Umm…I Can’t Come to the Office Because of the #Polarvortex

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A snow day! The best words of winter to anyone under the age of 18… and often 21. Here in Indiana we’ve been impacted by the “polar vortex.” The winter witch dropped over 14 inches of snow within 24 hours. While it created incredible sights and terrific workouts (shoveling snow), we were all stuck in our homes for days.

Think of all the great things you could do! Wash all of the bed sheets, mop the floors, reorganize the home office, get a headstart on that New Year’s resolution of exercise. Sounds lovely, huh? Based off of my Facebook news feed, however, I believe most of my friends actually have messier houses, have eaten everything in sight, and several can’t stand to be trapped with their loved ones in a house for a few days.

Similar to my friends, I did not have an opportunity to tackle all of those great things (aka household chores) I mentioned earlier because I was busy having one of the most productive work weeks I’ve had in a very long time. That’s right, no snow day here; it was business as usual.

The Wonders of SaaS During Snow

Just because it’s snowy where I am, doesn’t mean it’s snowy where my clients are located. As long as we have electricity and internet, we can keep the doors open for business. We often talk about how our ExactHire technology solutions are SaaS products. Software as a Service, or SaaS, applications can be accessed anywhere you have an internet connection. Forgot your laptop at work before the snowstorm? No worries…grab your personal laptop or tablet and access the software via the internet.

Because many people are confined to their home during these snowy days, I noticed an uptick in the amount of jobs being posted. Way to go administrative applicant tracking system users! Good job on working through the “distraction” of snow, and children, and anything else staring you down during your time at home. I also noticed an increase in the number of people applying for jobs.

Clearly we cannot tell, too far in advance, when the weather will give us such a large amount of snow, but we can file this bit of information away for later this winter or next winter. If people are snowed in, it’s worth your time to share your posted jobs to social networks – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

If you’re not currently using a SaaS product for your hiring process, I would recommend checking out our selection of applicant tracking and employee onboarding software options by visiting our resources section or contacting us for further information. If you are already on board, I hope your snow day was productive.

Keep warm everyone!

Best Applicant Tracking System for Small Business

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Not too long ago, the idea of a small business using an applicant tracking system (ATS) was unrealistic. Most solutions were geared to larger companies and were too expensive and complicated for smaller and medium-sized organizations. Thankfully, times have changed and you have options for finding the best applicant tracking system for small business.

Now, even very small employers are seeing advantages to using an ATS. At the same time, the list of providers offering this type of software has expanded dramatically. While there are a number of very good options from which to choose, there is arguably a larger number of “bare bones” offerings that may not help an organization as expected. To that end, below are some things to consider to make sure you can select the best recruiting software for your small business:

  • Will you want/need to push to external job boards — i.e. Monster, CareerBuilder, LinkedIn, colleges, Department of Workforce Development, etc.?
  • Can the solution reinforce your web branding?
  • How user-friendly is the process for your applicants?
  • Is there flexibility to allow for both applications and/or resumes to be gathered from applicants?
  • Is there additional cost for multiple users in or out of HR (hiring managers, executives, etc.)?
  • Are there limits to the number of jobs that may be posted at a single time or how many applicants are allowed to be kept within the system?
  • Will the vendor help you get the ATS configured and ready for live use?
  • How is training done?
  • Is live support available when you have questions?
  • What is your budget for something like this?

Giving thought to some of these factors will help you better define your particular needs and more readily identify a short list of providers who can meet those needs.

To learn more about ExactHire applicant tracking system for small business, please visit our resources section or contact us.

SMB Pre-Employment Screening Guide Ebook

Image credit: The Office by John (contact)

6 Ideas on How to Increase Organizational Productivity for 2014

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Can you believe it? 2013 has come to a close and what a great year it was! It’s time to think about making some organizational productivity resolutions for the New Year, both for yourself and for your company. Here are some ideas on how to get increases in efficiency from your entire staff during 2014:

Have employees take an assessment

(If they have not already taken one.) Employee assessments can give the employee and the manager a great deal of insight about why a person works the way he/she does. Also, it shows what motivates him/her, as well as, what negatives (or demotivators) you can avoid to keep an employee engaged and efficient all year long.

Switch up the office layout

Change is good and this is a fun and easy way to liven up the office. Maybe its hanging new art or painting a few office walls. Maybe it’s a larger change like switching up cubicles and offices for much of the staff. Think about how refreshing it would be to have a new “neighbor” in the office to get to know each day.

Use an ATS system to make hiring easier

This is an obvious one from our company but if you haven’t already heard, there are TONS of benefits to using applicant tracking software (ATS). It is simple and makes it easy to streamline your hiring process. It’s consistent, compliant and efficient! This will especially help with human resources staff and hiring managers, but the benefits will affect the whole organization.

Have REGULAR brainstorming meetings

This keeps everyone feeling like part of the team on an ongoing basis. It’s a wise idea to take time every quarter to assemble as a group (or subgroups by department) and brainstorm on how to resolve the current issues and opportunities for the company. Don’t just meet once and call it done for the year…build it into your schedule on a regular basis. This helps keep creative juices flowing on all levels and in all business units of the company year round.

Implement employee onboarding software to reduce hiring stress

Again, this is one specifically helps managers and HR, but using a paperless onboarding system can save tons of time and money for the company. This will increase productivity by allowing all new hires to be efficiently added to the team.

Hold an offsite work retreat

We all know the importance of feeling like part of a group, but take it a step further by having a company retreat. Holding it offsite is a fantastic way to recharge as a group. This can be a team building exercise, a nice dinner meeting or even just a brainstorming session at a new location. All of these will help refresh your thoughts and perspectives for the company’s goals and issues. This activity does the ExactHire team a great deal of good when we meet offsite in the fall each year.

All companies are looking to stay productive, increase job fit and offer a fun work environment. We hope you use some of these ideas, as well as our products to ensure you have a successful 2014. For more information, please visit our resources section or contact us.

Image credit: Flickr Chinese Dragon Year Statue by epSos.de (contact)

Background Checks & Hiring – 7 Things to Consider

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Since the revised EEOC guidance rules were published in 2012, there has been much speculation and frustration among employers as to the use of criminal history checks in the hiring process. These updated guidelines for background checks are especially challenging for small and mid-sized organizations, as they typically don’t have the legal resources readily available to help keep them compliant.

I’ve heard these complaints from clients over the past 18 months. At the same time, I’ve been fortunate enough to receive some tips from background check providers as to what employers can do to help avoid any undue exposure. Below are some of the things they’ve shared with me that I might recommend:

#1 – Have updated job descriptions

Everyone has heard this ad nauseum, but with these EEOC revisions, this is even more important than it has been in the past. And, if you are using an applicant tracking system such as HireCentric, creating updated job descriptions can be done quite efficiently through the use of job templates.

#2 – Be very careful in asking about criminal convictions on your employment application

While the finer points of this bear further discussion with a qualified Labor & Employment Law attorney, the key is to avoid any appearance that applicants having prior criminal convictions are excluded from serious consideration. Beyond this suggestion, many states have actually implemented legislation that makes it illegal to even ask this type of question on the employment application.

#3 – Consider only criminal convictions relevant to the job for which an applicant is applying

The fact that an applicant committed a crime is no longer considered sufficient reason to exclude that person from consideration for a position. In addition, you must be able to show that the crime for which that applicant was convicted creates risk for the organization if they are placed in a given position. An example…the fact that an applicant was convicted for shoplifting doesn’t pose any undue or unreasonable risk for the employer if the applicant is being hired to run a manufacturing machine. However, if that same applicant is being hired to manage company funds, most would agree that the shoplifting conviction is more relevant to that position and could create exposure for the employer.

#4 – Convictions must be recent enough to indicate significant risk

This is very subjective, but the intent here is to make sure that applicants who were convicted for offenses many years ago aren’t excluded from consideration unnecessarily. Another component to this is that applicant attempts at rehabilitation and recent job performance results should be considered. If someone was convicted of a crime 15-20 years ago, but has been employed and showed good performance in positions since then, that conviction likely shouldn’t be used as a way to disqualify the applicant from consideration.

#5 – You get what you pay for

There are a number of inexpensive ways to gather criminal history for applicants. While this isn’t meant to be a “plug” for any particular provider, this is an area where cutting corners can result in big penalties. Be sure to use a qualified provider of these services who can not only provide the conviction history, but who can also provide advice and counsel when needed.

#6 – Confirm convictions at the original source

This is an extension of the point above. Once a conviction shows up in any criminal history search, be sure your provider can locate and provide information from the original source…typically found at the county or municipal level. Since many of these government entities are not fully computerized, this often requires someone physically visiting a courthouse to manually locate and confirm the conviction information contained in the criminal history search.

#7 – Allow applicants to challenge any convictions found

By law, any conviction information found in a criminal history search must be disclosed to the applicant for potential appeal. It’s not uncommon for someone to have a conviction show on their record, when the actual person convicted of the offense is a different person. They may share the same name, but have completely different dates of birth or Social Security numbers. When using a provider, be sure they will either notify applicants on your behalf (ideally) or provide you the means to do so yourself (at a minimum).

By way of full disclosure, I am not an attorney and this is not meant to be legal advice. Instead, these are some effective tips that have been shared with me since the revised EEOC guidelines were released in 2012. I hope these are helpful for your organization, but I recommend speaking with an attorney or a representative from your criminal history provider for more details on this topic.

For more information about ExactHire’s applicant tracking software or potential background checking providers, please contact us today. 

Image credit: 3D Scales of Justice by Chris Potter (contact)

Teaching Company Culture to a Newly Hired Employee

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I am not the newest member of the ExactHire team, but I still remember my first day well! Being the new kid on the block can be a little intimidating, especially at a small company. So, ease the fears of your new hires by teaching company culture from the start. You know…the informal, generally accepted ways of doing things in your company that the employee won’t necessarily read about in the employee handbook.

Times Have Changed in the Workplace

In most cases, workplaces are much more flexible and relaxed places to be than in decades past. If this is the case with your office, make sure the new hire is aware of dress code, lunch policy and other activities/tasks on which flexibility is given. This is true for companies that are still very traditional, as well. Think about how uncomfortable a new employee would feel coming to work way overdressed (or way too casual) on the first day of work. Let him/her know the expectations right away…especially since new employees may be hesitant to ask these types of questions directly when first beginning work at a new organization.

Part of the Family

If you utilized pre-employment testing during the hiring process, than you should already know a lot about what makes your employee “tick” and why he/she is well-suited for the role he/she has accepted. Keep that in mind when acclimating him/her to the new work environment and co-workers. If your company has any social media pages, make sure to invite the new employee to optionally view or participate in these pages. LinkedIn will provide a sense of the company’s industry presence or overall market view. Pages like Facebook, will allow the employee to see some of the fun activities your company has to offer (examples could include office parties or working retreats that the employees attend together).

Know Your Company History

It is helpful to teach the new employee about the background of the company, as well as the industry in which it participates. Knowing how the company started and what major milestones have been reached, paints a clearer picture of why the company is what it is today. Some businesses have traditions they keep in place to remind them of humble roots at the start of the company or even just reminders of the original owners. The new employee will more likely feel more in tune with the overall culture of the company as a result of knowing these facts.

By proactively instilling a sense of your organization’s culture with new employees, you are further helping to make the employee onboarding process a pleasant and informative experience. In the long run, employees who engage more quickly are generally more likely to be productive sooner and stay employed with your company longer.

Technology can augment your company’s employment brand which is certainly a key component of the organizational culture. For more information about ExactHire and how we can help, visit our resources section or contact us today.

Image credit: Say Geese by Vinoth Chandar (contact)

Employee Referrals – Use Technology to Help Track and Reward

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There’s a lot of talk in our market these days about where recruiting is headed. Many experts feel that we are on the cusp of some significant changes in the next few years. Less reliance on traditional job boards, heavier use of social media and allowing applicants to leverage mobile technology are some of the more consistent topics of change that I see on a regular basis.

Whether you see these trends affecting your organization or not, there is a recruiting strategy that is worth considering — employee referrals. This is nothing new. In fact, employers and their staff members responsible for hiring have been trying to find ways to consistently tap this market for years.

Employee Referral Program Benefits

There are several benefits to using employee referrals for sourcing applicants:

  • Better applicants — good people tend to know and refer other good people
  • Passive applicants — this approach reaches people who may not yet be actively looking for work and would never see your opening on your career site or a job board
  • Lower cost — even if you pay employees for referrals, it is widely acknowledged that this cost is far lower than the typical costs born through standard recruiting techniques
  • Better potential for cultural fit — your current employees understand your organization’s culture and are in the best position to help answer questions about the organization from those applicants they refer

Here’s more good news…technological advances are continuing to help make this employee referral process better for both employers and their employees. Social media on its own allows employees to make others in their networks aware of job openings in their organization. However, some of the more progressive applicant tracking software (ATS) tools in the market make this even easier for employees. Employees may click and share openings through their social channels without any copying/pasting. This makes the overall program more sustainable and successful.

To learn more about social referral tools available within HireCentric ATS, please schedule a live demo with ExactHire.

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Boost Your Employee Referral Program

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How does your company promote and incentivize employee referrals? Did you know that in many industries, the #1 source for acquiring new hires is via employee referrals? That is powerful information, especially when harnessed appropriately. Using social media tools to promote your organization’s referral system will also help produce quality applicants, show that you stay current with market trends and boost company culture, as well! Here are some reasons for you to soup up your referral engine!

Why have an employee referral program

  • Produces quality applicants – First, make sure that you have a formal referral program set in place and that all employees have access to the details. All too often organizations may have a policy or program available, but employees don’t know much about it. When employees are given incentives for bringing in quality applicants, it’s a win-win! The employee may receive some type of reward, the applicant will already know more about the company and the company is able to build its applicant database with quality people (quality in the sense that someone trusted can already vouch for them in some respects).
  • Promotes company culture and employment brand – This is very important! When hiring, you want to make sure your company is seen in a positive light. By using referrals, the applicant likely already knows at least a little positive information about your company from the person that referred them. This is your opportunity to hone your employment brand and to promote your company culture. Soon people will hear about what a great organization it is (especialy because it rewards employees for referrals), and there will be increasingly more applicants for all your job openings.
  • Creates a positive experience for the candidate – All applicants want to have a positive experience. Let’s face it; job hunting is not a fun thing for most people to do. If candidates are referred by existing employees, they probably already feel positive about the experience (after all, they wouldn’t take the advice of an enemy would they?). Keep that momentum going by following up with each applicant – either way. Even if they are not hired, make it a positive experience by keeping them in mind for future jobs; or, informed of company news through an email campaign or newsletter. While they may not be a fit for one role, they could be just the person for a future opportunity.

How to use social media with your referral program

  • Employees can spread the word of job openings – This is a super easy and yet very effective way to bring candidates to your company. Most employees today have a Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn account – some have all of these and more! The employee can post a specific job to their network of friends or link directly to the company’s career page. HireCentric applicant tracking system then allows applicants to name the referring employee during the application process.
  • Create social media pages for your company – If you haven’t already done this – please don’t delay! Companies across all industries can benefit from having well-maintained social media pages. LinkedIn is optimal for corporate social presence because you can present your company history, post jobs and blog links, and give updates that allow applicants to find out more about your company culture. By encouraging your employees to follow your social media pages, they can easily repost your notices about new job openings or other company events to their own networks. Plus, with social recruiting tools now available in hiring software, automating the process of posting to your social media properties is seamless.
  • Incentivize sharing behavior – If you are prepared to have a little skin in the game, then offer employees a monetary incentive for referrals that result in new hires. And, with the tracking and analytical tools available to you in an ATS, managing this type of program can be a cinch and pay for itself. Social media can have an exponential impact on the exposure for your organization’s positions – don’t miss out on that opportunity.

To learn more about ExactHire’s applicant tracking software or to view a demo, please contact us today!

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Image credit: Moar Boost by Josh Sniffen (contact)

Ideas to Improve Employee Retention in Your Organization

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Congratulations! You have hired a new team member, and this person appears to be the answer to your organization’s needs. As a leader, you can envision this new employee having a bright future with your company for the long term. This person will complement the organization’s goals beyond your greatest expectations…at least in your vision. How do you connect your vision of long-term achievement with your new employee’s formulating vision of achievement? From the beginning, effective communication about goals, culture and environment with your new team member helps ensure a true collaborative environment in which your new team member is motivated to commit to a productive tenure and reward your employee retention efforts.

How to Keep Your Employees Engaged

Even with a job market that is the most competitive in decades, employees come and go, and the cost of turnover for an organization is a financial and human capital hit that can sink the strongest of ships. Even the brightest employees with tremendous potential can and will leave if their needs are not met. Take a moment to look at some data about the financial repercussions of employee turnover. According to a Fall 2012 report shared by CBS News, for all jobs earning less than $50,000 per year, the average cost of replacing an employee amounts to fully 20% of the person’s salary. More than 40% of jobs in the United States fall into this category. One employee’s departure can cause bruising, but if frequent turnover exists in the work environment, it can cause bleeding that can be fatal to the morale of the employees and ultimately, decrease the lifespan of the company.

What will you and your team do to keep that new asset on board? Organizations can provide various perks to their employees. Affordable benefits, time off, and flexible scheduling are ways to help an employee maintain a work-life balance. Establish a consistent time to meet with your new employee to acquire his/her perspectives while you are sincerely listening more than talking. Often, some of the most important observations can be made by viewing nonverbal language in addition to listening to the details of verbal dialogue.

Use Pre-Employment Testing as a Hiring and Retention Tool

Ultimately, an employee wants to feel challenged and appreciated. Challenged? Appreciated? How do I help my new employee, or even my current employees, feel challenged and appreciated you might ask? Excellent question. Having insight into an employee’s cognitive and behavioral skills can help you, as a leader, effectively mentor the new employee during the initial acclimation phase and throughout his/her career with the organization. Current employees can benefit from mentoring, as well, after receiving feedback from 360 degree evaluations and leadership assessments. To acquire this insightful information about your employees, consider using employee assessments. Pre-hire assessments are excellent tools to help leaders identify strengths and potential weaker areas of candidates. These assessments can be used, in conjunction with interviewing and application screening, to help make a hiring decision, and in addition, identify ways for managers to help nurture new employees’ strengths and coach them as they improve or compensate for weaker areas. Assessments can also be given to an existing team to acquire a better understanding of the team’s motivators and help in succession planning and management promotion.

ExactHire offers a comprehensive selection of pre-employment testing tools that can help you and your organization acquire the necessary insight to lead, and not just supervise your team, while planning for a solid future of growth in your organization. These 360 degree evaluations, leadership and workplace team assessments, along with management potential evaluations are just a few types of assessments available to you. These tools can give you, the leader, a solid foundation of knowledge and insight to help you create an empowering relationship with your team.

For more information about employee assessments available from ExactHire, please contact us today.

Image credit: Magnetic Fields-21 by Windell Oskay (contact)

Hiring Solutions and Technology for Auto Dealers

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With the automotive industry rebound in recent years, we’ve had the opportunity to customize our applicant tracking system technology for auto dealers around the country. In doing so, it dawned on me that there are some common reasons many of these automotive groups are looking for help with their hiring process:

  1. Turnover — With the improved economy, turnover figures are trending back to pre-recession levels. Salespeople, automotive techs and customer service representatives are the main positions where dealers experience turnover.
  2. Demographics — A high percentage of the applicant pool for auto dealers are job seekers who are very tech savvy. These applicants are used to doing things online and expect potential employers to follow suit.
  3. Limited resources — Managers in most dealerships are busier than ever with their day-to-day jobs. This means they don’t have a lot of excess time to review resumes and try to decide which applicants are qualified for their openings. These managers are looking for ways to automate as much as possible.
  4. Cost — Dealers are seeing margins squeezed like everyone else. This means they want technology solutions with low upfront costs, low ongoing costs, and no long-term contracts.

While not unique to auto dealers, these core reasons certainly seem to resonate in this industry. In particular, these issues are magnified for those dealers who happen to have multiple locations — a more common occurrence than years ago.

Popular Applicant Tracking Features for Car Dealers

Below are some of the features to which our clients have gravitated when using our HireCentric applicant tracking software (ATS):

  • Branded career portal to match the rest of your corporate web presence
  • Flexible employment application setup to gather what’s important to a particular dealer’s needs — this includes the ability to break the application into more than one step, if desired
  • See multiple applications for an individual tied to a central applicant profile — especially helpful for “serial” applicants
  • Track all notes, email correspondence and internal feedback for each applicant in a single database
  • Reach out to previous good applicants when positions open up unexpectedly
  • Communicate with groups of applicants simultaneously to keep them informed of progress in filling a position — this protects your brand for applicants who may also be existing or potential customers
  • Easily see what the “pipeline” looks like for any given position or group of positions

Using applicant tracking software isn’t right for every automotive dealer. However, if any of the features mentioned above resonate as potential options for your organization (automotive industry or not), please contact ExactHire to discuss whether this type of solution is functionally and economically viable for your group.

Use our pricing calculator for HireCentric ATS.

Image credit: Honest John’s Used Car Lot, Los Angeles CA, 1947 by Alden Jewell (contact)