Test Your ATS Is It Helping or Hindering Recruitment

Test Your ATS Is It Helping or Hindering Recruitment This post is sponsored by Lever, a new breed of applicant tracking system that emphasizes speed, collaboration and building candidate relationships. Great news! Youve been given the green light on all those grand hiring plans.  Before you start  hunting hot talent, you need to give your software  a  real  health check. A user-friendly yet sophisticated  applicant tracking system is where your success can start.  Take a good look at that ATS of yours, is it helping or hindering your recruitment efforts? Your ATS should promote internal collaboration, save you loads of time  and give candidates a frustration-free  experience. With technology moving at lightning fast speed, it pays to keep up with the times.  If your ATS isnt  capable of these  7 things, its time to shop around: 1.  Syncing centralisation All recruitment data should be stored in one place, with  all recruitment activity  driven out of the one system. Forget cross-checking multiple calendars, directories and  databases, your ATS should be updated in real time by multiple users and promotes information sharing among decision makers.  The best systems complement centralisation  with  instant messaging, to allow for  quick and easy commentary and communication. As we know, time kills deals! 2. Sourcing  referrals The best recruitment occurs when everyone within the company is committed to talent attraction. Your ATS should allow  all staff members to access open vacancies, and follow simple steps  to  pass on job leads to their wider network. Good people tend to know good people, so you should be making the most of your 2nd-degree connections! The best ATS will also make sourcing candidates easier, using a browser  extension to import contacts from social site and CV databases, without the manual labour! 3. Interviews feedback Your ATS should take care of scheduling interviews for you, matching candidate preferences with available time slots. Exit  arduous admin, and enter  clever  automation.  Your ATS should also facilitate the taking of feedback, making it easier for hiring managers and interviewers to  record and measure  skills and performance. Creating custom scorecards allows benchmarking and comparison between candidates, helping you translate  those  sloppy scribbles on the side of a CV into useful comments. 4. Tracking following up Just because  a candidate  isnt  the right  fit for your current vacancy doesnt mean they wont be exactly the person youre looking for  in a couple of  months time. Its important to keep tabs on passive candidates and unsuccessful applicants who have the potential to become employees down the track.  Dont undo all your hard recruitment work by letting them slip through the cracks.  Your ATS should make it easy for you to set reminders for  yourself so you dont have to scribble follow-up notes in your diary. Levers snooze capability allows you to  postpone action on a candidate to a later date, so you dont forget about them. 5. Saving searching When a new vacancy opens up, you shouldnt have to start your search from scratch. An  ATS that builds detailed candidate profiles becomes an invaluable database of future prospects a goldmine of warm leads, acting more like a CRM.  Your software should allow you to perform advanced, specific searches that yield high-quality  results, to save you sorting through hundreds of resumes. 6. User-friendly navigation There is nothing more frustrating than filling out a  confusing application form full of blank fields and generic drop-down options that arent applicable to you. Needless to say, your candidates dont want to be clicking through 70 pages of blandness, only to have the system crash on page 68. Your ATS should offer a streamlined application process, that is easy to use. Likewise, if you want existing staff members to adopt a collaborative approach to recruitment,  you need a system that is straight forward, self-explanatory and efficient. 7. Top-notch reporting Brilliant recruitment takes time and effort. Companies that understand the value of having good people take talent attraction and retention seriously, and constantly work at their strategy. Your ATS should have a sound reporting function that allows measurement  of all recruitment  activity. TAKE ACTION How did your ATS perform? Anything less than 7 out of 7 isnt worth your time or money. Invest in something that makes recruitment  exciting  and manageable! About the author: Leela Srinivasan is  Levers Chief Marketing Officer. Check out their website to learn  how your recruitment processes could be transformed.  

How to Write Your First Resume

How to Write Your First ResumeWriting your first resume may be the hardest thing that you will ever do. While you might feel confident that you are writing your first resume for a job opening in the store, there are several other applications and positions in which you will need to learn to write your first resume. Before you can even begin writing your first resume, you must understand what you are going to be asked to write about.Most of the time, the person you are interviewing is going to ask you to fill out forms such as a physical description and a background report. You should not be embarrassed to hand these forms over to them, as they are expected to give you accurate information. In fact, you should be happy to give this information to the person that you are interviewing because it will help you be prepared for when they ask you for your resume in the future.Another place that you will need to learn to write your first resume is online. There are many companies that are wi lling to send you information online in order to get you to fill out forms online. It is important to be careful when filling out forms, as it is easy to click on links that lead to adware or malware that could harm your computer.Many people are afraid to send their resumes online because they feel that filling out forms in person is a better way to go. It is important to remember that filling out forms in person does not hurt your chances of getting a job. Most companies will require you to fill out a form if they do not have a direct phone number for you.In order to ensure that you fill out forms accurately, you should look into resume writing software. There are many programs that will allow you to write your own resume. This will allow you to create a resume that is unique to you and your interests, rather than using a template that you have to copy and paste. After you have created your resume, you should look for the company that you are applying with and see if they will let you fill out a few questions about your experience to make sure that you are not wasting their time. This is an important step in learning how to write your first resume. Once you have completed the questions that they ask you, you should take a moment to look at your resume and see if you want to send it off to a third party for review.Your resume is only as good as the reviews that other people will read. When you send your resume out, you need to make sure that you are submitting it to the right company. In most cases, the reviewers will be able to tell right away if you sent your resume to the wrong company or the incorrect person.The final step is to ensure that you are uploading your resume properly. Even if you use a program, you need to make sure that you are uploading it properly so that it is saved to the right format. Remember that your first resume is one of the most important things that you will ever create.

Conflict of interest doesnt apply to blogs (another reason newspapers are dying)

Conflict of interest doesnt apply to blogs (another reason newspapers are dying) Why is anyone concerned that I tell you who is paying me when I write about something? Every time I write about a person or a company its a conflict of interest. Because I want to be on their radar. Its good for me. And the same is true for every other intelligent blogger because that inherent conflict of interest underlies why blogging is so valuable for someones career. The reality is that readers are not hurt by the conflict of interest. Readers are hurt by bad content. But only once. Because if readers hate the content, they leave. (I know this to be true because of all the people who leave comments on my blog that say This post sucks. Im unsubscribing.) Mainstream media is mostly about money, so they reveal every time they have a financial conflict of interest. But bloggers are more about influence than money. So they have conflict of interest all over their blog, with every post. For example, every time you link to someone, you are hoping for some sort of acknowledgment, or some sort of good karma. Do you need to acknowledge that so as to protect your readers? Of course not. Heres how it really works: Guy Kawasaki keeps such close track of favors exchanged that I think he must have it on a spreadsheet. When I link to him, he definitely notices, and he definitely helps me in exchange. So, should I list the conflict of interest every time I link to him? And every time I say I love Alltop? No. Because if I tell you I love Alltop, and you go there and its stupid, you will think Im stupid. (Note: What Alltop is good for is finding out what sort of blogs exist in a given category. Amazingly, there is no other efficient way to do this.) And what about my blog post about oral sex? Ive gotten way more oral sex since I wrote that. Mostly because I realized from my research and from the comments section that men who dont do oral sex are losers. So I stay away from them. Should I disclose that I had side benefits from that post? Should I disclose that I have benefitted beyond the benefit of just educating the public? No. Who cares? Insanity. But honestly, getting more oral sex far outweighs any financial gain I could have gotten from any given post. And that is saying something. Because Ive made a lot of money selling posts. For example, when I wrote a post about PayScale, I was getting paid $5000 a month to talk about them. (I considered not revealing the true value of the contract, but then I thought: Well, PayScale is the poster child for transparent salaries, so how can they complain?) But readers dont need to know that I was paid to write the post. Readers should just want the post to be useful and interesting and all the other things you want from any post. Who cares how I get paid as long as I write well? The post got about 100 comments, and it got picked up on 20/20 and in the New York Times. That means its a good post. In fact, it probably means that PayScale has good ideas and thats why I chose to work with them. You should just trust me to take money from smart companiesif I take money from stupid companies then Ill write stupid posts. Heres another reason bloggers shouldnt talk about who sponsors them: Its boring! Heres my post about telling you that LinkedIn sponsors my blog. Heres my post about how to use LinkedIn if youre a journalist. You know what? The second post did way better than the first one. There are tons of incoming links to the journalism post, and I got three big speaking gigs at journalism conferences, which made LinkedIn happy (they wanted journalists to use LinkedIn and then write about it.) And it made me happy because it gave me a platform for telling journalists they should sell their columns to the highest bidders because bloggers are doing it. So we dont need stupid rules about conflict of interest for people who are putting themselves on the line. That rule is for old media, where writers were putting only the brand of the newspaper on the line. In old media most journalists were no-names, writing under big (newspaper) names. So if they wrote something moronic, so that they could increase the value of a stock they held, or, maybe, get more oral sex, they would put only the newspaper brand at risk. Not their own. Which means that the arcane conflict of interest rules are to protect the newspaper, not the readers. And this, by the way, is why newspapers are going down: because they are more about themselves, and their hierarchies, and rules and structures, than they are about what their readers want. Readers should not care about the business dealings of the writers or their publishers. Readers just want good content.

Best Paying Careers for Someone Who Has an Eye for Technology and Innovation

Best Paying Careers for Someone Who Has an Eye for Technology and Innovation You’ve finally graduated, tossed the toga and are now well on your way to a thousand possibilities! And with a lot of things to choose from, you want to end up stuck with what you really want to do. It’s wise to opt for careers that match the kind of lifestyle you want, the things you want to create and contribute and the knowledge you want to acquire. With today’s super-fast tracked technology trends and product development, every novel and weird idea is potential gold. If you are serious about your career goals, then you should equip yourself with resources that will catapult that idea to great heights. What better way to start somewhere and build your way around it. If you have a passion for technology and a knack for design, there are a number of great lines of work you can start with that pay well. Software development Do you enjoy playing computer or mobile games? Ever wished you could add in more challenging obstacles? Then, writing and improving codes is for you. Software development is all about that and more. A software developer gets to be in charge of the development process. It’s the process of ensuring a software’s functionality, performance, upgrade or maintenance. You can be in computer systems design, finance, and manufacturing. Collaboration is essential for this role as you will get to work with other teams crucial to you and your team’s success. Computer Programming This involves intense coding at its best. The goal of a computer programmer is to identify the most efficient way to solve a problem. You have to be keen to understand what the client or business needs, what programming language to use and how to design a solution that any programmer can also work with. Be prepared for pulling long hours at work and fighting off sleep. If you’re more of a nocturnal animal then this will work for you. Tons of programming courses and lessons can be found online should you decide to hone your coding skills at the comfort of your home. Product Management When there are new products (especially gadgets) introduced to a target demographic, are you one of the few who religiously follows through these and analyzes how well it has been accepted and if it’s really as good as they say it is? And you question the value and impact of the said product? Well, your inquisitive nature can be a sign pointing you to the field of Product Management. You not only get to work with your ideas but the collective perception of the customers/business. You have to constantly keep up with the changing times and evolve with it for you to thrive. Searching for a Product Manager Interview can give you an idea of what this work is going to be like. Looking ahead on what you can expect as if you’re already there is a good way to set yourself up for success. Katharine Whitehorn’s statement fits the situation of someone fresh from graduation and looking for green pastures. She said to “Find out what you like doing best, and get someone to pay you for doing it.”

Customer Service Skills Resume

Customer Service Skills ResumeCustomer service skills are key to a successful business and with the growth of technology and customer expectations increasing. If you're applying for a job, then you may want to consider including this section on your resume. Here are some tips to help you with that.One way to include customer service skills on your resume is to actually get experience in the field. Check out what others are doing to get work experience. What can you do yourself to add more experience? Maybe you can deliver packages for your local grocery store, offer your own time for extra deliveries, help customers find things on the internet or help them sign up for phone service from your home.Another tip is to check in with current customers and see if they want to hear about your past customer service experience. If they do, you can include this information on your resume.If you do not want to go the route of getting work experience, you need to do what you can to improve your w ritten communication skills. Use handouts and other writing that you have available to you. You can do exercises with children and adults that can help you improve on your spelling and grammar skills.There are plenty of other tips for improving your customer service skills on your resume, but these are the most common ways to do it. You need to remember that it is much easier to write and ask for help from your peers than it is to fight with customers. That can be very difficult.To make sure you get the attention you need on your customer service skills, try writing down three reasons why you are the best person for the job. These should be specific and realistic. Make sure that you can back up these statements.When people read your customer service skills resume, they will have a reason to hire you instead of someone else. You can also consider becoming an expert in a given area.If you're interested in making more money and having more control over your life, you need to take care of your customer service skills. When you get on top of your own situation, others will also get better jobs and promotions. Remember that you have the power to hire the right people for the right positions.

Business Cards A Must-Have in Your Networking - Hire Imaging

Business Cards â€" A Must-Have in Your Networking - Hire Imaging I am often asked by clients to prepare marketing tools from résumés and letters to online profiles. One of the most important tools is interestingly overlooked by many job seekers That is the networking business card! You should always have an updated business card as a job hunter! It will not often be practical to have a résumé on hand. And even if you do, who will typically carry that around for you? But a card is a wonderful marketing tool to pass onand onand on! Your business card doesnt replace the résumé, but it provides a convenient capsule of information that will impress a specific level of hiring value. I love cards that use the back and the front. On the front, have your contact information (dont forget a website or LinkedIn address if you have one), credentials if applicable to your job target, and headline (Award-Winning Sales Executive, Master Electrician, Financial Analyst, etc.). On the back, put your tagline a one-line sentence that captures who you are, along with three pieces of information you want people to know about you. Use a logo if appropriate. Unique and effective business cards are a great way to familiarize networking contacts and potential employers with your name and brand your unique value. Develop a card which catches everyones attention not just employers but people who may know someone who is hiring. Give a card to everyone you know (see link to Targeted Networking articles Part 1 and 2). If they meet someone who is looking to hire, your business card can be passed on. Heres an example from one of my clients (who, by the way, landed the job!): Networking cards are the same size and shape of business cards (3-1/2 wide and 2 high). Where to get them: Through your local supply or printing store (Kinkos, OfficeMax, etc.) Online (probably the best bang for your buck; just Google to find suppliers) Make them yourself using business card forms (like Avery 3612) and your computers Publisher, Word or similar software programs. Now that youve got another great marketing tool hot off the press, off you go to talk to people! When youre talking to friends, family, acquaintances, teammates, or potential employers, you can tell them that youre looking for work, the sort of work youd like to do, and a bit about what makes you special! Tip: Remember to say, Here are three of my cards. Please pass them on to people you know in business, people who might need someone like me!

Becoming A Consultant

Becoming A Consultant It isnt easy to just jump on the consultant band-wagon. It will actually take laying some groundwork to make it happen.   It could prove to be helpful during times of extended unemployment and/or fewer job opportunities.   Lets face it, hiring is occurring, but probably not in the large numbers we would like to see. Sital Ruparelias blog post from 6 Figure Career Management, looks at the three steps it will take to find consulting work:   Networking, Writing, Speaking. The reason consulting might prove to be a strong option now, according to Ruparelia, is that employers have problems.         These problems require solutions and so create opportunities for solution providers in the form of consultants and interim managers to resolve in an efficient manner. So true.   Layoffs have created overworked employees.   In many cases, gaping holes have been left in organizations.   In other instances, companies havent been investing in themselves, theyre in a holding pattern, waiting for the economy to recover.   This is not true in all industries and all companies, however.   As you begin speaking with people, you will begin to hear of their companys woes.   Is there a way for you to help?   Thats what you should be listening for. Not everyone is cut out to be a consultant either.   Its a form of entrepreneurship.   Youll have to market yourself, face rejection, ie. have a thick skin.   Find resources in your area to help you in developing your consulting business.   There are other consultants out there who will be glad to offer their advice to newbies.   In Rochester, NY, check out RPCN,  (Rochester Professional Consultants Network) and BIC.   You may also find helpful resources nationally and locally on-line and at local offices at: SCORE SBDC SBA And some final words from Ruparelias post: And here’s the bonus: In addition to helping you find your next consultancy project or   interim opportunity, these 3 strategies will strengthen your personal brand and significantly enhance your long term career prospects. All of which make you immune to future downturns.