Talent Filter

Applicant Tracking Systems Don't Add Value

I thought that title would get your attention. Michael Homula over at Fistful of Talent throws out the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch and says that ATS software was built for compliance and bureaucracy and not relationship recruiting.

Let's face it.  The ATS was built to manage process and track information for the purpose of compliance, EEOC, OFCCP, the corporate legal counsel and HR weenies in the house.  Sure, occasionally they kick out some tired, worn out and meaningless metric about time to fill, or number of positions filled in a quarter, but all the ATS really does is take the recruiting process on paper and put it on a server.  No value add whatsoever to actual recruiting.

What's astounding is that no one in the comments got angry - maybe it's because the story hasn't filtered out to the larger industry yet, but there's a real question of what works best in recruiting.  Internal systems by their nature have old information.  A resume is obsolete shortly after we enter it, which is why TalentFilter is focused on external sources.

Job boards are important because they work.  They've transformed the staffing industry and corporate human resources and made it easier for candidates and hiring companies to find each other.  There may be other problems in the employment process that include filtering, interviews, and offers, but from a supply/demand standpoint, job boards hold up their end of the bargain. 

Granted, top notch recruiters don't need job boards.  Fantastic, social media savvy candidates who read Seth Godin can go out and find their own jobs.  What about those of us who aren't best-selling authors?  We go to job boards, and we put in our resume, and we wait to be contacted by companies looking for the most recent information and availability.

And it works.

Give HR More Respect?

Human Resources is often the punching for columnists looking for a way to connect with their readers.  Human Resources for better or worse is in charge of hiring, and considering the number of hires versus applications in any company, they're are always cheap shots that can be taken that people in a crowd will cheer.

In many organizations, sales and marketing professionals are even taught to use Human Resource as an excuse for not meeting quotas.  Everyone knows that hiring is the basis of success (remember the "get the right people on the bus" mantra?), and Human Resources is in charge of hiring.

David, Mezzapelle, a member over at the job boarders network, has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on why Human Resources professionals should be treated with respect, and how they can be a competitive advantage when they're used as a strategic resource rather than a convenient excuse.

In a company built to leverage human capital, the HR staff would spend less time processing benefits requests and more time being the expert resource on the state of the organization's work force and its ability to perform.

That has been difficult in the past, because many of the administrative duties assigned to human resources involve a lot of detail and complexity that make them labor intensive.

But now, Web-based applications, many of which lend themselves to self-service, offer a solution. Employees can visit a Web site to sign up for benefits, change their addresses, enroll in training programs, search for jobs, assess their knowledge and set goals and objectives for the year. Managers can use them to give out bonuses and raises, appraise performance, transfer employees and find internal candidates to fill open positions.

What's more, many companies offer HR outsourcing services, and a number of large companies have entered into long-term contracts to outsource multiple HR processes to a single vendor. I believe that for most companies, outsourcing is the right way to handle HR administration. Not only does it release HR professionals from a set of no-win activities, it frees them up for work that is of greater benefit to the organization.

We get this.  The explosion of tools that can automate HR processes is something we follow closely, and it's the basis of our TalentFilter product.  Our goal was to find something that recruiters do and make it easier.  Human Resources in general has a lot of paperwork, but although the benefits side of the house is working on less admin work, the recruiting side should be focused on talent acquisition, and that means more time building relationships with a workforce and less time chasing paper.

And in the process, we think that CEO's will start to see HR as a partner, and not just the place that keeps birthdays straight and passes out paychecks.

 

TalentDrive Presents: Should Have Used TalentFilter

The TalentDrive production of the TalentFilter Films special, Should Have Used Talent Filter, performed by the TalentDrive Cast, and featuring, TalentFilter.

A Little About Our CEO, Sean Bisceglia

Sean Bisceglia is Chief Executive Officer of TalentDrive, headquartered in Chicago. Since the company opened its doors in 2007, TalentDrive has built a solid client list, including a handful of Fortune 500. 

Prior to TalentDrive, Sean acquired and became CEO of CPRi (Corporate Project Resources, Inc) in March 2003, and sold to Aquent in July 2005. Sean’s leadership as CEO of CPRi helped to grow the organization 200%, making it the largest national marketing staffing firm. As a result, Aquent’s acquisition of CPRi crowned them the largest marketing and creative services staffing firm in the world. The firm deploys over 1000 marketers a day around the world.

Prior to CPRi, Sean founded TFA in 1992, which he sold to Leo Burnett in 1998. Joining Leo Burnett’s management post-acquisition to run the company’s Technology Group, he was the youngest corporate executive vice president in the Leo Burnett Company’s history. Under his leadership, TFA/Leo Burnett achieved a record breaking 96% growth to $210 million with over 9000 employees around the globe. In recognition of his achievements, Sean was elected to the board of directors of Leo Burnett USA in August 2000.

Beyond his relentless focus on profitable growth, Sean’s success also is attributed to the profile he keeps within the business community. He serves on the advisory boards of various companies, contributes to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and various industry trade publications. Sean has served as guest speaker at Harvard Business School, University of Chicago, and DePaul University. In 1999, Sean was named to the Crain’s Chicago Business list of “Forty Under Forty” top business people in Chicago.

Job Boarders The Social Network

We're a big fan of job boards around here, as well as social networks, so it's not surprise that we're following JobBoarders.com, the social network put up by Chris Russell.

It's for and by Job Boarders, which fits pretty perfectly into our work on TalentFilter.

Sign up today, and add me as a friend.

TalentFilter: Resume Madness

The second in the series introducing TalentFilter to the recruiting software industry. 

We're not just playing with jelly beans here. The video is cross-posted at www.recruitingblogs.com

What if Your Firm Fought a Talent War and No One Showed Up?

The following is a guest post from Brian Sommer, a member of the Talent Drive Advisory Council and a wicked smart guy from Chicago.

My Kingdom for a Quality Candidate

A few years ago, recruiters saw the idea of job board as a good thing. Now, a single source database for talent isn’t looking so good. Why?

•   Some of the largest resume databases may contain as much as 70% overlap in content. Is time spent eliminating duplicates a value added activity?
• Worse than the resume duplication problem is that there may simply be too many job boards in the market.  Current estimates put the number closer to 30,000 unique job boards.  No matter how effective an individual recruiter can be there is no way they could adequately or optimally scan or search all of these databases.
• Fraud and gaming of resumes are still rampant problems in online job boards.  When recruiters reject 95%+ of the resumes returned by search tools in these databases, the fault has more to do with gaming and not with the development of search strings. Worse still, the time and productivity lost sifting through these unqualified resumes is killing recruiting productivity, hurting employers and hurting the more qualified candidates. The latter point is especially important as the most qualified candidates are often the more experienced and employable workers who don’t know how to game job boards. If recruiters can’t get access to the best candidates, then what value do job boards provide?
• Recruiters are overly reliant on the very same technology solutions (i.e., job boards) as their competitors.  This virtually guarantees they will have an undifferentiated approach to human resources and recruiting. They will fish the same pond for the same fish. In this context, recruiters reduced the sourcing of quality candidates to a simple challenge: who can create the best search string.

Social networks are moving into ascendancy as far as sourcing of passive recruiting candidates.  Unfortunately, the methods being used to build out many of these newer systems for recruiting purposes are not well thought out. Users of many social networks are now finding their personal and professional data is being shared with third parties to mine for sales, recruiting and other opportunities. Social networks are making this data available as a way to generate cash for their firms; however, as they commercialize their offerings, they are disenfranchising their users.

Pre-Buzz Commercials Continuing Into May

We have a series of four online videos we're promoting in advance of our May Launch of our new resume software product.  If you see the TalentFilter videos, be sure to drop us a line and let us know what you think.

The new one comes out Wednesday, and it's a homegrown piece. No stock photography, kicking music, and a message that resonates with recruiters everywhere.

Resume Madness. Look for it in two days!

Job Boards Make The World Go Round

Job boards get a lot of grief online. Candidates, recruiters, and software vendors spend a lot of digital ink tearing into job boards for real and imagined grievances, primarily because they're easy to attack. Afdter all, if you're catching flak, you're usually over the target.

What we know is this - the employment section of the classified ads is still the most profitable division of a newspaper.  Monster, Careerbuilder, Dice, HotJobs and all of the new Web2.0 job boards represent a multi-billion dollar industry.  And for all the complaints, recruiters inside and outside of corporations use job boards every day to fill positions in just about every profession.

So while trashing a job board may be a great way to get some publicity, the truth is that job boards work better than anything else we have.  And while social networks and blogs and podcasts may knock on the door of the hiring manager looking for elite talent, most people are better off with their names visible to recruiters, and that means more postings, more resumes, and more hiring.

So what's our place in all of this?  That's the mystery. What do you think the videos are for?

talentfilter. Coming Soon.

Talent Drive Commercial

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