Staffing Software & Social Media Are Your Tools… And Your Staffing Plan Is?

recruiting software social media strategyPart of an effective approach in candidate searches today includes leveraging social media.  Social media can be even more effective if the data you gather from this channel is successfully managed with the right recruiting software or staffing software.

I talk a lot here about the importance of integrating social media and staffing and recruiting software because I understand how important this is to you as a staffing professional and Bond US is committed to helping you make the most of this capability. But integrating social media into recruiting software or staffing software isn’t the end-all-be-all of recruiting and staffing efforts.

If your staffing agency or recruiting firm doesn’t have a wide-reaching tactical approach in place, then no amount of Facebook business pages, Tweets or even the best staffing software will bring you any closer to the ideal candidate.

Social media and staffing software are just two of many hiring tools available to you.  Consider the following and learn how social and staffing and recruiting software enhance – but shouldn’t necessarily dominate – key recruiting or staffing tactics.

• Finding Candidates –  Regardless of the tools you use to find or manage your candidates, you still need to start with a specific candidate profile. Your clients want to know everything about candidates you find for them, from prior experience to what they do in their spare time.

First determine who your clients are looking for, then use social media and staffing and recruiting software to find them.

• Communicating With Prospects– Some of social media’s greatest strengths are its abilities to be used as communication and engagement tools. But before you engage, you first need to know what to express for the best results and social media is just one of many ways to determine this.

Reviewing jobs on career boards, you competitor listings – and even stories in traditional media outlets – will help ensure the conversations you enter into are focused just as heavily on the needs and interests of your candidates and clients as they are on your own staffing objectives

• Understanding Client Needs – Social media can serve as an important resource when searching for background information on companies.  Not only can you determine their size, location and employment needs, you can also discern corporate culture by way of that company’s social media presence.

But effective research also includes the traditional channels of word-of-mouth referrals and networking. Though the internet does reveal plenty of information about clients, face-to-face conversations are still the best when it comes to learning about their needs.

Use social media and staffing and recruiting software as just two of many tools to find, communicate with and understand clients and candidates – and more importantly shape your overall staffing plan.

Do you know your clients?

Client Retention is one thing that some businesses forget to take advantage of.

They spend every waking hour thinking of ways to bring in new business but only one meeting a month on how to keep it! Now is the time to put a client retention plan into action. Get involved with your clients weather it is tracking their anniversary of the day they opened and sending flowers or stopping for a visit and bringing doughnuts for everyone. This is not rocket science but needs to be a part of your daily business or you will no longer be in business…

  • Connect with your clients on a regular basis. Discuss with them regarding how often they would like you to check in. Even if they are busy when you call, with a smile they will happily make the time to chat with you for a few minutes.
  • Make them happy. Express to the client that their problems are your problems. Even if the issue is with another vendor or something that is not something you can control. Find a way to sympathize with your client. Listen to how they rant about the problem and what ways they plan to fix it. Doing so will allow you to react properly in the future if they have an issue with you or your company. You may know what ways they need to be helped.
  • Listen. More often than not we have multiple emails popping up and the other line is ringing during a call with a client. Avoid these distractions by standing or turning your chair around and admire the view out your window. Listening is an art and is a learned behavior that can strengthen a relationship or destroy it. Not to be dramatic but you know when you call to place an order for something and you end the call knowing that the person did not listen and you feel the need to call back. That is very discouraging and very bad business. Do not let that happen you your clients. Take a minute at the end of your call to recap the call and confirm with the client that you know what their needs are. Not only did you ensure that you have the knowledge to take the action needed to meet their request but they will appreciate that you listened and appreciate their business.
  • What needs do they have? Find out what makes them tick. Where do they want to go with their business? This may sound fundamental and it is easy to assume what you think they want but this is where you end up missing the boat and one of your best clients is now utilizing your competitor. If you make it known that their needs are at the top of your list and you prove this to them they will never ever leave. Loyalty cannot be bought, just earned.
  • How do you prioritize?  Do you ever have those days you will find yourself in a whirl wind of reactionary emails and calls that come in? Set up a game plan; if you see a call or email come in as you are speaking with another client or building an email ignore it. Once you have a minute collect what you need to have regarding the client and contact them or place them on a list with a sense of urgency.  Maybe a one thru five ranking system, something that will help you prioritize.
  • Can you be friends with your Clients? Knowing the boundaries of this type of scenario is the key. Not only for you but the client. This is not a person that you will discuss your deep down darkest issues with. You will need to find a level of comfort and pay very close attention to what they offer and try not to go past that. Meaning that you need to mirror their behavior and create a comfort level with them at their pace.

Making the decision to implement client retention as a part of your day to day routine sounds easy but it is like anything new, you love doing it for two weeks and then it fades away. Do not let this happen! Make sure that you stay in front of this. Hire an energetic and honest person that will represent your company to your clients the way you would. This may be the most difficult person to find but you will know in your gut when you have the right person. You need to do this job for a while in order to find the best person for the job. No sales people needed, just a positive person that loves to help people.

5 Location-Based Social Media Tips For Your Recruiting or Staffing Agency

Social media has given recruiting companies and staffing agencies a host of new ways to find the right candidates.  As a result, more firms today are leveraging staffing or recruiting software that integrates data from the biggest social networks – think LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

While it’s true that the biggest networks will hold the largest candidate pools, even more (and sometimes more job-ready) candidates can be found by exploring networks you may not have considered.

I’m talking about location based social media.

You’ve probably heard of location based social sites like Foursquare where users check-in to share their locations, activities and tips on special spots with others.

Leveraged correctly, these networks can become powerful staffing and recruiting tools.  Here are 5 easy ways to start:

  1. Find Candidates At Events – You’ve got a booth at a job fair or trade show and you want to attract candidates to come by.  You can keep track of candidate check-ins to the show and offer invitations for people to check out your kiosk.
  2. Provide Tips To Check-ins – Perhaps you represent a staffing agency that works with numerous candidates for temp hiring.  You can encourage prospects to check in to your location by offering valuable interview tips in return.
  3. Keep Track Of Your Competitors – Are people checking in with your competitors?  You can follow candidates’ traffic to your competitors and then encourage them to check out your location as well, i.e., “Searching for a job?  Check out Recruitment Solutions for the best job search options.”
  4. Engage Your Facebook Followers – Invite your fans to check in to your offices through Facebook Places, the network’s own location based check in application. Your Facebook business page updates can then draw attention to the buzz of activity surrounding your recruiting firm or staffing agency.
  5. Track Ideal Candidates – You’re looking for sports-minded candidates for your fitness equipment company client.  How do you find such candidates?  Try monitoring local fitness-oriented check-ins where ideal prospects might be spending time, such as rock climbing clubs or triathlon events.  Then let those candidates know you’re hiring.

And, of course, with the right staffing or recruiting software, you can integrate activity from each of these social channels seamlessly into efforts.

To learn more about how your recruiting or staffing agency can best take advantage of location based social media, and how our social media enabled staffing and recruiting software can help, contact us or request a free demo.

Facebook Timeline Changes: What Your Staffing or Recruiting Agency Needs To Know

Just when you thought you had your staffing agency’s Facebook page in perfect order, they went and made you change it.

Whether you are a staffing or recruiting agency, a staffing software or services provider – or any type of firm in between – your company’s Facebook page has likely been upgraded to the new Timeline format.  And you are somewhere on the spectrum of ‘loving’ and ‘adjusting.’

Regardless of where you find yourself, there are some basic truths that are constant:

 

  1. Change is inevitable, especially in social media
  2. With the opportunity that comes with change comes the opportunity for mistake
  3. Social media – and Facebook – remain one of the strongest tools in your staffing arsenal

So how can you ensure you continue to use this tool effectively, maximizing new opportunities and minimizing the type of mistakes that will earn either derision from social-savvy prospects or a firm slap on the wrist from Facebook?

Start by referencing our list of Facebook Timeline mistakes to avoid and opportunities to take advantage of below:

Facebook Timeline Mistakes to Avoid

1. Wrong Size Cover Photo
From now on, you’re limited to one large banner photo across the top of your page.  So you need to consider what type of image best communicates your recruiting or staffing agency’s brand message.

The photo can be a graphic or an actual photograph – as long as it is sized 851 x 315 pixels.  Any other sized image will simply look ‘off.’  For your image, you may want to show a location beauty shot of your firm’s exterior or even repurpose branding elements from your website, as we do on the Bond International Software Facebook page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Wrong Size Profile Photo
Every time you post, you staffing agency or recruiting firm profile picture will appear with your updates, so it’s important to find an image that will still maintain quality in a smaller size — 180 pixels that will scale down automatically to a length and width size of 32 pixels.*

To avoid viewing problems with the smaller size and to give your company instant recognition, consider using your logo as your profile image.

(*Update – per an email I received from Facebook today, the new profile picture will be 160 x 160 pixels and will sit at 23 pixels from the left and 210 pixels from the top of the Page, starting April 26th.)

3. Adding a CTA to Your Cover Photo
Facebook does not allow a call to action on either your cover or profile photo.  Call to actions include but are certainly not limited to:

  • Contact information
  • Price or purchase information
  • Asks for ‘Likes’ or ‘Shares’

Instead, showcase your brand in a way that makes it hard for visitors to resist liking you or being moved to action. See a great example of this below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Facebook Timeline Opportunities:

1. Take Advantage of Content Display Improvements
The Facebook team constantly refers to the site as a story-telling channel.  With expandable photos that can span across your Timeline with just a click, visitors can get a strong visual sense of your company’s unique story.

Complement those stirring images with the compelling and relevant content you’re already featuring and you’ll provide a powerful reason for fans to visit often.

2. Share Company Milestones
Another interesting add-on to the business Timeline is the Milestones feature.  This allows you to showcase the history of your company by posting important events that have occurred over time and to provide your visitors with a multi-pronged illustration of your firm’s effectiveness in placing candidates over the years.

And don’t limit yourself to milestones that have only occurred since Facebook was launched.  Remember, it all starts with the Model T:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To learn more about how your recruiting or staffing agency can best take advantage of the new Facebook Timeline updates, and how our social media enabled recruiting and staffing software can help you integrate candidate information from social profiles, contact us or register for a free demo.

Why are you wasting six seconds reviewing a resume?

Time is money - save both with the right staffing software or recruiting softwareThat’s ten resumes a minute, 60 in an hour, and 480 in an eight-hour work day (assuming you actually spent all that time reviewing resumes). That’s what a recent eye-tracking study of recruiters by TheLadders.com concluded.

Sure, the study was obviously self-serving (TheLadders successfully showed that the resume formatting on their website was easier for recruiters to use than that of the profiles on LinkedIn). The observation is that recruiters and staffing coordinators charged with determining the “fit/no fit” of job candidates really don’t spend much time on reviewing individual resumes. In that six-second review, the average recruiter might be able to read seven, that’s SEVEN words – candidate name, title, company worked at, and maybe their last job start/end dates. Think you can read more? Test yourself here.

So, my question is, why are you wasting those six seconds reviewing a resume? You’re really not getting anything substantive about the candidate’s fitness for the job in six seconds, so why bother? After all, according to many, “the resume is dead” anyway (a Google search for that term came up with 56,200,000 hits). Profiles, such as those on LinkedIn, have really taken their place, at least for many professionals.

Nope, the reality is that your staffing software or recruiting software should be doing the grunt work for you of “reviewing” resumes. The data you’ve collected on candidates through all of your sourcing – including those “dead” resumes and through your social media channels – is the data pool you swim in most often. Then you plug in the criteria for the job and the software spits out a list of the most likely candidates that will fit the job opportunity. Then you set up interviews, present the candidate(s), fill the order/placement, bill the customer, and collect payments. Repeat for continued success as a staffing and recruiting professional.

I know I’ve over-simplified the process, but that’s the gist of it, right?

What I’m saying is that you probably shouldn’t waste those six seconds looking at a resume. If you’re not wasting time looking at resumes, think about how many more placements you might make using your recruiting and staffing software to find the most likely candidates. More importantly, you can work at what software can’t do – build relationships that help you better understand your customers and candidates and that in turn result in sales and fills. Then your software becomes an enabling tool to help you manage those relationships successfully.

Naturally, each of Bonds’ staffing and recruiting software packages can help you do that.

Plus, while Adapt, eEmpACT, and StaffSuite offer tools for the business of staffing and recruiting, each has its own specific feature/benefit sets, so I’m confident that one of them can fit the unique needs of your firm. Click or give us a call at 800-318-4983 to talk about how your staffing software or recruiting software should be making your life easier today. We’re here to help you stop wasting time and effort reviewing resumes – six seconds at a time.

QR Codes – Top Ten Tips for Staffing Industry Use

At Bond US we are always looking for ways to help staffing agencies improve their processes and grow their business. With the recent success of our Social Media webinar last month (which can be viewed from our Resource Download Center) we are proud to present tips and ideas for using QR Codes to aid in your Staffing and Recruiting efforts.

So now we have a question for you. Do you know what a QR Code is? Want to understand how it might be used as an innovative, ahead of the curve, no cost marketing tool?

Let me help guide you through the many innovative ways a QR Code can boost your business success through the complimentary webinar, QR Codes – Top Ten Tips for Staffing Industry Use. In this webinar, presented by Bond US, creators of leading staffing software; you will discover how creating and using QR Codes can give your recruitment or staffing company a competitive advantage. Our webinar will cover:

  •  An explanation of QR codes and exactly what they are!
  • Reading QR codes and helping others read them
  • Increasing traffic to your website and social media profiles
  • Promotion of events in a unique way
  • Top 10 Tips and suggestions for using QR Codes in the Staffing Industry

We are committed to helping you move your business to the next level. Explore the power and unique approach of using QR Codes and let Bond US guide you into results, by registering for our webinar, QR Codes – Top Ten Tips for Staffing Industry Use. I look forward to seeing you online next week!

Smart Phones and Filtering Employees

The two businesses that are most focused on not missing opportunities are Stock Trading and Staffing.

With record unemployment rates, staffing businesses are swamped with potential candidates.  Although this might seem like a good thing,  it can be a quick way to miss your golden ticket opportunitiy to place a prime candidate.

When they have a job to fill, many staffing companies have very organized candidate on-boarding procedures and workflows to separate the wheat from the chaff rather than blunder through an arduous placement processes .  But no matter how organized your business is, things can still slip through the cracks.  Here are 2 quick steps to help your business quickly filter candidates through the on-boarding process without any fancy “proceduralizing” using the most common small business tool: the smartphone.

1)      Say you have a quick phone call with a potential candidate while you are running to your CPA to drop off those dreaded tax returns.  While riding the elevator at your wealthy CPA’s office, open up your LinkedIn App which you have already downloaded for your iPhone, Blackberry, Android or Palm.  Simply search for your candidate, just checking to see if they have “recommendations”.  If they can’t manage to get a recommendation then you might not want to recommend them for a position.  This is the first line of defense.

2)      Use a Staffing Software which allows you to access your candidates and customers online. Bond Adapt has a mobile option where your recruiters can quickly find records in your database, update the records and perform common tasks such as logging calls.  These types of applications remove “remembering stuff and logging it when you get into work” a non-essential skill.

Staffing Software with Social Integration Helps Uncover Diamonds In The Rough

The sounds of businesses ramping up their employee hiring are all around us these days.  The improving economy has loosened purse strings and imbued companies with a spark of optimism.

This all leads to a ramp up in increased business for those in the staffing industry. Armed with the latest in staffing software and a large talent pool, recruiting firms and staffing agencies can find job seekers at every turn. However, are they finding the best candidates for the positions?

While firms may be ready to hire they may not be prepared to pay top dollar as they re-enter the employee-building business, so staffing companies need to search carefully to find the best candidate for the right price. Using top-of-the-line staffing software, staffing professionals can ensure that they are starting with the widest pool of candidates possible and narrowing them down to the closest matches for each unique position.

One of the most important additions to staffing software capabilities is social media integration. This software can record candidates’ online profiles at social media sites to offer a better understanding of their fitness for a job. Recruiters can also easily send job postings to their own social media accounts with little effort.

When a job order comes in, staffing software can help you sift through information from your entire pool of candidates to reveal the handful of people with the treasured skills your clients seek – diamonds in the rough, just waiting to be found. I’ll let you in on a little secret: There are some particular groups within the workforce that could be hiding people with treasured skills. If you can find them, they could be incredibly valuable for you and your clients.

Where to Dig for Diamonds

  • Recent Grads – There’s lots of talk about Generation Y and Z. Yes, they’re young but they are trainable, enthusiastic and ready to work for less than their older counterparts. They’re also well-versed and deeply-immersed in online and social marketplaces. Staffing and recruiting companies can develop specific strategies – including leveraging social media – to find the next crop of great employees.
  • Displaced Workers – Spotting displaced workers takes some knowledge of markets, both geographically and historically. Staffing software can help to find people that work or live, or used to work or live, in places that experienced heavy job losses in certain industries. Perhaps a potential candidate from a suburban town is working at a less-than-impressive banking job now after losing his position as a big-city mortgage broker in 2008.  Is he worth a second look?  You bet.  Don’t be distracted by the job the candidate holds now, look at the skills he’s most likely to possess.
  • Mature Job Seekers – It’s a fact that all of us will most likely be working longer into our future than we originally planned.  The good news is that those mature workers looking for a job have plenty of knowledge to share with companies.  Older can be better in terms of problem solving, confidence and leadership.
  • Military Veterans – Finding employees with military experience is incredibly easy using staffing software as it is a field that appears on nearly every employment application. As more servicemen and women return home, they’ll be looking for jobs in the private sector.  These Americans bring a number of positives to potential employees.  They understand commitment, discipline and teamwork.  Who wouldn’t want an employee who brings all that to the table?

When you automate your processes with the right recruiting or staffing software, you are able to invest more time into finding those unique candidates who really are diamonds in the rough.

Bond Announce 2011 Unaudited Preliminary Results

KEY POINTS

Revenue up 30% to £36.8m (2010 restated: £28.3m)

  • Recurring revenue grew by 28% to £22.4m (2010: £17.5m) representing 61% of revenue (2010:62%)
  • Operating margins (before share of joint ventures and amortisation of intangible assets) improved to 14.2% (2010: 7.8%) reflecting change in mix of licences and services
  • Operating profit before the amortisation of acquired intangible assets and exceptional items of £2.59m (2010: loss £0.1m)
  • Adjusted* profit after tax of £1.95m (2010: £0.1m)
  • Adjusted* diluted earnings per share of 4.71p (2010: 0.37p) IFRS diluted loss per share 3.08p (2010: 2.40p)
  • Net cash generated from operating activities of £5.15m (2010:  £3.31m)
  • Net debt reduced by £1.55m (2010: increase in net debt of £0.99m)
  • Proposed dividend increased 50% to 1.2p

* Adjusted for the amortisation of acquired intangibles, share based payments expense. exceptional items and impairment of intangible assets

Commenting on the results Chief Executive Steve Russell, said:

“2011 has been a year of operational progress for Bond as we continue our recovery from the difficult environment of 2009 and 2010.

2012 has begun positively and we are confident that the Asia Pacific market will provide significant opportunities going forward.  It is on this basis that the Board has recommended a dividend of 1.2p per share, a 50% increase on last year”