completing the puzzle of hiring the best fitting candidate. Regardless of the job boards you want to use in your company’s hiring efforts, ExactHire can make things easier for you by streamlining the process of posting jobs to external boards; thus, taking the hassle out of this tedious process for your team.

Listed below are a few niche job boards for some key employment areas. As you find your niche, know that the ExactHire team is here to help you. After all, delivering exceptional customer service and support while helping companies maximize their potential is our niche.

To learn more about easily posting jobs within ExactHire applicant tracking software, please visit our resources section or contact ExactHire today.

Image credit: FINDING ONE’S NICHE by Marc Falardeau (contact)

Passing On Advice – Are You All Ears?

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Every year around graduation time people come up with lists of advice. I enjoy seeing what advice other people have been given and what advice they’re passing along. We learn by sharing ideas and thoughts; gleaning little nuggets here and there. Why wait until graduation to pass along golden nuggets? Here’s my list of the best advice I’ve been given from my mentors.

Everything Has a Price

The first time I heard this I did a little gasp. Did I really hear this correctly? EVERYTHING has a price?! Yes. EVERYTHING. I challenge you; name something that you think has no price. Do you have it? Now stop thinking only in terms of money and include time and life. Those things have value and thus have a price.

Why does this matter? The same philosophy behind the statement of missing 100% of the shots you don’t take. If you are interested in something, inquire about it. Many experiences, opportunities, and purchases will present themselves if only you ask, “How much does this cost?” Keep in mind, just because something has a price doesn’t mean you have to pay it. It is your decision if you are willing to pay the price. But everything does have a price. What matters is your consideration and decision on whether the benefit justifies the cost.

Pay It Forward

I am a compilation of investment from others. Time, thought, money, knowledge. I recall my mentor saying one day, “I invest in you and your generation, so that you can invest in someone else and their generation and the cycle will continue. Pay it forward when you can.”

Turns out investing in others is just as important to their growth as it is to your own. Paying it forward has a healthy impact on you as much as it does your recipient.

Answer the Unasked Question

This one is important because often people do not know what they don’t know. If I had no idea that it was possible for candy to be placed inside of a paper mache figure, how would I know that I should beat it until it busts? If people do not know what to ask, it’s most helpful if you answer the unasked question. To know if you are answering the unasked question, try playing the why game. Once you’ve exhausted most or all of the whys, you have answered the unasked question.

For example, “Do kids like piñatas at birthday parties?” could be answered with a simple yes, but then many why questions could follow. Instead a possible answer could be, “Yes, usually kids ages seven and older like piñatas at birthday parties because the coordination they demonstrate to hit the paper mache figure filled with candy until it bursts, while blindfolded, is entertaining as well as surprising.” The trick to this piece of advice, is knowing when to voluntarily provide this information and when a simple yes would satisfy. At ExactHire, we do our best to try to answer the unasked questions when working with clients on software implementations and ongoing support requests.

What kind of advice have you been given that has stuck with you?

ExactHire offers software applications that help small- to mid-sized business leverage technology to automate hiring process-related tasks. For more information about our products and ongoing service, please visit our resources section or contact us.

Image credit: Sage Advice by Randy Heinitz (contact)

5 Features An Applicant Tracking System Should Have for SMBs

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If you are a small or mid-sized organization (SMB), there are dozens of potential applicant tracking system (ATS) options suitable for your company size available on the market. While price is always important, comparison shopping can be difficult — no two systems are alike.

To help with your decision making process, below are 5 key features that most any SMB will want from an ATS — even if you don’t know it yet!

1 – Branding for Job Portal

Be sure the ATS you select does more than just paste your logo onto an otherwise generic careers page. Instead, find an option that uses your homepage URL address and design/style settings as inspiration for the hosted career portal. Ideally, you should also have the ability to add other pages to your recruiting software portal to showcase information about company benefit plans, history, culture, career paths, etc.

2 – Flexible Employment Application Process for Applicants

Don’t settle for a “one-size-fits-all” online application. You need the ability to get the screening information you want in the manner that will resonate best with your applicants. This should include the ability to have different processes for different types of positions (i.e., hourly vs. salary). You may need a shorter initial process for positions that are highly competitive, while positions that tend to provide you plenty of applicants may be better suited for a more comprehensive process to make sure those applicants are serious about that opening.

3 – Job-Based Screening Questions

This is very different than scanning resumes for keyword matches. These types of questions are created by you and allow you to quickly determine up-front whether applicants meet your basic qualifications. In addition, you should have the ability to automatically apply scoring to various applicant responses, allowing you to see how those applicants rank, relative to one another. These should be questions you develop for your unique jobs and criteria. This ensures you get meaningful information about your applicants.

4 – Manage the Entire Hiring Process

Many less expensive software solutions do a great job of allowing you to gather applicant information and hold it for review. Unfortunately, in many instances, these applications don’t provide much beyond that point. Be sure the hiring software you select will allow you to keep track of referral sources, notes, progress through your unique hiring steps, etc. Otherwise, you may find down the road that you have a lot of candidates in a database, but not much else. Do a little more investigating initially to make sure you can harness all of the things you’ll need to actually have valuable intellectual property going forward.

5 – Help & Support When You Need It

We’ve all seen technology solutions that promise they’re so simple, you’ll never need help. The reality is that is a near impossibility. Good applicant tracking software should be intuitive. No matter how intuitive it may be, however, you will have questions and/or you may find that something doesn’t work the way it should. Ask any potential provider what type of user support is available. Online knowledge bases are very helpful and can address many of the things that you may encounter. At the same time, you should check to make sure that live support is available and isn’t limited to offshore or call center options.

Keep these factors in mind when you consider selecting any type of recruiting or online application software solution. There are certainly other features and benefits that may be needed for your organization, but if these core things are present, you can be confident you’re dealing with a solid and reliable provider.

To learn more about ExactHire’s products, please visit our resources section or contact us today. –

SMB Pre-Employment Screening Guide Ebook

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Workplace Motivation – Act Like Your Job is Brand New Every Day

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We all know that staying motivated at work will more often than not lead to career success…but sometimes this can be a struggle to do, regardless. Now that most people have given up their New Year’s resolutions, here is a good tip to stay motivated at work (as well as in your personal life) throughout the remainder of the year! This seems simple, but sometimes things are easier said than done. Treat your current job as if it were BRAND NEW! Here’s how…

Climbing Up the Corporate Ladder – Make a Plan!

To succeed or advance in your career, you need to be noticed by others of authority in your organization. The most obvious way to do this is to do an excellent job at your current position. Working hard now will pay off down your career path. Now that you know this is what you need today, make a plan on how to execute, making each day another step toward your success. First, think of two other positions within your company that you would like to obtain. Then look at what qualities you have that would make you a good candidate for these jobs. Using this list, create an action plan that showcases your skills.

Differentiate Yourself

Just like when you first started your job, you enjoyed the challenges of what each day would bring. Another way to stay motivated at work is to look at things in a new light – ask yourself, what can I do differently today to still accomplish my goals? Thinking outside the box will help get you noticed by others, making advancement possible and work more challenging and fun. Enjoying your job will likely lead to you being more efficient. Ways to differentiate yourself would be to cross train in another department, join professional groups within your interest areas, seek out special projects and offer help to other staff members whenever possible. Remember to make sure you are still fulfilling your daily job requirements, as well.

Use Your Support Team

Many people don’t like to ask for help, so if you fall into that category, think of it as asking for guidance, instead. Seek out mentors (even if they are not within your organization) who can offer tips on how to succeed or thrive in your current position. Maybe you can take a few classes or network to find similarly-minded people, too. These activities can offer support and improve motivation as you continue your career. Also, speak with your current boss. Let him/her know your action plans and see if he/she has other tips to offer you. If you share your goals with your manager, he/she may be able to help steer you in the right direction of what challenges will best suit you as you work to stay motivated. A happy worker is an efficient and productive one!

ExactHire is a provider of software applications that help companies to automate and improve the recruiting, onboarding and succession planning processes. For more information about our products, please visit our resources page or contact us today.

Image credit: New Beginning by Scott Robinson (contact)