ConexPlus
I
have written about this ATS product once before, but not in a couple of years.
Due to the continuing interest in recruiter databases, combined with the fact
this product should be in your queue if you are consider a new ATS, I wanted to
provide this updated review. ConexPlus is one of the few products in this
category that I know of that was designed from the ground up by a very
successful recruiter and business owner, Jake Amir, who continues to be the
driving force behind this product. Jake originally designed and developed this
software for his own very successful staffing and placement operation, and from
there, grew into the retail product offered today.
Anyone
that has read my many reviews on ATS products over the years knows that I
especially like those databases that are simple, intuitive and easy to use. This
is the case with ConexPlus. The database opens up to your Candidates window in a
list view. There are a number of boxes above the list where you can enter in
text and apply a filter for a quick search of your list. I have seen this
feature in other databases and it is an excellent way to provide a quick
candidate look up. Adding a new Candidate is simple. You can add a new one
manually or by parsing a resume from your network or hard drive. The
candidates’ resume is also saved to the record and allows you to keep a copy
of the original resume plus one of the formatted resume that you send to your
clients (you can associate as many documents
as you like with each candidate).
The Candidate screen is simple and easy to read. The top half is contact
information and the bottom half is a tabbed format including tabs for
employment/education, notes, skills, references, attached documents, job orders
(submitted to), and then also employee and billing info if you provide staffing
services.
The
Companies/Clients window is small with a tabbed format as well. I like the fact
that you can designate companies as source or client status, or you can
customize your designation as well. There are tabs for contacts (within the
company), notes, directions, benefits, job orders, hires, locations, and
marketing contacts. Adding a new company is easy and similar to adding a new
candidate. The Job Orders view has a nice
feature…a tree view window on the left with all your active client companies.
As you click on a specific client company, its associated job orders are listed
just as the candidate and company list views. You can easily add or edit jobs
like you can in the other screens. Job Orders can also be cloned copying all
information as a recurring job order expires and a new one is needed.
One
of my favorite features in this database is one I have not seen elsewhere. There
is a Views feature where you can easily view all of your Jobs by Jobs Category,
Candidates by Job Category, Candidate Submission Status, My Consultants (for
staffing firms), and other staffing-related views. This is a great way to get a
quick snapshot of your activity.
The
system is tightly integrated with Microsoft Outlook. Upon creation of a
task, you have the option to also put the task in Outlook task manager and
Outlook schedule. This feature allows you to easily synchronize your
activities with your hand held as well as to block times on your calendar when
you have meetings with a candidate or a client.
All
e-mail interactions are accomplished via Microsoft Outlook. The system
allows you to create mail/merge templates that will be filled with information
from the database and will be sent to your contact via Outlook so you have
complete history of all communications with your contacts in the Sent box of
Outlook. Also, instead of reinventing all the features of Outlook and
replicating its features, the integration takes care of it.
I
really like this…for the larger offices that have multiple recruiters and
account executives; the system employs a feature called Notify where it allows
the recruiters to notify account managers about new candidates and allows the
account managers to notify the recruiters about new job orders.
The
system contains numerous reports to gage the performance of every recruiter,
account manager and the firm as a whole. You can look at profitability,
submission, job coverage, placements and other important factors in a variety of
ways. ConexPlus also deploys a new technology that allows the managers in
an organization to view the activities of their subordinates and reply to their
activities in real time. This is a huge time saving feature that cuts down
the time utilized in staff meetings yet provides management and recruiters with
all the information they need to both track activities and enhance performance.
Lastly,
the Maintenance screen exists for managing employee information, candidate
status and sources, skills and skill categories, job categories, holidays,
submissions status, relationship types, job order priorities and status, and
note types and categories. Almost every drop down list in they system can
be customized by you and it is done in real time.
ConexPlus employs a sophisticated security system that allows every organization
to tailor the security and auditing tracking to their requirements.
Pricing:
the vendor offers multiple pricing options with discounts starting with a
purchase of 10 licenses or more. Standard license is $1,950.00 per user
for installed systems. The vendor also offers a hosted version (identical
software, data is hosted either by the vendor or a 3rd party) at $95
per user per month.
I
want to thank Jake Amir for his assistance with this article. I think anyone on
the hunt for a new ATS solution should put this one in his or her queue. Anyone
with any questions or comments can reach Jake via email at Jakea@conexplus.com
or via voice at (314) 503-5325. You can also visit the ConexPlus web site at www.conexplus.com.
Top
Echelon Recruiter Training
I
want to report that Top Echelon Network, one of the largest and well-known split
placement recruiter networks, is now offering Internet-based recruiter training
classes to non-members. I have had
the opportunity to sit in on a couple of these sessions and am happy to be able
to pass along this information. The training includes sessions from many
industry leaders, is inexpensive, and is normally scheduled at lunchtime, so as
not to cut too much into your productive time. All you need to attend is an
Internet connection.
You visit the
training Web site, sign up for a class, and are sent instructions on how to
attend. Attendance is in the privacy of your own office using your PC and
telephone. Top Echelon uses Microsoft Live Meeting software for the sessions. If
you do not have this installed, you are given instructions on how to install
this free software. If you do not want to install the software, you can just
phone into the audio portion of the program, but then you would miss the visual
aids, which are often PowerPoint presentations. There is no Q&A or other
interruptions during the presentation, although there is a Top Echelon moderator
you can pass questions to, and they’ll give them to the presenter. The
sessions are all offered live, but if you can’t attend one you’re really
interested in, Top Echelon has a full training library of recorded sessions you
can access at any time. Most of the courses run $69, but you can have as many
people in front of the PC as you like. There are also some free sessions that
pertain mostly to Top Echelon products and services.
For the
purpose of this article, I sat through a couple of these sessions. One was by Jeff Skrentny, titled “Seven Steps of
Competitive Preps: Turn Sendouts into Placements,” and the second was by
Debbie Fledderjohann of Top Echelon Contracting, titled “6½ Ways to Become
More Valuable to Clients.” Both
of these sessions were professionally presented with no technical issues
whatsoever. The slides were very easy to see and informative, and I had no
problem receiving the audio through my PC speakers. I was impressed by both
presenters’ command of their subject material and presentation skills. Both
sessions lasted an hour, as advertised.
Top Echelon has an
impressive list of presenters, including national industry speakers and some
fellow Fordyce Letter authors, including, but not limited to, Doug Beabout,
David Searns, Gary Stauble, Greg Doersching, Barbara Bruno, Skrentny, Scott
Love, Bob Marshall, and Dan Simmons and Jim Hipskind.
Look for yours truly to be offering “Google Techniques for Finding the
Right Candidates” on this site, as well.
Although my first session will be prior to this columns’ publication
date you can access the recorded version in the training library.
For
more information, you can visit the Top Echelon training Web site at www.topechelon.com/Training/
or you can contact Todd Bossler at 330-455-1433, x142.
Content
Hound by Broadlook Technologies
I
wrote a piece for this column last summer on a Broadlook product, News Pulse,
that was a news feed service that delivered user customized news to your
desktop. Content Hound takes this a step further allowing you to publish job
orders, news, books, white papers, case studies and links data directly to your
website. This service would be of interest to any recruiters wanting to offer a
“portal” type web site or web page to candidates or employers with content
relevant to their interests.
Let’s
say you were a nursing recruiter…your site could be the premier “place to
go” to view all the nursing jobs open in a particular area, or nationwide. Not
that the nurses would apply to you but they would learn that they could go to
your site to view this type of information. A nice touch is that you can add
your own jobs to the queue and have them appear at the top of the list. If you
wanted to provide a service to your clients, you could advertise your site to be
the best place to go to for employment news and information. Offer all the white
papers and case studies you can find on discrimination, workmen’s comp,
recruiting, etc. They will learn to go to your site when they need that type of
information. You can have visitors returning to your web site almost every day
seeking new and updated information they need.
One
huge benefit to using Content Hound is that search engines will see the amount
of relative content and begin to refer more and more visitors to your site,
making it easier to be “found” by those people of interest to you.
“Keyword Density”, a term used to describe a greatly improved web page, is
greatly improved. The program searches thousands of Internet sources for
information.
For
the purposes of writing this article I did not publish to my website although I
plan to in the future. You can also publish the data to a local web page created
by the program. The first search I ran was a Jobs search for “java
programmer” in the St. Louis, MO area. I hit the search button and was
returned dozens of publishable entries for my site. Granted, these were culled
from many sources including Monster, Dice and other national services but
wouldn’t you rather a candidate looking for a job go to your site instead of
going to Monster. They will when they learn that they can. Because they will
learn they can go to this on site…your site…for this information instead of
having to go to multiple sites individually and running the same searches.
I
then ran a Links search using “Applicant Tracking System” as my keywords.
All of you know that is an interest area for me. I could now easily publish this
list of site to my Swat Recruiting web site as a service to anyone seeking an
ATS solution. I could also add different keywords to my search to expand the
results, offering a more comprehensive list of site as a better service to the
Swat site visitors.
Normally,
creating a portal-type site or page is an exhaustive, pain-staking and
time-consuming project as you manually seek out information and link to put on
your site. With this product it can all be done with one click of a mouse
button.
Anyone
that would like to consider this innovative way to attract both candidates and
clients to your web site…standing out from the crowd…should take a close
look at this product. I would like
to thank Andy Theimer, the Broadlook Creative Director for his help with this
article. Anyone with any interest or questions about this product can contact
William Abraham via voice at 262-754-8080 x213 or via email at wabraham@broadlook.com.
William can also provide a 14-day trial and pricing information. You can also
visit the Broadlook/Content Hound web site at www.broadlook.com/contenthound/.
Press
Release 1
Bullhorn
Advances Staffing and Recruiting Through
Really Simple Syndication (RSS)
Boston
– December 19, 2005 – Bullhorn, the global leader in On Demand Staffing and
Recruiting software, today announced that its Bullhorn API Toolkit supports
Really Simple Syndication (RSS), enabling staffing and recruiting firms to
syndicate new jobs directly to candidates, dramatically decreasing the time to
source and fill job orders. Bullhorn customers also realize greater client service
efficiencies by using RSS to syndicate job management information from within
Bullhorn directly to their customers, or for customers to make new job orders
immediately available to their staffing and recruiting firms.
To view a live use of RSS to syndicate job opportunities, visit www.bullhorn.com/Home.8.0/BHContent_JobOpportunities.cfm.
“According
to the American Staffing Association, over 90% of employers expect flexibility
in the fulfillment of job orders, and 78% cite the need to fill those orders
quickly,” said Arthur Papas, CEO and co-founder of Bullhorn.
“Bullhorn’s mission is to give customers the flexibility and speed
needed to enable the real-time, on demand matching of candidates to job orders
at anytime from anyplace.”
By
using RSS, Bullhorn customers can leverage the real-time flexibility of an
industry standard syndication service to deliver any information directly to
candidates and clients, using widely available RSS Readers to view the
information. The flexibility and
power of the toolkit enables a customer’s Web developer to quickly and easily
add RSS to their Web site and job board, while leveraging information in
Bullhorn.
“Bullhorn
outpaces the staffing and recruiting software industry with innovation that
addresses the real-time, on demand delivery of candidates for jobs,” said Dan
Donathan, chief information officer of PrideStaff. “As a national staffing firm focused on delivering
innovative staffing and recruiting solutions that are specific to our clients,
we view Bullhorn as a critical business partner.”
The Bullhorn API
Toolkit is available immediately by contacting Bullhorn Customer Support at bullhornsupport@bullhorn.com or 617-478-9126.
Press
Release 2
HireAbility and iXmatch:
Complementary
Technology for the ATS/HRIS Industry
ALEX resume
processing pairs with advanced search and matching engine iXfind. Companies
co-write visionary human capital article for Swat Recruiting ATS guide.
Salem, NH - December 20, 2005 - HireAbility, a leader in integrated recruiting
software and services, announced today that it signed a partnership agreement
with iXmatch, a leader in advanced search and matching technology. Under the
agreement, the companies will integrate and co-market their solutions:
HireAbility's ALEX automated resume processing, and iXmatch's iXfind matching
engine. The partnership recognizes the high value that the two companies'
products can deliver synergistically to Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), job
boards, and Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS). It will combine highly
accurate document processing with intelligent matching that takes into
consideration individual preferences at a very granular level. The companies
also collaborated to produce an article that will be published in the
forthcoming Swat Recruiting’s ATS Guide.
The integration of ALEX and iXfind creates a solution that is greater than the
sum of its parts. iXfind searches and matches any permutation of HR-XML
formatted data that ALEX extracts from resumes, and it lets users weight various
factors to reflect their personal preferences in order to provide the best
match. For example, if a recruiter cares most about finding a candidate who
worked in development at Oracle Corporation, and cares little about the
candidate's location, iXfind is able to weight those factors with its patented
technology to locate candidates that are the best matches. It learns from users'
stated preferences and adjusts its matches accordingly, as well. The hybrid
approach of using structured and relative matching delivers the best search
results, and should be an important decision criterion for any forward-looking
company evaluating new HRIS solutions, as mentioned in the upcoming Fordyce(r)
Letter's ATS Guide.
"It's a perfect combination of smart product technologies that deliver
immediate ROI for our customers, who see their human capital as a key
competitive lever," remarked Ken Smith, Director of Business Development
for HireAbility. "When Swat Recruiting approached us about writing a
technology article for their ATS Guide, iXmatch was a logical company to tap for
a collaboration."
Automatic resume processing minimizes time spent on manual data entry by
extracting detailed information from resume files, accurately and quickly. ALEX
clients gain the convenience of accepting e-mailed cover letters and resumes,
while greatly reducing their administrative effort. The high quality of the
resulting structured data makes searches even more powerful and accurate.
iXmatch's matching engine provides a giant step up in finding data and making it
available to recruiters at the right time. iXfind does more than just search for
documents via arbitrary or global criteria. iXfind enables candidates and
recruiters to specify all their skills and requirements easily, and delivers a
ranked list of matches based on how well each fits a request. iXfind provides
this personalized match while learning user requirements dynamically.
Daniel Bork, Chief Technology Officer for iXmatch, remarked, "iXmatch
recognized the customer-demand for a variety of resume document processing
technologies. Further, it recognized that HireAbility does the best job of
providing it. We welcome the opportunity to associate our two complementary
technologies."
Often it is
frustrating to have to move back and forth between using you mouse and the
keyboard. Try these shortcuts to improve your productivity.
Control + Home
Move to the top of the web page
Control + End
Move the end of the web page
Control + O
Go to a new web page/site
Control + N
Open another browser window
Control + H
Toggles the History pane on and off
Control + I
Toggles the Favorites pane on and off
Control + D
Adds the current page to your Favorites
Control + B
Opens “Organize Favorites” window
Alt + D
Move cursor to the Address/URL bar
Escape Key
Stops downloading current page
F5
Refreshes the current page
F6
Moves you forward between frames
Alt Home
Goes to your home page
Alt + Right Arrow
Moves
forward to next page (previously downloaded)
Alt + Left Arrow
Move back to previously downloaded page