Recruitment and HR industry events, summits and conferences are a great way to learn best practices and grow your business network.
The PCRecruiter team has compiled this list of upcoming shows for the remainder of the year to help you keep your calendar filled with professional development opportunities.
HR Healthcare, Oct 2 – 3 : Austin, TX will see WBRâs HR Healthcare forum for sharing, networking, and learning in the HR space.
Ceridian INSIGHTS, Oct 2 – 5 : Catch visionary thought leaders, industry experts, and innovators at this Las Vegas event, including key speaker Kevin Bacon
Staffing World, Oct 3 – 5 : This year’s ASA event in Charlotte features keynotes from Mike Krzyzewski, Paul Zikopoulos, and Dominique Dawes
Paylocity Elevate Conference, Oct 3 -5 : a virtual event featuring keynote speakers Abby Wambach, Jenn Lim, and Elatia Abate
Talent Success Conference, Oct 4 : a virtual conference with industry-leading HR experts discussing trends, insights, and new methods for recruiting and retaining top talent for your business.
Recruitment Agency Expo, Oct 4 – 5 : Industry leaders in the UK will converge on Birmingham for this big annual exposition.
Swipeclock Summit, Oct 5 – 6 : a free event with hands-on education, workshops, and so forth for Swipeclock users
NAPEOâs Annual Conference and Marketplace, Oct 9 – 11 : The National Association of Professional Employer Organizations will be hosting this annual event for the PEO industry in Orlando
HR Tech Conference, Oct 10 – 13 : The huge annual show at Mandalay Bay in Vegas has been going for 25 years!
Sanford Rose Associates, Oct 11 – 13 : SRA members will convene in Dallas, TX to meet and learn
IHRE Summit, Oct 17 : The In House Recruitment Expo Summit will be attracting top UK and global recruiting pros to Coventry Arena
UNLEASH World, Oct 17 – 18 : Taking place in Paris, this show is billed as “where the HR world meets”
Gartner ReimagineHR Conference, Oct 23 – 25 : This is an Orlando, FL event for CHROs and HR leadership teams with multiple tracks to choose from
Silicon Valley TechRecruit, Oct 25 – 26 : Head to San Francisco for workshops on recruitment operations, AI sourcing, and other talent acquisition topics
November 2023
SIA Healthcare Staffing Summit, Nov 1 – 3 : Staffing Industry Analysts will hold their summit targeted at the healthcare staffing market at Red Rock Resort in Vegas
Tech Recruitment Conference, Nov 2 : TRC is a one-day event in person in Amsterdam and virtually aimed specifically at technology recruiters
Michigan Recruiter’s Conference, Nov 2 : The only specifically designed Recruiter conference for corporate Talent Acquisition Pros and Leaders in Michigan!
NAPS Conference, Nov 5 – 7 : Jacksonville will host the National Association of Personnel Services’ annual event this year
HCI Analytics Conference, Nov 15 : Human Capital Institute offers this event on Finding New Candidate Pools with Recruitment Analytics
LEAP TA Healthcare, Nov 14 – 15 : Talent acquisition leaders in the healthcare space will meet in Houston for a free conference with action-orientated, strategic dialogue.
Future of HR, Nov 15 – 16 : Join in HR.com’s FREE virtual event, “Future of AI and Recruitment Technologies”
Are you planning to attend any of the events above? Did you go to one already? Let us know in the comments below!
Franchising â licensing a brand, business model, or product to a separate entity â is a popular way to run a business. And for good reason: some of the worldâs best-known brands are built that way. Take American Recruiters, for example. Theyâre recognized by Forbes as one of Americaâs top professional and executive recruiting firms.
Gino Scialdone, President & CEO, American Recruiters
President and CEO of American Recruiters â Gino Scialdone â began his franchise program over 20 years ago. Since then, itâs grown from strength to strength.
We spoke to Gino to discover why his franchise model is a great fit for recruiters, and how the right ATS and CRM â in the shape of PCRecruiter â helps drive success.Â
Why franchise?
Franchising is about systems and processes. The beauty of the franchise model is that it gives people the chance to run their own business for themselves, but not by themselves.Â
We started franchising for one reason: to better serve our customersâ needs.
Gino Scialdone, President and CEO, American Recruiters
This is really important in an industry like recruiting, where being able to tap into networks of people and organizations is so vital. It also helps to mitigate some of the risks involved with starting a new business. So itâs no surprise that there are nearly 800,000 franchise establishments in the US alone.
American Recruiters serves a wide range of industries â including healthcare, IT, engineering, and manufacturing â with specialist recruiters. Whether our clients are large enterprises or small businesses, they have one thing in common: they need help to bring in the right talent for multiple roles.
Thatâs where PCRecruiter comes in. American Recruiters uses a centralized database â a single source of truth â for all their franchisees so that people with the client relationships are clearly signposted and so “the right hand knows what the left hand is doing”.
This is similar to the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) system used by Realtors, where property details are listed alongside the brokers. Like an MLS, American Recruitersâ database gives franchise owners access to a ready-made network and a customer-base with an ongoing need to fill open roles.
The two sides of a recruiting franchiseÂ
Building a database in a recruiting CRM like PCRecruiter creates the opportunity for cross-selling and upselling. Take the healthcare sector, for example. A hospital system needs to recruit nurses, but they might also need someone for their accounting department or IT department.Â
The American Recruiters franchise model creates the opportunity to introduce other franchisees â experts from within the network â and get them in front of the right people. Using a single private database inside PCRecruiter, American Recruiters can look across the platform to see who their clients are, the openings they have, and then knock on some different doors within an organization.
Our franchise model does two things: it enables us to go wider and deeper with our customers, and it gives new franchisees the chance to compress the bell curve and get their business started.
Gino Scialdone, President and CEO, American Recruiters
Relationships with companies that fill permanent placements through American Recruiters present opportunities to offer contract staffing â staffing solutions for temporary positions on projects, maternity leave, and so on. At the same time, their franchise model gives new franchise owners the chance to ramp up business faster than if they were doing it on their own.
The relationships between franchisees are also a strong mechanism for support â they help each other out, working on placements together and going to each other for advice. Thatâs important because around 60% of placements made by American Recruiters are internal splits between franchisees. Recruiting really is a team sport.
The keys to success as a recruiting franchise
Recruitment is a people business. American Recruiters’ top franchisees use their previous relationships to garner business for their recruiting practice. Theyâre real go-getters; people who are always open for business, working across timezones and leading and influencing others. Alongside the ability to build relationships, successful franchisees have three things in common: energy, engagement, and ambition.Â
Itâs all about relationships. Either developing them with existing franchisees and their network, customers in the database, or with people outside our database.
Gino Scialdone, President and CEO, American Recruiters
Recruiting experience is an obvious feature of their resumes, but thatâs not always a prerequisite. One tried and tested route to becoming a successful franchisee is for executives in transition. These individuals move from being the leader of an organization within a particular sector to becoming an executive search consultant. Seasoned executives know their business, know the people, and they know their industry.
Specializing works because itâs difficult to be all things to all people. In the type of recruitment that American Recruiters does, franchisees need to be entrenched in a core practice. They may diversify their specialties over time, but specific knowledge of a niche is invaluable for executive search. Couple that knowledge with good experience of sales, and you have the recipe for recruiting franchise success.
Success built on synergy, security, people
In recruiting, collaboration is key. American Recruitersâ private database in PCRecruiter enables franchisees to work as a team rather than being siloed. Franchisees also benefit from exceptional brand resilience; they move forward with the power of the American Recruiters brand behind them.
Over the years, American Recruiters has weathered multiple financial storms, from Black Monday in 1987 to the Great Recession in 2008, and more recently the global pandemic that wiped out around 40% of recruiting firms. Thatâs just one reason why Forbes has recognized American Recruiters as one of the top 250 professional recruiting and staffing firms since 2016.
No matter how stellar the recruitment tech, if you canât get someone on the phone to walk you through something â like training or setting up a new feature â the shine quickly diminishes. With PCRecruiter thereâs always someone there to help.
Gino Scialdone, President and CEO, American Recruiters
This endorsement makes the brand attractive to both companies seeking a high-performing recruiting firm and potential franchisees looking to grow their own business by being part of an established recruiting brand. They also get peace of mind from PCRecruiterâs robust security protocols, which ensure the database is protected from nefarious external parties. At the same time, they benefit from reliable, high-quality, and on-demand customer support. After all, successful recruiting â and recruiting tech â is all about people.Â
Back in 2015, All-In-Staffingâs Account Executive, Mike Trent, was in sales and business development, helping the firm get off the ground. Today, heâs part of a thriving staffing service company operating out of three offices in the Cleveland, Ohio area. Their specialty is the manufacturing sector, placing candidates in a range of industrial and clerical roles.
Working in an increasingly digital world, and staffing a technology-driven sector like manufacturing, it made sense for Mike and his team to go paperless. He had two goals: make it easier to get the right candidates through the door, and make better use of data. They partnered with PCRecruiter, and we recently helped them finish the leap from paper-based to online recruiting. Hereâs their story.
Thereâs a huge labor shortage in our area. The process weâre using now â thanks to PCRecruiter and our web-based platform â helps us extend our reach.
Mike Trent, Account Executive, All-In-Staffing
Before going paperless, All-In-Staffing operated a recruiting model familiar to many firms. They stored their candidate records on paper files, including extensive handwritten notes on a front sheet. It was a flawed system, but it worked â to a point. After first signing on with PCRecruiter in 2016, the team began tracking their process in the ATS, which made the recruiters’ work much simpler. However, the recruiters still had to manage transferring paper application responses into the system by hand.
Attracting the right applicants
In 2023, All-In Staffing decided to pursue the complete digitization and optimization of their application process. They realized that this would improve the candidate experience, and consequently fill more roles for their clients.
Before pushing into online recruiting, applicants would physically come into the office and complete a 19-page paper application for the open positions. The form-filling cost everyone a lot of time, potentially up to an hour, and wasnât great for the candidate experience. There was also no ‘job board’ as such, and applicants needed to make an in-person visit or call the office to find out what was available.
On paper, thereâs just no connection. You canât connect the data at all. You can reference it, but thereâs a lot of back and forth. Going digital enabled us to put candidates in the right places, and set everyone up for success.
Mike Trent, Account Executive, All-In-Staffing
As a staffing firm, improving the candidate experience has been key to staying competitive during an ongoing labor shortage. All-In-Staffinghas worked to overcome applicantsâ negative perceptions of staffing firms and the myth that they only give candidates access to temporary, short-term placements. Becoming more appealing to applicants and changing their perceptions required a new, more digital approach.
All-In Staffingâs Office Manager, Marissa Delgado, helped oversee the changes, training all the recruiters in the transition from paper to digital. She was well-placed to see the impact.
Before going digital, many candidates were reluctant to go into the office, unwilling to waste gas or time on a position that wasnât guaranteed. Online applications were fast becoming the norm, so All-In Staffing needed to meet candidates where they were.
Working with a PCRecruiter consultant, Marissa and Mike reviewed their old on-paper forms and revised their data collection for the online world. They cut down on the work required of candidates, collecting only the necessary information.
Our online application now takes 20 minutes. Tops. Now applicants can do it from anywhere, as opposed to coming into our office. It saves them â and us â a lot of time.
Marissa Delgado, Office Manager, All-In Staffing
Not only has online recruiting made it easier for applicants, itâs also improved things from the recruitersâ standpoint as well. They can screen more candidates, and screen them before meeting in person, which saves everyone time.
Making use of online recruiting data across locations
All-In Staffing found great efficiency improvements by eliminating the need for manual filing and the back and forth between the screen and a manual filing system. Not only do digital candidate records take up far less space than paper records, theyâre also much easier to reference and share.
Thatâs especially important for All-In Staffing, who are distributed over three office locations. Regardless of where theyâre based, their recruiters can now access every file without putting in a request to another office. Records are secure and centralized, which means theyâre accessible and easy to update by everyone who needs them, when they need them.
The All-In Staffing team poses in front of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in their hometown of Cleveland
Make a plan, make the change
Every firm and every recruiter has their own unique way of doing things, and going digital means change, which can be daunting. However, re-contextualizing a legacy paper-based process for the digital realm can also be a great opportunity to decide what information is actually needed at what step in the process.
Unlike a paper application, where everything must be collected at once, while the candidate is in the office or holding the paper, a digital format makes it easy to collect the minimum to get rolling and to augment the record via emailed questionnaires or other follow-ups if and when the extra details are required.
Going paperless means reimagining your processes and workflows in a whole new context. When done with forethought, expert guidance, and the right recruitment CRM / ATS, it benefits clients, candidates, and recruiters alike.
Discover how PCRecruiter can help digitize and optimize your recruitment processes. Book a demo
Every sector comes with its own unique set of recruitment challenges. The medical space is no exception. Sourcing qualified candidates for a wide range of roles â from Pediatric Allergists to General Radiologists â is no easy feat, especially when thereâs a shortage of new talent coming through.
Spencer Britt, President of Britt Medical Search
Britt Medical Search have been members of the National Association of Physician Recruiters (NAPR) since 2016. Their dedicated team has built up a network of nearly 500,000 physicians, helping to fill roles in critical access facilities, medical groups, and hospitals.
Co-founder and President, Spencer Britt, spoke to us about the challenges of recruiting in the medical space, his passion for serving the healthcare sector, and how the right recruitment tech helps support the process.
Itâs a people business
For recruiters, healthcare is a complex industry to navigate. It takes knowledge, experience, and expertise to understand the needs of healthcare organizations and connect them with the best candidates for their open roles. Thatâs why Spencerâs background in the health industry and MBA in Healthcare Management are invaluable tools for getting the job done. He understands the needs of different healthcare settings, and the depth and breadth of roles and specialties.
Like many recruiters in the medical space, Spencer and his team are dealing with high volumes. They have hundreds of thousands of physicians on their books, and around 4,000 open requisitions. Thatâs why they need recruitment software â an ATS with CRM functionality â that can handle high volumes of data.
Iâm all about simplicity, and Iâm a relationships guy â someone whoâs not getting worked up about Artificial Intelligence!
Spencer Britt, Co-founder And President, Britt Medical Search
The current talent shortage (partly caused by limited access to fellowship and residency programs) means qualified candidates can cherry-pick their roles. Recruiters need to work fast to get the best candidates in front of a hiring manager. For that reason, candidate databases need clean, up-to-date, and accurate records that are easily searchable.
When sourcing and placing candidates in the medical sector, there are additional factors to consider, from board certification and relevant qualifications to any record of malpractice. Having customizable fields makes sourcing and selecting suitable candidates much easier.
Britt Medical Searchâs mission is to get the right medical expertise into healthcare organizations that need it. They do a lot of recruiting for critical access facilities â something Spencer is passionate about. After all, recruitment is a people business.
Balancing generality and specialty
The current talent shortage (partly caused by limited access to fellowship and residency programs) means qualified candidates can cherry-pick their roles.
Like any recruitment sector, there are different approaches to recruiting and retaining top talent in healthcare. Some firms niche-down on a specialty, whereas others â Britt Medical Search included â take a more generalist approach. A lot of that comes down to belief.
Spencer and his team have the relevant expertise and experience to provide a generalist service that covers the full range of candidates and clients. Theyâre confident in their ability to take on that responsibility and to deliver the best outcomes for all parties. Theyâve been doing it now for over 6 years and counting, so they must be getting something right!
PCRecruiter is super simple and intuitive to use. The ability to create unlimited custom fields to hold our particular data points is really important for the work we do.
Spencer Britt, Co-founder & President, Britt Medical Search
One key factor is that healthcare is ever-evolving. Being a generalist enables Spencer and his team to provide recruitment support wherever itâs needed, from placing an orthopedic specialist in New York to filling open positions for a nurse practitioner and a pediatrician in Oregon.
With an intuitive yet powerful and customizable ATS/CRM at the center of their tech stack, Britt Medical Search is empowered to serve a broad community of medical professionals. Theyâre able to strike the right balance between generality and specialty.
The value of human interaction
Spencer enjoys the diversity and variety of his role. Like most recruiters, he thrives on human interaction. At Britt Medical Search, he handles new and continuing client communications while other team members focus on key aspects of data management, and moving candidates along their uniquely configured pipeline toward a placement.
For Spencer, itâs important that recruitment tech is not overly engineered. It needs to support the process, not get in the way of it. Thatâs because collaboration is the key to success. Spencerâs team collaborate and communicate with each other, and clients, to achieve a simple end goal: to find a great healthcare provider who can support a local community.
PCRecruiter offers all we need for all the volume we have, which says a lot. I canât underscore that enough. Itâs been a real cornerstone for our base of client customers.
Spencer Britt, Co-founder And President, Britt Medical Search
Human interaction lies at the core of Britt Medical Search. They believe in the fundamentals of human communication. They know their roles, and they know how all of their efforts can work synergistically toward their goals.
For Spencer, taking a human-centric approach to recruiting boils down to one thing: be easy to reach. Itâs that ability to be responsive and contactable in and around peopleâs busy schedules that make the difference in a high-volume recruitment sector like healthcare. That, together with the right recruitment tech.
No matter what space you recruit in â whether youâre in permanent placement, contracting, or HR sourcing â PCRecruiter makes it easier to do more of what matters most: interacting with people.
Itâs easy to see the appeal of a 360-degree recruitment cycle and the potential to earn big fees. But with recruiters focused on full-fee placements, firms can often miss out on the untapped value of internal splits. Sure, internal splits wonât suit every recruitment setup, but done right they can bring exceptional results. Just ask the Bowerman Group.
As a boutique search firm specializing in premium and luxury consumer brands, theyâre experts in all things retail, ecommerce, and marketing. Not only that, theyâve got the workflow of internal split-desk recruitment down to a fine art.
Michelle Catucci, Executive Recruiter â The Bowerman Group
We recently discussed the topic of internal splits and their value to the recruitment business with President, Rob Bowerman, and Executive Recruiter, Michelle Catucci, to discover more about how they power their process with internal splits.
What is a split placement?
A split placement occurs when a job order is handled by two separate parties â typically the lead recruiter and the researcher. Each party takes charge of a different aspect of the placement.
The lead recruiter handles the clientâs job order while the researcher supplies the candidates. When the placement is made, each person involved takes their cut of the fee. This can happen within a firm or between firms.
How do internal splits work?
While thereâs definitely a place for inter-agency splits, the way Bowerman Group does it (and does so highly effectively) is through internal splits. Hereâs how internal splits work:
When a search comes in to a recruiter, both the lead recruiter and the researcher are (ideally) part of the kick-off meeting. This is particularly important for the researcher, who needs to gather as much information as possible about the role before seeking potential candidates.
Bowerman Group begin their search inside PCRecruiter, having built up a private database of quality candidates over the years, but additional, high-caliber candidates are also sought out externally and added to the list. PCRecruiterâs PCR Capture is a great advantage here because it allows the researcher to quickly generate records for potential candidates from online sources such as LinkedIn.
All notes are kept inside the system, so previous correspondence or engagement with a particular candidate is instantly available. This is a time-saving advantage, as recently placed candidates or those who arenât the right fit are easily dismissed, allowing engagement with the right ones more quickly.
âCopious notes go into PCRecruiter. So when Iâm making a new search, if one of my colleagues has touched this area in the last year â it keeps me from wasting time with candidates who arenât the right fit.â
â Michelle Catucci, Executive Recruiter, Bowerman Group
Once a successful match is made, the candidate is turned over to the lead recruiter with all the information they need to make their presentations. Throughout the process, candidates are tracked by the software, from first contact through to offers accepted.
When a placement is completed, the split is entered into PCRecruiter, identifying the lead recruiter and the researcher. At the Bowerman Group, itâs acknowledged that this is not always clear-cut, especially when someone else â often a research assistant or another recruiter â has made a contribution to the placement. So whenever necessary, they also credit a third person in the split when sharing with the accounting team. Users of the PCR Analytics can also log and report on these split calculations across time, reporting on team and team member contributions to KPIs.
Internal splits add all-round value
For the Bowerman Group and their clients, offering a single point of contact is essential. Within that client relationship, the firm will perform a variety of searches. Theyâll cover a variety of open roles, from a training manager to an executive.
âOur number one tip for making splits a success? Have a really good process. Thatâs the key. Sometimes it feels like itâs patented because we now have it down to a science!â
â Rob Bowerman, President, Bowerman Group
Internally, responsibility for the research and screening will go to the person with the most relevant expertise, while the single point of contact is someone who knows the client and has built a relationship with them, This is maintained at all times. Itâs hugely valuable because it means clients don’t feel as though they’re being ping-ponged from one person to another.
At the same time, this internal split means the lead recruiter can give the client access to the best possible expertise for a particular type of role. This helps to strengthen and increase the value of their relationship.
The Bowerman Group attributes much of their success to their process â something theyâre worked hard to refine over the years. That includes a second screening with the lead recruiter, so they can confidently explain why someone is being presented as a good fit.
Making internal splits work for you
âI really enjoy digging into PCRecruiter and reformatting how we present candidates using a key points page, and resume page. The client can always see everything â thereâs a link, so they can forward that link to anyone in the company who wants to look at it.â
â Michelle Catucci, Executive Recruiter, Bowerman Group
Internal splits allow recruiters to play to their strengths. Itâs a collaborative model that also helps with economies of scale. At Bowerman Group, this model has evolved organically over time, with specialisms emerging based on background experience and personal preference. Those recruiters who thrive in frontend roles are given room to thrive, and those who enjoy the sourcing side are able to focus on their research efforts.
There are more formalized ways of working out there â such as the pod system â but ultimately itâs about finding a process that works for you and your clients. A simple-to-use ATS / Candidate Relationship Management system can help support your process so you can find the information you need when you need it the most.
PCRecruiter offers a visual and easy-to-follow pipeline that indicates every step of your process. Book a demo
Whether your recruiters are in the office or at home, the safety of candidate and company data is a priority. A breach can be costly for your recruitment efforts, your finances, and your reputation. As with any remote role, recruitment comes with its own risks. But with the correct knowledge, clear policies, and the right recruitment software, you and your remote recruitment team can keep data safe.
Risks To Data In Remote Recruiting
More and more people are getting used to remote interactions as part of the recruitment process and efforts to attract the best talent with a view to hiring them. The risks to data privacy in recruitment are similar to many other professions.
Remote lawyers, accountants â even mobile engineers â need systems for keeping data safe. Hardware risks arise when users bring their own device as opposed to a company-issued one. This isnât a major issue for large enterprises that supply employees with equipment, but it may be a concern for third-party recruiters and smaller recruiting firms.
Working from home can be as secure as working from the office with the proper protocols in place.
Another obvious risk to data is when remote third-party recruiters work for multiple clients and potentially use data from one client to benefit another. For employers, thereâs the inherent risk that an unscrupulous remote third-party recruiter, working on their behalf, might attempt to entice talent away to another client. This ethical (and possibly legal) problem is part of a more general challenge around the performance management of remote workers. This is especially relevant in recruitment niches where the key candidates and hiring authorities are well-known to major players.
Legal Implications
Remote recruiting often, but not always, aligns with recruiting across multiple jurisdictions with different employment and contracting laws. This too can create issues around compliance with different data privacy regulations â such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) from the European Union (EU).
In the US, social security and financial account information are the only protected pieces of personal data. This is different in other parts of the world. At the same time, legal cases such as the commercial use of a subjectâs data are constantly challenging what can and canât be done with data. In short, recruiters need to be better informed about the candidates and companies theyâre working with, and what the legal relationships are.
The good news is that Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and CRM like PCRecruiter have always been suitable for remote work. Thatâs because users can be in different locations when they sign in, but the database is centrally and securely located in one place.Â
9 Recruitment Data Security Considerations
If your team is going to be handling recruitment data remotely, here are nine key points you’ll want to bear in mind:
Technology: Getting your technology stack in order has to be the number one priority for all recruiters â not just those working remotely. This includes everything from communication platforms right through to trust and verification technology for managing performance metrics.
Legality: Alongside your tech stack, recruitment firms and in-house HR teams need to ensure clarity over legal requirements at local, national, and international levels. Ownership of the data is also important to fully understand â who owns it, whoâs responsible for it, and which rules apply.
Form management: Another key consideration arises when your recruitment processes involves the distribution, management, and processing of forms. You’ll need to be certain that the data is securely transmitted, securely held, and be aware of whoâs responsible for it.
Contractual obligations: Recruitment firms can also ensure that compensation for contractors or employees is dependent on their data compliance and classification. By making it a job requirement for data to be entered cleanly into the system, the sources and the audit trail are made transparent and complete.
Virtual Private Network (VPN): A core piece in remote security is the ability to lock down recruitment software within your companyâs VPN and to and not store data like social security numbers unencrypted on a local device.
IP Restrictions: By imposing restrictions that only allow a specific range of IP addresses to access data, business owners can limit access. Using IP restrictions means that even a compromised password is cannot allow unauthorized users into the system.Â
Remote desktop: Running your work desktop remotely via another connected device is another option for controlling access to data and monitoring its use. This is less common today thanks to browser-based software, but tools like Chrome Remote Desktop have also made it more convenient.
Control measures: Establishing what the appropriate permissions are for each user of your recruitment software â and each kind of remote worker â ensures recruiters only see what they need to see, and can only access data thatâs relevant to their role.Â
Data disposal: Different regulations exist determining record retention and destruction. Recruitment firms, as well as in-house teams, need to know how to store and destroy data accordingly. One example is the I9 form in the US, which must be kept for 3 years.
Considerations such as these need to be addressed at the contact stage between the customer and the vendor. Thatâs especially important when the data held is aggregated over an extended time period. A further consideration is the difference between data held online and data physically kept in disconnected cold storage.
The Security Features Recruiters Need
PCRecruiterâs built-in security functionality makes it the safe choice for remote recruiting. Hereâs a list of some of the most popular security features:
IP whitelisting, which means only trusted IP addresses can access your recruitment data.
Permissions and preferences that enable you to impose limitations on a recruiterâs views and access to particular functions.
IP-tagged action logs so you can monitor where and when users are accessing the system, as well as what major actions are being taken.
Two-factor authentication (2FA) helps provide assurance that the loss of a password doesnât automatically compromise your recruiterâs account.
Multi-database functionality allows you to keep datasets separate and secure from cross-contamination.
Field-level encryption means you can protect sensitive data in particular fields.
The ability to host PCRecruiter locally allows it to run on a private ‘air-gapped’ network where required. Â
When it comes to keeping data safe, remote recruiting is not substantially different from other forms of remote sales. In fact, the nature of remote recruiting encourages companies to more carefully consider the security of their recruitment practices.Â
These practices include the processes used to build and validate trust in remote workers. Of course, it also helps to choose a recruiting software vendor with highly-configurable security and remote features. Â
Managing remote recruiters? PCRecruiter can help keep data safe. Speak to our sales team. Contact us.
Today’s PCRecruiter software update includes a variety of issue corrections and performance enhancements, including subtle changes that are more important than they might seem at first glance.
A small change – an iceberg’s tip.
Previous PCRecruiter Buttons
Updated PCRecruiter Buttons
Eagle-eyed PCR users may notice the switch from rounded to more squared corners on buttons throughout the system in this update. While this may on it’s face appear to be a minor change, it’s actually one small piece of preparation for very big changes we’re working on for the future.
This alteration was a necessary part of code adjustments we’re doing on the system that help bring our PCR 9 code base in line with the newer frameworks we’re developing with for the eventual release of PCR 10. What looks like a simple button style change in this new release is actually a tiny piece of the groundwork we’re laying for some incredible new UX/UI improvements down the line!
Analytics Metrics Improvements
PCR Analytics users will note three new improvements when viewing the Metrics tables:
In earlier versions, Grand Totals appeared at the bottom of each column – for example, a total of ‘Email’ activities for all users. In our newest release, a Total for each row appears at the right side as well so that the total count of activities for each user is also present.
Column headings in the metrics can now be clicked on to sort the table by that selected column.
When using the ‘export’ feature, the data table output will be sorted in the same order as shown on the screen so that no re-sorting is required after opening the exported sheet.
Splits in the New Pipeline
Recruiters who have SplitDesk features enabled and configured can now enter and calculate splits in our newer Pipeline screens in the same fashion as the legacy Pipeline tools.
Each Step can now have split percentages, giving the newer Pipeline similar capabilities to the legacy version in regards to calculations.
For most recruiters (and certainly HR), an Applicant Tracking System sits front and center in their recruitment tech stack. The ATS is much more than a repository of resumes and jobs. Itâs a vital tool for streamlining day-to-day operations and optimizing the management of jobs, applicants, and employers.
Getting the best out of your ATS helps your recruiters make better hiring decisions and improve hiring efficiency. The trick is knowing how. Here are 5 tips for getting the best from your ATS.
1. Configure your ATS to fit your unique process
Every recruitment firm and HR team has its own unique workflow. There might be shared best practices, but no two recruiters do things in exactly the same way. For that reason, a good ATS should be customizable to your specific needs.
While ease of use is important, one common problem with out-of-the-box solutions is that they can be too streamlined and not flexible enough to match how you want to use them. At the same time, a solution thatâs overly customizable can require time and effort to set up, which you may simply not have or which would be better spent making placements.
For most recruiters, the sweet spot is an ATS that can be easily customized and configured around their existing recruitment workflows. They also need a level of out-of-the-box functionality to save time and improve efficiency in certain areas like job postings and candidate communication.
2. Track recruitment metrics from day one
Recruitment is a data-rich industry. Whether youâre a new recruiter or youâve been in the business a long time, data can give you a competitive advantage. In fact, thereâs almost no end to the ways you can use it to enhance and refine what you do. It can show you where your successes are and give you a platform to build on.
With built-in analytics and reporting tools, your ATS can give you insights into any activity or any step in your hiring pipeline. These numbers can help you streamline your processes and even enable you to remove pieces that arenât working. For instance, you might want to track the number of communications with different clients or candidates to figure out whether youâre contacting them too much or not enough. You could also see which communication channels are getting the most responses.
The PCR Analytics reporting system gives recruitment team leaders a graphic representation of KPIs.
Features like PCR Analytics help you go deeper into the details, surfacing insights from particular recruitment campaigns and showing you whatâs successful so you can replicate it in the future. Not only can an ATS provide valuable data on your recruitment metrics, such as time-to-hire and cost-per-hire, but it can also be used to track the performance of certain teams or individuals to see where their strengths are.
The metrics you decide to track really depend on your business. However, itâs always worth keeping an eye on these numbers:
The number of placements youâre making for specific clients
How many candidates youâre reviewing for specific positions
How many interviews youâre doing, whoâs doing them, and the success rate
3. Define a workflow and make it uniform
Following a standardized sequence also helps create consistency. After all, if everyoneâs doing something slightly different, you wonât know whatâs working properly and what needs to be adjusted. Ultimately, a team that makes more effective use of your ATS will improve your overall recruitment efforts.
Itâs not uncommon to have multiple roles within one sourcing and placement workflow, so sequencing is also useful when different team members are working on different parts of the process. It’s important that your tools keep everyone involved in the process on the same page.
With PCRecruiterâs Sequencing Tool, you can make it easy for recruiters to get going with both the software and your recruitment processes at the same time. This is great for onboarding new recruiters, as they can simply open up their Tasks for the day and follow the instructions.
4. Keep your recruitment data updated
Currently in beta, the latest PCR Capture will help keep your database clear of duplicates.
With so many name records, company records, and position records flying about, it doesnât take long for your recruitment data to become cluttered and outdated. Dirty data can slow down the hiring process because recruiters arenât able to find what they need when they need it.
PCRecruiter has a number of tools for keeping your records updated â including reports which let you search for duplicate records and merge data fields quickly and easily. In fact, the upcoming version of PCR Capture slated for June 2023 identifies possible duplicates when candidate data is captured from an online source and allows users to select the most up-to-date data before merging them into a single record.
When it comes to recruitment data, the best practice is to schedule regular clean-ups of your data every few months or so, as incremental and regular cleanups are far easier than large and infrequent ones.
5. Train your recruiting team to use your ATS
With all of the functionality at their fingertips, training your recruitment team on the essentials is an important first step. Recruiters will be working in your ATS on a daily basis â in some cases never stepping outside of it â so itâs important to ensure that your team is trained on how to use it effectively. This includes how best to search for candidates, screen resumes, and schedule interviews.
No matter what ATS you use, take advantage of the support, documentation, and user training options available to you. Ask for best practices and tips on making your job easier. The software’s support team can often suggest methods that may not be immediately obvious, or help devise ways of achieving your goals more quickly.
A final word of ATS advice
It sounds obvious, but when youâre paying for an ATS, the best thing you can do is use it!
With so many features and options for enhancing the recruitment process, there will always be opportunities to optimize what you do and how you do it in order to improve the efficiency of your recruiting efforts.
Chances are if a part of your recruiting process is repetitive, thereâs a way to automate it. The great thing about PCRecruiter is that our training and support team is always on hand to help simplify your day-to-day workflow with the simple click of a button.
See how to get the best from your ATS. Book a demo
From a recruiting industry standpoint, itâs often assumed that increased labor mobility equates with increased job change velocity, which is a positive factor for recruiting activity. However, this trend may be starting to shift.
In recent years, the United States has seen an increase in workers leaving and changing jobs â a phenomenon known as “The Great Resignation.” The reasons behind this trend are not yet entirely clear. Possible explanations include health and safety concerns, workers reevaluating their work-life balance, and the effects of remote work.
Some argue that “The Great Resignation” is merely a result of fluctuations in the business cycle. This trend is a reversal of the long-term decline in labor mobility that began in the 1980s and was reflected in various data, including the job-to-job transition rate and the number of hirings and separations. The ‘quits’ rate, which measures the proportion of jobs that workers quit in a given month, provides insight into labor mobility.
The Rising Rate of Quits
Until roughly 2017, the quits rate reflected the overall decline in labor mobility during this period, particularly during the Great Recession. The more recent pandemic-induced recession caused a sharp decline in job mobility, particularly in voluntary job changes. However, the quits rate has grown since that time, peaking at 3% and remaining comfortably above any pre-pandemic level.
The reasons for this sudden increase in labor mobility are disputed, with some arguing that it is temporary and others seeing it as a long-term trend. The potential benefits of increased mobility are significant, especially for young workers, but there are also concerns about increased uncertainty and inefficiency in the labor market.
Nobody knows what is currently driving or inhibiting labor mobility.
Ultimately, economists will need to develop models and test them empirically to gain a rigorous and thoughtful understanding of what the current trend in labor mobility means for American workers. In other words, nobody knows what is currently driving or inhibiting labor mobility.
The Rising Rate of Mortgage Interest
Another wrinkle is the rise in interest rates over the past 18 months, leading to an increase in housing mortgage finance rates. This has resulted in homeowners being effectively locked into their mortgages.
A new paper by Professors Julia Fonseca and Lu Liu reveals that homeowners with mortgages in the US can only move to a different home after paying off their existing mortgage and then refinancing their home with a new mortgage. Those caught in a mortgage lock-in can only relocate by buying a cheaper home or increasing their earnings, in addition to covering the costs of moving and refinancing.
The paperâs authors build their case around the metric of the mortgage rate differential, which is the difference between the mortgage rate locked in at purchase and the current market rate. The paper found that a decline in mortgage rate differentials reduces moving rates, which could explain a decline in moving by around 25% between 2018 and the next 10 years.
Household-specific mortgage rate deltas (Îr), measured as the difference between the mortgage rate that the household locked in at the time of mortgage origination and the current average 30-year fixed mortgage rate. (Fonseca / Liu)
Additionally, the study found that mortgage lock-in discourages labor mobility. Interestingly, the U.K. and Canada have a different mortgage market, where many more home loans are assumable and portable âi.e. the loan can follow an owner to a different dwelling. Such reforms in US practice could have a material effect on labor mobility.
The Rise of Remote Work
In our opinion at Main Sequence Technology, the ‘X factor’ in this situation is remote work and the increasing digitization of any business processes that’s amenable to virtual performance.
Recently released Census data shows that remote work has increased unevenly across the United States, with the highest rate of remote work being in Washington, DC, followed by San Francisco, CA, and Austin, TX. Remote work is clustered along coastal areas and mega-growth cities, but is also prevalent in a variety of other places.
The remote work share has rocketed from 5.6% in 2019 to 17.9% in 2021 to an estimated 33.5% for 2023 at the national level, meaning more than a third of all workers are able to do their jobs away from a fixed office at least part of the time. Remote work is related to occupation mix, higher education levels, longer commute times, and more expensive housing markets.
We assume that remote work will accelerate labor mobility velocity, while higher interest rates may inhibit labor mobility. It remains unknown, and unknowable, what effect future policy or social changes may have on labor mobility, as the pandemic emphatically demonstrated. Recruiting looks to benefit from current trends, as there is no sign of remote work or digitization slowing, even in the face of potential recession and already-felt rises in the real costs of borrowing.
What started out as a good intention â using legacy hiring data to streamline the candidate screening process â had the unintended consequence of perpetuating hiring bias. In the case of one online retail giant, recruitment AI learned to exclude particular groups of people from certain roles.
As of 2023, New York has legislated against âautomated employment decision rulesâ. Other states are sure to follow. Clearly, the use of AI in recruitment isnât quite there â yet. (When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI) in recruitment, you probably already know the story so far. If you donât, then we highly recommend that you check out our blog post about the potential and the pitfalls.)
However, what these developments have done is help highlight how technology could be used to support diversity and inclusivity in recruitment. Letâs take a closer look.
Overcoming Historical Bias
When recruitment AI takes historical hiring data, letâs say for software developers, it discovers a historical trend. In this example, the hiring trend leans towards white males of a certain age. So when the AI uses this data to potentially screen candidates for a software developer position â guess what? It screens out candidates who donât fit the criteria. Therein lies the problem with using âautomated employment decision rulesâ â theyâre susceptible to historical bias.
If you always do what youâve always done, youâll always get the same result.
What recruitment AI has exposed is an inherent structural issue within the employment market where groups of people were not getting shortlisted, not getting interviewed, and not getting hired because of who they were as opposed to what they could do. What weâre seeing today is an adjustment to that inequality through a confluence of history and technology which enables recruiters to not only create a more inclusive workforce, but to proactively recruit talent from more diverse backgrounds.Â
Offering distance-based roles is just one example of how employers and their recruiters can reach a wider and more diverse talent pool by looking beyond their city limits or state lines into previously overlooked communities or social groups. Similarly, ATS and CRM software can help recruiters specifically target a wider demographic of candidates, which simultaneously improves their chances of acquiring the right talent for the right role.
Facilitating Diversity Of Thought
As organizations actively seek to increase the diversity of their workforce and create more inclusive environments, it falls to recruiters to increase the appeal of open roles to a broader audience. That means positioning the companyâs employer brand and job postings in a way that appeals to many different types of individuals, irrespective of their age, skin color, sexual orientation, or gender. Through their recruiting efforts, employers need to ensure that underrepresented groups become an integral part of their organization. Groups of people who have been overlooked in the past will need greater opportunity to not only get hired, but also progress into leadership roles.
Diversity comes in many different forms.
One of the great things about increasing workforce diversity is that it brings in new ideas and perspectives. Itâs healthy for organizations to encourage diversity of thought, and to openly welcome and facilitate a range of viewpoints, which can ultimately help to drive business forward. Instead of speaking with one voice, companies can embrace a range of different voices and therefore increase their appeal to people from different backgrounds.
The other benefit of having a diverse and inclusive workforce is that it makes everyone feel more welcome. In turn, this increases employee happiness. A happier workforce is usually a more productive one. A more productive workforce creates better business success and increased revenues.
Technology As A Force For Good
Studies show that workplace diversity is at it’s peak among employees depicted in stock photography.
Unfortunately, some employers might look at a stack of resumes and discount potential candidates based on their name alone. If the name didnât sound “right,” if it wasnât the sort of name that was perceived to traditionally fit with a certain role, it ended up in the ânoâ pile. Studies as recent as 2021 have shown that name discrimination is still having an impact. This means some of the best, well-qualified talent may be out of the running even before the race has even begun.
These days, recruitment technology allows recruiters to proactively search for a more diverse range of candidates based on factors beyond their name. This needs to be carefully aligned with the recruiterâs fundamental purpose, which is to bring in the best talent for the role, whoever they may be.Â
Ultimately, organizations need recruiting practices that ensure their workforce reflects the totality of the population they serve; while getting the best available talent. To that end, recruiters need an ATS with the ability to search for candidates based on a range of quantifiable skill sets.Â
At the same time, the way in which recruiters source, track, and recruit individuals needs to be transparent and compliant with the laws of a city, state, or country. The right ATS and CRM platform can help recruiters ensure that a more diverse range of candidates make the cut, helping the organizations they serve to become more inclusive.
PCRecruiter is a powerful recruitment platform which partners with a range of systems and services that provide cutting-edge recruitment tools. View our integrations and partners.
Search engine optimization (SEO) helps websites improve their web page visibility on search engines like Google. SEO is primarily used by digital marketers to increase traffic to websites, generate leads, and increase revenue.
In the world of inbound recruiting and staffing, your job descriptions are your primary content, and writing them should be done with search engines in mind. How can recruiters use SEO techniques to improve the chances of their job descriptions being discovered and shared online?
We spoke to Steve Gipson, Sales Manager at Recruiters Websites, and to PCRecruiter job board implementation guru Andrew Rothman, to find out more.
What is a search engine optimized job description?
A search engine optimized job description is one which has been created using SEO best practices in order to increase its visibility on search results. This can help drive potential candidates to a recruiterâs website.
SEO is the practice of improving the visibility of websites and web pages in organic search engine results pages (SERP). While this can involve optimizing various aspects of the back-end, like the page title, meta title and meta description, the goal for the content on the front end is to provide the most relevant content for the userâs intent.
User intent can be broken into three categories: informational, navigational and transactional. Put simply: know, go and do. It determines what sort of content users are looking for. Here are three common examples of user intent in recruitment content:
Informational
The user is seeking information about a particular job role, career path or potential employer within a certain industry. Their search terms might include phrases like âwhat isâ or âhow do I becomeâ or âwhere can I findâ.
Navigational
The user is looking for job postings from a particular company where they would ideally like to work. Theyâre likely to search using terms like the company name, their location and the word âcareersâ.
Transactional
The user knows they want to apply for a specific job role and is seeking a way to begin that process. Their search terms might include words like âapplyâ or âjob application formâ.
A search engine optimized job description will incorporate SEO fundamentals, relevant on-page content, and specific keywords to make it more visible to prospective candidates searching for a specific role within a specific industry, and in a specific location.
The job description itself is informational content, but when it forms part of a job posting that sits on a company website it also needs to meet the needs of navigational users looking for that specific role, as well as transactional users who already know they want to apply for it.
Thatâs why itâs important to include clear information with relevant industry and role keywords.
Why âsearch engine optimizeâ a job description?
Studies show that 75% of people donât go beyond the first page of the SERP. In other words, the majority of people wonât scroll past the first eight organic search results on Google. For job seekers, this means they largely end up on major sites like LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, or Indeed. No matter how good your SEO practices are, an independent company or recruiting firm’s job listings are unlikely to out-rank the big guys because Google knows those sites are the most-clicked results. However, you can still help to raise your jobs above others for more granular searches.
And thatâs where search engine optimized job descriptions come in. If your job posting lives on a web page on a company or recruitment website, and itâs been correctly optimized, it stands a much better chance of getting picked up through organic search.
While itâs good recruitment practice to combine SEO with paid advertising, organic search is the equivalent of free advertising.
Even if the role advertised is not exactly what the candidate was looking for, this might be the first time a speculative jobseeker has stumbled across your organization and/or the first time theyâve visited your website. This gives you a chance to really showcase your brand, and start to build a relationship with them.
Techniques for optimizing job descriptions
There are many tried and tested techniques for SEO. With almost 86% of the search market, Google is the go-to source for most web searchers. Googleâs algorithms determine which organic content ranks highest (beneath paid ads), so itâs important to follow the best practices to maximize the visibility of your job descriptions.
Here are nine techniques to help you optimize your job descriptions:
â Keep job titles clear and simple
Putting the job title in the page title, and meta title of your page when possible, will help it get picked up by Google and give it a clear title when the page is shared. If you can, include the company name as well. The key here is to be clear and simple using common, unabbreviated industry terminology. Use the title phrasing that your jobseekers are likely to use.
â Incorporate keywords and phrases
When describing a specific role, youâre naturally going to include keywords associated with that particular role and industry. If you want to be more precise with what to include, take a look at a competitorâs top ranking job description from the search results and scan it for relevant words. Remember to use the phrases a job seeker might use when searching.
â Avoid âkeyword stuffingâ
Repetition of a keyword phrase is important, to a point, but Google is increasingly good at prioritizing natural-sounding content. After all, a search engine’s success relies on the quality of results it returns, and nobody wants to be taken to a page they can’t make sense of. Simply repeating the same keyword or phrase over and over again can be detrimental. At most, aim for three mentions for every 400-500 words. And never employ trickery like hiding keywords in white text on a white background.
â Use smaller chunks of text
Like most human readers, Google finds it easier to read easily-digestible chunks of text. So itâs essential to break up your text using clear headings (H2s and H3s in SEO-speak) and bullet points. Your HTML editor will have tools for adding Headings. Try to keep your job description text clear and concise. Use bullet points for things like required experience or workplace benefits, but keep them short and sweet. Five bullets at a time is ideal. If youâre approaching double figures, youâve gone too far.
â Avoid duplicate content
A search engine that returns link after link to the exact same content is not going to be very useful! Job descriptions are no different. When Google finds the same job on multiple sites, their algorithm has to decide which one is the ‘most important’ – that’s likely the direct-hire employer’s own website, or a major job board site. By making sure that your job description isn’t too similar to any other, you increase the chances of it being found. This also applies to jobs within your own job board! If you have multiple job postings that are identical aside from the title or location, search engines are apt to ignore them, and may even down-rank your entire job board as a source of low-quality content.
â Include geographical information
Your prospective candidates are almost certainly using geographical location in their searches. By ensuring your job description contains relevant keywords such as the state, city, or county together with the job title, youâre in a much stronger position to be seen by candidates with a specific destination in mind. If you’re advertising a confidential opening, give as much location information as you can manage, or list the job with the nearest major city to get regional searchers.
â Use internal and external links
Making connections is as important to SEO as it is to recruitment. A search engine cannot index what it cannot find, so more connections to and between jobs is beneficial. If you can, include relevant links to other parts of your website or to other jobs in your job descriptions, and use job boards and social media shares to make your links discoverable outside of your site.
â Include relevant visual media
A job description is a job description, but by simply embedding a short relevant video â either about your company or the role â you not only enhance your SEO, but also provide more appealing and engaging content to potential candidates. If you are using the PCRecruiter Job Board, talk to a rep about adding YouTube or Vimeo links to custom fields for display on your postings.
Final thoughts on SEO optimized job descriptions
Ultimately, job postings are web content like any other page. When you think about it, a job description thatâs been optimized for search engines is actually a job description optimized to properly engage potential hires. If you want your content to be appealing to Google, make it sure that it meets the userâs search intent.
PCRecruiter offers a flexible job board that you can use to easily frame your own positions inside of your website and to collect candidates directly into your talent pool. For larger volume job boards or more specific SEO requirements, talk to us about options for more advanced configurations.
Hereâs the conundrum. Employers want to reward loyalty. So they value tenure and they value experience. At the same time, many workers are looking to increase their remuneration. So they move companies more frequently, each time with the expectation of moving forward financially.
Consequently, employers are faced with the challenges of conflicting motivations.
On the one hand, they need to reward loyalty. On the other hand, they need to attract the best talent. Itâs a balancing act between making the right offer to secure the best talent today, and retaining top talent in the long term.
For this blog post, we once again spoke with industry expert Jeff Kaye, Co-CEO of Kaye / Bassman, to share his insights into the main factors impacting pay today.
Geographic Location
Are you paying people based on the role that theyâre providing, or paying them based on the context of their cost-of-living situation?
Jeff Kaye, Co-CEO, Kaye / Bassman
The pandemic was a catalyst for distance-based working. In sectors where itâs been successful, itâs created trends for greater flexibility in terms of working location. Remote-only and hybrid roles have become increasingly common. Due to regional differences in the cost of living, this has created a push-pull effect.
When a company is based in an area with a high cost of living, and the work can be done remotely, employees can still command premium wages. They can also decide to relocate to an area with lower living costs.
At the same, by opening up distance-based roles, companies searching for the right hires can take their pick from a broader talent pool, searching beyond their city or state. If hiring locally is more expensive, they can acquire talent from an area with a lower cost of living and, in theory, pay them less.
Of course, regardless of where a companyâs headquarters are located, some organizations have to compete against each other irrespective of localized differences in the cost of living. In talent-driven markets, some companies are willing to do whatever it takes to bring the best talent on board. Likewise, local businesses which offer products or services within a particular city or state, need to pay their employees in line with the local cost of living to attract and retain the right talent, almost by default.
Company Cost Structures
Organizations based in areas with a higher cost of living either have lower margins or lower cost structures. One way to lower cost structure is through a geographically dispersed workforce.
Jeff Kaye, Co-CEO, Kaye / Bassman
Companies in certain fast-moving industries â particularly those in the technology sector â are changing their approach to office space. Where hybrid or distanced-based working is viable, companies can strategically cut down on square footage. One trend is for companies to open up smaller satellite offices, which provide smaller, more flexible working spaces. From decreasing the size of physical office space to becoming an entirely remote organization, some companies are leveraging distance-based working to cut costs.
There are other economic factors which impact overall company cost structures. In industries which are heavily backed by venture capitalists â such as technology â some companies have been given incredibly high valuations. To kick-start and sustain growth, theyâve invested heavily in recruitment, attracting talent with extremely competitive remuneration packages. But that can only continue for so long.*
Already weâre starting to see a plateau and normalization of wages in the face of potential economic downturn. But pay is impacted by multiple factors. Alongside macroeconomics, thereâs where the talent is located, and above all else â supply and demand.
Hand It To Hiring Managers
What are companies doing to create an environment which attracts and retains the best talent, one that goes beyond where you can work and the benefits to you?
Jeff Kaye, Co-CEO, Kaye / Bassman
Regardless of the company location, the availability of talent, the compensation, or the opportunity for distance-based working â a great hiring manager can make the difference in getting the right talent through the door at the right price for both the employee and the company.
The hiring manager is the coach. They create a culture that makes working for an organization desirable â and raise the level of engagement. Interestingly, some of the best companies to work for are also the most profitable. Thatâs because employees want to work for them, and so location and financial benefits are not the only determining factors.
Weâve said it before, and weâll say it again â recruitment is a people business. See how PCRecruiter helps to keep it that way. Discover our tech.
* As a side note, Main Sequence Technology, the company behind PCRecruiter, has always been self-capitalized and owned/operated by its founders. This has led to a quarter-century of growth and stability.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the world of work. That much is certain. For most industries, the big question is how it will change the way people work. With all the noise around AI tools â like ChatGPT â and what they can and canât do (or what they should and shouldnât do) itâs easy to forget one thing: AI can make social recruiting easier and more effective.
Any digital tools â AI or not â that enable recruiters to spend less time on repetitive and time-consuming tasks and more time engaging with clients and candidates have got to be a good thing.
Darren Westall, CEO of Paiger
Social recruiting is great, but building an engaging personal brand and consistency at every touchpoint can make serious demands on your time. This is where an AI assistant really comes into its own.
To discover how easy it is to enhance social recruiting with AI, we spoke to Darren Westall, CEO of Paiger, the AI marketing assistant built for recruiters and salespeople.
Build A Better Network
People buy from people. LinkedIn has moved away from being a headhunting tool to being a social network for professionals.
â Darren Westall, CEO, Paiger
Letâs face it, posting job ads across multiple social media channels and job boards is a time-consuming task. Especially when you want to maintain consistency, avoid unintentional bias, and present a cohesive and appealing employer brand. Thereâs a lot of extra work involved. From manually entering details about a company and a role to setting up the correct metadata and choosing a captivating and on-brand image â itâs all time taken away from core activities. But itâs also a social recruiting essential.
For professional platforms such as LinkedIn, in the last 5 years or so, the balance has started to shift. Theyâre no longer just another space to headhunt or be headhunted; theyâre somewhere to grow a professional social network and develop a personal brand for both businesses and people. Theyâre also a space where companies can build their brand as an employer to increase their appeal to ideal candidates.
And yet, 95% of people and businesses donât actually share content on LinkedIn. This represents a huge missed opportunity. For employers and their recruiters, putting together engaging social content can help tease out passive candidates. Get social recruiting right, and it can surface hidden talent. The challenge, as always, is the time and cost it takes to create this content.
Cut Through The Noise
I donât expect a recruiter in the software development space to understand Python. I do expect them to know the average salary for a Python developer with machine learning experience, based in London.
â Darren Westall, CEO, Paiger
Getting the attention of passive talent across different sectors from healthcare to software development takes carefully crafted content posted in the right places. A good starting point is to think about where your potential candidates are, who they are, and which social networks theyâre likely to spend time on. That information then determines where to invest in terms of social recruiting.
Social media platforms are busy places. Standing out from the crowd is no easy feat and, according to the statistics, only 5% of people and businesses are posting. The effort it takes to cut through the noise requires creativity and confidence. Sadly, many brands feel they donât have the right to occupy a particular space. They question their own authority: are they really the expert?
Recruitment is one of those industries which can quickly become very niche. For that reason, thereâs sometimes a lack of belief in recruiters who need to niche down further on their market. Often, all it takes is to remove writerâs block to enable recruiters to get posting. Thatâs where AI comes on.
Inside The AI Toolkit
Paiger is an AI assistant. Not only can it be used in social selling and business development, itâs also helping tech-savvy recruiters to streamline their social recruiting processes. From CV writing prompts to tips for starting a new career, with Paigerâs AI assistant, recruiters and marketers can instantly get content-writing suggestions.
Not only that, but Paigerâs Ghost Writing tool automatically puts together content, leaving space around it for users to customize different aspects such as the companyâs tone of voice, and the call to action. In this way, Paiger enables recruiters and businesses to build their personal brand by sharing relevant content to attract candidates or new clients.
Of course, recruitersâ networks are also another great place to share employer value proposition (EVP) content â anything from downloadable white papers to blog posts. Whether itâs the results of an employment survey or recent employer news, sharing company content across these networks is a surefire way to boost visibility and engagement with a recruiterâs or employerâs brand.
Positioning job postings within a wider package of engaging value-added content helps to build trust, authority, and engagement with prospects. The difficulty is that recruiters have enough to do without concerning themselves with brand guidelines. With Paiger, any content shared on behalf of a company goes out with the right assets and follows brand guidelines.
Integration With PCRecruiter
For social recruiters using PCRecruiter, integrating Paiger enables them to automatically feed it with their new job roles, ready for posting across social media. All it takes is the PCR Job Board and a request to our technical team for your database’s Paiger XML feed. The AI then combines this information with a marketing approved-image, the relevant hashtags, and the correct brand guidelines before sharing it out to their social media channels â whether thatâs LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram â all or just one. Job done!
AI is making social recruiters more efficient by supporting them with automated content creation, so they can get on with more important tasks â like talking to candidates. Find out more about combining PCRecruiter with powerful integrations like Paiger.
No matter what type of recruitment youâre working in, there are always going to be market trends. In the fallout from the pandemic and the âGreat Resignationâ, remote working not only became a viable option for some workers, but the preferred choice for many. This possibility has created new opportunities â and challenges â for those hiring.
Jeff Kaye helped grow Kaye/Bassman to become one of the largest single-site search firms in the US. With over 30 years experience in the recruitment industry, Jeffâs seen just about every recruitment trend there is come and go.
For this blog post, we spoke to Jeff about the challenges of recruiting in a remote-first world and how companies and recruiters can adapt to ensure they’re getting the best talent available.
Supply And Demand
âRecruiters have to go where the talent lies. In the last few years, thereâs been a low unemployment rate in the US, with candidates in feverish demand. On top of that, the pandemic created the possibility of a distance-based workforce.â
Jeff Kaye, Co-CEO, Kaye / Bassman
In recent years, many sectors in the employment market have seen increasingly fierce competition for the best talent. In fields such as software development and digital marketing, demand has been on the rise, leaving local talent in short supply.
With the global pandemic opening up more opportunities for remote working, recruiters started to meet the talent where it is â whether thatâs in a different state or another part of the world. The trend weâve become accustomed to seeing is a less homogenized workforce from both the perspective of diversity and economics.
However, with most of the world now fully emerged from the pandemic and many countries facing up to economic uncertainty, thereâs a sense that the hiring frenzy is poised to slow down. And itâs this supply and demand curve which correlates with what companies are willing to do to secure the best talent.
For many companies, thereâs an increasing expectation that employees will return to the workplace in some capacity, either for a certain number of days a week or on a daily basis. For recruiters, the challenge comes in selling a companyâs best offer in order to secure the right candidate.
Earning The Right
âWeâre likely to find less receptivity to remote-first positions except in cases where people have earned the right â by their background, their skills or qualifications, or their time at a company to demonstrate their suitability for a remote role.â
Jeff Kaye, Co-CEO, Kaye / Bassman
Thereâs no question that where people work has an impact on their effectiveness and productivity. Some people are more effective when they work from home, others perform better in the office, whilst others do better in a hybrid environment.
Instead of falling back on a universal, blanket policy around where employees work, weâre starting to see companies evaluate the effectiveness of employees in a distance-based environment. In short, workers need to earn the right to distanced-based employment.
At the same time, companies also need flexibility when there is a shortage of the right talent locally. In this scenario, recruiters need to expand the talent pool by county, state, or even country to secure the right candidates with the offer of remote working.
Widening Recruitment Practice
Search professionals working in specific industries, such as medtech and pharmaceuticals, are already used to a national practice. On the other hand, there are more general recruitment firms who specialize by state or city.
To align with clients looking to fill open roles with national or even international talent, local recruiters will need to widen their capabilities, so they can quickly attract the right candidates for open roles. One approach is to push the possibilities of distance-based working. Another is to form partnerships with other recruiters within a larger network.
Access to a wider network of trusted advisors, means the recruiter maintains the client relationship but works with another recruiter to source potential candidates
The advantage of partnership is that a recruiter with local knowledge and talent in one city or state, can collaborate with another firm working with a company in a different location. This helps them extend their reach â especially when it comes to surfacing passive candidates.
Partnership is also beneficial to industry-specific recruiters who have a client looking for talent outside their specialism. For example, a recruiter working for medical and healthcare clients might have a talent pool of doctors and nurses. But what if a client needs to fill an open role in finance?
Access to a wider network of trusted advisors, means the recruiter maintains the client relationship but works with another recruiter to source potential candidates.
The Software Needed
âThe better the content inside your ATS, the better youâre going to be in targeting the right individuals.â
Jeff Kaye, Co-CEO, Kaye / Bassman
The quality and freshness of data on the best candidates can go a long way in giving recruiters a competitive edge over their rivals searching for the same talent. As does the reliability of the search function to surface candidates from your talent pool.
Another important part of any ATS is the integration with your CRM. In the past, an ATS was simply a home for the data recruiters needed to put to use on a phone call. Now, an ATS has to integrate with a range of communication channels â social media, text, voicemail, and email â which are all used for candidate outreach. Deeper integrations between an ATS and CRM â even email sequencing functionality â offer competitive advantages to recruiters within the current employment landscape and beyond.
Every day, PCRecruiter’s hybrid blend of ATS and CRM functionalityhelps thousands of recruiters like those at Kaye / Bassman make the right hires. See what PCRecruiter can do for you. Discover our tech.
On February 21, 2023, Main Sequence Technology, Inc was awarded a patent by the United States Patent Office. US Patent No. 11,586,760 B2, entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ASSOCIATING MULTIPLE LOGINS TO A SINGLE RECORD IN A DATABASE,” relates to PCRecruiter’s unique method for handling the multiple ways through which the same jobseeker might access the job board.
On February 21, 2023, Main Sequence Technology, Inc was awarded a patent by the United States Patent Office. US Patent No. 11,586,760 B2, entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ASSOCIATING MULTIPLE LOGINS TO A SINGLE RECORD IN A DATABASE,” relates to PCRecruiter’s unique method for handling the multiple ways through which the same jobseeker might access the job board.
The patented method allows for one consolidated applicant record in PCRecruiter while reducing the chance of a duplicate. It also prevents anyone from seeing information in the record that wasn’t provided using that login.
The PCRecruiter Job Board has been leveraging this technology for over two years to great success. The typical use case for this solution is to handle the problem of people applying for jobs and using a different log-in on a subsequent visit.
For example, let’s say Joanne Jackson arrives at the job board and uses her LinkedIn account credentials as a password in creating her account. She enters her resume, contact info, and other details. Now suppose Joanne returns to the same job board a year later, but this time, forgetting that she had used LinkedIn on the same recruitment agency’s job board in the past, she uses her Facebook account as her signup authorization.
A diagram used during the development of this feature, describing how it affects applicant data flow.
Although PCRecruiter is able to identify her as the same person based on her name and email address, it would be a security risk to display the old information to a new visitor using different account credentials. After all, if her Facebook login were to become compromised, she wouldn’t want someone to be able to log into the job board with that account and see potentially sensitive information she had entered while using her LinkedIn account.
Instead, PCRecruiter’s patented tech allows both the new and old login details to be associated with the same record, while only allowing the applicant to view and update the information that was entered while using the same credentials they have logged in with.
Furthermore, this prevents scenarios where a candidate who exists in the database but did not self-register on the job board might be stopped or delayed during their apply process by a ‘password reset’ or login operation. Even if the email, name, or resume is already on file, PCRecruiter will allow them to apply without losing or compromising any of the stored data in their record.
On this day in 1998, Main Sequence Technology was incorporated, setting off on a path to bring better tools to recruiting, staffing, and HR pros everywhere. Since then, we’ve served thousands of customers globally, with billions of dollars in placements made.
PCRecruiter in 1998âŠ
In “the before times,” in Northeast Ohio, four people were doing their own things at the dawn of the Internet age. Martin and Mike Snyder were doing logistics software for small trucking businesses, and Bill and Gretchen Kubicek were running one of the first ISP’s in the region.
The original PCRecruiter logo.
As oft-told in these stories, the four had been friends since their school days. One day, Bill called Mike to see if Mike (the brains of the trucking outfit) could help one of his Internet access customers with a networking issue. That customer happened to be an executive search firm, and their troubles happened to be with their recruiting software application (and not, as suspected, with Bill’s ISP.)
Martin, not knowing anything about recruiting, but knowing enough about the trucking business, sniffed an opportunity. He told the recruiting firm owner that Mike could do a better application in a weekend. One long weekend later, what once was a logistics application had been refactored into a recruiting application.
Co-founders Bill Kubicek and Michael Snyder at work on PCRecruiter, late 2000
The application that would eventually become PCRecruiter was born, and so the Snyder brothers took to finding recruiters to use it. After securing launch customers in different forms of recruiting, including staffing, third-party search, corporate, and a college career office, it became clear just how well suited the underlying data structure was to organizing organizations, people, and open roles in all kinds of recruiting situations. In those early days, the app was called Executive Bob, after that very first recruiter whose underperforming previous software had inspired its creation.
Meanwhile the Kubiceks, with Bill selling and Gretchen managing, made a rapid success of their ISP and made an nice early exit, selling to a major Japanese telecom. Bill had always taken as self-evident that the Internet was only good for two things: pornography, and finding a job. The former was out of the question, but with PCRecruiter, the opportunity seemed ripe.
The original Main Sequence office location – a converted Century Home.
On February 23, 1998 the Snyders and the Kubiceks incorporated as Main Sequence Technology Inc. First starting in the Kubiceks’ basement, amid piles of laundry and baby stuff (young Maggie Kubicek sat through software demos before she could walk), the company soon moved into its first office, a converted two-story Italianate home in downtown Willoughby, Ohio.
What is the main sequence you might ask? It’s an astronomical term relating to a distinctive band of stars, charted for mass and luminosity, which include the majority of all the stars in the universe. And like it’s parent company namesake, PCRecruiter was always intended to work for the vast majority of recruiters who would encounter it.
The PCRecruiter application for Windows desktop received its final software update in 2008.
Using a Microsoft Access database engine, or the then-exotic Microsoft SQL Server RDBMS as its back-end, the original desktop software allowed recruiters to track contacts, resumes, and jobs, as well as perform basic CRM functions like activity logging and email generation in a time when many were still relying on file cabinets of paper resumes.
As the user base and the company grew, the software gained more advanced features like contact info parsing, bulk resume import, and the ability to dial phone numbers via Windows Dialer and early VOIP.
From the desktop to the webâŠ
Early versions of PCRecruiter’s browser interface, known at the time as the ‘thin client’, featured a left-side menu, as CRT monitors of the time had a more television-like 4:3 aspect ratio.
With the growth of job boards like Monster (b. 1999) recruiters began to seek more direct connection to the internet for their candidates and clients and more ‘anywhere access’ to their own contacts. Main Sequence responded with the first version of its web interface in 2001, and even a simplified interface for early mobile devices like the Palm Pilot and Blackberry.
In 2002, enabled by Mike Snyder’s engineering skills and the Kubiceks’ knowledge of Internetworking, the company began offering PCRecruiter as on online service â one of the very first SaaS products available.
The PCRecruiter / Main Sequence home office.
By 2005 PCRecruiter was serving customers in over fifty countries. The software and the company continued to pick up steam, moving to larger headquarters in 2006 and adding a Hawaii office for support in the western US and Asia/Pacific time zones.
Throughout the early years of the millennium, PCRecruiter expanded with major capabilities like PCR for MS Outlook in 2010, the first iteration of the Open API in 2012, the PCRecruiter 9 redesign, and PCR Capture. Year by year, the capabilities of the company and the successes of the worldwide customer base continued to grow.
PCRecruiter in 2023âŠ
Main Sequence has always been driven by continuous improvement. The ongoing challenge of building a better product to meet the changing needs of business owners, system administrators, recruiters, and candidates keeps us innovating and iterating our offerings . And it shows. By the end of 2022, we picked up a slew of accolades in the G2 Winter 2023 rankings.
The newest PCR Capture extension, available in Spring 2023.
Throughout our history, weâve stood alongside recruiters in good times- and bad. When tested â during the dot com bust of 2000, the turmoil of 2001, the financial crisis in 2008, and the pandemic in 2020 â we responded flexibly to our customers and employees needs, always with eventual recovery in-mind.
If fact, the past year or two have been ones of incredible progress for PCRecruiter. We released the newest Pipeline, PCR Analytics, and our industry-leading Sequencing project.
On Feb 21, 2023 Main Sequence was issued US Patent # 11,586,760, entitled SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ASSOCIATING MULTIPLE LOGINS TO A SINGLE RECORD IN A DATABASE.
This patented method addresses a common problem with Applicant Tracking Systems; when applicants apply for multiple jobs or the same job multiple times, duplicate records are created in a database, which recruiters hate for obvious reasons. The patented method allows PCRecruiter to present a unified record to the recruiter without the risk of erroneous duplicate-checking revealing information to applicants that they did not enter. It’s clever and it works well â another example of PCRecruiter meeting the real-world needs of our customers with industry-leading innovation.
Most exciting, we are currently building toward the tenth major platform iteration of PCRecruiter. The beta program and release to production will be the biggest redesign of PCRecruiter in our history.
The new version of PCRecruiter will offer more flexibility, more efficient workflows, broader device support, clearer data visualization, and greater growth and integration possibilities than anything that preceded it. We’re looking forward to sharing it with you.
An in-development prototype of PCRecruiter 10, going into beta testing in 2023.
Service by dedicated people, for dedicated people.
Data is the modern currency. While data enhancement is a key feature of PCRecruiter, there are many other important pieces in a winning ATS and CRM implementation, the biggest being people.
The people who create and service PCRecruiter include an award-winning support team and an enthusiastic team of developers. The other key players are the frontline recruiting professionals who make our software a critical part of their business and provide us with ideas and communications about how to make it better.
The value of independence.
Every business is different, yet time and time again, we meet business owners with the same priorities around their digital recruiting tools: the lowest lifecycle costs, the most reliable and respectful vendor relationship, and happy end-users. On each of those, PCRecruiter is tough to beat.
Main Sequence has never required outside investors: the founders remain at the helm and directly involved in the day-to-day operations. Consequently, the company operates exclusively on free cash flow. That means we make decisions for the long-term, rather than chasing short-lived trends. Our costs to operate the service are among the lowest in the industry.
Main Sequence makes business and design choices that bring value. Things could change â someday it may be in the best interest of the company and our customers to revise our structure or use outside funding â but what will never change is the absolute customer focus and dedication to offering THE most versatile recruiting application in the world.
Those have been the central drivers for these 25 years.
The value of flexibility.
System admins appreciate PCRecruiterâs vast array of configuration options. From screen layouts, process and pipeline modeling, and analytics design, through to data operations and user record management â PCRecruiter provides the flexibility needed to configure the best solution for their business.
Put simply, system admins can tailor almost everything to suit the end-user: views, terminology, workflows, sequences, integrations, and reporting â bringing functionality in line with user needs. The result? Happy recruiters!
Our open API and integrations also afford flexibility. From custom code and close vendor relationships to arms-length, third-party code entirely managed by our customers, PCR is often praised by developers as one of the easiest to connect with. Key integrations include:
Phone and text messaging via RingCentral
Email connections through Office365, Gmail, and SendGrid
Data enhancement via ZoomInfo and HireEZ
Data import and export via Zapier and others
The value of serving our customers’ customers.
For public users like applicants and contractors, the best recruiting system is an invisible one. Interfaces are like governments: the best ones are the least ones that still get the job done.
Our Job Board integration and configuration options are enterprise quality, which means public users on the front end, get a seamless user-experience, regardless of your organization’s size.
For applicants and contractors â anyone inside your ATS and CRM â we firmly believe in the principle that your data is your data. So we keep it secure. For recruiters, data may start out as public information, but overlaid with their efforts it becomes a private asset. So PCRecruiter treats it that way â your data isnât shared with competitors or aggregated with the data of other users.
PCRecruiter into the futureâŠ
While it’s fun to look back at where we’ve come from, Main Sequence is most excited about the path we’re on. We are building our best product ever, and we see ever-increasing importance in the wider economy of the industry we serve. Talent has never been more important than it is today, and will be tomorrow.
Like other markets which are rapidly moving with AI and other innovations, the recruitment professionals who can navigate the challenges will be doing more business than ever before. We expect they’ll still need a high-performance ATS and CRM solution at their core.
Our track record has shown us to be a survivor and a champion. Where will PCRecruiter go next? Look for more chapters of this story in years to come!
Itâs an important question facing tech buyers everywhere: open architecture or closed? Over the last decade or so, many software companies have seen the advantages of open standards. In that time, weâve seen vendor APIs mature and compatibility increase between open systems. That said, thereâs still ongoing demand â and a market â for proprietary software.
Key decision-making in this area is largely influenced by industry and application. For recruiters, there are pros and cons to both types of solution. However, when it comes to recruitment tech, open architecture is a practical and beneficial choice in a highly competitive industry.
In this blog post, we shine a light on the differences between open architecture vs closed. With this information, tech buyers in the recruitment space can make informed choices around bringing the best solution to their business.
What Is Open Architecture?
Open architecture is based on a set of open, publicly available technical standards. This makes it much easier for different software applications to exchange data, and work together. Â
Open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) make it possible for vendors to work outside proprietary restrictions. This openness creates a broader and deeper community of vendors and therefore a wider range of options for upgrading, expanding, and maintaining systems.
For recruiters, the decision to purchase a customer relationship management (CRM) platform and Applicant Tracking System (ATS) which uses open architecture has a number of advantages.
Why Choose Open Architecture?
The real draw of software with an open architecture is that third-party developers can easily create add-ons to enhance the product. This means companies are not locked into a single vendor, and the software is much easier to scale and upgrade.
There are benefits both ways: developers gain access to a much wider market, and companies are not beholden to a single vendor. With so many third-party enhancements on offer, they can also enjoy greater choice, selecting from the best of whatâs around to create the ideal solution for their needs.
With an open-architecture ATS and recruitment CRM systems, companies are able to choose their enhancement vendor(s) and the data is manipulated via API and automation processes. Due to much broader compatibility, this gives companies the flexibility to switch to a new vendor in the future if they want to. Furthermore, users of open-architecture systems are leveraging the major capital investments and development teams of multiple vendors at the same time, providing greater benefits at lower costs.
What Is Closed Architecture?
As the name suggests, software with a closed architecture has tight restrictions imposed by the developer or vendor. Typically, any third-party add-ons or enhancements need official approval. In terms of integrations, these tend to be restricted to other software with similar architecture. In recruitment, a closed system is often one where the ATS vendor is also the enhancer or aggregator of the data.
Why Choose Closed Architecture?
Itâs fair to say that, despite restrictions in compatibility with other software, an exceptional piece of proprietary ATS and CRM software might well be able to meet your recruitment needs. Because itâs a ready-made and out-of-the-box solution, the initial setup tends to be more straightforward when compared with configuring open-architecture software to make use of various third-party integrations.
By its very nature, closed architecture creates vendor lock-in. That might not be a problem if youâre willing to accept long-term contracts and potentially unpredictable rises in costs. You could view it as the price you have to pay for ongoing and long term security updates and ongoing support from a single vendor. Youâll also benefit from their product updates and security enhancements.
However, do be aware of the time and cost implications should you choose to switch providers in the future. Using systems with a closed architecture often means reduced compatibility. Consequently, there can be significant headaches around extracting your data and continuing with business-as-usual during a future switchover.
Open Architecture vs Closed Architecture
So whatâs best for buyers of recruitment tech, and how can they make the right choice?
The truth is, the choice between open architecture vs closed is always considered in relative terms. Both these terms can also refer to the whole solution or just certain important domains. A truly open system is somewhat aspirational. At the same time, itâs possible to have a closed system that has integrations â albeit tightly controlled and usually less numerous.
In the recruitment sector, the trend toward open-architecture software has been partly driven by the increased demand for data enhancement. The data enhancement domain â or the ability to enrich name and entity records with updated, more accurate, and expanded information â relies on information sharing between online platforms.
PCRecruiterâs Enhanced API is highly developed. Itâs also well-documented, with a long track record of successful third-party developer projects. In fact, our own internal products such as PCR Capture, Portal for Outlook, and our upcoming PCR 10 version rely on it. On top of that, it also has a number of powerful integrations with the likes of outbound recruiting platform hireEZ and the worldâs most comprehensive B2B database Zoominfo.
Making the choice between open and closed architecture is an important consideration for recruitment tech buyers in the market for a new ATS and recruitment CRM system. Learn more about PCRecruiterâs Developer API.
It’s Valentine’s Day! A perfect time to talk about making new connections. Whether it’s for strengthening old bonds or hooking up with new partners, we’ve gotten you the perfect gift: brand-new API documentation.
The updated API portal has new search features and code samples.
The PCRecruiter Application Programming Interface (API) is the set definitions and protocols that allow outside developers to build and integrate applications that connect to the PCRecruiter database.
The API is used by our partner vendors, such as job boards, background check services, and phone systems, to securely connect to the recruitment databases on our servers. It also allows PCRecruiter users to custom-develop solutions specific to their unique needs.
In an effort to communicate more easily and effectively with our current and future partners, as well as our clients’ own hired programmers, we have fully updated our API documentation.
The new documentation is built on Stoplight, a global API platform that offers a number of enhancements for developers connecting to PCRecruiter.
New Tools for Easier Connections
With the updated API docs, we’re making it easier than ever for developers to connect to our services and to expand the marketplace of tools available to PCRecruiter users. The new platform has many improvements, including:
A more standardized interface that will be familiar to users of other API tools.
New Code Samples in multiple popular languages, including Shell, JavaScript, Node, Python, Go, C, Obj-C, OCaml, C#, Java, Http, Clojure, Kotlin, PHP, Powershell, R, Ruby, and Swift.
A new search feature to help locate the information you need more quickly.
Revised content to make it easier understand and contextualize the API and its endpoints.
As any proper Luddite will tell you, the machines are absolutely coming for our jobs. At times it seems practically inevitable. For the moment, we’re fortunately in that sweet spot where most AI is just smart enough to help us work more efficiently but not quite good enough to do the job better than we can. Recruiters are already taking notice of emerging AI tools like ChatGPT and finding ways to use them to their advantage.
PROMPT: “cinematic photograph, a seated humanoid robot holding a paper document in front of its face, wearing a business suit, sitting at a desk in casual office setting, robot eye is scanning the paper with a blue light beam, coffee mug, lens flares, movie still” (Generated with mage.space)
Generative pre-trained transformers, or “GPTs”, are neural network models that have been trained on vast amounts of data. Over time, a model is constructed that can relate concepts and properties of those concepts to each other. Eventually, the tool can make original inferences based on the knowledge in its model. Neural networks are made to ‘learn’ in the same way that humans do, gleaning new connections from observations and experience.
It’s important to understand that the model doesn’t contain or copy any of the original information that it was trained on â its output isn’t a collage or a rearrangement of the source material. Instead, it stores the complex matrix it has built to explain how the different words, phrases, and combinations of words and phrases in the training data related to each other. In the same way that a human doesn’t need to memorize every individual car they have seen in order to describe a hypothetical new car in great detail, a GPT model doesn’t need to store the articles or websites it examines in order to compose new text based on the concepts they contained.
With great power comes great limitationsâŠ
Unlike a search engine, which stores and retrieves information, an AI model generates wholly new content from scratch based on a prompt from the user. This offers incredible possibilities, but it also creates some limitations. For example, the AI cannot provide information about anything that wasn’t relevant to the content it was trained on. ChatGPT, for example, was trained on data collected up to 2021, so it can’t write about anything happening in 2023.
PROMPT: “award-winning photograph, a seated humanoid robot wearing a business suit, the robot is holding an iPhone, the robot is holding a piece of white paper, sitting at a desk in casual office setting, chrome accents, coffee mug, photo by J.J. Abrams” (Generated with mage.space)
The current big-name AI tools are also “generalists,” trained on vast but not highly specific troves of text. As more purpose-built models are trained on curated data sets such as resumes, job descriptions, interview questions, trade-specific documents, etc. they will become far more powerful in their application to niche recruitment tasks.
You’ll also want to be wary of false information â after all, the model cannot generally fact-check the original statements if makes. The AI is designed to give humans the output they asked for, and whether or not the output is factually accurate or logically sound is not isn’t part of its instructions (for now, at least).
As with any algorithm, the ‘garbage in, garbage out’ adage holds true. Low-quality prompts will yield low-quality results from the AI. Learning to craft a good prompt can take time and practice. It will also vary depending on the chat tool you’re using and may even change over a brief period. One thing I’ve learned in working on this post is that, as the technology rapidly evolves, what worked last week may not work this week.
Fortunately, dedicated professionals like Irina Shamaeva, Jacco Valkenburg, Jim Stroud, and others in the space are continually pushing on the tech and suggesting new methods and use cases.
ChatGPT: Not the only player in the game
The name making the most headlines in AI right now is ChatGPT, a project of OpenAI, which recently extended its partnership with Microsoft. (Given Microsoft’s ownership of LinkedIn, the effect of Microsoft leveraging ChatGPT in the recruiting and business networking sectors could be huge.) Other new players, like Perplexity (which combines AI chat with search engine citations) and Chatsonic have entered the field, while pre-existing services like our partners at Paiger are beginning to offer GPT-based tools as part of their feature set.
ChatGPT is still learning, both in terms of its AI model and in terms of its business model. Unlike some other AI tools, such as Google’s LaMDA and DeepMind’s forthcoming Sparrow, ChatGPT has been made free during its beta testing phase. It still goes offline often enough to be considered somewhat unreliable for day-to-day reliance, but when it is up and running it can be a powerful time saver for sourcing, recruiting, and hiring professionals. Let’s see how.
Streamlining Recruitment Tasks with AI
1. Drafting Emails
One of the things chat AI systems excel at is quickly writing original content. You can save loads of time drafting email follow-ups, cover letters, and other business correspondence by asking the AI to start it for you.
PROMPT: “cinematic photograph, rear view, the back of a seated humanoid robot wearing a business suit, typing on a laptop, sitting at a desk in casual office setting, lens flares, movie still aesthetic” (Generated with mage.space)
For example, you might give a prompt such as “compose an email that would be perfect for a wind farm mechanic, asking them about their interest in work opportunities in Texas, using a polite tone.” With a brief overview of the job and key points like the position name, requirements, and one or two interesting facts about the company, AI can draft a very professional sounding email in seconds.
You can also use it in a similar way for marketing a candidate. You might copy/paste the professional experience section of a resume into the chat and ask the AI to compose an email describing why, based on this experience, the candidate would be suitable for the role.
As always, it’s important to think of the AI as a well-informed but very inexperienced young assistant. It can be prone to uninspired and rote sounding content creation. Treat these emails as drafts for you, the experienced human recruitment professional, to refine and build upon.
2. Suggesting Searches
With its vast understanding of word and concept relationships, ChatGPT may be able to come up with strings for candidate sourcing that you hadn’t considered. You might try asking the bot to “Create a boolean search string that finds LinkedIn profiles of US-based wind farm engineers. The search should focus on senior level hiring prospects. The search should include various ways these engineers might describe their work or title, and include Spanish alternatives.”
In my experiments with ChatGPT, the output of this prompt was:
(“wind farm engineer” OR “wind turbine engineer” OR “wind energy engineer” OR “ingeniero de parques eĂłlicos” OR “ingeniero de turbinas eĂłlicas” OR “ingeniero de energĂa eĂłlica”) AND (“senior” OR “lead” OR “principal” OR “nivel senior” OR “lĂder” OR “principal”) AND (“United States” OR “USA” OR “US” OR “Estados Unidos”) AND (title:(senior OR lead OR principal OR nivel senior OR lĂder OR principal) AND location:(United States OR USA OR US OR Estados Unidos))
Again, it’s important to double-check the bot’s work. Do you know if the Spanish phrases it selected are appropriate to the type of candidate you’re after? Did it put the parentheses and colons in the right places? If not, you could end up sourcing the wrong people.
3. Composing Interview Questions
The chatbot’s wide ranging training data means it can often help craft role-specific questions for candidates. ChatGPT is quite adept at answering a prompt like this:
“give me a list of interview questions for a wind farm engineer with three years of experience who is being considered for a management position”
PROMPT: “wide cinematic photo, standing female humanoid talking to a human business man, office meeting room, lens flares, sorayama robot, cinematic movie aesthetic, bokeh” (Generated with mage.space)
The resulting answers are liable to be somewhat generic⊠“How do you ensure safety and compliance in your work?” If you just need the basics, this can save you a lot of time.
To go a bit deeper, you may want to try providing the AI with the details from the specific job description, then prompt with something like:
“given this list of responsibilities for a wind turbine engineer job, please craft five job-specific interview questions to help assess a candidate’s fit for the role”.
Following on that, you might then ask it to provide general ideas of what a good answer to each question may look like.
4. Drafting a Candidate Summaries
While PCRecruiter’s Candidate Presentations feature makes it easy to send resumes and information to clients and to receive and store their feedback, you might try using an AI chatbot to shortcut the composition of a candidate summary. Asking the AI to condense the resume into an introductory brief, saves both your time and your client’s.
Generating a usable summary is as simple as pasting the candidate’s resume text into the chat, along with a prompt like:
“summarize the following resume in two paragraphs, using a professional tone, and suggesting why this may be a good job candidate for an engineering management role.”
5. Simplifying and Rewriting Job Descriptions
In addition to writing completely original content, AI can be useful in rewriting content that already exists. This can be valuable for internal and external uses.
If you’re a recruiter just starting out, or one moving into a new and unfamiliar market, you may try pasting the client’s complex technical description into ChatGPT and prompting it with “rewrite this job description to make it suitable for a high school level reader.” Having the description without the technical jargon may make it easier to discuss with colleagues.
PROMPT: “cinematic photograph, a seated humanoid robot holding a paper document, wearing a business suit, sitting at a desk in casual office setting, robot eye is scanning the paper with a blue light beam, coffee mug, lens flares, movie still” (Generated with mage.space)
You may also find it helpful to give the AI your client’s job description and then ask it to create multiple variations of it for job advertisements and recruitment emails. You can then choose the most suitable version or put multiple versions into use and test which is the most effective.
For confidential searches, using the description provided by the client can not only reveal their identity, but can also pose issues for search engines detecting it as duplicate content. Rather than spending valuable time custom-writing your own descriptions, paste the client’s version into the AI and prompt it to “write a new version of the following job description that does not reveal the name or location of the employer, adding in alternate phrases where possible.”
Concluding in ChatGPT’s own wordsâŠ
Rather than writing my own concluding statement here, I thought it would be more appropriate to ask ChatGPT to write one for me.
PROMPT: Compose a first-person conclusion for a blog post entitled “5 ways ChatGPT can enhance your recruiting workflow”, using a conversational but professional tone. Describe in a sentence or two why using ChatGPT and similar tools is a smart idea for recruiters, and express excitement at the future of artificial intelligence in the recruitment space.
“In conclusion, using ChatGPT to enhance your recruiting workflow can bring a multitude of benefits to the recruitment process. From automating repetitive tasks to generating personalized communication, ChatGPT can save recruiters time and help them focus on higher-level tasks like building relationships with candidates and hiring managers.Â
The future of artificial intelligence in the recruitment space is very exciting and I believe that utilizing ChatGPT is a smart idea for recruiters. It allows them to be more efficient and effective in their recruitment efforts, ultimately leading to better hires and a more successful business. I can’t wait to see what advancements will come in the future and how they will continue to transform the recruiting landscape.”
Not too shabby for a machineâŠ
Andrew Rothman has been with PCRecruiter for 25 years, managing a variety of projects, including web and media design, video production, and vendor partnerships. He has a background in music, multimedia, and theater.
The last couple of years have seen sweeping changes in the job market. Call it the Great Resignation, the Great Change-Up, the Great Reshuffle â or the great something else â thousands of people have chosen to change career paths.
Whatâs not so great for recruiters right now is that previously passive candidates â people not actively seeking new roles â are now super-passive. Thatâs because theyâve found a role that theyâre comfortable with and thereâs risk associated with making a change.
Finding the right talent is tougher than ever before. Sometimes clients need to know the reality, especially when thereâs a limited pool of candidates for an open role. So how can recruiters keep it real and push back on clients for a win-win outcome?
PCRecruiter got some thoughts on the matter from Dave Nerz, President of NPAworldwide, a global network of 550 specialist and generalist recruiters in multiple sectors operating in 42 countries. (We also spoke with Dave about Working From Home for another blog post last year.)
The Great Challenge
The opportunities to recruit someone whoâs chosen to move outside the city to work remotely are reduced. The pool of talent is getting smaller.
Dave Nerz, President, NPAworldwide
A few years ago, sourcing and attracting the best and brightest passive talent was a struggle. As it stands, the job of a recruiter is even tougher.
The pandemic made tens of thousands of workers reevaluate their choices. For many different reasons â be it the chance to work from home, a change of lifestyle, or cost-cutting by no longer commuting â many people settled into new ways of living and working.
This increased satisfaction has decreased the size of the available talent pool. People are more risk-averse. Extracting passive talent from roles in which theyâre now highly comfortable requires employers to up their offering. Recruiters need more resources â improved leverage â to attract the best talent and make the right hires.
To get it, recruiters sometimes have to push back on clients.
A Reality Check
The hiring managers and leadership of some mid-sized companies are not always in tune with what the current job market is all about.
Dave Nerz, President, NPAworldwide
Companies with in-house recruiters will have some awareness of the current employment market. Those relying on agencies tend to be less informed. Until it comes to the numbers. When recruiters surface ten prospective candidates for a role that in the past might have had a hundred, questions get asked. Itâs a reality check. At this point, recruiters have to turn around and start educating employers. Their role becomes increasingly consultative.
The reality is that itâs taking recruiters longer to find the right talent, and thereâs less of it to go around. They might find a dead-on hit, and extract them from their current position, only to be told by the hiring manager that theyâd like to see a couple more candidates as well. In an ideal world, it would be great to have a group of potential applicants. In reality, time is of the essence. If employers donât seize the talent when itâs available â someone else will. If recruiters focus on sourcing additional candidates, they stand to lose the one or two that theyâve already found.
Itâs About Time
If theyâre that good, theyâll be gone.
Dave Nerz, President, NPAworldwide
Competition for the best candidates in a shrinking talent pool means recruiters need to work smarter to get up to speed. Gone are the days of meetings over coffee or lunch. To extract the right candidates from their current roles and bring them in takes money, resources, and time. What used to be a window of three months to make the hire, is now more like three weeks.
Employers also have to fiercely compete on their offers. Whether thatâs a bigger signing bonus, more time off, the option to work from home, or something else â it all has to be negotiated within a limited timeframe. This is where speed is of the essence. Itâs also when recruiters need to push back on clients to ensure theyâre educated about the reality.
Some companies who reflect on the hiring process realize they need to take a more consultative approach to recruiting, knowing it will get them better long-term results. Others look at the problem and blame recruiters. To try to solve the issue, these companies hire multiple contingent recruiters to simultaneously source talent for a single role.
The trouble is, thereâs only a limited talent pool. So having multiple recruiters set against each other in a race to find the best candidates doesnât necessarily yield more prospects. All it does is make recruiters consider the value of their own time â and how it might be more productively spent working exclusively for other clients.
The Power Of Pushback
Pushing back on clients can pull some recruiters out of their comfort zone. But the benefits are clear. Being totally transparent and giving employers who get it a true picture of the job market means recruiters get the resources they need to get the job done, and make the right hires. In situations where recruiters get blamed for the lack of available talent, employers end up getting second-rate candidates â or worse â no candidates at all.
Catching the best candidates before they opt to go elsewhere requires close collaboration and fast-thinking. The right ATS and CRM can also help to speed up the hiring process. That doesnât mean cutting corners. It means streamlining workflows â even automating some aspects of it â so that recruiters can get the job done faster and more efficiently.
PCRecruiter is an all-in-one ATS and CRM which saves recruiters time, so they can make the right hires faster. Discover our tech.
In the G2 Winter 2023 rankings, PCRecruiter appeared in seventeen new reports, achieving twelve new ranking badges and Top 10 slots in twenty-five different reports.
G2, the worldâs largest and most trusted software marketplace, releases quarterly reports for a variety of software categories. Their rankings and awards are based entirely on independent reviews submitted by real users. PCRecruiter is ranked in the Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), Candidate Relationship Management, Staffing, and Recruitment Marketing categories. PCRecruiter has appeared as a Top 10 recruiting software in the past, and the Winter 2023 reports continue the trend and then some!
PCRecruiter hits #1 in Recruitment Marketing Software Ranking
G2 considers a “Small Business” to be any company with 50 or fewer employees. According to IBISWorld, this encompasses most recruiting agencies, making G2’s “Small Business” grouping the most important one for PCRecruiter. Here’s how we fared in the 2023 Winter Report based on independent PCRecruiter reviews:
Recruitment Marketing – High Performer
Best ‘Usability’ (Ranked #1)
Best ‘Meets Requirements’ (Ranked #1)
Highest User Adoption
Top 5 in Customer Relationship
Top 10 in Implementation
Applicant Tracking Systems – Leader
Top 5 in Results Index
Top 5 in Customer Relationship
Top 10 in Usability
Staffing – High Performer
Top 10 in Usability
Top 10 in Results Index
Top 10 in Customer Relationship
Candidate Relationship Management – Leader
Top 5 in Customer Relationship
Top 5 in Results Index
Top 10 in Usability
Top 10 in Implementation
Top 10 Recruiting Software in Overall Rankings
When looking at the rankings for businesses of all sizes, PCRecruiter also appeared in several Top 10 ranks, including the results Indexes for Applicant Tracking Systems and Staffing software, and the Customer Relationship Indexes for Applicant Tracking Systems, Candidate Relationship Management, and Staffing software.
We are always particularly happy to see PCRecruiter reaching the top of the list for Customer Relationship, as we pride ourselves on how easy our customers say we are to do business with!
If you’re a PCRecruiter user, we would love to have your thoughts included in G2’s Spring 2023 rankings, particularly in light of new features like Sequencing and the many other exciting updates we’ve got planned for the new year. We invite you to submit your own review here.
About G2
G2 is the world’s largest and most trusted software marketplace. More than 60 million people annually â including employees at all of the FORTUNE 500 â use G2 to make smarter software decisions based on authentic peer reviews. Thousands of software and services companies of all sizes partner with G2 to build their reputation, manage their software spend, and grow their business â including Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoom, and Adobe. To learn more about where you go for software, visit www.g2.com and follow on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Everyone seems to be saying the same thing: where did 2022 go? It was the year in which the world of work slowly came to terms with the after effects of the global pandemic. Organizations relaunched in recovery mode, and recruiters faced up to new challenges from remote working to the so-called âGreat Resignationâ. A lot has changed â maybe more than at any other point in living memory. The recruitment landscape is a very different shape and size to what it was 3 years ago.
You may remember that back in the fall, we compiled a list of key hiring and recruitment trends for 2022. The truth is that with so much going on this year, thereâs plenty more where that came from. So weâve decided to welcome in 2023 by looking back â and gazing ahead â at 5 recruiting trends you might have missed.
1 Recruitment Podcasts
Staying up to date with the latest recruitment industry insight, topics, and trends is no easy feat â especially right now. The great thing about podcasts is that you can listen on the fly, in the car, on the way to work, or on your lunch break. The trouble is, if you can think of it, someoneâs probably already made a podcast about it. With so many shows available, it can be difficult to find what youâre looking for. To help you get started, earlier in 2022 we put together a list of our top 6 recruitment podcasts.
2 Data Security
Recruiters handle high volumes of personal data every day. In fact, your data is probably your organizationâs most valuable asset. Think about it. All that candidate and company data sitting in your ATS and CRM is a goldmine â not only for your competitors â but for hackers looking to extract personal information. The last thing any recruiter wants is a data breach, which can be costly for your company â particularly your reputation. As data privacy regulations around the world continue to tighten, data security becomes ever more critical to client and candidate trust. Find out what you need to know by reading our article on data security in recruitment.
3 Social Recruiting
Letâs be clear. The fundamentals of recruiting haven’t changed all that much over the years. But the ways in which candidates engage with potential employers, and employers reach out to candidates, have evolved. As a digital-first generation enters the job market, companies need to find the right spaces to engage with potential candidates. And that means social hiring â using social media platforms to connect with prospective candidates. However, recruiters need to be increasingly strategic about which social platforms they use to source the right candidates. Learn more by reading our guide on how to use social media in recruiting.
4 Automations
Itâs not the most obvious move for a people business like recruitment, but introducing automations into the hiring process can help you hire faster. By making effective use of todayâs technology, recruiters can free-up more time to focus on their core business. For example, in PCRecruiter, itâs possible to automate things like form letters to candidates, emails to clients to schedule interviews, and notifications that prompt administrators to take certain actions. The key to this is knowing whatâs possible, and how to set up automatons which actually benefit recruiters in their daily work. Not sure where to start? Take a look at our blog post on 5 ways to use automation in recruitment.
5 Artificial Intelligence
Letâs be honest, in 2022 AI in recruitment was headline news, so you probably didnât miss this one! But, we feel itâs an important one to keep on your radar. The reality is that AI is here, itâs been used by recruiters, and itâs not going away anytime soon. Itâs fair to say that many of us are willing to welcome AI into certain aspects of our lives, from customer service chatbots to film recommendations. But when it comes to determining our suitability for an open role â thatâs a different story. New Yorkâs new regulation on the use of ‘Automated Employment Decision Toolsâ comes into effect from 1st January 2023. It will be interesting to see the impact of this on the recruitment industry. Read our blog to learn more about the pitfalls and potential of using AI in recruitment.
Looking Ahead To 2023
As people, technology, and the global economies continue to pull in different directions, companies will continue to adopt and embrace technology-driven recruitment practices to compete for the best candidates, and ensure they get the right people into the right roles.
At PCRecruiter, weâre excited to discover where our sequencing tool will take recruiters whoâll be able to accelerate recruiting workflows, speed up the onboarding of new team members, and increase efficiency for current users.
Stay on top of your hiring game in 2023 and beyond with PCRecruiterâs Sequencing feature. Watch this short video to learn more:
Season’s Greetings from PCRecruiter
Main Sequence Technology wishes you a happy holiday and a bright and successful 2023!
2022 marked PCRecruiter’s 24th year of service to the recruiting and staffing industry.
It’s been another year of growth and innovation. With all new features like Sequencing Automations, refreshed core features like Pipeline and Notifications, and our always-improving public API, PCRecruiter is better than ever and charging into 2023 with engaged high-end partners like HireEZ, ZoomInfo, and RingCentral.
2022 was also a year of growth for our development and support teams. Their always customer-focused performance encouraged so many positive independent reviews by enthusiastic customers that PCRecruiter ranked in G2‘s Top 10 on twenty-four different indexes for staffing, ATS, and recruitment software.
2023 will bring a major UI update and the continuous improvement across the board that PCRecruiter customers have enjoyed for decades.
To the entire PCRecruiter community of end-users, customers, partners, team members, and suppliers: Main Sequence Technology wishes you the finest holiday season and the most prosperous new year!
The work from home phenomenon divides opinion. Nowhere is that more keenly felt than in recruitment. Some employers and employees see it as a performance enhancing perk, whilst others view it as a barrier to productivity and career progression. So how can recruiters use it to their best advantage?
Dave Nerz – President of NPAworldwide
NPAworldwide is a global recruitment network of 550 members operating in 42 countries. It spans multiple sectors, and includes specialist and generalist recruiters.
For this blog post, PCRecruiter spoke to the President of NPAworldwide, Dave Nerz, to get his inside perspective on the work from home (WFH) trend.
WFH Wednesday
WFH provides two different working environments. Places to get different kinds of work done. It makes the day go faster â and itâs really helpful for me.
Dave Nerz, President, NPAworldwide
WFH was around long before the pandemic, but lockdowns and social distancing meant more people experienced it than ever before. At that time, WFH became a necessity rather than a ânice to haveâ option. But like many forward-thinking organizations, NPAworldwide was already testing the water with WFH. They employed remote staff, and Dave Nerz had introduced WFH Wednesday. So when the pandemic hit, they were ready.
Employees were already set up at home. They had a space to work, and the right tools to get their work done, like a telephone, Internet services, office stationery, and computers. In fact, as a leader, Dave had been doing his own version of WFH for years. Every Wednesday afternoon, heâd set up in the local library to get things done without interruption. Heâd switch off his phone and create a situation where he could focus on longer tasks like writing reports.
Right now, Dave splits his working day between the office in the morning and home in the afternoon. He gets the best of both worlds. Face-to-face meetings and in-person work happens in the office. At home, he can schedule longer video calls, and focus on more complicated time-consuming tasks. His team also benefits. For example, parents can work around their childcare duties, and still get the job done to the benefit of the organization.
Hybrid Working Arrangements
As an industry, weâre going to have to figure out how to make more people available to us that would otherwise not be able to fill the roles.
Dave Nerz, President, NPAworldwide
Itâs fair to say that certain jobs donât currently work in a hybrid or remote model. For example, there are roles in manufacturing and engineering which have to be done on site â although with new technology, even that is slowly changing. When roles can be done remotely or hybrid, it opens up a much broader talent pool. Thatâs important on a global scale. Why? Many sectors are facing a demographic drought. In terms of age, their demographic looks like an inverted pyramid: many people are retiring and thereâs not enough young talent coming through.
Specifying a geographic location for roles which could be done remotely immediately shrinks the talent pool. Conversely, widening the search to a particular state â or even the entire country â adds depth and breadth. Hiring on home soil makes things like onboarding and communication easier. But thereâs no doubt that in certain industries, such as software development, offshore is sometimes the only answer.
Timezones are also playing an increasingly important role. In the future, weâre likely to see a trend for employers searching for people who work on a certain slice of time, as opposed to being based in a particular city. In that respect, remote and hybrid working will help to close the skills gap.
Training For Success
WFH and remote working is going to help the industry solve some problems in the short term, while we figure out the long term.
Dave Nerz, President, NPAworldwide
As the boomer generation continues to retire, the skills gap widens. In the past, corporations had training programs which would give graduates the right skill sets to go out into an industry and launch their careers.
Today, a lot of that has gone. Post 9/11 and financial crises, many companies cut costs by axing their training programs, instead searching for ready-made talent. The problem is thereâs often not enough of it to go around.
Bringing in talent from overseas can help. For recruiters and employers, geographic borders make relocating people â physical immigration âa complicated and time-consuming process. Virtual immigration opens up new possibilities. You can have trained talent from abroad work remotely in no time at all.
The key challenge for employers taking on remote talent is how to ensure new recruits can be successfully onboarded and work effectively without stepping into an office. In the physical environment, you have managers and peers to support their training and development. With WFH, those opportunities donât arise naturally. They have to be scheduled in. This might make it more challenging for those people who are purely remote.
It also impacts career development. When someoneâs remote-only, managers can see the end results, but they donât necessarily have visibility over the process including the wins and the mistakes. Without seeing it, managers have to take a leap of faith based on results, which could affect an employeeâs promotability. Remote working can also limit opportunities to discuss career advancement because there arenât those live, face-to-face moments that you get from working in an office.
Recruitment In A Remote-First World
Weâre going to have to select people on the basis of how they demand to work. In some cases, as opposed to an option, WFH becomes a demand.
Dave Nerz, President, NPAworldwide
Thereâs no question that some work is better done in-person. Remote-first isn’t suitable to every sector. Take automotive engineers, for example. They need to be inside the company to see whatâs being done, how itâs done, and what their impact is likely to be.
Even with roles that can potentially be done remotely â such as marketing or recruitment â in-person meetings are still important. People need to get together. Whether thatâs casual interaction, or scheduled crossover with other workers and teams, companies need to figure out new ways of working. And recruiters have to be on board with that in order to sell it to prospective candidates.
At the same time, remote and hybrid working is a matter of taste. Different people work best in different ways. We all have different styles. This is something that employers and recruiters can tap into. The question is: what can they do to attract and retain the right talent as well as optimize their performance? The answer is to offer flexibility that benefits both parties.
Different demographics will have different demands. Couples with young children will have different needs than people approaching retirement. What it comes down to can be any number of factors, whether thatâs style, convenience, or economics.
Being Effective From Anywhere
I donât see work in the office as going away. For many businesses and industries, itâs not feasible. It doesnât make sense.
Dave Nerz, President, NPAworldwide
The bottom line is simple. Employers need the best talent to fill their open roles. Where and how the work gets done most effectively comes down to personal choice. Whether working from home or in the office, itâs personal situations which determine effectiveness. This means managers have to think much more creatively about how things get done.
Recruiters also need to go beyond simply listing WFH, remote, or hybrid as part of a job posting, and consider the wider implications for their target audience. Being able to offer more flexible working arrangements which work in both company and the candidate’s interest can be a win-win â if you get it right.
Whether youâre a WFH, hybrid, or office-based recruiter, and no matter what type of recruitment you work in, the right ATS and CRM can streamline your day to day and help you make the right hires. Learn more about PCRecruiter.
In any industry, bringing on new starters is never a straightforward process â and recruitment is no different. Youâve sourced potential candidates. Youâve gone through the recruitment process. And youâve made the hire. Now itâs time to onboard, train, and integrate your new recruiter.
Whether theyâre new to recruiting or theyâve been doing it for years, your newly hired recruiters need to get up to speed with your firm’s ways of doing things. That includes workflows and software. Most specifically, they need ‘new recruiter’ training on your applicant tracking and candidate relationship management tools.
In this blog post, PCRecruiterâs Drew Rothman looks at key strategies for successful new recruiter training, whether theyâre learning the software, the job, or even both things at the same time. Â
Give Them A Process
Each recruiter and every recruitment firm has their own unique way of doing things. Sure, they might use similar methods, but as part of your organization, new recruiters need to do things your way, at least in the beginning. If, further down the line, someone wants to adapt or improve on the processes, that should be welcomed.
When tackling new recruiter training you need to ensure they understand your business goals, the key performance indicators (KPIs), and the expectations for getting the job done. Standardized workflows allow you to easily track both candidate and recruiter progress. So when it comes to using a central repository of client and candidate data, youâve got to ensure that everyoneâs doing it the same way.Â
A sequencing tool can help new hires to learn both the software and the job of recruiting. Giving new recruiters a process to follow, combined with automations such as follow-up emails and text messages, makes it so much easier to get up and running in no time at all. Without a process, recruiters essentially have an open box of tools, but no guidance on how to use them properly.
Provide A Mentor
In some respects, recruitment has a lot in common with sales. The key difference is that instead of pushing a product, youâre selling candidates to companies with open roles, and open roles at companies to prospective candidates.
Assigning a mentor to a new recruiter can help them get up to speed on both the market and the technology.
Knowing the niche is vital in establishing a recruiterâs credibility with both candidates and clients. Itâs also essential when handling common pushbacks and comments from candidates in a specific area. Mentoring can help a new recruiter to learn the market they’ll be working in.
When it comes to mentoring, there are different schools of thought. Itâs common to assign a buddy to provide support, help them in the right direction, and answer any questions. That said, some firms prefer to throw new recruiters in at the deep end and get them straight on the phone.
Teach them the ToolsÂ
There was a time when the two most valuable items in a recruiters tool kit were a phone and a list of telephone numbers. Today, there are still some sectors where this rings true. However, with the rise of online social media platforms, and messaging in all its forms, recruiters have to go where the candidates are. This might mean communicating across a variety of channels, like email or Twitter.
Recruiters whoâve been in the industry a long time, are more likely to be comfortable making calls and sending emails. On the other hand, younger generations whoâve grown up with text messaging and social media are likely to be less comfortable picking up the phone and talking to someone. In fact, recent graduates might never have cold-called anyone, ever.Â
Thatâs why training should be personalized to fill the skills gap, and support new recruiters in adapting to your ways of working. Scripting calls and shadowing experienced recruiters is one approach for phone-based recruiters. Meanwhile, video tutorials or face-to-face training on how to use other communication tools can help level-up skills.
The tools you use depend on the industry youâre recruiting in, and the type of candidates you’re hiring. These days, a phone call can feel intrusive to some, whereas a brief message, whether sent by text or on social media, can be read and responded to at the recipient’s leisure. A phone call demands a response right away. Video calls need scheduling and have become the norm in the wake of the global pandemic.Â
Whichever communication channel your recruiters are using, itâs fair to say that getting hold of candidates can be a challenge.
How Sequencing Helps with New Recruiter Training
With a sequencing tool, you can create a customizable workflow which prompts recruiters to take specific actions in a specific order. For example, say a candidate doesnât respond to a phone call. After a certain amount of time, they might be prompted to send a text message notifying the candidate of the call. Sequencing can also include automations â like sending an acknowledgement email after a specific task is completed.
Sequencing helps new and existing recruiters follow a pre-defined process with little or no training. They can essentially work out of one screen with a clear, task-based workflow. This puts everything recruiters need to do to make a placement in one convenient spot.
With PCRecruiterâs sequencing tool, you can create a clear task-based workflow that your recruiters can step through effortlessly.
Using a tool like PCRecruiter’s Sequencing can make it easier for a new recruiter to get started by providing them with a clear, step-by-step approach to the day’s tasks.
You want people, not software, to run your recruiting business. Finding the right software can be a challenge. Youâre going to have questions, but are you asking the right ones?
Whether your chosen vendor requires a one-off transaction or a subscription service, recruiting CRM software is a significant outlay for your firm. Itâs also the beating heart of your business. Your chosen software needs to perform well every day, and allow recruiters to get on with what they do best.
Balancing the cost of your investment with the business value it brings is no easy task. There are multiple variables to consider, including your firmâs preferred workflows and unique approach to making hiring decisions. After all, you want people, not your software, to run your recruiting.
PCRecruiterâs Jim Lombardo and Chris Cyrus have over 30 years of recruitment solution sales and consulting experience between them. In this post, they’ll share their tips for what to ask your staffing or recruiting CRM software vendor to ensure you get the right solution for your business.
For those new to the business, letâs start with what recruitment software has to offer.
What Is a Recruiting CRM / ATS?
Recruitment software is used by placement firms and executive search pros to handle the administrative side of the recruiting process. It helps them to source, track, and manage talent from prospect to placement.
An end-to-end solution typically combines aspects of an applicant tracking system (ATS) with candidate and client relationship management (CRM) tools to support the entire recruitment lifecycle.
Recruiting software also provides related functionality that can help to speed up the process, such as:
Job postings
Workflow automation
Reusable forms
Boolean CV / resume search
Multi-function lists
Configurable reports
Recruitment analytics
Email and voice integrations
The Benefits of a Recruitment CRM / ATS
The right software can unlock significant business benefits. If you’re not already using an ATS/CRM at your recruiting agency, here are five ways it can add value:
Automation: Automate routine and repeatable administrative tasks, like sending notifications and communications.Â
Information Retention: Build a pool of current and past roles, candidates, and clients for instant access and faster future searches.
Communication: A single repository for logging all email, voice, and text activity makes it easier to track history and communicate more effectively.
Error Reduction: Ensure candidate and client information is correct and up to date with a single source of truth, reducing duplication and related mistakes.
Analytics: Use the available data to gain competitive insights into both candidate and recruiter performance. Easily identify areas for improvement.Â
Whether you’re just starting up your recruiting firm or considering a change of recruitment CRM, itâs important to ask the right questions to get the right solution and the best deal from your vendor.
Here are some key questions that Jim and Chris recommend:
Whatâs the pricing model, and how much will it cost?
Every recruitment firm has a unique budgets and unique needs. Paying for unused licenses or unnecessary functionality is not cost-effective. Ask how your potential vendor defines ‘users’, how they handle adding or dropping users, and what costs are involved in setup and training. As most software as a service (SaaS) software is offered on a subscription model, itâs important to know whether future updates are part of the package or an additional cost.
If you’re considering self-hosting, thereâs also cost of hardware and maintenance to consider.
What kind of support do you offer?
With the implementation of any new software, there is always going to be a learning curve. The flatter this curve, the quicker recruiters can get back to the job of recruiting. With a training and support package from the get-go, itâs much easier to get up and running, and get back to business without a lengthy introduction.
Ask who your point of contact will be. Do you get an experienced trainer to help guide you through using the software and offer advice regarding best practices? Itâs also useful to know what post-setup options are available, like a learning management system (LMS), videos, or documentation to help you further down the line. Ongoing personal support can also be invaluable. Don’t forget to ask what the hours for support are, where the support team is based, and whether support comes with additional fees.
How can I post and update jobs?
With all the heavy lifting going on within your software, itâs important that job postings can be easily shared with job boards and other external platforms, without having to copy and paste information from one location to another. This is especially important when you want job postings to be consistent across different locations, or you want to allow candidates to flow in from multiple places. How does the potential vendor put jobs out to the world?
Am I able to extract data to generate reports and analytics?
Forward-thinking recruiters are using data to speed up sourcing and selection, and accelerate the time to fill open roles. Data can also be useful for analyzing candidate and recruiter performance. To get the best value from your dataset, itâs vital that your recruiting software offers reports to reveal useful business insights, and enables you to continuously improve as an organization. Ask what reports and analytics they provide and whether you can generate your own or export to common formats.
How do I get legacy data in or out?
When shopping for staffing or recruiting software, have your questions ready and take plenty of notes on the demo.
If you’re moving from one staffing and recruiting software to another, another important consideration is the successful migration of your existing data. This process can take time to get right. Data from a spreadsheet can typically be imported by you as an end-user, but a full data migration of jobs, resumes, and record history can potentially take weeks. How does your prospective vendor ensure a smooth transition without impacting day-to-day business or creating costly downtime? What fees are involved in migrating the data? And if you decide to leave, what’s involved in getting your data out?
Is this going to work with my existing email?
Bringing in new software shouldnât involve redefining your entire software stack (unless you want it to.) When it comes to email, altering email habits to accommodate a new system is both time-consuming and unnecessary. Whether you use Gmail, Outlook, or any other major email client and provider, make sure the software you choose can easily work with your existing account. Ask about integrations that would help you sync contacts, calendars, attachments, and forms between your email and recruitment CRM.
How does it track voice and SMS communications?
Recruiters spend a lot of time on the phone. Ideally, you want your staffing software to offer a single pane of glass over the entire recruitment process. That includes SMS and voice communications. So itâs a reasonable expectation that the system should allow you to sync with services for dialing out or sending a text messages easily. Find out what systems your vendor works with and to what degree, and ask about tracking of activity in general.
Does it enable me to enhance my existing talent pool?
The right staffing software will elevate your hiring game, and building your own private database of candidates and clients will pay dividends on future searches. To that end, what functionality does it have to enable you to broaden, and deepen, your existing talent pool? These days, there are a wealth of clever services out there to help you uncover best-fit passive talent. Does the software easily integrate with services such as seamless.AI, HireEz, or ZoomInfoâs TalentOS?
Will my data be secure?
Itâs imperative to pay attention to the security of your private database. With plenty of high-profile cases of data breaches, there can be lasting reputational and financial damage if something goes wrong. Ask the vendor who can access your data, and what security protocols they have in place. Find out how frequently the data is backed up and how easily it can be retrieved if something goes wrong.
You’ll also want to verify whether the vendor themselves intend to makes use of your data. Will your data be used research, aggregation, or even resale? Is it comingled with data from other users?
PCRecruiter is ready to give you answers.
PCRecruiter has been helping recruiters source, track, and hire since 1998. Over the years, our offering has evolved alongside recruiters’ needs and advances in technology. We understand the wide range of business models and service requirements that recruiting pros need.
Weâre proud to have served over tens of thousands of recruiters around the world through our ATS / CRM. We are both happy and qualified to answer the questions above and more.
Let us answer your questions and show you around our recruiting tech. Book a free demo today.
For some recruiters, self-hosting is still the most cost-effective and efficient way to manage their ATS and CRM. For others, SaaS makes the most sense. So how do you know whatâs right for your recruitment firm? And is there a vendor who can offer you both? (Yes. PCRecruiter).
Whether youâve been in recruitment for decades, or youâre just getting started, your Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) sit front and center of your business. Their value to your day-to-day activities is unquestionable.
If your current software license is due for renewal, youâre about to heavily invest in new hardware, or youâre building a recruiting business from the ground up, itâs a good time to reevaluate your options. But should you choose self-hosted or SaaS?
In this blog post from PCRecruiter, company co-founder Martin Snyder looks at the key differences between self-hosted and SaaS, and the advantages of each type of setup. Why? Because unlike other vendors, PCRecruiter still offers both options to ensure we can provide the best fit for a wide range of needs.
What Is Self-Hosting?
A self-hosted solution run by the user’s company on their own IT systems and servers or from a data center which is not owned by their software vendor. This is also known as an âon-premiseâ. In a self-hosted set-up, the software is purchased outright via a license, typically renewed on an regular basis.
Self-hosting works well for companies who already own or pay for the services required to facilitate it. So if youâve already got a web and database server, storage infrastructure, technical and administrative support, and software maintenance services in place and working well, then all you need is the software. In this set-up, the software is a capital expense â a one-time purchase.
What Is SaaS?
Software as a Service (SaaS) is the more popular alternative to self-hosting. SaaS is delivered over the Internet and does not require the same level of installation or maintenance. It eliminates the need for you to self-manage complicated software and hardware installations. SaaS is sometimes referred to as on-demand software or web-based software. It’s also sometimes referred to as “hosted software” because SaaS is hosted by the vendor who manages updates, security, access, and availability. SaaS uses a subscription model, so you pay on a recurring basis, often monthly.
SaaS doesnât require the expensive IT infrastructure needed to self-host. In most cases, SaaS can run from any device with a browser or sometimes via a dedicated app. SaaS eliminates the need to buy and maintain your own hardware and networking infrastructure. In this way, SaaS helps to keep the capital costs down for IT hardware and equipment. It also means that your software becomes an operating expense (OpEx).
Self-Hosted or SaaS
In many ways, recruiting is a very narrow economic process. But the definition of a ârecruiterâ is very broad â from an independent headhunter working at home to the HR sourcer at an international corporation. The one thing they all have in common is that recruiters tend to be âpeopleâ people, not âtechâ people. They need a solution that fits their day-to-day needs without adding an unnecessary layer of complexity.
In the distant past, the only option was for businesses to use a self-hosted or on-premise solution to meet their IT needs. Itâs still the traditional way of setting up major IT infrastructure â and thereâs nothing wrong with that. But as the saying goes: do what youâve always done, and youâll always get the same results. For some recruitment firms, this approach still works and they get great results. For others â particularly recruitment start-ups â SaaS offers a better solution.
Here are some key points to consider when comparing self-hosting with SaaS:
Continuous Delivery
There are many reasons to choose SaaS. If you lack the IT infrastructure to self-host, or if youâve got any concerns whatsoever about the stability of your database, a SaaS vendor can take care of that for you. The other considerations are uptime and availability. If you’re not able to guarantee the stable and continuous delivery of your recruitersâ every day software tools and network, then SaaS is also a good option.
IT Resources
While major recruiting agencies may have lots of IT assets, smaller firms often have fewer resources. SaaS gives these companies access to a much more powerful software stack than they would otherwise manage themselves.
Smaller organizations also benefit from only needing a handful of user subscriptions. On the other hand, large enterprises can sometimes find self-hosting a more cost-effective way to add tens or hundreds of users (see Economic Models).
Data Security
Most recruiters would agree that their most prized asset is their database.
Self-hosting gives recruiters the reassurance that, with proper security in place, only they will have access to their data. Thereâs no need to be concerned about the vendor relationship and what could potentially happen with their data when itâs hosted by a third-party provider. Fears over a data breach, cyber threats, or even the sale of data are common concerns. Some less reputable ATS providers may even stipulate that if you import data into their SaaS, they own or can make use of the data. If you’re looking into any SaaS option, always ask the vendor for the specifics about who has access to and ownership of the database!
For every company around the world, there are ever-tightening regulations around data privacy. Recruitment is no exception. A data breach or cyberattack can be costly in terms of reputation and financial damage. Self-hosting gives you complete control over where the data is stored, who can connect to it, and even direct database access to the contents if needed.
Conversely, self-hosting means the entire security of your database rests upon your own network and IT capabilities, which could make you more vulnerable to issues rather than less. A reputable SaaS provider should have a highly secured hosting setup and regular security audits to ensure safety of the system, as well as be compliant with any applicable data protection regulations. This may offer you more peace of mind than managing things yourself.
Updates & New Features
With self-hosting, updating and getting new features can potentially be a time-consuming and costly process. It may impact business functionality, and generate downtime. SaaS is hosted by the vendor, so any updates and new features are handled centrally and automatically, and are therefore much quicker and easier to roll out.
The other aspect to consider is timing. With SaaS, updates and new features are rolled out on a continuous basis. With self-hosting, itâs more typical to receive less frequent updates because of the complexity and disruption to services. Digital SaaS updates put the control in the hands of the vendor. Self-hosting updates tend to happen on-demand, putting control in the hands of the owner.
Another factor of increasing importance is how well the software can connect to other tools in your recruitment software stack. While a SaaS vendor may be able to offer software integrations through their own application programming interfaces (API), technical or contractual requirements often limit these to the SaaS provider’s own domain or infrastructure. Choosing to self-host may mean giving up some of the more robust features that rely on specific hardware and software behind the scenes. If you are currently self-hosting and have pre-existing integrations that you want to continue using when making a switch, itâs vitally important to ensure you can keep those connections.
Economic Models
As with most business decisions, cost is a make-or-break factor. Your decision to self-host or subscribe to a SaaS depends on your preferred economic model. When you self-host, the software is purchased as a single product. Itâs owned. In countries like the US, for tax purposes, the value of this asset is said to depreciate in value over time. SaaS, however, is handled like a rental or lease. This means it thereâs no depreciation. Itâs an expense, and it gets taken as you spend it.
Most SaaS vendors have three distinct fees: setup, user fees, and workload. For recruitment software vendors, workload equates with storage, updates, and data maintenance. The more storage you need, the higher the cost. SaaS user fees are generally per-user/per-month, whereas self-hosted configurations generally involve an initial startup fee, plus an update fee. This means that as the number of users increases, the cost per user decreases. There is a level where self-hosting can represent a huge saving when compared with SaaS user fees, but that tipping point tends to be at much larger organization sizes.
Which One Is Right For You?
Despite the increasing popularity and advantages of SaaS â itâs still not for everyone. For every recruitment firm, whatâs most important is to balance innovation with necessity and cost with functionality.
Thankfully, with PCRecruiter you can take your pick. While the vast majority of our users go with the SaaS model, we still offer a self-hosted solution for those who require one. The software is substantially identical, with the exception of some of the more advanced features, making it possible to move your data from one model to the other if your business requirements change in the future.
If you’re not sure which makes sense for your company, our sales consultants are trained to help you compare the various options, and determine the right one for you. Get in touch with us today.
Post pandemic â and in response to the âGreat Resignationâ â some recruiters quickly turned to innovative methods, in order to speed up the hiring process and fill open positions. Bringing in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to handle some of the key decision-making might have initially helped to streamline workflows, but itâs also had some unintentional consequences.
While many people might be happy to have AI make suggestions around which film to watch next, or to recommend other music they may enjoy, handing it responsibility for the selection process in their next job application can raise understandable concerns.
In this blog post, we take a closer look at the pitfalls and the potential of using AI in recruitment, and where it might add value rather than systemized bias.
Current Applications
Thereâs no denying that in the modern world, AI has a lot of great uses. Across a range of industries, itâs being increasingly used to streamline workflows and cut costs. In fact, in the recruitment world, AI â and more specifically machine learning â has been used in various forms for some time now.
Common applications include automated interviews, resume (or CV) screening, as well as administrative duties, such as identifying duplicate candidate records. But the truth is, thereâs a lot we donât know about how AI is being used in recruitment. And thatâs a concern.
Potential Benefits
For the recruitment business, where AI can really shine is in crawling talent pools for potential candidates based on specific job criteria such as qualifications and experience. It can also learn broadly what kind of candidate is a good fit for a particular role. However, its real potential benefits come from automating some of the repetitive and time-consuming work which goes along with screening, assessing, and scheduling.
Even as far back as 2017, studies showed that hiring decision-makers saw the cost and time saving potential of AI, alongside its ability to deliver better candidate matches. Interestingly, 43% of decision makers also believed that it would remove human bias. And thatâs exactly where AI has come unstuck: when itâs been used to replace human decision-making in an effort to speed up the hiring process.
Knowing The Pitfalls of AI in Recruitment
When we talk about AI in recruitment, we really mean machine learning â computer systems which can learn from statistical models and data sets. As Amazon discovered in 2015, using historical human data to inform AI decision models can come at a cost to both potential candidates and their future employers. Their experimental hiring tool which made use of machine learning was informed by ten years of resumes submitted to the company.
This illustration of a robot recruiter was generated entirely by AI.
The issue was that the computer system was essentially given a decade of data revealing male dominance in the tech industry and adapted its algorithms accordingly. The result? Resumes containing the word âwomenâ were automatically downgraded. When this âalgorithmic biasâ was discovered, interventions were made to ensure the system became gender-neutral, but it left lingering concerns that future unintended discrimination might occur, raising important questions around how to ensure that recruitment AI is transparent and fair.
In fact, transparency over the use of AI in recruitment is one of the biggest challenges currently facing the industry. Thatâs where new legislation is playing a crucial role.
New Employment Laws
A game changer in terms of the use of AI in recruitment, New York Cityâs AI employment law restricts the use of âautomated employment decision toolsâ and requires recruiters to undergo an annual bias audit to alleviate potential bias in their systems.
Recruiters will also have to be transparent about where AI has been used in the recruitment process, and to even provide candidates with alternative options for processing their applications. Undisclosed or biased use of AI in the hiring process will also be subjected to penalty fines.
Taking effect from January, 1 2023, New Yorkâs new law blazes the trail for further legislation to tackle the inherent bias and potential discrimination generated by machine learning algorithms.
Similar conversations are taking place in the European Union, where the AI Act is set to institute self-certification programs and government oversight. This law will create transparency requirements for AI systems that interact with people, and will attempt to ban a few âunacceptableâ qualities of AI systems. Individuals or companies located within the European Union, placing an AI system on the market in the European Union, or using an AI system within the European Union would be subject to the regulation.
Future Possibilities
Itâs easy to be dismissive of AI in recruitment. After all, itâs a people business. But there are some clear use cases where it can make trustworthy and time-saving improvements to the placement process. AI can also be trained to trawl records and match specific criteria. For more common roles requiring limited experience or technical skills there is perhaps wider scope for AI to assist with search and selection. The real danger arises when AI trained on imperfect data, and therefore inherently biased, is used for key decision-making.
Conceivably, AI could be used to handle the entire recruitment process â which perhaps less scrupulous recruiters might find appealing. But for most recruiters thereâs a sense of professional pride, and a human aspect to hiring â building relationships with employers and candidates â which AI simply canât replace.
As an example, there could be three equally well-qualified candidates in the running for an open position. Their education, qualifications and experience all fit the bill, but what about their cultural fit? A good recruiter understands the importance of aligning the employerâs value proposition with the right candidates. AI can easily miss the subtle verbal and non-verbal nuances which influence human-decision making. Humans can also see beyond the data. Especially when youâre looking for someone with transferable skills from outside a particular industry. Good recruiters know that instinct, as much as anything else, comes into play when making the right hire.
Thereâs also the candidate’s perspective to consider. They may have a (sometimes valid) suspicion of any technology used to influence the hiring process. For example, even though Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) have been around for decades, you can still find plenty of blog posts and guides for âhow to beat the ATSâ. Fears run even deeper with undisclosed uses of AI, particularly when it comes to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. As the Amazon experiment revealed, machine learning opens up the potential for discriminatory algorithms, and runs the inherent risk of excluding candidates you really wanted, over the ones it thinks you want.
Accelerate Hiring Without AI
Although there are some tasks and activities which can be comfortably replaced by AI, when it comes to key decision-making, sourcing the right talent and identifying the best-fit candidate is best left in the hands of humans. But how can you speed up the time to hire without using AI?
Recruitment automations can take care of repetitive, and repeatable everyday tasks, and give recruiters more time to spend time with candidates and employers. Itâs particularly helpful for keeping all parties updated through emails, form letters, and notifications, cutting down the time needed to manually create correspondence.
PCRecruiter is an ATS / CRM hybrid which offers recruiters a huge range of opportunities to automate certain aspects of their recruitment process, making workflows more streamlined and cost-effective. Tailored to specific workflows, itâs a seamless, customizable and powerful tool for handling your end-to-end talent sourcing and.
On October 26th, learn about background screening trends, the importance of screening, and how to get started with the Verified First background screening integration in PCRecruiter.
Over 80% of organizations use background screening, yet 39% of organizations do not screen for every job (Aptitude Research).
Thatâs why weâre hosting a FREE webinar with our friends at Verified First, Why & How: The Importance of Background Screening. On October 26th, weâll explore background screening trends, the importance of screening, and how to get started with the Verified First background screening integration.
Weâll also explore:
Why you should run background checks on staff
What can happen when background checks arenât properly run
How Verified Firstâs solution saves time, requires less paperwork, and simplifies the process
G2’s Fall 2022 report recognizes PCRecruiter with 7 new badges and multiple Top 10 Rankings in the ATS, Staffing, Recruiting, and Candidate Relationship software categories.
G2, the worldâs largest and most trusted software marketplace, has released their Fall 2022 Reports today. In the latest report, PCRecruiter received four new Leader badges, three new High Performer badges, and was ranked Top 10 in ten reports. These recognitions are based entirely on independent reviews submitted by real PCRecruiter users.
We were particularly pleased to receive aTop 3 slot in the Small-Business Relationship Index for Applicant Tracking Systems, indicating that when it comes to ease of doing business with, quality of support, and likeliness to recommend, PCRecruiter is one of the best ATS software options for companies of 1-50 employees.
G2’s Fall Reports show why PCRecruiter is ranked as one of the Top 50 HR Software options on the site.
âRankings on G2 reports are based on data provided to us by real software buyers,â said Sara Rossio, Chief Product Officer at G2. âPotential buyers know they can trust these insights when researching and selecting software because theyâre rooted in vetted, verified, and authentic reviews.â
We are deeply appreciative of your kind words about our software and we look forward to continuing to build on this success. If you’re a PCRecruiter user, we would love to have your thoughts included in G2’s Winter 2023 rankings. Click here to submit your own review now.
About G2
G2 is the world’s largest and most trusted software marketplace. More than 60 million people annually â including employees at all of the FORTUNE 500 â use G2 to make smarter software decisions based on authentic peer reviews. Thousands of software and services companies of all sizes partner with G2 to build their reputation, manage their software spend, and grow their business â including Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoom, and Adobe. To learn more about where you go for software, visit www.g2.com and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Recruitment is most definitely a people business, so introducing automation into your recruiting process might not seem like an obvious move. That is, until you realize that by adding automation at various points in their workflow, recruiters can actually free up more time to focus on their core business â making placements.
In this post, we explore ways that forward-thinking recruiters use automations to drive efficiency in their recruitment workflows. We’ll see how the right applicant tracking system (ATS) can help you hire faster.Â
What is recruitment automation?
Recruitment automation is the use of technology to automate specific tasks within the recruitment process. It helps minimize the time to fill open roles, and reduces costs. This delivers a better overall experience for candidates, employers, and recruiters.
Automation covers both external and internal tasks. These can include things like notifications sent at specific stages of the hiring process or emails to candidates. Ultimately, the less time a recruiter spends logging information, the more time they have to spend working with clients and candidates.Â
Recruitment automation can also include more strategic tasks, such as email campaigns, which help keep clients and candidates informed and engaged. Examples of time-saving automations include:
Form letters to candidates
Notification prompts to administrators
Emails to clients regarding scheduled interviews
PCRecruiter’s own system for recruitment automation is essentially an open box. Wherever a communication is both repeated and repeatable, the opportunities for automations are endless. As recruiters spot more opportunities to refine workflows, there is less need for them to manually create and send correspondence.Â
The great thing about automating via the ATS is that recruiters donât need to spend time jumping between multiple tools. Doing more things from a single hub reduces friction, speeding up the placement and hiring processes.
PCRecruiter’s Automations make event-triggered recruitment automations easy for users to implement.
How to use automation in recruitment
Think more strategically about your own recruiting workflows. You’ll see almost any recruitment process presents potential for automation. Everything from the initial job posting to interview scheduling to following up post-hire is an opportunity to streamline.
For most recruiters, their bane is technology that interferes with their work or slows them down. That being so, the best approach to implementing automations is to identify opportunities in existing processes. Look for points where automation might help recruiters to be more efficient and productive. By automating repetitive and repeatable tasks, recruiters free-up more time to focus on their core activities.
Here are five ways to use automation in recruitment:
Applicant TrackingÂ
Applicant tracking is the backbone of any recruiterâs day-to-day. A whiteboard or spreadsheet solution might cut it in the early days. However, when you start handling multiple placements and hundreds of candidates these tools become inefficient and unwieldy.
No matter how many candidates in your database, or how many employers youâre dealing with, an applicant tracking system (ATS) like PCRecruiter scales with you. Because the software tracks candidates from end to end, youâll never lose track of potential hires along the way. Candidates you couldn’t place remain ready for next time a suitable role opens up.
PCRecruiter users can modify fields and forms to suit existing workflows â this includes adding custom automations. For example, triggering behaviors when records containing specific information, such as a location or industry, are entered.Â
Job Postings
When it comes to job postings, thereâs an administrative burden on recruiters to make the information visible. Whether on recruitment websites or your own companyâs careers page, it can become complicated to track and manage multiple postings. Automation can help you create once and publish anywhere.
The great thing about PCRecruiter’s integrated job board is that it can be implemented into practically any website. This saves duplication of effort and potential errors that come from managing a website’s job board separately. In addition, leveraging job feeds and integrations helps to advertise the opening on other sites, saving time and effort.
Social RecruitingÂ
In a world where 70% of the workforce consists of passive talent and 82% of Americans have a social media profile, it makes sense to reach potential candidates via their favorite social hangouts. Recruiters can leverage the potential reach of both personal and professional networks via social recruiting. This is accomplished through a combination of posting links to new job postings, and strategic employer branding.
What if every time you published a new position, your marketing team received a notification with all the relevant details? What if the job could be posted to social networks automatically? This could then be easily incorporated in and around other content promoting your employer brand and its values. PCRecruiter’s built-in automation features as well as integrations with services like Paiger and Zapier make these workflows easy to implement.
Process SequencingÂ
Process sequencing plays a vital role in helping support reps respond to customer inquiries quickly and efficiently. It provides standardized workflows and even scripting.Â
The same approach can be applied to recruitment. Sequences provide the recruiter with a clear and standardized series of tasks. These can be customized to suit different roles or industries. This creates the potential to create and apply automations at specific stages of the process.Â
PCRecruiter’s own sequencing tool enables recruiters to create their own workflows, with manual or automatic tasks. Tasks can include phone calls, prompts to connect on LinkedIn, or an automatic email confirming review of a resume. More quickly completing tasks and leveraging automating steps means recruiters can make more placements with less effort.
The task-based Sequencing interface allows users to work through their queue with minimal friction.
When it comes to onboarding new recruiters (or helping to keep current ones more effective), sequencing simplifies training. Making every step a clear and straightforward task guides users and informs them what the result of each action will be.
For example, after marking a completing a call, a contact is moved to the next step. The prebuilt sequence defines what that step is. For instance, if you have to leave a voicemail, the next step could be an automatic SMS confirming the message. If the call was connected, the next step may be a follow-up email with a form to complete.
Personalized CommunicationÂ
In most competitive industries, thereâs an increasing customer expectation of regular, relevant, and anticipated communication. People want more personalized and hassle-free experiences, and they expect regular notifications and updates as a matter of course. Just think of all the notifications you received the last time you placed an online order; you’re told when it’s been received, when it’s shipped, that itâs with the carrier, and so on. Â
Automations don’t just streamline existing processes. They can also help recruiters to do more than they would have been able to otherwise. Leveraging relevant data makes communication with candidates and clients can more personal. You’ll improve engagement by using their name, roles applied for, and even other roles they might be interested in. This creates a closer relationship, even if the placement is unsuccessful, that can return value in future placement efforts. This kind of personalized communication could take many forms. PCRecruiter can handle a variety of notifications:
Text messages (SMS)
Email notifications
Pop-up notifications within PCR
Push notifications (via the mobile app)
Making strategic use of recruitment automations
Any attempt to save time and cost through automation works best when it adds value and efficiency to existing processes. Look to automate aspects of your recruitment process with that in mind.
At the end of the day, most recruiters are people people, not tech people. Thatâs why itâs important to make workflows as streamlined and intuitive as possible. The software solution needs to fit their way of working and not the other way around.
PCRecruiterâs training team on-boards users by taking time to understand their daily flow. They get to know what your process looks like and how it works. By mapping out the process, they can identify where the software can solve pain points. Recruiting is already a challenging role â why add another layer of unnecessary complexity?Â
Once set up, automations in PCRecruiter enable you to do what you would do without it, only much faster. To learn how you can make placements with less administrative hassle, book a free consultation today.Â
Thereâs no question that recent years have been uncertain times for almost every type of business. Even those employers who managed to successfully ride out the global pandemic are feeling the effects of an ever-changing recruitment market. In a number of sectors, thereâs also a widening gap between the skills needed and the skills candidates can offer.
As we move into the latter part of 2022, what are some of the key hiring recruitment trends for the staffing industry, permanent placement recruiters, and HR professionals?
Working Remotely Is Here To Stay
“Candidates now expect remote or hybrid working models as the norm.”
We live in a world where flexible working â greater freedom in when and where we work â is now an integral part of the employment landscape, particularly in knowledge-based industries. In fact, 80% of people are likely to recommend remote working to a friend. To that end, potential hires expect absolute clarity around remote and hybrid practices within companies. And for recruiters, remote working has advantages on both sides of the hiring process.
On one hand, candidates now expect remote or hybrid working models as the norm. With proven benefits in terms of employee job satisfaction and morale, the best candidates can demand their ideal working conditions. Many people prefer remote working to cut travel costs, reduce their carbon footprint, and the time they spend commuting. For that reason, putting together a personalized package of flexible working arrangements can help to differentiate your offer â and even become a deal-closer â when the right candidate has multiple offers on the table.
On the other side of the coin, remote recruitment practices are enabling recruiters to make the right hire faster. From access to a deeper and wider talent pool to streamlining the early stages of the recruitment process, through to things like online interviews or screening, remote hiring offers recruiters a competitive advantage in terms of time-saved and reduced costs. Find more strategies for reducing your time to hire, by reading our blog post on 10 tips to help you hire faster.Â
Itâs Still A Jobseekers Market
Artificial intelligence is growing stronger, as shown in this “photo of a recruiter talking to a candidate” generated by DALLâąE
Never mind artificial intelligence (AI) and robots taking human jobs, according to a recent study by Korn Ferry, the biggest threat facing recruiters will actually be a shortage of suitably skilled humans. In fact, itâs predicted that by 2030 there will be a global talent shortage of around 85 million people. The competition for recruiting and retaining top talent is heating up.
With more open positions than candidates, the best talent has the most power in the current job market. As the demand for talent continues to outstrip supply, companies are adopting evermore proactive hiring strategies in an effort to optimize their talent pipelines. Developing an appealing employer brand, deploying proven marketing tactics, and engaging with potential candidates via social media are fast-becoming a necessity in many sectors.
For instance, being present on the right social media platform for your target audience is a way to build relationships with potential candidates, especially as a growing number of digital natives begin filling up the talent pool. Learn more about social recruiting, and how to implement it, with our blog post on how to use social media in recruiting.
Employer Branding Is A Key DifferentiatorÂ
Thereâs ample evidence that a great employer brand makes it easier to recruit and it also impacts the businessâ bottom line in more than one way.
Whether you choose to leverage it or not, the second an employer makes a hire, they have an employer brand. Like a company’s “traditional” brand, it embodies your mission, vision, and core values. For many organizations, an effective employer brand helps them to connect with the right candidates, attract the best talent, and retain that talent once theyâre inside the organization.
As with a company brand, you need consistency across every touchpoint, creating a candidate experience which leads to positive word of mouth, and clearly sets out your value proposition as an employer or recruiter. In addition, the right employer brand and candidate experience will continue to make your company an attractive proposition to potential candidates who didnât quite make it this time around. The other benefit of employer branding is its impact on retention, with one study indicating that it could lead to a 28% reduction in staff turnover. Take a more in-depth look at employer branding with our blog post on the topic.Â
Hard-To-Fill Roles In Tech And Marketing
In part, the talent shortage is due to demographics, with the majority of the boomer generation expected to exit the global workforce by 2030. As work becomes increasingly tech-based, many businesses are facing up to the reality of a deficit of the right talent. According to a study by Korn Ferry, without an influx of skilled, high-tech workers, the US could potentially miss out on $162 billion worth of annual revenues.
Contrary to what you might think, despite the global reach of digital recruitment channels, from job posting sites and careers pages to social media, filling roles in tech and digital marketing is becoming increasingly challenging. This is largely due to the uptake of digital technologies in the wake of the global pandemic, and the trend for digital transformation â the adoption of new technologies to drive efficiencies. Put simply, technology is moving at such a fast pace, when it comes to front-end developers and software architects, there just isnât enough expertise to go around.
This shortage of talent is especially true of digital marketing and the expert use of âmartechâ (marketing technology). Comparing Scott Brinkerâs MarTech Map from 2011 and 2022 shows an increase from 150 solutions to over 9,000 in 2022. Thatâs 6,521% growth in just 11 years. No one can be expert in every digital marketing tool, and this illustrates the challenge facing recruiters looking to hire the finest and most up-to-date marketing minds. Whether theyâre looking for a marketing automation specialist or a search engine optimization (SEO) strategist, it can be difficult to find the right talent because the technology is so new. Smart recruiters are even employing SEO techniques to improve the online visibility of their job postings.
Recruitment Trends Round-Up
Whether youâre competing for the best candidate in a shallow talent pool, exploring new channels for networking with potential hires, improving your overall candidate experience, or trying to fill open roles in a highly-specialized market, the right applicant tracking software (ATS) can help.
PCRecruiter has been helping people hire since 1998. The technology might have changed, but our dedication to providing intuitive and time-saving solutions for sourcing, tracking, and recruiting candidates remains the same.Â
Find out how PCRecruiter can help streamline your recruitment efforts, by booking a demo.
The latest PCRecruiter update adds Email Categories, letting recipients opt in or out of specific types of mass-email for more control over your email marketing.
A new update has been released on the PCRecruiter hosting servers this morning. In addition to the standard issue corrections and performance enhancements, this update also includes changes in preparation for the release of our Sequencing feature, which will be officially available in September. While most of the changes will go unseen for those not using Sequencing, there are some important changes that will affect those who are using our current Email Campaigns or legacy Bulk Mail feature.
Subscription Statuses
In earlier versions of PCRecruiter, an email address could have one of four statuses:
No Status – No opt-in or opt-out request has been recorded, therefore this address can be sent single or mass-email until otherwise specified.
Opt-Out Bulk – PCRecruiter can send email to this address on an individual basis, but the email will be skipped when sending any multi-recipient email, such as a Campaign or legacy Bulk Mail.
Opt-Out All – PCRecruiter cannot send email to this address.
Opt-In – This address has explicitly given permission to receive all email.
It’s important to note that the subscription status is linked to the email address itself and not to the Name record, as you might have multiple records with the same email address, or you may remove a name from the system and re-add it at a later date.
New: Subscription Categories
Because the Opt-Out/Opt-In feature in previous versions was either “all-in” or “all-out”, it could limit the ability to manage more nuanced marketing and communication.
The new update includes an Email Category designation that applies to the email’s opt-in/out status, as well as to the mass email sends, thereby allowing recipients to receive only the kinds of email they wish to receive.
For example, someone may wish to receive Billing emails, but opt out of Newsletters. By giving recipients the option to choose by category, they are less inclined to opt out of all email just to avoid receiving some email.
The pre-defined list of Email Categories consists of the following options:
Announcements, Appointments, Benefits, Billing, Business Development, Compliance, Corrections Recalls, Education Training, Follow Ups, Holiday Greetings, Marketing, Networking, Newsletters, Operations, Opportunities, Referrals, Requests, Shareholders, Surveys, Updates, and Other
By default, ALL Categories will be visible. To hide the Categories that you don’t intend to use, any administrator-level user in your database can navigate to SYSTEM > Email Setup > Bulk Email Categories. From there, they can uncheck the extraneous choices. This will hide that Category both for users sending email and for recipients editing their subscription options.
What does this change for PCR users?
The new “Email Category” dropdown is required when sending email to a search result or Rollup list of recipients.
When users are sending any Campaign or Bulk Email, they will now be presented with an “Email Category” dropdown. The user must select the appropriate category based on the content of the email, so that the email is only sent to those who have not otherwise opted out of such communications.
Note that in the Campaigns email feature, the new “Email Category” dropdown is different from the existing “Category” field. The “Email Category” is based on the content of the letter and is used for opt-in/out purposes, whereas the “Category” field designates how that Campaign will be grouped when reviewing the Email area of the PCR Analytics.
What does this change for email recipients?
Any Form Letters which you are using for mass-email should have the [[Email Opt Out Link]] merge tag included in the footer, as well as your full contact information (see the Email Opt-in/Opt-out article in our Learning Center for complete setup instructions).
Visit SYSTEM > Email Setup > Bulk Mail Categories to adjust which options are available.
With the new update, the “Update Subscription Preferences” popup includes a new “Subscription Preferences” link which will allow the recipient to check or uncheck the categories they’re interested in.
Clicking “Confirm” from the initial popup will only opt them out of the particular Category of email that they clicked the link from, but the “Subscription Preferences” panel includes an Unsubscribe All option.
For the moment, the option to add/remove an address from specific Email Categories is limited to this recipient-facing popup window, but we will be adding the option for system admins to add or remove emails from particular Categories in an upcoming version.
What does this change for PCRecruiter Administrators?
Admin-level users will see changes to the SYSTEM > Email Setup >Email Opt-In/Opt-Out List screen. There is a new “Categories Opted-In” column adjacent to the “Status” column.
SYSTEM > Email Setup >Email Opt-In/Opt-Out List
Emails that have been opted into specific categories will have “Opt-In” in the Status column, and will show their selected Categories in the “Categories Opted-In” column.
Emails that have been opted out of all BULK mail will have “Opt-In” in the Status column, but will show no categories in the “Categories Opted-In” column.
Emails that have been opted out of ALL mail, bulk or otherwise, will have “Opt-Out” in the Status column and nothing in the “Categories Opted-In”.
If you are using our GDPR features, any existing emails that have been opted-in will appear with “Opt-In” in the Status column and will have ALL Categories opted-in by default.
Whichever type of recruitment youâre involved with, and whatever sector or niche you specialize in, having the right tools to handle your recruitment process can give you a competitive advantage and ensure you fill your open roles with top talent.
For any type of recruiter, from permanent placement through to internal HR departments, the right applicant tracking system / software (ATS) can help you manage large quantities of applicants and candidates and make your recruitment process more efficient and effective.Â
In this blog post, Stacy Racutt, PCRecruiter Training Manager, explores the basics behind applicant tracking software, and how the right solution can streamline workflows to enable you to make the right hires, faster.Â
What is an applicant tracking system (ATS)?
An applicant tracking system (ATS) is a type of software which enables recruiters and employers to track applicants and candidates through the recruiting and hiring process.
Functionality is typically broad, covering everything from a candidate database to email and SMS integrations which help to streamline and automate communication between candidates, employers, and recruitment professionals.
The right ATS can facilitate the standardization and improvement of processes and workflows to achieve the bottom line: finding the best candidate for the role.
How an ATS works
Once a companyâs job descriptions have been created, theyâre typically posted on a job board on a website. This gives active candidates a window into whatâs available, allowing them to view open positions, and apply for suitable roles.Â
After completing and submitting an online application, often uploading their resume or curriculum vitae (CV), applicant information is then captured and added to a database on the ATS. Once a candidate is in the system, recruiters can then interact with, and track, the progress of candidates throughout the recruitment process.
With PCRecruiter (PCR), any activity around a specific candidate can be tracked across the full range of communication channels including emails, SMS, and calls. This helps recruiters build a clear history of their relationship with a candidate. With every communication in a single, centralized record, itâs easily accessible, and highly visible to recruiters and their managers.
Passive candidates take a slightly different path into the ATS. These people are not actively seeking a specific position, but may be open to the right opportunity. The PCR Capture tool enables employers and recruiters to parse candidate contact information from popular social media and professional websites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Indeed to create a record for them.Â
Why use an Applicant Tracking System?
From a candidate application on a job board through to the final interview, some system to track the sourcing and placement process is a recruiting necessity. However, for many smaller-scale search firms, or recruiters who are just starting out, itâs not uncommon for workflows to include manual processes, which are inefficient and vulnerable to human errors.
Over time, and with an ever-growing talent pool, it can become increasingly challenging to keep track of top talent and MPCs. They may lose out to competitors, have to settle for second best, or not make a placement at all. While sticky notes on a whiteboard or a series of Excel sheets might be a workable solution in the early days, the need for applicant tracking software quickly becomes obvious.
Digitally transformed recruitment
Digitization of manual recruitment processes usually leads to the use of spreadsheets to track candidate progress. If youâre dealing with a very small data set and a narrow set of needs, a spreadsheet can do the job, up to a point. There may be nothing inherently wrong with a spreadsheet, but it wasnât designed with recruitment in mind, and itâs not a searchable database of resumes or CVs, or a convenient way to track a process over specific dates and times.
A spreadsheet was built for numbers and data, and there comes a point when itâs not the right tool for getting the job of recruitment done. On the other hand, digitalization represents a step on from simply transferring an existing paper-based system to a digital one. Digitalization of your recruitment process requires the use of cutting edge recruitment technology to add value and drive efficiencies to your day-to-day operations. Digitalization gives you the opportunity to improve your existing workflows by leveraging the potential of digital tools and their functionality.
For newer, scaling recruiters, the next logical step is to track and monitor candidates through an online recruitment platform. This acts like an ATS, but the information isnât unique to them. Essentially, it grants access to a shared talent pool, which is being mined by multiple firms. It isnât a private bank of contacts and resumes/CVs with a communication history thatâs ready and waiting when itâs next needed for a potential hire.
History Matters
This history is really important. Why? If you have multiple recruiters in the same office, working in the same industry, itâs important theyâre aware of each candidateâs history with your organization. Has anyone else interviewed them previously? Is someone else currently trying to place them elsewhere?
Without a reliable ATS, it can be hard to tell.
Having a complete history of a person, even including feedback from a client, on file and at hand, immediately provides a head start and avoids crossover with other recruiters going after the same talent.
Furthermore, all of your own notes and actions regarding a candidate can make them easier to identify for future searches. Searching across the open web or paid candidate sources may only turn up those who are actively on the market, or may only provide partial information, whereas your private talent pool may contain that perfect candidate that has been in your roster all along, and who may not be accessible to anyone else.
And this is to say nothing of the benefits of keeping your job openings and client information on file in the same database with your candidates, allowing you to efficiently cross-reference, promote, and communicate.
How an ATS benefits recruiters and employers
Thereâs no question that in a highly competitive job market, making effective use of the right ATS can give employers and recruiters the edge on their rivals when trying to acquire the best candidates. Here are five reasons to invest in an ATS:
Speed-up search by building a pool of talent which contains historical data, and personal details, which can come into play at any given moment in a future placement.
Centralize all communication, including calls, SMS, and email in one repository so that everything you know about a candidate is available with a just few clicks.
Greater visibility over your processes can help you refine and evolve workflows by creating automations, finding spots where you can drive efficiencies by eliminating repetitive, routine tasks.
Save time by creating re-usable templates for things like resumes, forms, and questionnaires. Upload online job postings quickly and efficiently to multiple sites.
Quickly identify passive candidates through your ever-growing, searchable library of candidate records, including all your previous interactions with them.
Choosing the right ATS
When a spreadsheet of contact information is no longer meeting your recruitment needs, and is actually slowing you down, an ATS gives you a lot more capability, versatility, and functionality. The right ATS allows you to do more with your data.
PCRecruiter is a fully customizable ATS and CRM designed to meet your specific recruitment needs, and works with your existing processes, evolving as you do. Pick the core and premium functionality thatâs right for you, and discover new ways to speed up your placement process, from scheduling call plans to capturing data from online sources.
Top talent tends not to stick around too long, so when it comes to securing the right person for the right role, the best recruiters need to be quick off the mark. As a recruitment professional, how can you hire faster without dropping your hiring standards? In the latest blog from PCRecruiter, we share ten tips for faster, more efficient recruiting.
When itâs time to hire, time is always of the essence. Not only is faster hiring an effective way to reduce your cost-per-hire, it can give you a better chance of securing top talent before they get snapped up by a competitor. No matter which industry youâre recruiting for, the time-to-hire metric is likely to be one of your most valuable performance indicators.
So how can you reduce the friction and increases the velocity of your hiring process, without working at twice the speed and suffering from recruiter burning out in the process? Like a professional athlete, making minor adjustments in your training and approach can make all the difference when you hit the field of play.
Why hire faster?
The plain and simple reason why you should hire faster is that the best candidates have a short shelf life. Once youâve uncovered a promising individual, thereâs only limited time to act, and even then you may already be too late. The reason? Many employers and recruiters are using ever more inventive and time-efficient tactics to get the right candidates quicker through the door.
The so-called âThe Great Resignationâ â where millions of US workers voluntarily left their jobs â means that when it comes to the job market, the supply of vacant positions is now outweighed by demand. In addition, thereâs also a notable trend amongst millennials (those born between roughly 1980 and 1996) to change jobs more frequently than other generations. A recent Gallup poll revealed that 60% of millennials are open to a new job opportunity.
The last 10 months of 2021 saw the largest exodus of employees on record. The orange line in this chart represents job quit numbers in 2021.
How can you hire faster?
With the terrain of the general recruitment landscape mapped out, what can you do as a recruiter to navigate it quicker and more effectively? Here are our top ten tips for hiring faster.
Select the right Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and CRM
It pays to invest in the right ATS and recruitment CRM. After all, theyâre the most important tools in your day-to-day and the key to structuring your hiring process more effectively. With the right, configurable solution in place for managing talent and applicant flow, you can continuously optimize every stage of the recruiting process.
Refine, standardize, and automate your recruiting process
When you need to take a quicker route somewhere, things like maps, traffic reports, satellite navigation, and local knowledge can all come into play. And the candidate journey is no different. By taking the time to analyze their journey, itâs possible to identify and remove bottlenecks, find places where automations can save you valuable time.
Choose the right tools for your recruitment tech stack
With so many integrations and point solutions out there, your recruitment tech stack can quickly become unwieldy. Jumping between tools, tabs, or apps, often creates unnecessary friction which slows down the entire process. Whilst it might not yet be possible to use a single tool for every aspect of the hiring workflow, some integrated solutions come pretty close to minimizing the need for multiple tools (which may nor may not work effectively together).
Take a data-driven approach
In a world where almost every industry is harnessing the business benefits of âBig Dataâ, the right analytics can improve and accelerate recruitment decision-making at every level. Leveraging insights around the time it takes to fill a specific type of role or complete a particular stage of the recruitment process will help you to identity potential time-saving alternatives.
Fill a talent pool in advance
The beauty of deploying the right ATS is that you can create a talent pool in anticipation of the future recruitment. Based on business needs and goals, this database is vital for smoothing and streamlining your search when itâs the right time to hire. Itâs a ready-made source of candidates to whom you can reach out at the appropriate time.
Hire faster by sourcing faster
One way to accelerate your time to hire is by improving your sourcing efforts before the hiring begins. There are a range of strategies you can deploy, including utilizing social media, referrals, talent databases, and monitoring internal talent. Research by LinkedIn revealed that referrals are the number one way people discover a new job.
Deliver a better candidate experience
As with your company brand, you need to ensure potential candidates have a consistent and positive experience at every touchpoint. That means everything from your careers page to your communication during the recruitment process needs to be aligned with your brand voice, and appealing to your audience, to reduce the likelihood of candidates dropping off.
Improve job postings
Another absolutely critical candidate touchpoint is your job posting itself. If youâre going to get the best match for the role, you need to make sure itâs honest, engaging, and targeted at your ideal candidate. Focus on what the role offers first, before you go into the details.
Providing lists of essential and desirable qualifications and experience helps you to slightly broaden the net. Focusing on your target talent, you might get fewer people interested, but those candidates are more likely to be a better match â reducing the number of applications to sift.
Streamline assessment
Whatever kind of assessment you use to screen candidates, bear in mind that it can add on days to your hiring process. Be selective about which ones you actually need to use in order to make the hire. An ATS system with the ability to create customized filters might be another way to speed up the selection process.
Shorten the interview process
Do you really need three rounds of interviews? One simple way to reduce the time to hire is to optimize the interview process and automate interview scheduling. By conducting fewer interviews or reducing the time between them, you can dramatically accelerate your talent acquisition.
Hire faster but donât rush it
Hire slow, fire fast. Thatâs how it goes, right? The temptation to rush through a hire without going through the proper process and due diligence can easily lead to you selecting the wrong candidate: someone whoâs not a good fit for a companyâs culture; a person whoâs going to onboard and then up and away after weeks or months.
All that time and money wasted on sourcing, interviewing, and onboarding the wrong person (or people) could have been better spent on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of your hiring process, ensuring your efforts to secure a placement are rewarded with the right person for the role.
Hiring faster shouldnât equate to a drop in your hiring standards. In fact, a faster, more efficient hiring process should lead to better hiring results. PCRecruiter has been helping recruiters secure the best talent since 1998. Find out how our software streamlines the hiring process from end-to-end, bringing automations and configurations that can ramp-up your speed and efficiency. Discover our tech.
Over 50% of recruitment leaders are investing in employer branding. Whatâs the appeal, and how can it benefit your business? In the latest blog post from PCRecruiter, we explore the importance of employer branding and how it can make your hiring more effective, and benefit your bottom line.Â
Whatever business youâre in, your brand is your reputation â not just to your customers or clients, investors and other stakeholders, but to the people who make up your organization. Without them, there is no business.
Thatâs why getting the right talent through the door to fill the right roles in your organization is so vital for your business success. After all, you donât want to waste time and money on acquiring and onboarding the wrong people for your organization.
However, in a competitive job market where you need to be quick on the hire to secure the best people for your business, attracting the right talent is easier said than done. Thatâs where employer branding can help. In this blog post, we explore the importance of employer branding and how it can make a difference to the effectiveness of your hiring process.
What is employer branding?
Employer branding is the perception of your business amongst your prospective workforce and your current employees.
Like your business brand, which defines your value proposition of your products or services within a particular market, your employer brand defines your value proposition as a place to work, develop a career, and grow as a person within the employment market.
Your employer brand embodies the essence of your enterprise, representing your people, policies, and values. In the same way that a consumer brand is designed to create attract customers, create familiarity, earn trust, and build loyalty, your employer brand is more than just your approach to managing people and business, it runs much deeper. Employer branding helps define and communicate your organizationâs unique cultural and ethical standpoint, as reflected by your employees and your business actions.
Whether youâre looking to hire a part-time cleaner, or an experienced CEO, it may seem counterintuitive to focus on your offering, rather than theirs. But those prospective hires not only need to know that their skills, experience, and talent are a good fit for the role and your business, but also what theyâre getting in exchange by becoming an employee.
Why is employer branding important?
Your employer brand is important because it helps to communicate what kind of employment experience you offer prospective candidates, what kind of experience they can expect when they come to work for you, and why they should consider working for you in the long term.
Effective employer branding communicates a positive message about working for your organization, encourages engagement, and creates a buzz around your company as a desirable place to work. Think of it as marketing for your role as an employer to existing and future employees.
If that sounds like an additional layer of complication over what your HR department or recruitment team does, itâs worth remembering that you already have an employer brand. Itâs up to you to shape perceptions and the way it works best for your hiring efforts.
A recent study by LinkedIn revealed that the number one obstacle for candidates looking for a job is not knowing what itâs like to work at the company. So guess what 75% of those candidates look for before they put in an application? Employer brands.
How can employer branding benefit your business?
The bottom line of effective employer branding is that it boosts your bottom line. So letâs dive a little deeper into that.
First impressions count. So getting employer branding right brings the right candidates knocking on the door, and if youâve been actively pursuing the right hire, it welcomes them inside. Thatâs important because candidates have a world of openings to choose from.
To make your organization stand out in a competitive market, you need to make your offering more appealing to them. With over 50% of recruitment leaders investing in and deploying a proactive employer branding strategy, the competition for the best candidates is heating up. Standing by and doing nothing isnât an option unless you want to get lost in the pack.
By more closely aligning your employer brand with prospective hires, it can significantly boost your recruitment efforts. LinkedInâs study revealed that an effective employer brand results in:
28% reduction in turnover
50% more qualified candidates
50% reduction in your cost per hire
1-2 times faster hires.
Thereâs also a positive impact on engagement and retention. An effective employer brand makes it easier for recruiters to introduce your organization to prospects. And itâs only as good as the people that work for you. In fact, itâs the message that they put out about your organization that does the most employer branding work for you.
With the right organizational culture in place, you can begin to grow that positive messaging and become a trusted employer, someone that people enjoy working for, and one that theyâre happy to champion to others.
How the right recruitment software can help
The right recruitment software wonât do your employer branding for you, but it can be a valuable tool for delivering the right message at the right time to prospective candidates.
Communication is a key to acquiring the right talent. You need to ensure a cohesive experience of your employer brand at every touchpoint of the hiring process, and you also need clear oversight and control over the entire recruitment process.
PCRecruiter provides scalable CRM and ATS functionality with a host of features designed to make communication with candidates quicker and easier, from seamless integrations for SMS and Email campaigns to automations for identifying the best candidates.
See what PCRecruiter can do for your recruitment.
Every day, recruitment organizations handle huge volumes of sensitive data in file types that are common targets for ransomware. Data security may not be at the forefront of what you do, but itâs critical for maintaining client and customer trust and your business reputation. Find out how the right applicant tracking software can handle your data security needs.
When it comes to data security, all recruiters need the right level of training and awareness. But the right applicant tracking system (ATS) should be able to handle data security, freeing up recruitment professionals to focus on their core business.
Your applicant tracking system (ATS) is the gateway to a goldmine of personal and enterprise data. And with recent and ongoing developments in data privacy regulations, such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a data breach can be costly, inflicting irreparable damage to your clientâs and candidate’s trust and your companyâs reputation.
Whether your sensitive data is held in a public cloud, private cloud, or on premises, recruitment firms and HR professionals have an obligation to ensure data security and compliance with data privacy law and regulations. So how can you protect company, client, and candidate data from the threat of cyberattacks, unauthorized access, or even accidental exposure?
Letâs take a closer look at data security in recruitment, and how you can mitigate the risk by taking the right preventative measures.
What is data security?
Data security involves protecting digital information from corruption and unauthorized access wherever it resides, in transit, at rest, or at the end of its lifecycle when itâs no longer required. Digital data security can be enacted in a number of ways, including encryption, masking, and tokenization. It also requires additional measures to mitigate data breaches, including backup copies and secure storage.
Why is data security important?
Research shows that in 2020 there were nearly 30,000 cybersecurity incidents worldwide, with 3,236 in the public sector and 2,935 in the information industry. In the same year, there were over 300 million reported ransomware attacks â where attackers threaten to permanently prevent access to a victimâs data unless a ransom is paid.
Unsurprisingly, two of the most targeted file types are database file extensions (like .db) and SQL (Structured Query Language) which is the standard language for manipulating database, and relational database management systems. Both of these file types are commonly used by every type of recruitment professional, from recruitment agencies to HR departments. But with the right ATS in place, thereâs no undue cause for alarm.
What are the different types of data security?
Organizations of every size have a raft of data security measures at their disposal. The right security solution, as part of a wider internal security strategy, will take account of the risk, compliance regulations, and sensitivity of specific datasets to deploy the right level of security control. This helps to mitigate the risks in data handling and storage.
Recruitment is one example of an industry that deals with a constant flow of incoming and outgoing flow of personal and organizational data. And like other industries, there are common data security measures that can be put in place for reducing risk and avoiding a breach. These include:
Encryption
Backups and recovery
Secure storage
Authentication
Access controls
An ATS thatâs compliant and secure
As a provider of recruitment CRM / ATS hybrid, PCRecruiter handles large volumes of sensitive data every day â between 8,000 and 9,000 separate databases ranging from 100MB to 7TB in size. So for us, data security is business critical and a core part of what we do.
Our ISO certified data center has a rigorous security process for entry, 24/7 staffing and caged equipment. Whilst we can offer bespoke levels of security encryption (including asymmetrical encryption for organizations who wish to encrypt their own data) all of our data undergoes industry standard encryption. And anything leaving one of our data centers is automatically encrypted, such as quarterly backups, which are removed and stored securely in a vault. Plus, we back up to two separate geographic locations in case of a natural disaster or security incident in one location.
Our software is regularly scheduled for pen testing (ethical hacking) to evaluate the robustness of its security features. In addition, developers go through extensive training in data security. For third-party developers wishing to utilize our application programming interface (API), we provide access tokens which restrict access to specific functionality.
Alongside these security measures, we offer opt-in security settings for recruiters. These include the following Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) settings:
Invalid password lock out
Email authentication
TOPTP (time-based one-time password)
Peace of mind with PCRecruiter
Since 1997, Main Sequence â the company behind PCRecruiter â has built a strong reputation for being one of the worldâs most trusted and successful developers of recruitment, sourcing, and applicant tracking software. PCRecruiter is a software as a service (SaaS) built on its own operating system and platform with cybersecurity baked in. It provides thousands of recruiters around the world with data security they both need and trust.
Find out more about our commitment to the highest standards in data protection and adherence to compliance regulations in our blog post PCRecruiter is ready for the GDPR.
PCRecruiter announces integration with hireEZ
PCRecruiter is now integrated directly with hireEZ, the #1 AI-powered outbound recruiting platform. In addition to making outbound recruiting easy, hireEZ helps PCRecruiter users keep their own private talent pool updated with the latest information about their candidates.
PCRecruiter is now integrated directly with hireEZ, the #1 AI-powered outbound recruiting platform. In addition to making outbound recruiting easy, this partnership helps PCRecruiter users keep their own private talent pool updated with the latest information about their candidates.
Unleash access to 800M+ candidates from 45+ open web platforms, get market insights and DE&I information to build data-driven recruiting strategies and maximize the value of your existing PCRecruiter database.
hireEZ Sourcing gives you the talent market visibility you need to proactively target the right candidates at the right time and build a scalable, data-driven recruiting approach.
Keep your database fresh and growing.
Use the new ‘Enrich with hireEZ’ option in the Action menu on your Name records in PCRecruiter with your API key from hireEZ to quickly turn your aging data into actionable data.
Export candidates from your hireEZ projects directly to your PCRecruiter database.
Allow hireEZ to source your PCRecruiter data for target candidates, and to offer metrics and insights on your talent pool.
PCRecruiter was recently awarded a “Top Rated” badge in the Recruitment Agency software category on TrustRadius. We also made top-billing this year on G2 and other review sites, ranking as one of the Top 10 Staffing software options based on independent reviews from our users.
You can share your opinion of PCRecruiter and, in many cases, you’ll receive a gift card from the review site for your time. These gift card incentives are in limited supply, so we invite you to post your review of PCRecruiter by following any of these links soon: Capterra, G2, TrustRadius, and SoftwareReviews.
Sequencing will let you create automated workflows for all sorts of purposes in PCRecruiter. Sign up for this free bi-weekly Tuesday webinar series to learn more.
The new Sequencing tool is coming to PCRecruiter in 2022. Our webinar series on this powerful upcoming feature begins this week and continues bi-weekly on Tuesdays at 2 EST through July 12. PCRecruiter’s Training Manager and Associate Software Designer, Stacy Racutt, will show off what this feature is capable of.
Session 1 â June 14 In this high-level overview, you’ll learn what the Sequencing tool is and what it can do.
Session 2 â June 28 In the second session, Stacy will show you how to set up a Sequence for Business Development.
Session 3 â July 12 In the third session, you’ll learn how to create a Sequence to use for sourcing Candidates.
Session 4 â July 19 In the final session, you’ll see how to complete Tasks and view results of the Sequences shown in the previous sessions.
Sequencing will allow you to create automated workflows for easier recruiting and user on-boarding.
With Sequencing, you’ll be able to define automated workflows for all sorts of purposes, helping you to more easily manage your day and make on-boarding new recruiters easier than ever. Sequencing will make it possible for users to execute ‘drip campaigns,’ call plans, and much more.
Sequences are user-defined chains of sequential or branching event plans that can include:
Calls
Emails
LinkedIn interactions
Text messages
and moreâŠ
Once a Sequence is created, timed and triggered tasks like email sends will happen automatically. For user-interaction tasks, PCRecruiter automatically presents the next work item to be completed, and makes it a breeze to log each step along the way.
Decades of working alongside top firms around the world has given PCRecruiter insight into what recruiting technology works and what doesnât.
Every recruitment organization is different, with its own style, strategy, and approach to making hires happen. Whilst thereâs no magic formula for success, there are some common traits which help recruitment firms gain a competitive edge.
Decades of working along side top recruitment firms from around the world, across a wide range of industries and markets, has given PCRecruiter a clear insight into what works and what doesnât. It comes down to the right investment, recruiting technology, and autonomy.
Many traits are common sense and largely controllable: owners who are engaged and work hard, choosing markets that are hot, and making sufficient investment into their businesses.
Some are not as intuitive or controllable: personal charisma of key players, odd-couple leadership teams, and generalization versus specialization in key markets and roles.
So what sets top-performing recruitment organizations apart from their competitors?
â The right investment
Investment is not just about spending money, especially as spending money in itself doesnât automatically result in success. Cultural investment is crucial for any organization to be effective. From investing in the right leadership team to sourcing people who are the best fit for both the position advertised and your company values, successful organizations are built on a solid workforce culture. But that doesnât necessarily mean focusing entirely on employee contentment. Research by Gallup suggests a key driver in employee retention and business success is to create high levels of engagement, where employees are treated as stakeholders in the companyâs future.
No matter the size of your business, success is dependent on a number of moving parts, all of which have a powerful role to play in delivering your core business. And like any complex organization, good performance depends on many variables. Yet a strong pattern does emerge: recruitment firms that continuously optimize and refine their workflows, and who make training and development a central activity, seem to perform better. This is true even across large businesses with many sets of tools and team members.
Sometimes the right solution might involve throwing dollars at vendors of technology and professional services, but without the involvement of leadership and effective non-dollar cultural and educational investments, no technology or technique on its own will automatically provide a competitive edge.
â The right recruiting technology
Technology is increasingly becoming a key differentiator for recruitment firms looking to take the edge on their competitors. As organizations seek to drive efficiency and cost-savings through programs of digital transformation, they look to cutting-edge recruiting technology to provide their teams with ways of working smarter and more effectively. In a world of âBig Dataâ, recruiters are faced with ever-growing volumes of data and databases. At the same time, services and industries are niching down, catering to very specific market audiences with very defined knowledge, expertise, and skills.
While a growing number of recruiting software solutions provide increased levels of automation for repetitive or easily automated tasks, this doesnât signal a need for fewer recruiters. What it does is free-up recruiters to focus more on their core business: recruiting. For that reason, recruiters wholly dependent on manual processes are likely to experience a growing and inevitable disadvantage, even as the middle of the pack dramatically thins out.
â The right autonomy
Weâre heading into the era of Autonomous Business Processes (ABP):
In the early stages, this includes auto-generation of repeatable documents, such as fee agreements, offer letters, and onboarding/contracting pieces.
In more mature stages, it includes servicing tasks and supports within the organization, including the routing, visualization, and reporting of task and disposition items to department entities, managers, and team-members.
These developments are now rapidly pairing with voice, email, text, and virtual meeting spaces. COVID massively accelerated virtual workplaces, and those changes will not unwind. The result is a tendency toward socialized and digitalized networking, less risky experimentation and creativity, and more âwork as a lifestyleâ as teams put themselves and their tools together.
Autonomous organizations can be highly effective because their business processes tend to run without the day-to-day or hour-to-hour involvement at C-suite level. This frees up business owners and leaders to spend more time on strategic decision-making because the workflows in the organization are fine-tuned to deliver and repeat key performances needed for its economic model and to handle exceptions however they occur.
Final thoughts
In terms of technological choices, recruiters who have proven their ability to adapt and continuously improve are the likely to outperform their competitors, for the simple reason that theyâre able to operate more efficiently and cost-effectively.
Successful solutions can come from global recruitment giants or single-person startups. What matters is education and iteration to continuously grow and drive results. Top-performing firms recognize that investing in the right recruitment software solutions is essential in the tooth and claw evolutionary battle of business competition.
Martin Snyder leads regulatory and organizational compliance for Main Sequence Technology. As a co-founder and principal of Main Sequence, he helps provide executive and policy leadership as an active manager of the business. Mr. Snyder has a background in sales, recruiting technology design/implementation, SMB tech, and consumer finance.
Podcasts are a great way to get the latest recruitment industry insights, topics, and trends. Listen anywhere, on-the-go for actionable tips you can take with you the next time you step into the office. Need help getting started? Read PCRecruiterâs list of six top recruitment podcasts.
Thereâs no better way to stay up to date with the latest recruitment industry trends, than by listening to your favorite recruitment podcast. On your daily commute or whilst relaxing at home, listen whenever, wherever to get your daily dose of insight into the recruitment industry.Â
Whether youâre looking for an in-depth interview with a recruitment industry leader, tips and tricks you can take into the office with you the next day, or a beginnerâs guide to the fundamentals of recruitment, the right podcast can take you deep inside the world of hiring.Â
But if youâre new to podcasts, new to recruitment, or searching for something that fits your recruitment niche, it can be difficult to know where to start. So, here at PCRecruiter, weâve compiled our shortlist of top recruitment podcasts.
Drawing on a deep talent pool of recruitment leadership, Talk Talent To Me takes listeners on a rollercoaster ride through talent acquisition. Covering everything from strategies, metrics, and techniques through to current industry trends, it features top talent leaders on the front line of modern recruitment. The show is hosted, produced, and edited by Hiredâs Content Marketing Manager, Rob Stevenson. We like the depth and breadth of talent interviewed, from VPâs of Global Talent, to CHROs.
With over a decade in the industry, Dualta Doherty has a hands-on approach to setting up and successfully running a recruitment business. Each episode, the founder of Dualta Doherty & Partners and this very podcast, is joined by recruitment agency leaders from around the world to talk about what it takes to start up, scale up, and operate at the highest level of recruitment. We enjoy hearing about the successes and challenges of recruitment industry leaders, and the valuable insights into setting up on your own.
Everything you ever wanted to know about recruitment in daily, bite size pieces. Hosts Caitie and Mingus give you the latest lowdown on recruitment trends, top tips and tricks, plus all the tools and resources you need to maintain a competitive edge in the recruitment industry. Ideal for recruiters, HR specialists, and talent acquisition managers alike, each episode offers inspiration and insight, wherever you happen to be. We listen out for the actionable recruitment tips provided in each episode.
The self-styled âcalm voice of recruitment continuityâ offers insight, inspiration, and inclusivity in the fast-paced, ever-evolving world of recruitment. With a particular focus on the future of talent acquisition, each episode covers a different aspect of the industry, from technology, and automation to diversity and inclusion. With an eye on the future of work, guests are typically recruitment thought leaders and pioneers from the wider business world, who share ideas and experiences designed to inspire listeners and drive change. We like the focus on giving a platform to new and diverse voices in recruitment.
Going behind the scenes of the worldâs most influential talent acquisition teams, the RecruitingDaily podcast is a one-stop shop for the latest insights into recruiting, sourcing, and talent acquisition. Each episode drills down deep into a complicated topic, breaking it down into understandable chunks in order to help recruiters take their game to the next level. We enjoy the sheer variety of content, from equity audits to using virtual meetings to streamline recruitment processes.
Benjamin Menaâs show covers a broad range of recruitment-related content, taking listeners on a journey through money, marketing, sales, leadership, and placement. Along the way, youâll pick up tips, tools, and tricks from some of the best in the business. Hear the stories of top recruitment professionals, how they got to where they are now and the mindset that got them there. We like the Elite Recruiter Podcast for its vibrant and insightful look at the industry.
So youâve reached the end of our list, only to find your favorite recruitment podcast is missing? Get in touch with PCRecruiter and let us know why we should give it a listen! And for even more podcasts, check out our Top 5 HR Podcasts blog post as well!
App Specific Passwords for Gmail
Changes to Google’s security policies at the end of May could affect your ability to send/receive @Gmail address mail from PCRecruiter. Setting up an app specific password will help to keeps your Google account login secure and in sync with PCRecruiter.
Creating App Specific Passwords for your Gmail account improves your security and may be imperative for PCRecruiter users who have an @gmail.com account linked to the database for incoming or outgoing mail.
As of June 2022, Google no longer supports the use of your primary Gmail username and password when connecting from third-party apps and devices. These changes imposed by Google are part of a strategy to strengthen account and application security.
One of Google’s alternative options is App Specific Passwords, which are additional passwords for your Gmail account that you designate for use by one specific site or app. Creating separate passwords, rather than using your main Google password across multiple apps and sites, isolates any security risks to one site or service. If that App Specific Password should ever be compromised, it can be disabled without interrupting or exposing any other services associated with your Gmail login.
How does this affect PCRecruiter users?
This new policy will only affect users of @gmail.com addresses. It is not currently being applied to Google Workspace or Google Cloud Identity accounts. If you are using Google’s email servers but have your own domain name associated with the account, you may continue to use your existing password, but we do recommend switching to a more secure method for security’s sake.
In regards to our recruiting software, PCRecruiter, this policy change should only impact your ability to send or receive email within PCRecruiter if you are using an @gmail address with a standard Google password.
Google Sign In Button Example
You will find Sign in with Google buttons on PCR’s Outgoing Mail (SMTP) screens. These are the preferred method of connecting your Gmail account to PCRecruiter. If you see a button like the one shown here and use it to authenticate with your Google Account, an App Specific Password is not necessary.
Setting up the App Specific password option is a viable method of upgrading your security with PCRecruiter or any other services you may be using your plain Gmail password on when no Sign in with Google method is available. For those using IMAP to read or write activities for incoming mail, App Specific passwords are required at this time. See Google’s info on creating these app-specific passwords here.
We love podcasts â they make commutes and grocery shopping fun. There are so many great HR podcasts available, covering every topic under the sun, so we’ve compiled a list of a few favorites which will keep you inspired.
Weâre really keen on podcasts here at PCRecruiter. Why? Because they can make boring commutes or grocery shopping much more interesting!
There are a variety of HR podcasts available â covering topics from employee perks to corporate branding, and everything in between. Weâve prepared a list of some of our favorites and hopefully these shows will help you stay on top of changes in the industry and gain a little inspiration from those leading those changes. Here they are in no particular order:
Started in 2017, the Emotion at Work podcast is led by Phil Willcox and dives into the full spectrum of professional emotions that people experience at work. Philâs belief is that emotions should be at the center of everything we do as they are so impactful throughout our lives â especially in our jobs. The episodes are released monthly and are a true deep dive into the chosen topic.
Phil speaks with industry professionals about a variety of themes, including emotion control, emotion expression, digital body language, shame, and other pressing social issues in the workplace. Phil and his guests share their personal stories and aim to build a greater knowledge of emotion among the listenership. The podcast, and its themes, are built on the vision of Philâs company and look to educate and train people in emotion in any organization.
Every week, Mike Sipple, the co-founder and CEO of Talent Magnet Institute, has discussions with thought leaders, industry executives, and a variety of HR professionals to better understand the sector. The topics they cover include business, relationships, community, and life in general. Itâs a brilliantly varied podcast that taps into each guest’s personal experiences and how those have shaped their successes as well as their failures.
Founded in 2001, Talent Magnet was built with the objective of transforming business leaders and their organizations into âtalent magnetsâ. Theyâve become a trusted name in talent and aim to develop the skills of their clients, making them better leaders, and making their teams better because of it. With that goal in mind, they want the culture of quality leadership to work as a âtalent magnetâ so that businesses that commit to improvement attract the talent they need.
#WorkTrends, hosted by Meghan M. Biro of Talent Culture, is a podcast series and Twitter chat that revolves around current HR news and features experts from around the industry. With over 400 total episodes, there is a serious back catalog for new listeners to tap into.
Some of #WorkTrendsâ most recent episodes show just how varied the topics can be so matter what part of HR youâre interested in theyâll be something that grabs your attention. Seriously, check out their last few installments:
The Everywhere Workplace â Prioritizing Employee Experience
The Urgency Epidemic â Prioritization & Productivity
Building a Courageous Work Culture: Why it Matters
Myth Busting Common Video Interview Concerns
Military Hiring â Diversity, Inclusion & Business Success
The Recruitment Hackers is a community of talent acquisition professionals whose mission is to promote best practices, tools, and industry trends. They’ve grown into a network of experts and a part of that connectivity is through The Recruitment Hackers podcast.
The weekly content deals with a wide range of themes, including recruitment automation, optimizing the candidate experience, and harnessing culture to attract the appropriate kind of people. The podcast prides itself on offering real-life examples of companies that are recruiting successfully as well as proven strategies to grow your talent pool. Best of all, they donât get caught up in trends and make an effort to point out the gimmicks that are springing up in the recruitment space.
Of all the podcasts on this list, we think itâs safe to say that this one has the best name. Branding themselves as the snarkiest industry experts out there Chad Sowash and friend-of-PCRecruiter Joel Cheesman have built a platform with a number of different podcasts that cover European HR trends, HR startup critiques, and interviews with other recruitment pros to name a few.
Their particular style might not be for everyone’s taste but they definitely arenât afraid to be open and honest about their views. Itâs clear that whether you like them or not, they have a genuine wealth of knowledge and experience, over 40 years between them, and that makes this podcast well worth listening to â just get used to their lack of filter(!).
These podcasts are just a small selection of a huge range of available insight that is out there in audio form. We hope you check the suggestions out, and get as much from them as we have.
Do you have any HR podcasts or recruitment industry podcast favorites? Comment below and let us know what they are.
Feedback & Notifications (Update 9.8.9)
PCRecruiter’s new update, v. 9.8.9, comes with new Feedback organization and in-app Notifications features that will help keep you and your team informed and in touch. Plus, we have added brand new free webinars to our schedule for Spring/Summer 2022.
PCRecruiter’s new update, v. 9.8.9, comes with two major upgrades that will help keep you and your team informed and in touch. As always, this update also includes dozens of behind-the-scenes fixes and enhancements. Plus, we have added brand new free webinars to our schedule for Spring/Summer 2022.
What’s New in PCRecruiter 9.8.9
PCR Notifications
Notifications that aren’t clicked on will appear in the sidebar for 7 days. Look for the numbered badge at the corner of your screen.
The brand new PCR Notifications give you configurable real-time alerts that you can use to communicate with your team and monitor key events in your recruitment process. These notifications appear at the bottom right corner of your PCRecruiter screen, where they remain visible for 5 seconds if none of the links contained in them are clicked on. If no action is taken on a notification, it is moved to the PCR Notifications sidebar, accessed via a numbered badge on your user icon at the top right corner of the screen. Notifications remain in the sidebar for up to seven days, or until the links in them are clicked on.
Send PCR Notifications to Co-Workers
A new Send PCR Notification option appears in the Action menu at the top of all Name, Company, and Position records in your database. By clicking on this option, you can send a PCR Notification including a live link to the current record, plus a brief message you define, to one or more users in your database. You’ll find this feature helpful for coordinating with other PCR users and calling their attention to important records instantly.
Trigger PCR Notifications via Automations
PCR Notifications can also be sent using Automations, whether triggered by specific Pipeline step or Rollup stage changes, Candidate Presentations being viewed or responded to, or from the general Automations feature released in late 2021. When building any Automation that previously included Email, Text, or PCRecruiter mobile app Push notifications, you’ll now find a PCR Notification option as well.
To support more useful PCR Notifications, this update comes with new date-based Automation triggers to use:
Start Date: You can now trigger Automations based on the Start Date from your contract or permanent placements. You can set the PCR Notification or other Action to occur on the Start Date, or a chosen number of days before or after the date. This can be useful in reminding users that their placed candidate is starting their job the next day, or prompting the user to make a check-in call seven days after the job has begun.
Activity Date: Like the Start Date, you can now trigger a PCR Notification or other action a number of days after a specific type of Activity has been written. This can be great for follow-up call reminders. In fact, you can now trigger Automations based on Activities with a specific Result as well – e.g. sending a PCR Notification based on phone call Activities where a voicemail was left, but not for those where there was no answer.
Field Date: You can also trigger Automations based on the date in practically any Standard or Custom field. For example, trigger a PCR Notification when a candidate’s License is expiring, or remind the user to review each open Position 30 days after the ‘Date Posted’.
These Automation triggers aren’t exclusive to PCR Notifications. For example, you could use the Field Date trigger with a ‘Date of Birth’ field to send automatic birthday greetings to clients and candidates, automatically add Names to a calling Rollup List a year after they’ve completed a specific form, or automatically send a Form Letter to a candidate the day before their interview.
There was one other minor addition to the Automations in this update. The ‘When an applicant applies to a Position, send Notification to Someone’ canned automation included the option to send an SMS (via our RingCentral integration), but lacked the option to target the Candidate’s phone number. We’ve added this into the new version, so that you can automatically prompt candidates to opt in to bulk texts or simply thank them for applying.
The possibilities for automating your process with PCRecruiter are growing all the time. We look forward to hearing about your own creative uses for Automations and PCR Notifications!
The other major change in this update is the brand new Feedback area, which you’ll find in the Navigation menu at the top of all Names, Companies, Positions, as well as in the Detail panel on the updated Pipeline (currently in final beta – ask your PCRecruiter representative for details).
The new Feedback screen consolidates and organizes feedback from users and external contacts into an easily viewed list, with filter and search options to help you find exactly what you’re looking for.
Feedback can be entered by internal users from the ‘Add Feedback’ panel on the left side of the Feedback screen, collected via Candidate Presentations, or via emailed links using the brand new ‘Feedback Form Letters.’
Note that any existing feedback collected using Candidate Presentations as well as feedback formerly located in the Interview Feedback on your Pipeline steps or interview records will now appear in the Feedback screen.
Look for the new “Feedback” menu item on all Name, Company, and Position records.
We have a ton of great updates on the way in 2022! Watch your own PCR Notifications for announcements of new features and more.
These brand new sessions planned for Spring / Summer 2022 will all be taking place at 2 PM Eastern on Tuesdays.
PCRecruiter Job Board Overview – April 19 REGISTER NOW PCRecruiter’s Drew Rothman will walk through how the PCR Job Board is set up and what its capabilities are. This will be a useful session for those who aren’t currently using the Job Board and want to know more, or who are using the older ‘Candidate Web Extensions’ and considering an upgrade.
Contractor Features – May 3 REGISTER NOW In this session, you’ll learn more about how PCRecruiter facilitates your contract or contract-to-perm process. In this session we’ll discuss expense tracking with the ability to upload receipts and clock-in/out via the PCRecruiter mobile app. We’ll also discuss hours approval and reporting.
Searching in PCRecruiter – May 17 REGISTER NOW In this session, some of PCR’s top trainers will discuss different methods of searching for names, companies, and jobs within your database.
New PCRecruiter Pipeline – May 31 REGISTER NOW This session will cover the all-new PCRecruiter pipeline (coming soon) and how to set up and navigate all of the great features it has to offer. A great orientation for those moving from the older version or for those new to PCRecruiter in general.
PCRecruiter Sequencing Features
Part 1 – June 14 REGISTER NOW
Part 2 – June 28 REGISTER NOW Part 3 – July 12 REGISTER NOW The brand new sequencing features (coming soon) in PCRecruiter will help you automate marketing, communication, and other processes. Learn all about what they can do in this session, to be presented in a three part series.
PCRecruiter Customer Demo – July 26 REGISTER NOW How do PCRecruiter users work in the system? In this session, we’ll be talking with a PCRecruiter user about their particular configuration and how they’ve made PCRecruiter work for them.
Review PCRecruiter – Get a Gift Card!
PCRecruiter continues to receive top-billing on G2 and other review sites, ranking as one of the Top 10 Staffing software options based on independent reviews from users. The Spring 2022 reports from G2 rank us once again as a Leader and High Performer across multiple categories.
We want your voice to be heard when the next round reports come out, so we encourage you to post a review of PCRecruiter at this link. You’ll be eligible to receive a gift card from G2 in thanks for your thoughts. If you’d prefer to put your review incentive towards a charitable cause, we’ve also partnered with G2 in support of Girls Who Code. If you visit this link to submit your review, G2 will donate $10 to help close the gender gap in technology.
And if you’ve already posted a review on G2, you are welcome to review us on Capterra, SoftwareReviews, or TrustRadius! We appreciate all of the kind words and helpful feedback we read on these sites.
PCRecruiter is honored to be one very few recruiting software options to place on TrustRadius’ 2022 “Most Loved Awards”. This is a particularly special Valentine’s Day present, as we know our award is based solely on the glowing comments from verified, independent reviews written by professionals in recruitment, staffing, and human resources.
TrustRadius serves over 1 million B2B technology buyers per month with verified reviews and ratings to make informed purchasing decisions. Each year, TrustRadius analyzes every review collected on tens of thousands of products across hundreds of categories, looking for how often users mentioned something they absolutely love about these products. By comparing love-related keywords against the total number of reviews for each product, they come up with a listing of the top 100 “Most Loved Software” offerings on their site.
PCRecruiter is honored to be one very few recruiting software options to place on TrustRadius’ 2022 Most Loved Awards. This is a particularly special Valentine’s Day present, as we know our award is based solely on the glowing comments from verified, independent reviews written by professionals in recruitment, staffing, and human resources.
âBuyers have many options to choose from when it comes to recruitment agency software. Recruiting in todayâs employment market can be a headache, but the right software can help ease that pain. PCRecruiter is one of the most loved software products of 2022,â said Megan Headley, VP of Research at TrustRadius. âPCRecruiter earned a Most Loved award based directly on feedback from their customers. Reviewers highlighted the time savings the product provided, the simple integrations with other software products, and the reporting features offered.â
Some of the comments have included:
âPCRecruiter always seems to be ahead of the game, innovative and talks with the customers on how to improve the logic and workflow and adapting it to the entire recruiting, hiring and placement process.â
âThe technical support is terrific and frankly the main reason I won’t even consider switching to another platform. I love that if I have a question and can’t find the answer quickly within their learning management system, I can call or chat with them and get an immediate response.â
âFor presenting candidates to clients, PCRecruiter has had rave reviews from my clients. It’s easy to look through a candidate’s profile and provide feedback.â
âPCR has been instrumental in our growth and success and all 14 of our offices use it. The system is deep with solutions to keeping track of candidates, clients, business opportunities, jobs and so much more. It also integrates with a number of other applications that we use daily. We would not be able to function without PCR as the backbone of our recruiting systems.â
This announcement comes on the heels of PCRecruiter making the Top 50 HR Software list on G2 for 2022.
PCRecruiter has been named to G2âs Top 50 HR Software List in the annual ‘Best Software Awards’. This PCRecruiter’s first time appearing on one of G2âs Best Software lists, earning its place this year thanks to high marks for customer service and adaptability in the recruiting, staffing, and HR space.
PCRecruiter has been consistently highly-rated on G2, the world’s largest and most trusted software marketplace. G2 helps more than 60 million people every year make smarter software decisions based on authentic peer reviews, and is the definitive online destination to discover, review and manage the technology that businesses need to reach their potential.
This year, PCRecruiter has been named to G2âs Top 50 HR Software List. The annual Best Software List ranks the worldâs best software companies and products based on authentic, timely reviews from real users.
This PCRecruiter’s first time appearing on one of G2âs Best Software lists, earning its place this year thanks to high marks for customer service and adaptability in the recruiting, staffing, and HR space.
“G2 has been a great partner in spreading the word about PCRecruiter,” said Bill Kubicek, PCRecruiter co-founder and VP of Sales and Marketing. “We’re honored to have been included in the ‘Best’ this year, particularly because we know that standing is based on the reviews of satisfied recruiting and staffing pros.”
âAs we continue to accelerate rapid growth, our online marketplace boasts 100,000+ software and services companies in 2,000+ categories and over 1.5 million trusted user reviews. Simply put, G2 is where you go for software,â said Godard Abel, co-founder and CEO, G2. âOur annual Best Software List aims to guide buyers on their purchasing decisions, knowing they can trust in the credibility and objectivity of our scoring algorithms. We applaud those companies named to our 2022 list, as theyâve earned the satisfaction among their customers as well as an impressive market presence.â
The top 100 software sellers are ranked based on a combination of Satisfaction and Market Presence scores for each seller, and the top 100 products are ranked based on reviews across all categories they are a part of. To be included in one of G2âs Software Sellers or Software Products âBest Ofâ lists, a software seller or product must receive at least 50 approved and published reviews during the 2021 calendar year. Scores reflect only data from reviews submitted during this evaluation period.
To learn more, view G2âs 2022 Best Software List and read more about G2âs methodology. To schedule a demonstration, contact us today.
Our free series of bi-weekly Thursday afternoon webinars continues into February and March 2022! Stay up to date on PCRecruiter’s latest features and plans.
The bi-weekly series of free PCRecruiter webinars continues into February and March, 2022. If you missed any of the previous sessions on topics including Profile Forms, Contractor Features, and our Open API, check out our webinar archive.
The five upcoming sessions below are already on the calendar and we are continuing to plan more for the spring and beyond. If you can’t make it to the live session, don’t worry – a recording will be sent to all registrants afterward.
Thursday, February 10 at 1:00 PM EST / 10:00 AM PST
PCRecruiter is constantly moving forward, and 2022 is going to be a *big* year for updates and changes. Want to know where the roadmap will be taking us? Join this session with our Manager of Professional Services and one of our lead developers to get the inside scoop. Register now.
Thursday, February 24 at 8:00 AM EST / 1:00 PM GMT
PCRecruiterâs ability to support alternate languages, currencies, and compliance requirements like GDPR allows it to be used in dozens of countries. In this session, weâll be discussing the functions of PCRecruiter that are of specific interest to our non-US clientele. Register now.
Whether you’re a new PCRecruiter user or a potential user interested in understanding the system, this session with one of our consultants will show you the basics. You’ll learn the underlying concepts of PCRecruiterâs data organization and how to perform simple tasks like creating and viewing records Register Now
One of PCRecruiterâs great strengths is the roster of vendors and services that it can interact with. In this session, you’ll get a high-level review of the various partnerships, job posting services, and other technologies that work with your PCRecruiter database. Register Now
PCRecruiterâs automated tasks give you time saving, money-saving shortcuts. Our training team will show you tips to optimize your workflow and to receive notifications when “big money” moves like placements or other specific events occur in your database. Register Now
Our series of bi-weekly Thursday afternoon webinars continues in 2022! Stay up to date on PCRecruiter’s latest features and plans.
The PCRecruiter team is continuing the series of bi-weekly webinars that began in 2021. If you missed any of those sessions, check out our webinar archive. The currently scheduled sessions can be found below, and more are on the way for March and beyond. Stay tuned!
Thursday, January 13 at 1:00 PM EST / 10:00 AM PST
PCRecruiter is unique in the ATS/CRM market given that the original founders still directly own and operate the company on a day-to-day basis. In this open session, youâll get an opportunity to hear directly from the folks in charge. Register now.
Thursday, January 27 at 1:00 PM EST / 10:00 AM PST
The API (application programming interface) allows external software to âtalkâ to the PCRecruiter database securely. It facilitates many of our integrations with outside vendors, as well as our own systems like PCR Capture and PCR for Outlook/Gmail. In this session, our technical experts will talk about the basics of the API and how it functions. This session will be valuable to anyone considering their own custom development projects with PCRecruiter. Register now.
Thursday, February 10 at 1:00 PM EST / 10:00 AM PST
PCRecruiter is constantly moving forward, and 2022 is going to be a *big* year for updates and changes. Want to know where the roadmap will be taking us? Join this session with our Manager of Professional Services and one of our lead developers to get the inside scoop. Register now.
Thursday, February 24 at 8:00 AM EST / 1:00 PM GMT
PCRecruiterâs ability to support alternate languages, currencies, and compliance requirements like GDPR allows it to be used in dozens of countries. In this session, weâll be discussing the functions of PCRecruiter that are of specific interest to our non-US clientele. Register now.
Happy New Year 2022
Wishing all of you a happy, healthy, and successful 2022 from the entire PCRecruiter team. Happy New Year!
In commemorating our 23rd full year of service to the recruiting and staffing industry, innovating private databases for recruitment pros around the world, we hope that you too are reflecting on a strong year with anticipation that next year will be even stronger.
PCRecruiter is rolling, with major new capabilities deploying in 2022. We look forward to doing our part in helping you to reach for your best year ever.
Happy New Year from PCRecruiter!
G2, the largest software marketplace and review platform, has published its Winter 2021 reports. PCRecruiter was again ranked #1 in Customer Relationship and a Leader in multiple categories. G2 publishes these quarterly reports ranking applicant tracking software, staffing software, and recruiting agency software based on data from multiple sources.
The Winter 2022 reports from G2, the largest software marketplace and review platform, are in! These quarterly reports are based on independent user reviews and satisfaction scores, as well as other data sources and indicators of market leadership. PCRecruiter has once again been revealed as one of the applicant tracking, staffing, and recruiting agency software industry’s top choices.
Still the Best in Customer Relationship
Among businesses from 1-50 employees, PCRecruiter has once again been ranked the #1 Applicant Tracking System in regards to quality of support, earning the ‘Best Relationship’ badge. In the mid-market range (companies with 51,000 -100,000 employees) PCRecruiter was ranked in the Easiest To Do Business With. Our team always works hard toward customer satisfaction, and we’re always glad to see the reviews that tell us we’re achieving that goal.
PCRecruiter Remains a Leader
G2 ranks software as a Leader based on substantial Satisfaction scores and Market Presence. PCR has once again placed in this group, both for the 1-50 employee range ATS market for the ATS and the among Candidate Relationship Management categories overall. We also ranked as a High Performer in both the Staffing and Recruitment Marketing categories.
And, as with the Fall 2021 reports, PCRecruiter remained the vendor with Highest User Adoption for the Recruitment Marketing category.
Post Your Review!
We want your voice to be included in G2’s Spring 2022 reports! You can post a review of PCRecruiter at this link to be eligible for a gift card from G2 in thanks, or you can post via this link to donate $10 to “Girls Who Code”, helping to close the gender gap in tech.
Times change and recruiters canât just rely on a spreadsheet of contacts, quick thinking, or a ‘roll-up list’ in LinkedIn to get ahead in an industry which never slows down. An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) offers recruiters a custom built technology that can support them in their work to deliver great candidates to great employers. To show how that pairing is made easy by an ATS we want to show you 5 key benefits of the software.
Times change and recruiters canât just rely on a spreadsheet of contacts, quick thinking, or a ‘roll-up list’ in LinkedIn to get ahead in an industry which never slows down.Â
An Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) offers recruiters a custom built technology that can support them in their work to deliver great candidates to great employers. To show how that pairing is made easy by an ATS we want to show you 5 key benefits of the software.
Repeatability
What do you do with the other candidates that you didnât put forward for your latest role?Â
Youâve cultivated 10 of the brightest marketers for a recent commercial role and youâve placed 1 of them straight into the job (nice work by the way!) But now youâre left with 9 additional shining stars⊠So what do you do with them?Â
Well, with an ATS you can easily transpose your broader inventory of existing candidates into new roles. Simply put, an ATS helps you put the right people in the right places â so you have them all, ready to go, as soon as a new opportunity lands (or you go out and create it!)
Richer Data
We all love to drop in on LinkedIn and check out candidate history. But all too often, the details given barely scratch the surface. What about everything they donât write about â things like their ambitions, their home life, their lifelong, unflinching love of the Chicago Cubs â?Â
With an Applicant Tracking System you can save all that rich, personal data on your candidates in one place â to give you a true, more three-dimensional profile to take forward.
Specialist Database
Feel like pursuing a niche? As you build up multiple candidates for a new position youâll realize youâve actually farmed up a good herd of industry specific talent. You can make and save great contacts within that industry and then propel your dedicated flock toward them in a move thatâs guaranteed to land in the right spot.
Success Support
Customer service and success support are absolutely critical when implementing any kind of software. After all, if you canât use it, whatâs the point in having it?Â
An ATS is only going to deliver the benefits you need if itâs configured to your requirements. We only come to understand that by listening to what you really need. Weâve been in business for over 20 years and have adapted our levels of service over time; while understanding that every recruiter is different.
Automation & Efficiency
Weâve grouped these two together because automation feeds into and supports efficiency. A lot of recruiters are still using databases and pulling out information themselves. A properly configured ATS can scan your emails, set reminders, notify contractors â and much more besides.Â
On top of that, call recording and dialing history features help to automatically fill out the CRM component of your system. No-one likes having to backfill an activity log, and with an ATS you donât need to.
The bottom line is that recruiters want to save time by increasing speed. They have to compete to get the best employers and candidates on their books and Applicant Tracking Systems support that goal to a tee.Â
At PCR we support everyone â from one user offices up to massive multinationals â in exactly the same way; with expert support at every step.
This week’s update to PCRecruiter comes jam-packed with improvements to Profile Forms and Reports, as well as improvements to Quick Find and Candidate Presentations. We’ve also got new webinars and other announcements to share.
This week’s update includes big upgrades to PCRecruiter’s Standard and Custom Reports, as well as over twenty improvements to Profile Forms. We’ve also updated the Quick Find, Candidate Presentations, and Opt-Out/In features with helpful new capabilities.
What’s New in PCRecruiter 9.8.7
Improved Reports
We’ve revised our Standard and Custom Reports with new styling, charts, and other improvements to help you analyze and present your data more effectively.
View your reports in PDF form for easy printing and downloading direct from the browser.
Export all standard and custom reports to .XLS, Google Sheets, and Microsoft Office 365. NOTE: Access to the new Export features are governed by the “Export Reports” permission on the Security section of the User Record. If you do not see an Export option following this update, your database administrator will need to open SYSTEM > Users > Manage Users and give your username access to them in the Security area under Reports.
A new ‘Share’ option opens a blank email with an .XLS file of the current report already attached, making it faster than ever to send your metrics to others.
Exported spreadsheets now include pie and bar charts for most standard reports. These charts are automatically inserted on additional tabs in the exported report.
The Report Options, found in the Action menu on the main Reports menu screen, now includes options to select portrait/landscape layout, to hide empty columns on PDF exports, and to replace the PCRecruiter logos with your own branding.
A new ‘Generated Reports’ option has been added to the Auditing Reports section. This report gives database administrators a security audit that lists which reports have been run by which users in a selected time period.
Profile Form Enhancements
Profiles â PCR’s searchable, configurable, multipurpose form utility â have received a over two dozen improvements, big and small, in this update, including the ability to automatically link candidates to jobs using emailed forms, separately control views for printing and emailing forms, and so much more.
If you’re not already familiar with these flexible custom forms, sign up for the All About Profiles webinar on Thursday, December 2. Here are the key improvements you’ll find in this release:
Viewing / Editing Profiles
The Action dropdown on profiles in the Attachments screen includes a new ‘Copy’ option. This will make a duplicate of the selected form under the same record, which can be helpful if you want to use the existing content in a form as a starting point for an alternate version.
When a completed profile is opened in Edit mode from the Attachments area on a record, a new icon and label in the upper right corner will indicate who completed form. This can be an internal PCRecruiter user, or an external contact that the form was emailed to. Note that this addition does not appear on the form when printed or emailed and is only for the user’s reference.
All ‘Electronic Signature’ answers in profiles will be embedded with a UTC date-time stamp, giving you an unalterable visual record of when the form was signed.
Users of the optional PCRecruiter Analytics will find a new “Saves” stat in the Details on their Email Campaigns. If the emailed form contains profile links, the Analytics will indicate which recipients completed the form and will provide a link to view the resulting attachment.
Sending Profiles
If a profile is emailed from a Pipeline or from a Position Form Letter, PCRecruiter will attach that person to the Pipeline for that position. This allows you to invite people to apply to positions by emailing them a profile. If the profile has any Knockout / Success automation plans associated with it, they will be triggered just as if the candidate were applying via the PCRecruiter Job Board, making emailed profiles useable as self-qualification questionnaires within the Pipeline.
If a profile is emailed from a Pipeline or from a Position Form Letter, PCRecruiter will list that job’s title along with the form in the Attachments on the name record.
The ‘Attach’ profile feature found under Send Options on the Compose Email screen has been changed from a dropdown to a search popup, making it easier to find your desired form.
When sending a profile link from a non-form letter, the automatically prepended link to the form has been restyled to appear more cleanly on modern email clients and mobile screens. In addition, if the profile has “Form Letter Clickable Text” defined on its Settings screen, this text will be used in place of the default link text on these emails.
Profiles can now be time-limited using the ‘Expiration’ panel on the profile setup screen. This new option lets you prevent a recipient from submitting or re-submitting a form within a specific number of days from the sending of the email.
The ‘Automations’ panel on the profile setup screen now includes options to receive notification emails when the form is edited (previous versions only allowed for notifications for newly submitted forms).
The ‘Automations’ panel on the profile setup screen now includes the option to email the name to whom the profile is attached. These ‘receipt’ emails can include a PDF of the completed form.
You may now send any Form Letter in place of the default notification email when a profile is added or edited. When creating the form letter, you can add the merge tag [[Profile Action]] which will insert the word “Added” or “Updated” into the text depending on whether the profile was a fresh submission or an edit to an existing form.
Designing & Configuring Profiles
A new ‘After Submit Display Message’ box appears on the ‘Automations’ panel when creating a profile. This box allows you to specify the text that appears on the screen after the profile has been saved. This box accepts HTML or plain text.
When linking a profile answer to a database field, PCR will now automatically limit the length of the answer to the available field length, preventing the form from putting in more information into the answer than the associated field will be able to store.
There are now three separate HTML templates in the ‘Custom HTML’ panel on the profile setup screen. The ‘Default HTML Layout’ will be used for all purposes if no other layouts are entered. If an Internal Layout is created, it will be visible to the PCRecruiter User while the Default Layout will be visible to any external recipients of an emailed profile link. If a Print Layout is created, it will be applied to the read-only “View” link for the profile and for any PDF version of the form. With this new function, a web designer can create separate views for the PCRecruiter user, the form recipient, and the printed final version, including different styling, answer displays, scripting, and images.
In addition to configuring custom HTML Layouts by placing each question and answer with [[Q1]] or [[A1]] etc. tags, the new update allows for inserting [[Profile]] as a tag. This gives the ability to use the standard PCRecruiter table-based profile form, but to easily apply CSS, HTML, and Javascript around it for branding purposes.
The profile editing screen now returns to the same editing panel (Settings, Automations, Expiration, Questions, Custom HTML) after saving.
Creating Profile Questions
The ‘Required / Not Required’ dropdown now includes new options for making a field required only for external or internal use. This can be helpful if the same form is being completed by users and by external contacts, but the list of required answers would be different for the two respondents.
When using the ‘Link To Field’ feature to connect a profile answer to a database record field, you’ll now be able to create Read Only or Write Only links. Read Only fields are useful for showing the recipient the value from their record without allowing it to be changed, while Write Only fields are useful for getting updated information without revealing the old value from the record.
The optional ‘Placeholder’ option lets you put text inside of inputs and text box answers that appears prior to the user typing in their answer. This can be used for providing instructional text or labeling.
Answers for multiple-choice questions can now be dynamically loaded based on a database query rather than only a directly-entered list of options. This is accomplished by entering an SQL SELECT statement into the answer box. For assistance with this feature, contact PCRecruiter support.
Candidate Write-Ups in Candidate Presentations
The Candidate Presentations feature has a new ‘Candidate Write-Up’ section that can be added to your presentation templates. This feature lets you add a formatted custom introduction or summary about the candidate to the presentation in addition to the other fields and documents. If the Name record already has any text stored in the ‘Summary’ area, you can use the ‘Insert Candidate Summary’ button in the editing toolbar to import that text into the Write-Up to save time.
We’ve also added a CC: field to the outgoing email screen for Presentations so that other contacts, in or out of the database, can be included on the email.
Quick Find Enhancements
The Quick Find is located at the top right corner of the PCRecruiter screen. Terms entered into this box are searched against the name, email, title, company name, and phone fields on Name, Company, and Position records, making it easy to locate any of the main record types with a few keystrokes without going to the full search form.
In version 9.8.7, we’ve updated the Quick Find to return results based on similar terms to those you’ve entered. This can be helpful if you’re not exactly sure of the spelling that was used on the record or if the record you’re seeking contains a spelling error. The Quick Find will bring back additional results that would match the keyword if any two characters were changed. For example, a search for “Len Jackman” may also return “Helen Jackson”, “Ben Jacks”, and “Lenja Manfred” or names associated with the “Allen Jackman Inc.” company.
The Quick Find also has been revised to display up to 30 matching Names, Companies, and Positions for each search. You can scroll through the results with the paging arrows at the left or right sides of the row.
Email Subscription Status Icons
The PCRecruiter Opt-In/Out feature logs which email addresses should be skipped when sending a bulk email and which should be blocked from email entirely. While the list of records to be opted in/out is stored under the SYSTEM > Email Setup area, it is possible to give the users the ability to manage subscription status directly from the Name records.
The ‘Allow Users to Edit Candidate Email Subscriptions’ switch can currently be changed from the SYSTEM > Region > International Settings panel. In previous editions, this added a link below the ‘Email Address’ label on the record. As of PCRecruiter v9.8.7, the subscription status appears as an icon inside of the email field, next to the Email and Form Letter buttons. The icons are as follows:
= No Status = Opted In = Opted Out = Opted Out of Bulk Email Only
Clicking on the icon will allow the user to change that email address’s status on the opt in/out list.
PCRecruiter Webinars
We’ve announced a fresh series of bi-weekly Thursday webinars on a variety of topics including Profiles, recent updates, Contractor Features, the API, and beyond. You can sign up for these free sessions at https://learning.pcrecruiter.net/site/webinars. More sessions are expected throughout 2022.
Review PCRecruiter – Get a Gift Card!
In case you missed it, PCRecruiter was ranked the #1 ATS in customer relationship and had the highest user adoption in the recruitment marketing space according to the Fall 2021 report from G2. We want your voice to be heard when the next round reports come out, so we encourage you to post a review of PCRecruiter at this link. You’ll be eligible to receive a gift card from G2 in thanks for your thoughts.
We’ve also partnered with G2 in support of Girls Who Code. If you visit this link to submit your review, G2 will donate $10 to help close the gender gap in technology.
And if you’ve already posted a review on G2, you are welcome to review us on Capterra, SoftwareReviews, or TrustRadius! We appreciate all of the kind words and helpful feedback we read on these sites.
We’re launching a series of Thursday afternoon webinars to help you stay up to date on PCRecruiter’s latest features.
As a busy recruitment professional, we understand that staying on top of the latest changes or digging deeper into the features of your CRM/ATS can sometimes take a back seat to other business priorities.
To make sure you’re getting the most out of your software investment, our training and technical experts are offering a free series of webinars covering a variety of capabilities and integrations.
The first few sessions are listed below. Whether these tools are new to PCRecruiter, or just new to you, you’ll find these sessions informative.
Watch for an update to the PCRecruiter ASP shortly after the Thanksgiving holiday, featuring improvements to reports, profiles, and candidate presentations!
Verified First
Thursday, November 18th at 12:00 PM EST / 9:00 AM PST
Long-time PCR partner Verified First is North America’s premiere background and drug screening company. Verified First streamlines the hiring process for organizations of all sizes, helping you to easily validate and verify potential hires without leaving PCRecruiter. This ‘demo/webinar’ with Verified First’s Dakota Bruneau covers how this integration improves your time-to-hire when screening candidates, while complying with FCRA and EEOC laws.
All About Profile Forms
Thursday, December 2Â at 1:00 PM EST / 10:00 AM PST
Go in-depth on Profile Forms, PCR’s flexible, customizable, keyword-searchable forms. We’ll cover the basics and all of the latest features. A great session for Profile novices and experts alike.
Recent PCRecruiter Updates
Thursday, December 16Â at 1:00 PM EST / 10:00 AM PST
With new features and improvements being added all the time, it can be tough to keep up! This session covers recent PCRecruiter updates including automations, mapping, and more.
Contractor Features
Thursday, December 30 at 1:00 PM EST / 10:00 AM PST
Learn about how PCRecruiter facilitates your contract or contract-to-perm process. This session covers time sheet collection, including the PCR app, as well as hours approval and reporting.
Announcing two webinar/demos with PCRecruiter partner vendors: marketing automation system Interseller on Wednesday, October 27 and background screening service Verified First on Thursday, November 18.
One of the greatest strengths of PCRecruiter is its easy interoperability with other leading vendors. We are constantly adding new integrations, thanks to PCR’s easily-used Open API and our desire to be the central hub of your recruitment operation.
In the next few weeks, we invite you to join us for two free webinar/demo sessions. On October 27, we’ll be introducing our brand new partner Interseller. On November 11, we’ll be reconnecting with Verified First, a valued partner since 2017. These sessions will be recorded, so even if you can’t make it, please register to receive a recording afterward!
Interseller is a recruitment marketing automation tool. This system helps you source prospect email addresses and create email sequences to send to them. Once they’ve responded, you can instantly syncing their contact details back to your PCRecruiter database. This connection helps internal and external recruiting teams save time on searching for accurate contact information, doing manual follow ups, and updating their PCR records.
PCRecruiter’s Michael Werner will be co-hosting a webinar with Dan Mochel from Interseller to see what the platform is capable of and how it can make you a more effective recruiter.
To schedule your own private demo of Interseller, click here.
Verified First: Fast & Thorough Background Screening
PCRecruiter is offering a webinar with our long-time partner, Verified First. As North America’s premiere background and drug screening company, Verified First streamlines the hiring process for organizations of all sizes. This partnership helps you easily validate and verify potential hires without leaving PCRecruiter, and as a result you’ll improve your time-to-hire when screening candidates, while complying with FCRA and EEOC laws.
On November 18, Verified First will be hosting a “deminar” that will highlight best practices for background screening. Experts from Verified First will show you just how easy it is to screen candidates right from your PCRecruiter screen.
Key takeaways:
Learn how background screening with the right company truly does optimize the cost per hire.
Get an exclusive, behind the scenes look into the best background screening company around.
Discover how to make the best recruiting and hiring decisions â and how to avoid the bad ones.
Explore the PCRecruiter platform with an expert.
Automation, ZoomInfo, & Dialing (Update 9.8.6)
A substantial update is coming to all PCRecruiter SaaS customers this week, featuring some powerful new recruitment Automation capabilities, a time-saving new connection between PCR web and the PCR apps for iOS and Android, and strong new integration with ZoomInfo. We’ve also got an October 27 webinar planned with our new partner Interseller which you can register for today.
A substantial update is coming to all PCRecruiter SaaS customers this week, featuring some powerful new recruitment Automation capabilities, a time-saving new connection between PCR web and the PCR apps for iOS and Android, and strong new integration with ZoomInfo.
PCRecruiter has long offered productivity-enhancing automation features for Rollup Lists, Pipelines, Profiles, and the Job Board. With the features released in this update, the possibilities for recruitment workflow automation are expanded to include a new range of triggers, actions, and sequences.
With new trigger/action configuration panel now found under SYSTEM > Database Setup, any PCRecruiter admin user has the power to build endless custom behaviors with no code knowledge required.
Action triggers include common tasks like creating a new job and making a placement. You can also trigger automations when a contractor is coming off of an assignment or has not submitted their hours. You can trigger based on active applicants or passive candidates applying on your Job Board, or trigger actions based on practically any changes to fields or the entry of a new Activity.
When one of these events has occurred, PCR can automatically send a form letter, trigger a notification popup in the free PCRecruiter app (iOS / Android), or add and remove records from Rollup Lists. If you have RingCentral, PCR can send a text message for you.
You can start from any of the canned automations included or build your own from scratch to help keep your team informed and your database organized. We are looking forward to lots of creativity from our customers when putting these new recruitment automation tools to work!
We’ve partnered with ZoomInfo, the world’s most comprehensive B2B database, to allow anyone with ZoomInfo Elite or ZoomInfo Recruiter account to enhance their PCRecruiter records with the latest contact details from ZoomInfo’s constantly updating database.
You’ll find a shortcut to ZoomInfo Recruiter in the menu above the Name search, allowing you to jump directly into your ZoomInfo account to research and source contacts, and also an ‘Update with ZoomInfo’ option in the Action menu on your Name records. This will open a sidebar that will feel familiar to users of our free PCR Capture plugin. In just a couple of clicks, your PCRecruiter records can be augmented and maintained. This is an excellent way to connect to the large array of data sources that feed ZoomInfo.
We’ve created a new interaction between the PCRecruiter browser interface and the free PCRecruiter app (iOS / Android). With this new update, you’ll be able to pass outbound phone dials or text messages to your mobile device from the PCR screen. Not only does this save time, but more importantly it makes it easier and more automatic to log Activity records about your communications as you make them. Many of our customers use their mobile devices as their primary business communication channel, and this feature is designed to make that choice easier than ever!
Interseller is a marketing automation tool that can help you source prospects emails and create email sequences to send to them, syncing their contact details back to your PCRecruiter database. PCRecruiter’s Michael Werner will be co-hosting a webinar with Dan Mochel from Interseller to see what the platform is capable of and how it can make you a more effective recruiter. To schedule your own private demo of Interseller, click here.
Review PCRecruiter – Get a Gift Card!
In case you missed it, PCRecruiter was ranked the #1 ATS in customer relationship and had the highest user adoption in the recruitment marketing space according to the Fall 2021 report from G2. We want your voice to be heard when the Winter 2021 reports come out, so we encourage you to post a review of PCRecruiter at this link. You’ll be eligible to receive a gift card from G2 in thanks for your thoughts.
We’ve also partnered with G2 in support of Girls Who Code. If you visit this link to submit your review, G2 will donate $10 to help close the gender gap in technology.
And if you’ve already posted a review on G2, you are welcome to review us on Capterra, SoftwareReviews, or TrustRadius! We appreciate all of the kind words and helpful feedback we read on these sites.
G2, the largest software marketplace and review platform, has published its Fall 2021 report. PCRecruiter was ranked #1 in Customer Relationship and a Leader in multiple categories. G2 publishes these quarterly reports ranking applicant tracking software, staffing software, and recruiting agency software based on data from multiple sources.
G2, the largest software marketplace and review platform, publishes quarterly reports that rank applicant tracking software, staffing software, and recruiting agency software. These reports are based on multiple data sources, including perceived market presence, satisfaction scores from independent user reviews, and indicators of market leadership.
With G2’s newest detailed breakdowns just released for Fall 2021, PCRecruiter has once again been revealed as one of the recruitment software industry’s top options for recruiting and staffing professionals in organizations of all sizes.
PCRecruiter is #1 ATS in Customer Relationship
The Fall 2021 reports indicate that, for businesses from 1-50 employees, PCRecruiter is a Leader among Staffing and ATS solutions. In fact, PCRecruiter is the #1 ranked Applicant Tracking System in this market in regards to quality of support, ease of doing business with, and likeliness to recommend.
Even among larger companies (51-1k employees), PCRecruiter ranked in the Top 10 easiest vendors to do business with. We know we go the extra mile to make our customers happy and successful, but it’s always nice to see it supported by the data!
PCR is Leading The Way
PCRecruiter received high marks across the industry, ranking as a Leader among Candidate Relationship Management and Applicant Tracking vendors, and as a High Performer in both the Staffing and Recruitment Marketing categories for businesses of all sizes.
In the Recruitment Marketing category, PCRecruiter earned the Highest User Adoption badge. This is perhaps one of the most important metrics we’re proud of â after all, even the greatest features and highest quality data can’t be of any value if your team isn’t using the software. The time and personal attention we put into getting new customers up to speed, and the system’s incredible configurability have put it at the top of the category in G2’s Implementation Index.
We want your voice to be heard!
We appreciate the kind words and accolades from our users that went into these rankings. If you’d like to have your opinion counted in the Winter 2021 report from G2, we encourage you to post a review of PCRecruiter at this link. Not only will this help people learn about PCRecruiter, but you’ll also be eligible for a gift card from G2 in thanks.
We have released a patch on our SaaS PCRecruiter network which includes a necessary update to our PCRecruiter Launcher. The Launcher is a small desktop app that allows PCRecruiter to connect with your computer’s local OS for interactions like alarm popups, attachment handling, and so on. When you log into PCRecruiter you should be prompted to install the latest version.
We have released a patch on our SaaS PCRecruiter network which includes a necessary update to our PCRecruiter Launcher. The Launcher is a small desktop app that allows PCRecruiter to connect with your computer’s local OS for interactions like alarm popups, attachment handling, and so on.
Click “Yes” to begin the PCRecruiter Launcher Setup.
Click “Next” to begin the installation.
Check the “I accept” box and click “Next”.
Click “Install” to proceed.
Choose the “Typical” installation option.
You may see a message like this. If so, select “Yes”.
After the installer has completed, which should take only a moment or two, click “Finish”
Following this installation, you may continue to use PCRecruiter as usual.
PCRecruiter + Zapier plus 2FA
PCRecruiter is now connected with the Zapier integration platform, enabling connections with hundreds of third-party apps. In addition, PCRecruiter is also introducing optional 2FA login security.
PCRecruiter + Zapier
We are thrilled to announce PCRecruiter’s integration with Zapier, the leading Integration Platform (IPaaS). Integrating with Zapier means that recruiting and staffing professionals can seamlessly automate tasks and customize workflows between PCRecruiter and other systems without the need for deep technical knowledge or custom code development. This integration allows users to create links between PCRecruiter and the thousands of applications in the Zapier catalog with just a few clicks.
With the Zapier integration, you’ll be able to:
Trigger actions in another app when a new Placement is made.
Trigger actions in another app when a Name or Position is added to a particular Rollup list.
Signal PCRecruiter to create a Name, Company, or Position when triggered by another app.
Signal PCRecruiter to update a Name when triggered by another app.
Signal PCRecruiter to write a Name or Position activity when triggered by another app.
With the Zapier integration enabled, you’ll be able to do things like copy Names to Google Sheets, turn Placements into Monday items, or post job info to your social networks – there are virtually endless possibilities.
Adding a second layer of security to your private recruitment database can give you peace of mind. To that end, we now offer two-factor authentication in our SaaS platform, the PCRecruiter mobile app, PCRecruiter for Outlook, and PCRecruiter for Gmail. Once this feature has been configured for any login, the user will be prompted to supply a numeric code after entering their username and password. The code can be received via their registered email, a push notification to the PCRecruiter mobile app, or via a compatible Authenticator App such as those by Google and LastPass.
Thanks to reviewers like you, PCRecruiter continues be ranked as one of the top recruiting software, recruitment CRM, and ATS solutions on the market. The Summer 2021 reports from G2 have PCRecruiter once again in the ‘Leader’ quadrant and showing some of the highest customer satisfaction ratings in the industry. We appreciate your kudos and we look forward to continuing to satisfy your needs.
If you’d like to have your voice included, and get rewarded with a gift card for your time, you may do so at Software Reviews, G2, and Capterra.
Notes & Analytics Updates (Update 9.8.5)
PCRecruiter 9.8.5 includes workflow enhancements in the Notes area and new charts for PCR Analytics, as well as a ‘Last Modified’ field for Company and Position records.
The latest update to PCRecruiter arrives on our SaaS recruitment platform this week, with user-requested adjustments to the Notes area, fresh charts in the PCR Analytics, and an additional field for Positions and Companies. In addition to the visible changes to PCRecruiter, extensive platform and API changes to support upcoming interface and automation improvements are included with this update.
Notes Updates
In our April 2021 update we revealed a new Notes Widget with a grid view, bookmarking feature, and keyword search. With valuable feedback from our users, we’ve further refined this interface with:
The ‘Add Note’ panel is now collapsed by default to allow more viewing area.
Once expanded, the Add panel can be resized by dragging the edge to create more entry space. The width you set will be remembered even after the panel is collapsed and re-opened later.
A new Expand All button allows all Notes boxes on the record to be viewed at their full-length in a single click. The Collapse button does the reverse.
Editing notes is now accomplished by simply clicking on the note. When you click outside of that note it will automatically save.
A right-click menu gives you quick access to Delete and Copy functions.
Analytics Details & Drill-Downs
The PCR Analytics, our optional graphic tool for analyzing and reporting on KPIs and other metrics, has been updated with a new ‘Detailed Goals’ chart with a breakdown of data by user. There is also a new drill-down available for the Key Metrics and Metrics sections that displays the individual records that make up your reported stats. The records associated with these items can be easily added to a Rollup List for further reporting, searching, emailing, and organizing.
Last Modified Field
Although Name records have long had a ‘Last Modified’ field, showing the date when the record had last been re-saved, this field was not available for Company and Position records. This update adds the same functionality to the other two primary record types.
Review PCRecruiter â Get a Gift Card
Thanks to reviewers like you, PCRecruiter continues be ranked as one of the top recruiting software, recruitment CRM, and ATS solutions on the market. The Summer 2021 reports from G2 have PCRecruiter once again in the ‘Leader’ quadrant and showing some of the highest customer satisfaction ratings in the industry. We appreciate your kudos and we look forward to continuing to satisfy your needs.
If you’d like to have your voice included, and get rewarded with a gift card for your time, you may do so at Software Reviews, G2, and Capterra.
Enhanced Notes & Maps (Update 9.8.4)
In our latest update, we’ve added a new feature for placing candidate addresses on an interactive map, as well as completely redesigned the Notes screen for Name, Company, and Position records.
PCRecruiter will be updated this Wednesday to version 9.8.4, which contains a brand new Map feature as well as a major redesign to our Notes screen and widget. These updates are a precursor to some very exciting new improvements you’ll be seeing in PCRecruiter over the next few months. Keep your eyes out for the quick guide popups when you log into the system for the latest info, and watch our blog and social networks for posts like this one.
Contact Mapping
A new ‘Map Results’ icon has been added to the Name Search Results screen. After selecting one or more contacts returned by any name search, clicking this icon will plot their home addresses on an interactive map. This can be very useful for those who do contract recruiting and want to easily identify candidates located near the job site.
Clicking on any pin in the map displays the record’s contact card for access to the resume, email, phone, and other interactions.
Although this feature is offered at no additional cost, it may require an update to your database to activate and is therefore currently ‘off’ by default for current clients. If you would like to have the Map function enabled on your database, contact your PCRecruiter consultant.
Note: The Maps are currently US only, but will be expanding to international clients in an upcoming release.
Notes Redesigned
Notes are keyword-searchable candidate, client, or position information that doesn’t correspond to an event with a particular date or time (those would be Activities.) This update includes a major improvement to the way you’ll enter and view Notes that offers better visibility and organization. The new interface also saves time by putting the ability to edit Notes directly into the primary record view rather than only via the full Notes panel.
The new Notes Widget includes an open area for entering and editing Notes on the left, and individual boxes for each exist Note to the right. Your notes are viewable in a grid or list layout, depending on your screen space needs. The notes are sorted by date, but you can bookmark your key information to keep it always at the top of the list. There’s even a keyword search box for quickly finding the notes you’re after in any record.
This change in the Notes screen applies to both the widget in your custom record layout and the full Notes panel on your records. In addition, this new change has been extended to Notes on your Company and Position records, creating a consistent experience across all three record types.
Review PCRecruiter â Get a Gift Card
Thanks to reviewers like you, PCRecruiter continues be ranked as one of the top recruiting software, recruitment CRM, and ATS solutions on the market. The Spring 2021 reports from G2 have PCRecruiter once again in the ‘Leader’ quadrant and showing some of the highest customer satisfaction ratings in the industry. We appreciate your kudos and we look forward to continuing to satisfy your needs.
If you’d like to have your voice included, and get rewarded with a gift card for your time, you may do so at Software Reviews, G2, and Capterra.
Happy Holidays & Happy New Year from PCRecruiter
Happy Holidays and New Year from PCRecruiter! This message goes out from us to you, with our best wishes for a successful 2021.
We are grateful for your friendship and partnership throughout what has been, to say the least, an unusual year. Despite the challenges of 2020, the PCRecruiter team has remained steadfast in our commitment to our clients and uninterrupted in our efforts to bring you higher value.
Consequently, PCRecruiter has continued to rank as a leader on recruiting software recommendation and review sites like G2, Capterra, and SoftwareReviews. We deeply appreciate it.
In addition to making PCRecruiter a more reliable and flexible recruitment CRM than ever through enhanced design, development, and delivery, we also made it easier than ever to master with the launch of our Learning Management System.
2021 is already shaping up to be a landmark year for PCR, featuring some of the most exciting improvements and advanced functionality we’ve ever released. You’ll be seeing bold new interfaces, powerful new integrations, and continued enhancement of the key features you rely on.
To the PCRecruiter community around the globe, we extend our best wishes for a bright, healthy, and successful new year filled with peace, strength, and abundant prosperity!
Sincerely,
The PCRecruiter Team
Mobile Timesheets
PCRecruiter’s newly updated mobile app adds contractor hours submission features for standardized, comprehensive, accurate records of your contractors’ time and expenses while on the job.
Collecting Contractor Hours Just Got Easier
Version 2.0 of the PCRecruiter app for iOS and Android is out this week. In addition to giving recruiters convenient mobile access to contacts and positions, the new version adds brand new time tracking tools for contractors, giving you standardized, comprehensive, accurate records of your contractors’ time spent on the job.
With the new version, your contract placements get a secure and simple way to clock in and clock out, including logging their breaks and tracking their expenses with integrated receipt scanning. Convenient push notifications in the app let you send a nudge to those contractors who need a reminder to submit their hours, and location services integration helps you verify their workplaces.
More Time Making Placements; Less Time Chasing Timesheets
The PCRecruiter app helps you not only collect more accurate and prompt timesheet data from the contractors you place, but it also makes it easier to approve and report on those submitted work hours without worrying about lost or late submissions.
As always, PCRecruiter users can check the status of timesheets for contractors currently on assignment. You’ll know whose timesheets have been submitted, whose are ready for approval, and which ones have been approved. You can also remind contractors and managers of hours that need to be approved via templated emails or text messages. After approval, PCRecruiter’s exports to PayChex, QuickBooks, or Excel make invoicing easier.
With these new updates, PCRecruiter helps you spend less time and effort on managing timesheets while offering your contractors a convenient, easily understood way to submit their hours. Talk to one of our consultants about version 2.0 of our mobile app and all of our contractor timesheet features today.
Review PCRecruiter â Get a $25 Amazon Gift Card
Thank you to those who have already submitted their reviews of PCRecruiter at G2! They have very few gift cards left to share with verified reviewers, so please post your review of PCRecruiter at this link soon.
Thanks to reviewers like you, PCRecruiter was listed in the Leader segments for the Staffing and Applicant Tracking Software market spaces and as a Momentum Leader in the CRM space and High Performer in CRM and ATS spaces on G2’s Fall report. We look forward to seeing your opinions counted in the next round of reports from G2 this winter.
To make sure you’re getting the most out of PCRecruiter, our training and technical experts are offering a new series of free webinars in November.
The PCRecruiter team wants to help you build more productive relationships with your clients and MPCs (Most Placeable Candidates) while effectively tracking performance for your team. To make sure you’re getting the most out of PCRecruiter, our training and technical experts are following up the release of our new Learning Management System with a new series of free webinars.
The PCRecruiter Tutors series will cover helpful topics and new developments that can make you a more successful recruitment, staffing, or HR professional.
As always, personal training sessions with our team can be scheduled by emailing support@mainsequence.net
Upcoming Sessions
ALL SESSIONS on TUESDAYS at 1:00 PM Eastern Recordings of all sessions will be available to all registrants.
Learn about all that the PCRecruiter add-on for G Suite has to offer. If you’re a Gmail user and haven’t taken advantage of this free utility yet, this session is for you!
Learn about the most powerful tool for submitting Candidates to Clients. We will dive into the available settings as well as the easy sending process for users. We will then take a look at it from the Client side, how the Resume will look to them, and how they can easily submit feedback.
This webinar will focus on configuring the PCRecruiter Analytics and viewing them. Please note that the Analytics is an add-on feature which may not be available on your particular account. The Analytics are highly configurable and dependent on your specific use of Activities and Pipeline records.
Join the team to learn the most effective ways to clean up your PCRecruiter database and rid yourself of old or incomplete data. We will discuss merging duplicates, running an inactive candidate report and more!
Attend this PCRecruiter webinar to master working with Rollup Lists. We will cover setting up and using Rollup Stages, Quick Comments, Ranking, Planning and more!
Activities, Scheduling, and Tracking User Activity
Bulk Emailing and Email Campaigns
Customizing Layouts and Copying Settings
Importing Spreadsheets
PCR Capture
Reporting
Searching and Creating Rollup Lists
Setting Up and Using RingCentral
Using the Pipeline
Using the PCR Portal for MS Outlook
Working with Resumes
The PCRecruiter LMS
The award-winning PCRecruiter service team announces a new addition to our portfolio of training services and resources: The PCRecruiter Learning Management System. The PCRecruiter LMS will connect our users with the educational tools they need to get the best results out of the system. Now available to all users.
The award-winning PCRecruiter service team is always ready to help customers meet their goals in recruiting and staffing. Recognizing that even the most well-honed tools require well-honed skills, this week we’re excited to add a brand new element to our portfolio of training services and resources: The PCRecruiter Learning Management System.
The PCRecruiter LMS connects our users with the educational tools they need to get the best results out of the system and helps managers achieve learning goals for their teams. The courses offered in the LMS will help you advance your skills and your career through more effective understanding and use of PCRecruiter.
The LMS platform covers basic, advanced, and admin-level skills.
The growing list of topics range from “new user” fundamentals to more advanced courses in searching, reporting, and database management.
Most lessons include instructional videos and interactive step-by-step tutorials that let the user walk through the procedures as they learn.
Courses include regular checkpoints and conclude with short assessments to help measure mastery of the material.
Passing assessments leads to digital certificates that recognize achievements along the way.
The PCRecruiter LMS is now available to all current users at no added charge! Watch your inbox for an invitation email in the coming week. Our support team will be adding new courses and updating existing ones continually, and we also plan to offer a webinar on using the LMS in the near future.
We hope the PCRecruiter LMS will become a regular part of your team’s professional development and that it will contribute to your continued success.
The new Fall reports from G2 are out, and PCRecruiter continues to stand proudly in the Leader segments for the Staffing and Applicant Tracking Software market spaces, particularly when it comes to companies with 50 or fewer employees. PCRecruiter also ranked as a Momentum Leader in the CRM space and High Performer in CRM and ATS spaces. These rankings are based entirely on independent reviews from recruiting and staffing professionals like you, and we deeply appreciate your comments and feedback.
We want to see your opinion counted in the next round of reports from G2 this winter. We encourage you to post your review of PCRecruiter at this link. G2 is offering a limited number of $25 Amazon gift cards for verified reviews from our users, so we suggest you post yours soon!
PCRecruiter is pleased to announce “The Recovery is ON! Here’s What to Do NOW!” –Â a free webinar from Mike Gionta of The Recruiter U. This event will take place via Zoom on Wednesday, October 7 @ 12:00 PM Eastern. Reserve your space now to hear about taking advantage of a re-opening economy.
PCRecruiter is pleased to announce The Recovery is ON! Here’s What to Do NOW! – a free webinar from our partner The Recruiter U. This event will take place via Zoom on Wednesday, October 7 @ 12:00 PM Eastern. Reserve your space in advance.
Are you positioned for the recovery?
Mike Gionta, Founder of The Recruiter U
The Recruiter U has been measuring effort and results with over fifty clients for nearly five months. They’re confident that the recovery is well underway, based on predictive indicators that are all positive. Curious about what those key metrics are? Learn about them in this complimentary webinar presented by Mike Gionta, founder of The Recruiter U, and sponsored by PCRecruiter.
Mike has been in the trenches with clients the past few weeks and knows what is working. The Recruiter U’s clients are getting retainers, making placements and even hiring new recruiters right now. Why? They’re seeing results and preparing for “the bounce!”
âWe are clear on what a path out looks like for recruiters,â says Mike. “Our coaching team has been through a combined eight recessions in this industry and, yes, this one is different… actually they are all different! Getting out follows similar actions.”
In this complimentary training he’ll share:
A 90-day Path Forward to be positioned to thrive as the virus continues to subside.
3 Specific Strategies you can you use to get business now.
What you can do now to take advantage as we re-open the economy.
How to Manage & Motivate your recruiting team.
Planning Strategies for a historic 2021.
Take some time out of your afternoon on October 7 at 12:00 Eastern for this informative session.
Get $10 – Review PCRecruiter before October
SourceForge wants to hear what you think of PCRecruiter. They are offering a $10 gift card to the first ten users who submit a review of PCRecruiter by October! Use this link to submit your brief review of PCRecruiter before the month ends. We appreciate you telling the world about PCR!
Jobs on Facebook is a great way for businesses to attract qualified talent where they’re already spending their time â on Facebook and on mobile. We are pleased to announce a new time-saving option for posting to Jobs on Facebook directly from PCRecruiter. The Jobs on Facebook integration is offered at no additional cost.
Increase Visibility for your Jobs
Jobs on Facebook is a great way for businesses to attract qualified talent where they’re already spending their time â on Facebook and on mobile. We are pleased to announce a new time-saving option for posting to Jobs on Facebook directly from PCRecruiter. The Jobs on Facebook integration is offered at no additional cost.
When posted, Jobs may appear in multiple places on Facebook, including your business’ Company Page, via Notifications, in Groups, in Marketplace, and the News Feed. The job will also be visible in Facebook’s site-wide job search engine at FB.com/jobs.
Applicants Direct to PCRecruiter
When a jobseeker clicks on the Apply Now button, a form opens that pre-populates the candidate’s information for a fast and simple apply experience. The application may contain the job history and other existing information available in the candidate’s Facebook profile, which they can edit prior to submission.
Applicants from Jobs on Facebook are added to your PCRecruiter database as new Name records in your Default Company and are automatically linked to the Pipeline for the job(s) they’ve applied to.
Any employment or education entries shared in the applicant’s Facebook application will be added to the History section of their Name record, and a resume document will be generated from their contact information and history details.
All names generated via Jobs on Facebook will be populated with “Facebook” in the EEO Source and Referrer fields.
To get started posting your jobs to Facebook, read these instructions or contact your PCRecruiter representative.
Review PCRecruiter, Get a $20 Gift Card
We have so many more new features to reveal in the coming months! If updates like these are helping you be more successful, please take a minute to share your opinion with G2 or Capterra. Both of these sites are offering gift card incentives for your review right now, but it’s is a first-come-first-serve limited offer so please write yours soon!
Announcing PCRecruiter for Gmail
Announcing PCRecruiter for Gmail, which joins PCRecruiter for Outlook in the arsenal of tools to help you access and enter data more quickly and accurately. Whether youâre a solo recruiter or part of a team, youâll work more effectively without wasting a second on switching screens or running searches. Youâll create contacts more quickly, without errors or duplications, and be ready to respond more promptly to any email you receive.
We know how important it is for executive search and placement professionals to maintain efficient communication and record keeping. This week we’re giving you a new way to combine the most versatile staffing and recruitment software on the market with your inbox.
Announcing PCRecruiter for Gmail, which joins PCRecruiter for Outlook in the arsenal of tools to help you access and enter data more quickly and accurately.
Whether youâre a solo recruiter or part of a team, youâll work more effectively without wasting a second on switching screens or running searches. Youâll create contacts more quickly, without errors or duplications, and be ready to respond more promptly to any email you receive.
Making Gmail a robust recruitment CRM
With PCRecruiter for Gmail, you’ll be able to:
Automatically see contact details, activities, notes, and attachments for your email correspondents along side their email.
Create new records to your database, quickly parsing contact info from the resume header or email signature.
Update existing records with a fresh resume or contact info.
PCRecruiter for Gmail makes it easy to take action, whether you need to enhance information, import an attachment, add contacts to lists for an email campaign, or pipelining candidates for trackable presentation and feedback from your clients.
We hope you are as excited about this new Gmail integration as we are! We have so many more new features to reveal in the coming months! If updates like these are helping you be more successful, please take a minute to share your opinion with G2 or Capterra. Both of these sites are offering gift card incentives for your review right now, but it’s is a first-come-first-serve limited offer so please write yours soon!
G2, the largest software marketplace and review platform, has published its Summer 2020 report. Once again, PCRecruiter received high marks. G2 publishes these quarterly reports ranking applicant tracking software, staffing software, and recruiting agency software based on data from multiple sources.
G2, the largest software marketplace and review platform, has published its Summer 2020 report. Once again, PCRecruiter received high marks.
G2 publishes these quarterly reports ranking applicant tracking software, staffing software, and recruiting agency software based on data from multiple sources. They use factors such as perceived market presence, satisfaction scores from independent user reviews, and indicators of market leadership to create detailed breakdowns.
PCRecruiter is a Leader & High Performer
The Summer 2020 reports show PCRecruiter as a Leader among ATS options in both the overall and small-business (50 or fewer employees) categories. Leaders have both high ratings on G2 as well as a substantial market presence score.
PCRecruiter was also ranked a High Performer in the overall and small-business Staffing categories. This is based on our high customer satisfaction scores, which remain consistently high. We ranked particularly well in areas of customer support and ease of doing business with. In fact, PCRecruiter was ranked top-of-the-list for Easiest to Do Business With among all Staffing vendors for mid-market (51 – 1k employees) companies.
Add Your Opinions
We appreciate the kind words and accolades from our users that went into these rankings. If you’d like to have your opinion counted in the Fall 2020 report from G2, we encourage you to post a review of PCRecruiter at this link. Not only will this help people learn about PCRecruiter, we’ve partnered with G2 Gives to donate $10 on your behalf to Direct Relief. This highly-regarded non-profit provides humanitarian aid to people affected by poverty or emergencies.
PCRecruiter update v.9.7.38, released today on our hosting servers, includes new time-saving functions such as improved email notification options for our Candidate Presentations, an Export option for Auditing Metrics, and auto-copying of the street address from company records to the new jobs you create for them. Also in this blog post, find out how you can get a gift card or support a charity just by reviewing PCRecruiter.
Today we’ve released PCRecruiter 9.7.38 on our hosting servers. This update resolves a variety of customer-reported issues and also contains a few new enhancements. Here are the changes you’ll find in this version:
Candidate Presentation Notifications
When you’re setting up a new template for Candidate Presentations, you’ll now have the ability to designate conditional email contacts for the notifications, including:
The email address of the user sending the presentation.
The email address of the user (if any) who is associated with the candidate being presented.
The email address of the user who owns the relevant position (if any).
In previous versions of PCRecruiter, any email addresses to be notified were explicitly entered as part of the template setup and did not change based on the parties involved in the individual presentation. If you’d like more information about using this feature to present candidates to your clients and hiring authorities, contact one of our support representatives.
Export Auditing Metrics
The Metrics report, which is found under Reports > Auditing, can now be exported as a CSV file for sharing or further analysis in Excel. This report allows administrators to view a count of Activities completed per User in the selected date range. More advanced metrics analysis tools for individual recruiters or recruitment teams are available via our PCRecruiter Analytics feature.
Address Copies into Position from Company
When a user adds a new position to any company or organization in PCRecruiter, the city, state/province, postal code, and country are automatically copied from that company into the job record. Starting with PCRecruiter 9.7.38, the street address (Address 1, Address 2 fields) will also be copied. These fields will be filled in even if they are not visible on your position record layout. If you’d like to add them to your screen, you can customize your position record layout.
Share your opinion, get a reward!
The Spring reports from G2 (the worldâs largest tech marketplace) have come out, and based on your reviews PCRecruiter proudly stands as a Leader among Staffing software options for small businesses and as a High Performer for the overall Staffing category. We’re also were placed in the Leader group in the Candidate Relationship Management category based on our high level of user-adoption, and as a Leader among ATS packages. We sincerely appreciate your praise and we look forward to sharing some exciting new features with you in the coming weeks.
Independent review websites like G2 want to know what you think of PCRecruiter and some of them are offering limited-time incentives for your opinions.
Software Suggest is also offering a $10 gift card for reviews submitted to their website via this link.
Our partnership G2 Gives continues on! G2 is donating $10 on your behalf to our selected charity, Direct Relief, a highly-regarded non-profit that provides humanitarian aid to people affected by poverty or emergencies. All you need to do is post a review of PCRecruiter at this link to help us reach our $1k goal.
PCRecruiter’s latest update includes two brand new color themes, an option for larger fonts, plus time-saving improvements to our Candidate Presentations and automation plan features.
Our development team is working diligently on a number of projects, and in the PCRecruiter update released this morning we’ve added some new features and made improvements both on the face of the software and behind the scenes. Here’s what you’ll find…
Candidate Presentations
Our Candidate Presentations feature, which you’ll find in the overview video above, allows you to send convenient, branded candidate data packages to hiring authorities. Not only do these Presentations help you communicate more efficiently, but with instant email notifications when your client has opened a Presentation or given Feedback, you’ll always be ready to reach out the moment you’re needed.
This update includes several workflow enhancements requested by our Candidate Presentations users, making it an even faster way to get feedback from your hiring authorities. As always, we invite your suggestions on this and other areas of PCRecruiter in our Ideas & Requests forum.
The Feedback box can now be moved, minimized, and re-sized so that recipients can more easily reference resumes and other presented data while entering their feedback.
When a Candidate Presentation contains multiple candidates, the recipient’s name and email will be retained across all Feedback boxes once it’s been entered, saving data entry time.
The Star Rating feature can be made optional or hidden entirely when a Presentation is being sent.
A new toggle has been added to the menu of candidate names when sending a Presentation which allows the user to Show or Hide the names in the list.
Candidate Presentations are now auto-labeled with the first and Last name of the candidate and a ### placeholder. The ### will be converted to a sequential number when the Presentation is sent, simplifying the process of sending of Presentations while making it easy to tell them apart within a single candidate record.
The Theme selection dropdown now displays the Primary and Secondary colors of the Presentation Themes for easier identification.
The ‘Action’ button on Presentation lists now includes options to review the sent email and to delete the Presentation entirely.
The Candidate Presentation creation and editing screens have been updated to match the users’ currently selected PCRecruiter Theme.
A ‘Preview’ button has been added to the Template editing screen, making it possible to preview changes using placeholder data.
Themes Updates
We’ve added two new brand Theme options to the ‘Change My Theme’ panel, accessible from the small gear icon at the top right corner of your PCRecruiter screen. The new Light Blue theme offers a bright alternative to our default Light Mode, while the Victoria theme brings lavender and mauve into the mix just in time for Spring.
In addition, this panel now contains a Default Font Size / Large Font Size dropdown menu, which increases the type size for any of the selected themes.
Automation Plan Scheduled Actions
PCRecruiter’s Automation Plans are a time-saving way to trigger emails, write Activities, add records to Rollup Lists and perform other tasks based on movements in the Pipeline, changes in Rollup Stage, Job Board applications, and Profile completions. In our latest update, a new Scheduled Action option appears on each item. This new feature makes Automations more flexible and useful than ever.
By default, checked tasks are performed immediately when the trigger occurs. With Scheduled Actions you may now add a delay into the process. For example, if you often sorting through candidates on Friday afternoons you may want to defer the associated automated emails until the next Monday, or you may wish to trigger a Status change after 7 days from a particular event.
The options include Number of Days (wait X days before running the automation), Day of the Week (run the automation on the next occurring Tuesday), and Hour of Day (run the automation at next 8 AM). You may combine these for more complex selections, such as “wait five days and then send this email at 7:00 AM on the soonest Monday.”
Merging Placed Candidates
One other minor change you may encounter is in the Merge screen. On occasion, a candidate that is already in your database as a Placed record may get re-added to the database with a new resume or email address via the Job Board or an import. If you attempt to merge a duplicate Name record that has a Placement with a non-placed record, you’ll see a new checkbox: “Retain Company Association and Status value from non-master record.” This checkbox allows you to keep all of the data from the newly added record as the ‘Master,’ without losing the older record’s connection to the Company or its ‘Placed’ value in the Status field.
Review PCRecruiter and Support Direct Relief
We have partnered with G2 Gives, who will be donating $10 on your behalf to our selected charity, Direct Relief. All you need to do is post a review of PCRecruiter at this link. It costs you nothing but a moment or two of your day.
Direct Relief is a venerable US-based non-profit that provides humanitarian aid in all 50 states and more than 80 countries for people affected by poverty or emergencies. They do so without regard to politics, religion, or ability to pay, and they get exceedingly high marks for how efficiently they use donations and how transparent their organization is.
By reviewing PCR at the provided link, you’ll not only help people researching recruiting and staffing software find out about more about PCR, but you’ll help us reach our $1000 donation goal. That money will go to Direct Relief’s services for outbreaks, disasters, and emergencies, plus support for community health and medicine around the world.
We hope you’ll help us in supporting this critically needed organization as we all look forward to better days ahead.
In addition to G2 Gives, we always appreciate receiving your reviews on Capterra.
Join us for a series of complimentary Tuesday/Thursday webinars at 1 PM EDT. Now is the time to sharpen your PCRecruiter skills!
As any craftsman knows, it’s important to keep your skills as sharp as your tools. Sharpen your PCRecruiter skills with these complimentary half-hour sessions!
Our training and technical experts will cover popular topics so you can build relationships with your clients and MPCs (Most Placeable Candidates) more efficiently and track performance more effectively.
As always, personal training sessions with our team can be scheduled by emailing support@mainsequence.net
PCRecruiter Tutors Sessions
You missed the live sessions, but a recording can be viewed in our Learning Center via the links below!
A bold re-imagining of the PCRecruiter UI begins with this week’s update. The refreshed styling, alternate color themes, and nav enhancements are just the beginning of a faster, more efficient, modernized PCR.
This week’s update, releasing on Wednesday, brings design revisions to PCRecruiter that improve the look, feel, and function of the system. The interface modernization you’ll find in this update is merely the first step toward a completely revised PCRecruiter UI that will be rolled out through 2020.
New Styling
Youâll see new styling that helps put the focus on your data, with clearer headings, new color highlights, revised MyPCR graphics, and fewer icons.
Weâve also taken the existing Name, Company, and Position highlight colors and extended them into Rollups, Search Results, and navigation menus. These highlights help users make more focused clicks and ease learning of the system.
Nav Improvements
The new update includes a new option to snap your Action menus to the left or right of the screen, reducing âmouse travelâ and making your navigation more efficient. Weâve also clarified the top/bottom frame-scaling controls, making it easier to adjust the window heights to your needs on the fly.
Color Themes
By popular demand, this release also includes user-selectable color themes. The initial round of themes include Dark Mode, Grey, and Ocean Blue, plus an alternate ‘Condensed’ Dark Mode that uses a narrower font for maximizing space on smaller screens.
More light and dark color palettes are in development and scheduled for release later this year.
We look forward to sharing even bigger changes with you! Watch for future announcement banners when you log into PCRecruiter and follow us on our social networks linked below. As always, we want to hear our users’ ideas on future updates to PCRecruiter, so please visit the Ideas and Requests Forum in our helpdesk to comment or to upvote the ideas that you like best.
Reminder: Webinar with Verified First on April 8
PCRecruiter is proud to partner with a variety of top-tier vendors, including LogicMelon, Resume Library, SenseHQ, and more. One of our long-time partners, Verified First, will be hosting a webinar on February 18 at 11 Eastern to show how their background and drug screening system works with PCR. We invite you to sign up for this informative session at https://verifiedfirst.com/2020webinar-pcrecruiter/
Review PCR and get a $10 gift card.
Get a $10 gift card for sharing your review of PCRecruiter with Capterra! Click here to get started. Limited to the first 100 reviews only!
Verified First, a provider of custom background and drug screening solutions, will host a webinar about its partnership with PCRecruiter on Feb. 18, 2020 at 11 EST. Details at verifiedfirst.com/2020webinar-pcrecruiter/
PCRecruiter’s ongoing partnership with Verified First, the premier background and drug screening company in North America, streamlines the hiring process for organizations of all sizes with the ability to validate and verify potential hires right from PCRecruiter. The interface is intuitive and designed to encourage users to comply with FCRA and EEOC laws that govern background screenings, significantly improving time-to-hire when screening candidates.
On April 8 at 11 AM ET, Verified First will be hosting a webinar to highlight best practices for background screening and to show exactly how easy it is to screen candidates.
Join this webinar to learn about:
Why your organization needs to run background checks
What can happen when background checks arenât properly run
How the partnership saves time, requires less paperwork, and simplifies the process
At our annual holiday gathering, each of us painted our own version of the same snowy night scene. The result was a series of paintings as unique as each of our clientsâŠ
There are two kinds of people: those who like to read and those for whom this very sentence is TL;DR*
PCRecruiter strives to work for all types, so we offer our New Year greeting to you in two ways:
If you don’t like to readâŠ
The PCRecruiter team wishes you prosperity in 2020. We had a good year, and we expect next year to be even better. We are grateful for your choice of PCRecruiter, and we are continually working to bring you higher value. If you stop reading now, you will miss nothing but details.
and now the wordy versionâŠ
At our company’s annual holiday gathering, each of us painted our own version of the same snowy night scene. The resulting works of art are featured in the video above.
PCRecruiter’s customer base includes a sizable number of elite salespeople, and they tend to thrive in any economy or market. From the search business, to staffing, to HR and NGO, people who must close deals to secure talent have relied on PCRecruiter for years. We are looking forward to supporting many more closed deals in 2020.
In 2019, the PCRecruiter team improved across the board in design, development, delivery, and servicing capabilities. Consequently, the current version of PCRecruiter is the best, most reliable software in our history.
We also released major updates to our Job Board this year. PCRecruiter job advertising and distribution features serve tens of thousands of job openings to a growing list of websites and partners, and this activity can now be integrated with PCR Analytics via Google.
The Ideas & Requests forum on our support portal was productive in 2019, leading to improvements for attachments and preferences, plus new filtering and search tools in the Recycle Bin.
We also worked on partnerships with third-party vendors, including our integration with the Sense communication platform and several major job boards. We carefully monitor all channels for customer suggestions and ideas to improve PCRecruiter.
This year we updated our coding infrastructure and development practices to support the latest frameworks. This will allow us to deliver extensive new functionality and to re-imagine the most widely used PCRecruiter screens in 2020.
Online review sites have become critical to buyer behavior, and PCRecruiter is among the most highly rated offerings on software recommendation and review sites. Your public comments help support our ability to serve you better and for longer. We certainly appreciate every one of your reviews and encourage you to write one on G2 or Capterra if you have not done so.
To the PCRecruiter community around the globe, we extend our best wishes for a new year filled with peace, strength, and abundant prosperity!
* TL;DR = “too long, didn’t read”
G2, the world’s leading B2B software and services review platform, has released their Fall 2019 quarterly reports. These reports are based on independent reviews from users in the staffing and recruiting industry. PCRecruiter has once again received high marks and is ranked in leadership positions on G2’s Grid reports.
PCRecruiter ranked in the Top Ten for multiple factors on both the Staffing and ATS Categories. In particular, we ranked well above the industry averages for customer service, ease of doing business, implementation speed, and more.
Small staffing businesses ranked PCRecruiter as one of the Top Three vendors in regards to customer relations, and PCR was given a Top Five slot for implementation and user adoption in the Candidate Relationship Management category.
Overall, PCRecruiter placed as a High Performer and Leader in both the Small-Business Staffing and ATS grids, as a Leader in the Staffing grid, as a High Performer in the ATS grid, and was ranked Highest User Adoption among Small-Business ATS vendors.
We are honored to serve our users and we extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone for their thoughtful reviews!
Version 9.7.33 adds Recycle Bin filtering and searching – a new capability suggested by PCRecruiter users in our Ideas & Requests forum. Also, RingCentral users must re-authenticate. Details in the blog post.
The development team has released a minor update to PCRecruiter this morning. With version 9.7.33 comes a new capability that was suggested directly by PCR users like you in the Ideas & Requests forum. We invite all of our users to offer their input on future enhancements to PCR via the forum, and to up-vote the features they’d find most helpful.
Recycling Bin Search
Whenever an item is deleted in PCRecruiter, it is moved to the Recycling Bin. The Recycling Bin is found in the Data Management area under SYSTEM. Records remain perpetually in the Recycling Bin until a user restores or permanently deletes them. Individual users can restore their own records, while Full Permission administrative users are able to see and restore records belonging to others.
With this new version comes dropdown filters for Date Range, Record Type, and User, as well as a keyword box to search by filename. As recycled records are heavily compressed to maximize account storage, keyword searching of the record contents is not possible. These new filters will make it much easier to locate records for restoration or for permanent removal.
RingCentral Re-Authentication Required
Due to a recent change made by RingCentral, all users who have a RingCentral account connected to PCRecruiter will need to authenticate again to continue using click-to-dial and activity writing functions. To do this:
Log into PCRecruiter.
Select MyPCR from the Main Toolbar.
Click on the “You are not authenticated with RingCentral, click here to login” link.
The folks at Capterra, the leading online resource for business software buyers, are offering $10 gift cards for independent reviews of PCRecruiter. We invite you to click this link and share your thoughts about PCRecruiter and Main Sequence. This is a limited-time offer, and expires after the first 100 verified reviews or on November 20, 2019. We thank you for your time and your opinion!
PCRecruiter 9.7.30 includes improvements suggested on our Ideas Forum, including click-to-open Attachments, edit Profiles in a new tab, and Rollup Quick Comment export to CSV.
Main Sequence Technology has built PCRecruiter on our users’ suggestions from day one. Since the debut of the Ideas & Requests forum on our helpdesk, where users can share their own recommendations and thumbs-up others’ ideas as well, we’ve been able to better gauge user desires. These recommendations help our development team focus on the items deemed the most helpful to the most people.
This week’s update includes three noticeable improvements, all of which were suggested by users in the forum.
Click to Open Attachments
In earlier versions of PCRecruiter, file attachments on Name, Company, and Position records could be renamed by clicking on the Description, while the commend to open and view the attachment was located under the ‘Action’ pull-down. As of v.9.7.30, these actions have been swapped, so that the more common action of opening an attachment requires only a single click on the Description.
Edit Profile in New Window
A new ‘User Preferences’ menu was added to the system’s top right Action menu in our December 2018 update. The Open ‘PCR Action’ in new Tab section of this panel included the option to submit Profile forms using a new tab, rather than inside of a popup window on the main PCR screen. With our new update, this preference has been expanded to include editing profiles in addition to submitting new ones.
Export with Quick Comments
In our January 2019 update we introduced a ‘Quick Comments’ column for Rollup Lists. This suggestion from our forum gives users a way to jot down a short comment about any record, specific to that Rollup. In PCR v.9.7.30, this Quick Comments column is now included when a user exports the Rollup to CSV.
What would you like to see in upcoming releases? Visit the forum at help.pcrecruiter.com to add your voice to the conversation. Also, there are a limited supply of $25 Amazon gift cards left for anyone who writes a detailed review of PCRecruiter on G2, so submit yours today!
Watch this blog and our Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn accounts for bigger feature announcements in the coming weeks.
Announcing the integration of PCRecruiter and Sense! Join us 6/18 at 1:00 EDT for a webinar with Sense Co-founder Pankaj Jindal to see how PCRecruiter and Sense can work together to turbocharge your candidate experience to drive placements, increase talent NPS and drive higher engagement across your entire life-cycle.
Announcing the integration of PCRecruiter and Sense.
Sense is the only end-to-end engagement and communication platform built just for recruiting and staffing. This all-in-one platform enables you to drive more revenue through personalized messaging, delivered at scale and customized with real-time PCRecruiter data.
Join us on Tuesday, June 18th at 1 PM Eastern for a webinar with Sense Co-founder Pankaj Jindal to see how PCRecruiter and Sense can work together to turbocharge your candidate experience to drive placements, increase talent NPS and drive higher engagement across your entire life-cycle.
Automated Communication That Feels Personal
Sense helps companies automatically build relationships with their candidates and clients. Sense delivers personal email and text message communications mapped to each candidateâs unique journey, then captures it in PCRecruiter. From on-boarding to redeployment, Sense automates communication for new and existing applicants and existing employees â saving time and driving up the bottom line.
More Candidates, Faster Placements
With involuntary turnover as high as 25% and redeployment rates lower than 5%, staffing and recruiting firms can no longer afford to neglect candidate engagement. Sense consistently nurtures the dormant contacts in your database to drive higher engagement, quicker placements, and more revenue. On average, recruiting teams using Sense see their candidate NPS double and for our staffing clients, their redeployment rates increase to almost 30%.
Get The Most Out Of Your PCRecruiter Data
Senseâs enterprise grade integration with PCRecruiter syncs data in real-time. Every message and response associates to the correct PCR contact record, while every PCR field is usable within the Sense platform to make your outreach relevant and timely.
Give Your Recruiters Two-Way Texting Superpowers
Texting candidates results in an average response time of under 90 seconds and reply rate of 51%. With stats like that, your team canât afford to just being sending emails. Sense Messaging gives recruiters the ability to send broadcasts and 1:1 texts directly from PCRecruiter. And every conversation gets captured back to the candidate record – at no cost to you.
PCRecruiter 9.7.26 builds on the Rollup List improvements we released earlier this year, reducing the number of clicks needed to add records to Rollup lists, giving more useful information about records being added, and adding new navigational shortcuts to improve your workflow.
We’ve released an update today that includes further improvements to the Rollup List changes we released earlier this year. We’ve reduced the number of clicks involved in adding records to Rollup lists, tweaked the column layout to give more useful information about records being added, and created new navigational shortcuts to improve your workflow. We’ve also made some minor improvements to printing and filtering lists.
Adding Records to Rollups
When adding records to Rollup Lists, we have replaced the Name, Company, Position columns so that only the column for the type of records you’re adding is shown. In place of the other two columns you’ll see Added and Ignored.
In the example shown below, only the Name column appears and all three columns are green. If we were adding Companies, you would see dark blue. Light blue is used for Positions. These colors are used consistently on other major record screens in PCRecruiter.
We can see in the new columns that 18 Name records have been added to the “Cleveland” list, bringing the total up to 107. We can also see that one of the selected records was ignored because it was already on that Rollup.
You’ll also note that the Rollup’s name “Cleveland” is a hyperlink. With the new update, you can now jump to the active Rollup directly from this screen by clicking its link, rather than closing the Add panel and navigating to the main Rollups area.
We’ve also reduced the clicks involved in adding records to a newly-created Rollup. In this version, your currently selected records are automatically added to the Rollup as soon as you save the new list, eliminating the need to click on the new list to add the records.
Further Improvements
The Print action on Rollup Lists now prints with your custom column selections. In previous versions, only the CSV Export option used the custom layout.
The Clear Stage item in Rollup Stage popups has been renamed to No Stage.
The filter popup at the top of the Stage column on Rollup Lists now displays a number and checkbox for the No Stage item. This will allowing users to filter the view to those records which have not been given any Stage.
More great new features are in the works, as always. Share your own ideas for how PCRecruiter can improve your business in our Ideas & Requests Forum, read other usersâ suggestions, and vote for the ones youâd find most helpful. We are listening!
PCR Mobile App – May 2019 Update
A new version of our free PCR Mobile app for Android and iOS is out this week, with the options to add Activities and view Rollup Lists. Plus, a new Custom Search Form is available in the Job Board.
A new PCRecruiter update, v.9.7.25 is out today. In addition to our regular improvements and bug fixes, this update also comes along with improvements to the PCR Mobile App. The app is available for FREE now on Android (v. 9.7.25106) and iOS (v. 9.7.6010), and gives you mobile access to your name, company, and position records on the go.
The new version of the app includes the ability to create Activity Records and also to view your Rollup Lists. (The ability to edit your lists from the app is planned for a future update.)
This update also includes a new Custom Form type for the Job Board, which will allow you to have a job search form on your homepage, a sidebar widget, or anywhere else in your website. When a search is run, the jobseeker will be redirected to your job board with the search results pre-loaded into view. Contact your PCRecruiter representative to discuss adding this to your website.
Lastly, you’ll notice that the alert popups indicating incomplete fields or other warnings have been re-styled.
We’ll have more updates to share in the next few weeks. Share your own ideas for how PCRecruiter can improve your business in our Ideas & Requests Forum, read other users’ suggestions, and vote for the ones you’d find most helpful.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
A new PCRecruiter version is out this week, and the latest edition comes with updates to the PCR mobile application and the Job Board.
The PCRecruiter app, which is available for free on the Google Play and iOS App Stores, affords users mobile access to their names, companies, and positions. The app is perfect for on-the-go access to your contacts, resumes, activities, and notes.
In earlier versions of the app, Activities could be viewed but not created. In this update, you can now enter Activities. Weâve designed the new entry screen in conjunction with recent improvements to Activity entry in the main PCRecruiter interface.
If you need the Activity to appear as a calendar item, youâll check the âScheduleâ box. This adds a color picker and an âAlarmâ checkbox to the screen. The color options match those youâve configured for your schedule in the PCRecruiter full browser version. Checking âAlarmâ allows you to choose your advance warning for the scheduled event.
The âFollowupâ box below has similar color and alarm options, and can be activated with a simple tap.
Weâve also added access to Rollup Lists into the app. The âRecent Rollupsâ area at the bottom of the main screen displays the four most recently viewed lists. To the right, color-coded blocks show how many names, companies, and jobs are on each list. Tap the block to view the desired records, including any custom stage icons youâve configured.
If you want to view a Rollup thatâs not one of the four most recent, youâll find the Rollup Search option in the side menu. This menu also contains the search options for names, companies, and positions, and gives you access to the PCR Analytics if this feature is active on your account.
This update also includes an additional feature in the PCR Job Board. Weâve added a new Custom Form type for building a job search form that can be displayed on your website independently of the job listing and apply screens. For example, you might want to include a job search form in your websiteâs homepage or sidebar. When a search is run, the visitor is taken to the job board page of your site with their results on display. To explore implementing this feature on your website, or to discuss migrating from the Classic Web Extensions to the PCRecruiter Job Board, contact your PCR representative.
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or here on the PCRecruiter blog for all the latest news and updates, and visit the Ideas and Requests forum at help.pcrecruiter.com to share your suggestions for future integrations and features.
Candidate Presentations – April 2019 Update
PCRecruiter 9.7.24 includes a list of improvements to the ‘Candidate Presentations’ feature that we released last year, streamlining your client relationships and making your selection process even more efficient.
A new PCRecruiter update, v.9.7.24, has been released to our SaaS hosted customers. Our developers have been hard at work on many enhancements and changes to the Candidate Presentations feature that we released at the end of last year. Based on feedback from our users, we’ve made a number of improvements to this area of PCR, which allows recruiters to send their clients an attractive, branded package of candidate details and attachments, and to receive trackable feedback.
What’s new in Candidate Presentations?
Improved Template Creation
We’ve reorganized and relabeled the Settings panel for greater clarity.
New -/+ icons were added for adding and removing fields from the layout.
A pencil icon has been added for relabeling fields.
We’ve moved the Date for the attachments to its own display area at the right.
The revised Add Header/Footer Image panel now includes options to repeat or stretch the image.
Improved Sending
A “Create Presentation” is now available in the Action menu on the upper right corner of the Name Record, so you can send a presentation directly from the candidate’s screen in addition to sending from Pipeline and Rollup screens.
A new yellow warning icon has been added to call out items in the Presentation that will be skipped over because they don’t contain any data for the selected record.
We’ve streamlined the To: and From: options on the Send screen, including access to alternate email addresses for you and your client.
Improved Presentation Display
Any included fields that contain a URL will now be clickable in the presentation.
Improved Feedback Display
The Feedback column on the Pipeline has been made more compact, and it now displays a highlighted icon and a number when feedback is present.
The display of the Feedback popup has been adjusted to better separate name, email, and rating. We’ve also added the Date to the panel.
Feedback Lists now include direct links to the names, jobs, and companies involved.
The Action button in the Feedback list now includes a View Presentation link.
PCRecruiterâs Candidate Presentations feature makes it easy to send attractive, branded packages to your clients with all the key candidate details and attachments for their review, and to collect and monitor their feedback.
With the latest PCRecruiter update, weâve incorporated feedback from our users to make presentations easier and more intuitive to create, customize, and monitor, resulting in a more efficient placement process.
The changes begin here, in the Presentation Template setup screen, where you define with simple drag and drop which items of data you want to share with your hiring authorities. Weâve streamlined and consolidated the settings panel to make options easier to identify and set â such as the enabling of resume and attachment downloads by the recipient.
Weâve also updated the field selection area to make adding and removing fields from your presentation simpler. You can use the plus and minus icons to add and remove fields from view and use the pencil icon to give any field an alternate name when viewed your client. When youâre in the Attachments area, youâll see that the file dates have been moved to the far right, better separating them from the attachment names.
There have also been several improvements to the utility for adding header and footer images to the screen, including new options to repeat or stretch the image, giving you even more control over your branding.
Now, letâs look at the changes youâll notice during the process of using the Candidate Presentations feature.
Weâve added a new starting point for this process. You can now choose âCreate Presentationâ from the Action menu on a Name record, in addition to starting from a Rollup or Pipeline as before. Once youâve opened a presentation to send, youâll see these new icons indicating sections that have no content â such as attachments that donât exist for the selected candidate. These segments will be skipped over when the presentation is generated.
Youâll notice enhancements while sending a presentation as well. The âFromâ option is now a dropdown that includes any additional aliases youâve configured for your PCRecruiter username under System > Email Alias List. The recipient box has also been updated with a list of large, easily identifiable names. If a recipient has multiple email accounts on file, you can click here to select any alternate address. You can also make this change after selecting a recipient by clicking on the name and using this dropdown.
After the presentation arrives in the recipientâs inbox, theyâll review the info and youâll receive an email notification that the presentation has been opened. Any fields in the presentation that contain a URL will now display a clickable link that opens in a new browser tab.
Another email notification will arrive when the feedback has been submitted, and the text of the feedback is now saved in the Activity record.
Letâs look at the changes to viewing the feedback inside of PCRecruiter.
On the pipeline, the Feedback column has been compacted into simple icons that display the number of feedback responses. Clicking on the feedback item, youâll see weâve upgraded the display, better separating the name, email, and star rating. Weâve also added in the date on which the feedback was recorded.
When viewing a list of presentations, either from one of the records involved or from the Overall Presentation List under the System area, youâll see that there are now links directly to the relevant records, with easily identified color-coding for Names, Positions, and Companies. The Action button, which previously included only a link to edit the presentation, now includes an option to view the presentation as well.
These improvements came from valuable feedback provided by PCRecruiter users following the initial release of the Candidate Presentations feature  a few months ago. If youâd like to share your ideas about how PCRecruiter can improve your business, visit our Ideas and Suggestions forum at help.pcrecruiter.com. Stay up to date on PCR by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Mike Gionta, The Recruiter U
Our friend Mike Gionta is hosting a 4-day virtual summit from March 26-29, 2019 called the Recruiting Firm Owner Summit. Solo-recruiters and search firm owners are all welcome at this FREE series, which has been attended by just under 25,000 recruiters from 6 continents over the past ten years.
Topics include:
How to increase billings even during a bad market or recession
The secrets to breaking through your income âceilingâ and the science of getting truly rich
The art & science of getting retainers that lead to $100k clients!
How to negotiate higher fees and establish long term repeat contracts with clients
The 6 lies that block recruiting success
The 5 secrets recruiters can use to build 7 & 8-figure recruitment businesses without ever having to micromanage or get back into the tools
Success secrets from the field for solo/independent recruiters
The great techniques for sourcing candidates when you donât have a network
The key unknown methods of how to sell contracting business to your assignments to ensure you get those assignments!
The 3 keys to consistently growing $$ for recruiters
7œ ways to ditch your clients and still increase your revenue
Remember, these tips are from recruiting firm owners for solo-recruiters and search firm owners. All 12 sessions, taking place March 26-29, 2019, are offered at no charge.
PCRecruiter 9.7.23 adds support for creating Notes for contacts from the PCR Capture utility, along with many performance enhancements and issue resolutions. See our blog for details on this and other recent improvements.
The PCRecruiter hosted servers are being updated today with a new release that includes dozens of performance improvements and issue resolutions, covering a wide range of areas in PCRecruiter, including our Analytics,Candidate Presentations, Rollup Stages, and more.
Although this update is largely dedicated to work on our existing features, we have added one new feature with this update.
Those of you who use PCR Capture will find a new Additional Notes box at the bottom of the ‘Review Data’ step. Any text added to this box will appear in the NOTES section on the Name record.
This new feature in PCR Capture is a great way to augment new records or update existing ones with keyword-searchable details as you go about your sourcing tasks online.
This update also lays some groundwork for new partnerships and announcements to come in the next few weeks, so keep your eyes on our blog and social networks.
What other features would you like to see in our coming releases? Visit the Ideas & Requests forum in our customer support portal and get involved in the future of PCRecruiter!
PCRecruiter Update 9.7.22 – Rollup Stage Filters and Quick Comments
PCR’s new update adds the ability to filter and pre-sort Rollup Lists by the Stage column, as well as a great new ‘quick comments’ feature for Rollup records, and the option to mandate that all users use the Global Rollup Stages.
We’ve released a new update this week that includes improvements to the Rollup Lists, PCR’s versatile tool for managing lists of names, organizations, and positions. Here are the key features:
A new “Quick Comments” column can be added to your Rollup layout. Quick Comments allow the user to supplement a record’s Rollup Stage with brief notes. These notes also appear when viewing the ‘Rollups’ area of the individual record.
The number of clicks required to add a record to a list has been reduced, and even more so when adding a record to multiple lists at the same time.
A ‘Filter’ icon has been added to the top of the Rollup Stage column header. Clicking it allows the user to temporarily filter their view of the list to only the selected Stages.
Rollup Stage is now available as a primary or secondary Default Sort option when configuring your Rollup layout.
The ‘Global Rollup Stages’ released in our October 2018 update can now be made mandatory for all newly created lists. If the checkbox is disabled, users can choose whether to use the Global Stages or their own individual ones when creating new lists.
The use of the terms “Stage”, “Status” and “Description” on Rollups has been updated for consistency across screens.
Video Transcript
Rollup Lists are one of PCRecruiter’s most versatile features, allowing you to group and sort names, jobs, and organizations for a variety of purposes. This week’s update includes a set of improvements to Rollups that make them an even more convenient way to manage your contacts and positions.
The new update uses fewer steps for adding records to a list, and makes it faster to add the same record to more than one list. You’ll open up the ‘Add to Rollup’ window, and then simply click on the lists you want to add the record to. You’ll see the record count for that list go up, and a colored progress bar to keep track of which lists you’ve already put the record on.
We’ve also made some changes to the lists themselves. A new ‘filter’ icon appears at the top of the Rollup Stage column. In the popup, any Stages in use on this list will be highlighted, along with a count showing the number of records at that Stage on this list. Checking off one or more of the Stages and clicking ‘Done’ will filter your view to only the records matching your selected Stages. The filter icon changes color to indicate that a filter is active, and the filter remains active until you reload the list or remove the filter checkmarks.
You can also set your Rollup configuration to use the Stage column as the default primary or secondary sort order, so that your lists sort by Stage automatically when you open them.
The other new feature on the Rollup screen is a ‘Quick Comments’ column that can be added to your layout. This column allows you to add a brief note to the Rollup List itself for each of the records on it, supplementing your Stages. For example, if you’re using the Rollup for a calling list, you might change the Stage to ‘Attempted’ and then include in the comments box that it’s your second attempt, or that the line was busy, and so on.
These same comments are visible and editable from the Rollups panel of the record, so you can adjust or review the comments for all of that record’s various Rollups in a single location.
Lastly, we introduced a new Global Rollup Stages feature last October, allowing admin-level users to define Rollup Stage icons, activities, and automation plans that could be applied to all users in the database, overriding any per-user Stage setups. This new version includes a setting which forces these Global Stages to be applied to all new Rollups. With the box unchecked, the individual user can select whether to use the Global Stages or to continue using their own personal Stage configurations on a list-by-list basis.
Tell us what you’d like to see added to Rollups by logging into the Ideas and Requests forum at help.pcrecruiter.com. Post your ideas, or vote and comment on the ideas that would be helpful to you. Keep up to date on PCRecruiter by following us on Twitter and Facebook, joining our LinkedIn Users Group, and watching for the banner notifications inside of PCR and on your login screen.
PCRecruiter Job Board
Modern, mobile-friendly, and highly customizable. The PCRecruiter Job Board offers the flexibility and branding of a bespoke job board with the simplicity of an off-the-shelf system.
The PCRecruiter Job Board is modern, mobile-friendly, and highly customizable. Combining the fast, affordable implementation of an off-the-shelf job board with the custom flexibility of a bespoke candidate portal, the Job Board offers a straightforward applicant experience that meets your employment branding needs.
A PCR consultant will work with you to configure and format the Job Board with the right fields and features to suit your requirements. Several starter templates are available to choose from, and our designers will adjust the style and layout to match your branding. Once the Job Board is configured, easy copy/paste code frames it into your company website, where itâs also ready for action with Google Jobs, Indeed, and other job posting providers and aggregators.
Your candidates will be able to quickly find and apply to your current openings or simply submit a resume, and can use their social network login for fast and accurate data entry. The apply process can be as simple or complicated as you need it to be, and is fully EEOC and GDPR compliant.
Whether youâre designing a new website or are just looking to modernize and improve on your current job listings, contact a PCRecruiter representative to learn how the PCR Job Board can help to achieve your goals.
Common Questions
Q: Will it work with my web hosting platform?
Yes. The Job Board is hosted on the PCRecruiter server and embeds via a unique iframe+javascript combination into most web platforms, including WordPress, SquareSpace, and more. If youâre using a WordPress, our WordPress plugin makes it even simpler. Some DIY platforms such as Wix, GoDaddy Website Builder, and Yahoo Small Business may restrict embedding options. For these hosts there are alternate methods available for linking to the Job Board. We will provide you or your web designer with instructions when your Job Board is ready to be published.
Q: What does it cost?
In most cases, a one-time $250 fee covers the consultation and personalized design work. Complex application or design requirements may affect costs. Monthly fees will depend on your PCRecruiter contract. Ask your salesperson for details.
Q: Iâm already using the PCRecruiter Web Extensions. How does this affect me?
Our legacy Extensions will continue to remain active for the foreseeable future, although no non-critical updates are being made to them. You may continue to use them as long as they serve your needs. However, we hope you will consider the many advantages to migrating.
How the Job Board differs from the Web Extensions:
Vastly more customizable. Practically every step of the process has configurable layouts, labels, and messaging. The Job Board can accommodate many formats and functions which were not possible in the Extensions.
Responsive design. Roughly half of all web traffic comes from mobile devices. The Job Board works on desktop, tablet, and mobile screens.
More search-engine friendly.
Allow candidates to register with a social network as an alternative to creating a PCR-specific password. LinkedIn, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, and Indeed – you may enable all, some, or none as you wish. You can even disable password/login requirements entirely, although this may increase the likelihood of self-duplication if you have returning applicants.
The Job Board can load resumes and attachments directly from online document storage services – DropBox, Google Drive, OneDrive.
It can work with your existing Profile forms, but it also may reduce your need for them due to its highly customizable apply/register forms.
A secure session cookie allows jobseekers to browse your website after applying / logging in and then to return to the Job Board page without having to sign back in again.
The most notable difference is in how the Job Board handles returning users and duplicates:
With the Classic Web Extensions, a jobseeker who already existed in the database and attempted to apply without logging in first would be halted and required to log in with their password before proceeding. This could confuse the visitor or delay their application process.
With the Job Board, PCR allows the process to go simply forward as normal if the candidate does not log in first. If the name and email or the resume are an exact match for an existing record, PCR generates an association between the two records and marks them with an icon in your search results. The PCR user can then make the determination as to whether to merge, delete, or edit the duplicate records.
Applicants who use the same social network login or the same email/password combination for subsequent visits will not generate a duplicate record.
Video Transcript
Flexibility. Clarity. Speed. Thatâs what you and your job seekers expect from a Job Board, and thatâs what PCRecruiter delivers. The PCRecruiter Job Board provides a straightforward, user-friendly application experience for active and passive candidates.
The Job Board is, above all, remarkably adaptable. Adaptable to any screen size or device, putting your jobs within the reach of millions of candidates on desktop, mobile, and tablet devices, and adaptable in its ability to support an infinite combination of data points in a wide array of layouts and styles to meet your employment branding needs, now and in the future. The PCR Job Board combines the flexibility of a made-to-order career portal with the smooth implementation of an out-of-the-box solution.
The Job Board is hosted on the PCRecruiter server, making it easy to embed or link to on practically any web hosting platform. And, if your site is built on WordPress, a convenient plugin makes framing-in the Job Board a snap.
A PCRecruiter consultant will work with you to define the specifications for your unique Job Board, and one of our designers will match the fonts, colors, and styling of the Job Board to blend seamlessly with your company website.
Built on industry-standard web frameworks like Bootstrap and jQuery, and integrated with secure authentication services like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google for easy candidate entry, the Job Board is modern, mobile, and ready to meet your needs.
With the PCRecruiter Job Board in your website, youâre ready to gain maximum exposure via third-party sites like GlassDoor, Indeed, and others using PCRâs integrated posting tools, and easily shareable direct links. Plus, the Job Board supports the necessary tagging for Google indexing and Google Jobs.
A typical candidate experience begins on the job list and search page, which can be laid out in a variety of ways depending on the design of your website and the demands of your job data. If you only have a few jobs, the search can be disabled entirely, or if you have a lot, the form can be configured with any compliment of fields and filters to quickly get your jobseekers to the results that theyâre after.
The appearance of the results is also totally adjustable. For example, a traditional table layout can be helpful when there are many jobs to display with a handful of details each, while a grid allows for more extensive info about each position. A list layout can offer room for longer job description excerpts, or furnish a more compact use of screen space. The complete job descriptions, along with any other fields you wish to include, are just a tap away.
Applying to a job begins with the option to use popular social networks as a shortcut to creating a record and importing contact details. The same social network can be used as a login on future visits to apply for other jobs or, if you wish, to update candidate information.
The jobseekerâs info is now in your database, and theyâre presented with an application form to complete their record. This form can be as simple or as complex as you wish. Whether you just need a resume, email, and phone number, or a complete work history with attachments and references, the PCR Job Board can handle it. This form can be followed by optional job-specific profiles to help sort and qualify candidates automatically.
The process wraps up with a customizable thank-you message, and automated emails to the applicant and the internal position contacts. And of course, the Job Board meets your EEO or GDPR compliance requirements.
In addition to the complete search and apply experience, the PCR Job Board also includes a Custom Forms feature. These forms can be integrated into your website for simple resume or contact submission by candidates, or for name and company entry by business development prospects. Youâll be notified by email, and ready to respond immediately using PCRâs integrated email or phone capabilities. Like the rest of the PCR Job Board, these one-way submission forms are mobile-friendly and can be seamlessly designed to suit, whether youâve got a professional web designer on your team or are managing the website yourself.
The PCRecruiter Job Board offers everything you need to get your positions online for candidates to view and apply to, and the implementation is simple, swift, and affordable. Whether youâre designing a new website or are looking to modernize and improve on your current candidate experience, contact a PCRecruiter representative to learn how the PCR Job Board can deliver for you.
Happy New Year from PCRecruiter
The PCRecruiter team sends you joy and goodwill, and expresses our deep appreciation of the PCRecruiter community, which no doubt includes a number of the best recruiters in the world.
2018 was a year of powerful growth at Main Sequence Technology. Our capabilities for the design, development, delivery, and servicing of PCRecruiter were improved across the board. This resulted in more frequent, more dense, and higher-quality updates, including enhancements to our Activity and Rollup utilities, new tools for Chrome with Capture 3 and Google Voice, plus calculation tools for split-desk recruiting. We also released major new features like our Candidate Presentations and Email Campaigns.
In addition to our technological progress, we implemented a great new support system this year, with improvements like online chat and the Ideas & Requests forum. These have helped us to better understand and serve the PCRecruiter community, and to plan for more exciting improvements in the coming year.
Today’s PCRecruiter is the best we have ever offered. Even this website got a makeover this year! We look forward to ‘leveling-up’ again in 2019. It’s a privilege to serve you.
To the PCRecruiter community around the globe, we extend our best wishes in this season of light that your new year will unfold with peace, strength, and abundant prosperity.
User Preferences & Google Voice (Update 9.7.21)
PCRecruiter v 9.7.21 includes a revisions to User Preferences and Security, including preferences for opening record entry screens in new tabs rather than popups, plus a Google Voice Extension for Chrome, and further revisions to the Activity entry screen.
The December 2018 PCRecruiter update includes several fixes and improvements, including follow-up improvements to the newly revised Activity entry screen (see our October 2018 update.)
The most noticeable alterations in this release are related to the User Security and Preferences features. We have reviewed the panels of the User setup screen, located under the System area, to remove and regroup items that may have become outdated or were more logically placed with similar items.
While regrouping these items, we added a new User Preferences panel to the top right menu in PCR, and moved some of the personalizing preferences there. This gives the individual user control over some options that previously required a system admin’s involvement. This new screen also has a completely new set of preferences which let the user open the Add Record, Add Activity, Add Note, Send Email, and Submit Profile screens a new browser tab rather than the usual popup window for more screen space or use of a second monitor.
We’ve also released a PCRecruiter Google Voice Plugin for Chrome that adds Dial Using Google Voice and Text Using Google Voice buttons into PCR’s dialing popup. Clicking either button allows you to launch a call or compose a text message, and then have it handed off to your Google Voice Extension while also creating an outgoing Activity record. Download the plugin from the Chrome Store and see our Learning Center for more information.
These updates began with suggestions from our users in the Ideas forum at help.pcrecruiter.com. Please log in and post your ideas or vote and comment on the changes that would be helpful to you. (And be sure to drink your Ovaltine!)
Video Transcript:
As 2019 approaches, the PCRecruiter team remains hard at work on new features and improvements, including the update weâre excited to release this week. As always, the new update includes a number of minor fixes and improvements, including several follow-up tweaks to the revised Activity entry screen that we released in October 2018.
The primary changes in this release are in the area of user Security and Preferences. Our development team has reviewed these panels of the User setup screen under the System area, removing outdated items, and moving some items from one section to another.
Non-administrative users will now find a âUser Preferencesâ option in the menu at the top right corner of PCRecruiter. This new area gives the individual user control over a few of the personal preferences that previously required a system adminâs involvement to change. For example, the âHold Sub-Navigationâ option, which causes PCR to remember which panel of the Position, Name, or Company record youâre viewing, and to continue to show that same panel as you navigate to other Positions, Names, or Companies. This can be helpful for tasks like clicking through multiple names and viewing the resumes without needing to click on the âResumeâ navigation item each time.
A brand-new set of preferences have been added to this screen. This column allows the user to choose to open the Add Record, Add Activity, Add Note, Send Email, and Submit Profile links in a new browser tab rather than a popup window. Using a new tab can offer more screen space to work in and affords the option to move that panel into a second monitor.
Weâve also released a new Extension for Chrome: the PCRecruiter Google Voice Plugin. Available for free in the Chrome Store, this plugin adds âDial Using Google Voiceâ and âText Using Google Voiceâ buttons into the Phone Dialing popup on your PCRecruiter records. Clicking either button allows you to launch a call or compose a text message, and then have it handed off to your Chrome Google Voice extension. Unlike using Google Voice alone, using the PCRecruiter Google Voice Plugin creates Activity records indicating when you called or what text message was sent.
These updates began with suggestions from our users in the Ideas forum at help.pcrecruiter.com. Be sure to log in and post your ideas or vote and comment on the changes that would be helpful to you.
Look for more updates in the coming weeks, and keep up to date on PCRecruiter by following us on Twitter and Facebook, joining our LinkedIn Users Group, and watching for the banner notifications inside of PCR and on your login screen.
PCRecruiter Update v 9.7.21 – User Preferences & Google Voice
PCRecruiter v 9.7.21 includes a revisions to User Preferences and Security, including preferences for opening record entry screens in new tabs rather than popups, plus a Google Voice Extension for Chrome, and further revisions to the Activity entry screen.
The December 2018 PCRecruiter update includes several fixes and improvements, including follow-up improvements to the newly revised Activity entry screen (see our October 2018 update.)
The most noticeable alterations in this release are related to the User Security and Preferences features. We have reviewed the panels of the User setup screen, located under the System area, to remove and regroup items that may have become outdated or were more logically placed with similar items.
While regrouping these items, we added a new User Preferences panel to the top right menu in PCR, and moved some of the personalizing preferences there. This gives the individual user control over some options that previously required a system admin’s involvement. This new screen also has a completely new set of preferences which let the user open the Add Record, Add Activity, Add Note, Send Email, and Submit Profile screens a new browser tab rather than the usual popup window for more screen space or use of a second monitor.
We’ve also released a PCRecruiter Google Voice Plugin for Chrome that adds Dial Using Google Voice and Text Using Google Voice buttons into PCR’s dialing popup. Clicking either button allows you to launch a call or compose a text message, and then have it handed off to your Google Voice Extension while also creating an outgoing Activity record. Download the plugin from the Chrome Store and see our Learning Center for more information.
These updates began with suggestions from our users in the Ideas forum at help.pcrecruiter.com. Please log in and post your ideas or vote and comment on the changes that would be helpful to you. (And be sure to drink your Ovaltine!)
Video Transcript:
As 2019 approaches, the PCRecruiter team remains hard at work on new features and improvements, including the update weâre excited to release this week. As always, the new update includes a number of minor fixes and improvements, including several follow-up tweaks to the revised Activity entry screen that we released in October 2018.
The primary changes in this release are in the area of user Security and Preferences. Our development team has reviewed these panels of the User setup screen under the System area, removing outdated items, and moving some items from one section to another.
Non-administrative users will now find a âUser Preferencesâ option in the menu at the top right corner of PCRecruiter. This new area gives the individual user control over a few of the personal preferences that previously required a system adminâs involvement to change. For example, the âHold Sub-Navigationâ option, which causes PCR to remember which panel of the Position, Name, or Company record youâre viewing, and to continue to show that same panel as you navigate to other Positions, Names, or Companies. This can be helpful for tasks like clicking through multiple names and viewing the resumes without needing to click on the âResumeâ navigation item each time.
A brand-new set of preferences have been added to this screen. This column allows the user to choose to open the Add Record, Add Activity, Add Note, Send Email, and Submit Profile links in a new browser tab rather than a popup window. Using a new tab can offer more screen space to work in and affords the option to move that panel into a second monitor.
Weâve also released a new Extension for Chrome: the PCRecruiter Google Voice Plugin. Available for free in the Chrome Store, this plugin adds âDial Using Google Voiceâ and âText Using Google Voiceâ buttons into the Phone Dialing popup on your PCRecruiter records. Clicking either button allows you to launch a call or compose a text message, and then have it handed off to your Chrome Google Voice extension. Unlike using Google Voice alone, using the PCRecruiter Google Voice Plugin creates Activity records indicating when you called or what text message was sent.
These updates began with suggestions from our users in the Ideas forum at help.pcrecruiter.com. Be sure to log in and post your ideas or vote and comment on the changes that would be helpful to you.
Look for more updates in the coming weeks, and keep up to date on PCRecruiter by following us on Twitter and Facebook, joining our LinkedIn Users Group, and watching for the banner notifications inside of PCR and on your login screen.
Candidate Presentations
PCRecruiterâs latest update includes the first release of our ‘Candidate Presentations’ feature, which streamlines your client relationships and makes your selection process more efficient.
PCRecruiterâs latest update includes the first release of our Candidate Presentations feature, which streamlines your client relationships and makes your selection process more efficient.
With this new utility, youâll be able to email attractive, branded packages to your clients containing the relevant candidate details and attachments. Clients and hiring authorities can then review the selected records and submit feedback directly to your database. Feedback can be viewed from the position pipeline, from the candidate’s record, or from the company record associated with the job opening.
You control the fields that are displayed and which attachments are included in these presentations. Three basic templates and fourteen color themes are included, which you can add your custom header and footer to, including a company logos. Custom styling is also available, and branded themes are offered upon request.
Also in the near future you’ll be seeing a new ‘Job Feeds’ area appearing in the Post window on your position records. This system will allow you to opt your positions into job feeds for a growing list of third-party job boards. More information about specific job boards will be posted as these new feeds are activated. If there are particular job boards you would like our team to pursue, let us know in our Ideas & Requests Forum.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
With PCRecruiterâs âCandidate Presentationsâ feature, youâll find it easy to send attractive, branded packages to your clients with all of the important candidate details and attachments for their review, and to collect and monitor their feedback.
Your client receives an email containing a link to one or more candidates that youâve submitted to them. These fully-configurable screens contain your selected data fields and attachments from the PCRecruiter database.
The Presentations feature comes with stock templates, which you can easily apply your companyâs logo and colors to. Custom templates can be designed to suit. Contact our sales team for details.
To submit feedback, the client simply clicks the âFeedbackâ button, enters their name and email address, and includes their notes about the presented candidate. A star rating feature is also available.
Inside of the database, the Pipeline screen indicates which candidates have feedback on file, and clicking reveals each of the submitted responses.
Responses can also be viewed under the âPresentationsâ tab on the candidate record, or the company associated with the job opening. Each line indicates who the candidate was presented to and for which position, who sent the presentation and when, how long the presentation remains open for feedback, when it was seen and how many times, an average of the star ratings, and a link to view the feedback comments from each of the respondents.
PCRecruiterâs Candidate Presentations streamline your client relationships for a more efficient placement process. For more information on Candidate Presentations, visit our Learning Center or contact support@mainsequence.net.
The PCRecruiter team is heading into the Thanksgiving holiday, for which our offices will be closed on Thursday, November 22 and Friday, November 23, with some new updates to our software and to our services.
You’ll notice that we’ve got an improved support chat system. The live chat icon is located both on the PCRecruiter company website and at the lower-right corner of your PCRecruiter login screen. Clicking this icon will now present you with options to route your inquiry to specific departments. This update will not only help us to expedite our customers’ requests, but it is also a step toward more efficient and powerful support options we are planning for the future.
We’ve also been seeing remarkable results from the suggestions made by PCRecruiter users in the Ideas and Requests forum. PCRecruiter has, from its very beginnings, been built on the requests and ideas of the professionals who use it. Over the past several months, this forum has proven invaluable in helping us to better understand the needs of our users, allowing for discussion and voting on their great suggestions. Dozens of the recommendations born in the forum have already been planned or implemented, and we invite you to join in the conversation.
We’ll be posting more specifics about changes in the v.9.7.20 update released this morning when we return to normal business hours next week, including the details of our exciting new Candidate Presentations tool.
To our users in the U.S., Happy Thanksgiving!
GetApp’s quarterly ATS ranking showcases the leading Applicant Tracking cloud apps in the North American market. PCRecruiter has been once again ranked in the Top 10!
GetApp research team identifies and evaluates hundreds of products, focusing on the top 10-15 cloud-based software products in the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) software category. They then creates the Category Leaders list to help business owners and decision-makers in evaluating their ATS technology options.
The ranking highlights key factors that small businesses should consider when assessing which software products may be right for them. These factors include user perception (âuser reviewsâ), compatibility with other systems (âintegrationsâ), mobile offerings (âmobileâ), technical capabilities (âfunctionalityâ), and product security (âsecurityâ).
GetApp Category Leaders constitute the subjective opinions of individual end-user reviews, ratings, and data applied against a documented methodology; they neither represent the views of, nor constitute an endorsement by, GetApp or its affiliates.
PCR Update v.9.7.19 – New Activity Screen & Global Rollup Stages
PCRecruiter’s new update this week comes with a revised ‘New Activity’ window and the ability for system admins to define database-wide Rollup Stage configurations with per-task icons and automations.
A new update will be rolling out on the PCRecruiter servers this week. In addition to our usual fixes and improvements behind the scenes, this update includes some noticeable new features and improvements:
The New Activity screen has been redesigned to include:
The same action shortcuts that you see in the ‘Recently Viewed’ records area on the main search screens.
A link to view the Schedule.
A ‘Duration’ dropdown to give scheduled items a time slot.
More convenient access to the color and alarm items for scheduled items.
Option to generate a separate Activity for follow-ups.
Option to schedule follow-ups onto other users’ calendars.
A reworked configuration panel with improved default options and color labeling/ordering tools.
A new Global Rollup Stage Icons panel under SYSTEM:
This allows admin users to define Rollup Stage icons, activities, and automation plans to be applied to all users in the database, overriding any per-user stage setups.
The Global Rollup Stages also come with a ‘Function’ dropdown so that different groups of stages can be configured for different purposes.
URL Tel: Protocol support:
A new ‘Hyperlink’ option has been added to the configuration icon by the phone number on records in System > Users.
When active, clicking the ‘Phone’ icon by any number in the name, company, or position record will launch the default Tel: software on your computer (Skype, etc.) Windows 10 users: see ‘Choose a default app for each protocol’ in your Start menu to define your machine’s Tel: app.
“Greener is Greater” coloring in Lucene keyword search results:
Databases configured with the Lucene Search Engine will see green shading on keyword search results, indicating strength of the match to the search query.
To see if your database is using the Lucene, check the upper right corner of the Advanced Search screen for the label “Keyword Version: Lucene.” Contact a representative for more info.
Contractor Module updates:
A new Timesheet Payroll View toggle appears in the ‘Contract Hours’ list view. This toggle switches between the standard view of contractors currently on assignment and the new view of contractors currently due for payroll.
The Paychex CSV output now includes the Position Id.
This change was made based on feedback from our users. We invite you to make your suggestions and vote on others’ ideas in the features forum at https://help.pcrecruiter.com
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
This week weâre releasing a fresh update to PCRecruiter, and our users will be able to take advantage of some helpful improvements. Let take a look at whatâs new:The most noticeable changes are in the Add Activity window.
Weâve carried over the ârecently viewed recordâ card layout from the Search area to the top of the Activity panel, giving you the same data points and shortcut icons to send email, link to a position, and so on. This convenience will be especially helpful to users who immediately open a fresh activity when making or taking a phone call. A new shortcut link to view your schedule has been added as well.
The interface for adding scheduled items has also been streamlined. A âDurationâ dropdown has been added so that you can set a designated time slot for Activities correlated to scheduled events. The tools for selecting a color code and reminder alarm for your scheduled items have been moved so that they appear directly along side the time and duration.
The process of creating a follow-up activity has been made simpler as well. The same duration and alarm tools have been included here, and new options have been added which let you generate a separate Activity for the follow-up, and schedule that follow-up for one or more other users in the database.
The Share Activity panel allows you to duplicate the same Activity to other contact records in the database and to email a copy of the Activity text to that person as well.
The configuration panel for the Activity window has also been updated. You can now define the labels and order of your Schedule Event color codes from here â a panel that was previously only available on the Schedule screen itself. This panel also allows you to set default options for your new Activities and follow-ups to save data entry time when it counts.
One final change in the Activity window will be helpful to those of you who use Skype or other phone applications that recognize the TEL protocol from web links. A new âHyperlinkâ setting has been added to the userâs Telephone Settings, found by the contact phone number in each user record. With this toggled on, clicking the phone icons from your contact records will not only launch the Activity window as always, so that you can record the details of the call, but it can now hand off the selected phone number to your computerâs designated phone app for automatic dialing.
This update also brings improvements to the Rollup List stages. In previous versions, the names, colors, icons, and activities for Rollup Lists were set up on a per-user basis. Now youâll find a Rollup List Global Stage Setup under the System area. The Rollup configurations made here will be applied consistently for all users in the database. In addition, you can create separate Stage configurations for different Functions like Marketing, Sales, Development, Recruiting, and Sourcing. Once these Rollup Functions are configured, theyâll appear as a new option when youâre creating or editing a Rollup, giving that list the stages and automations that you need for performing that type of task.
In addition to these major changes, and of course our continual performance enhancements and fixes behind the scenes, PCRecruiter databases configured for the Lucene search engine will now see new coloring on keyword search results. This âgreener is greaterâ color coding shows records in which your selected keywords appear more frequently and closer to the top of the document with a darker green, while those results that donât match as strongly will appear with a lighter green.
Weâve got a lot of other new features on the way before the end of 2018, many which have been suggested by users like you in the Forum at help.pcrecruiter.com. Be sure to log in and post your ideas, or vote and comment on the ideas that would be helpful to you. Keep up to date on PCRecruiter by following us on Twitter and Facebook, joining our LinkedIn Users Group, and watching for the banner notifications inside of PCR and on your login screen.
July 2018 Update
PCRecruiter will be updated this week with a revised interface for finding and opening Rollup Lists and a new ‘Rollup Rank’ option for star-ranking names, companies, and jobs. We’ve also given the login screen a face-lift and released a brand new company website.
Main Sequence is thrilled to have released our brand new website today! We applaud our designer and the technical team for their hard work on this project over the past several months.
In conjunction with the new site, you’ll also be noticing an updated look to the PCRecruiter login screen, as well as the popup banner that appears in PCR when new announcements like this one are posted.
In addition to the website launch, we released a new PCRecruiter update on Wednesday, July 18.
The video above details some of the most noticeable changes you’ll see in this update, including a simplified way to navigate to your desired Rollup Lists as well as a new Rollup Rank star-rating column for your candidates, job openings, and clients or departments.
What do you want to see changed or added in PCRecruiter? Visit our forum at https://help.pcrecruiter.com to share and up-vote ideas. Our team is listening!
Video Transcript
PCRecruiter has been updated with a fresh slate of fixes and performance enhancements this week, and as always, weâve added in some helpful new features as well. Letâs roll through the changes youâre going to notice.
The biggest changes in this release can be found in the Rollups area. Weâve revised the interface for finding and opening your lists, making it clearer and easier to use.
Youâll notice that the boxes for switching between your Recently Viewed Rollups and All Rollups are gone, and have been replaced by a simplified search bar across the top. The extra horizontal screen real estate has been used for displaying the date on which each list was created and the systemâs unique code associated with that list. Weâve also added color to the three columns that display the record counts for your lists to help them stand out. As always, clicking anywhere within the colored boxes will load your desired records.
The search bar works like it always has, but it is now presented on the screen even while viewing your recently viewed lists. Just enter the name of the list, filter by category or usernames if you wish, and search. Youâll notice that youâre automatically switched to the âAll Rollupsâ view when the results appear. You can use this toggle to change back to the recently viewed lists.
The next big change youâll find is the new Rollup Rank option, which can be helpful in organizing and prioritizing records in relation to a given project. Weâll start by using the âConfigureâ action on any Rollup screen. In the layout panel, weâll add the new Predefined: Rollup Rank, and drag it into place. Then we can save and close the configure panel.
Now when we view any list, the Rollup Rank column appears. Hovering over the five stars selects a percentage and clicking saves that desired rank. Youâll be able to see and edit this same ranking while looking at the Rollup panel from the individual record. This same ranking will be visible to any other user who also has the Rollup Rank column in their layout.
We have the option to preserve these rankings when copying or moving a record to another Rollup. A new checkbox appears at the top of the âMove to Rollupâ and âCopy to Rollupâ windows. If left unchecked, the record will have an empty ranking on the new list itâs been copied or moved to.
Letâs look at one more minor improvement thatâs been made in this area. Weâre going to open a list of Positions and use the Configure action to change the column layout. Weâll click to set a new field, and then search for âInterviewâ in the dropdown. There are âCurrent Countâ and âTotal Countâ options for each of the Pipeline screenâs main Interview Types. These columns are not new in this version, but what is new is that the column header now displays whether itâs a Current Count or a Total Count column. This will be helpful for those of you who are displaying both kinds of counts in your layout. These same changes apply if youâve added these Count columns to your Position search results layout.
Outside of the Rollup improvements, hereâs what else youâll see in this release:
The Duplicate Names Report, found under the Reports menu, now includes duplicate check criteria for First Name, Last Name, and Cell Phone, as well as Last Name and Cell Phone. And in case you missed it in the update earlier this year, you can also run a duplicate check on a specific Rollup list.
Also, a new âNo Permissionâ option has been added to the âAttachmentsâ security setting for names, companies, and positions. In previous versions, a userâs security settings could prevent them from deleting attachments, but could not prevent them from accessing them. This new option removes the Attachments navigation options from the screen.
Weâve got a lot of other new features on the way this summer, many which have been suggested by our users in the Forum at help.pcrecruiter.com. Be sure to log in and post your ideas, or vote and comment on the ideas that would be helpful to you. Keep up to date on PCRecruiter by following us on Twitter and Facebook, joining our LinkedIn Users Group, and watching for the banner notifications inside of PCR and on your login screen.
Along with various fixes and improvements released this morning, PCR now automatically writes an Activity when a record’s Stage is changed on a Rollup. Users may disable this function from the Stage Configuration panel.
This morning our ASP service was updated with a new release that includes a number of fixes and improvements. Along with these routine maintenance items, we’ve adjusted the way Activity records work with Rollup Stages.
As of this update, changing the Stage icon on Rollup List will always write an Activity to the record involved. The text of the Activity will include the details about which Rollup the change was made on and which Stage was set.
This change was made based on feedback from our users. We invite you to make your suggestions and vote on others’ ideas in the features forum at https://help.pcrecruiter.com
PCR update 9.7.17 rolls out this morning with GDPR compliance tools, the Email Campaign add-on, and a long list of major and minor improvements.
This morning PCRecruiter was updated with a set of improvements, fixes, and new features, including comprehensive GDPR management.
This update was particularly driven by the PCRecruiter feature suggestion forum. We value your feedback greatly, so please keep posting and voting on ideas you would find most useful – the details make the difference! This update includes substantial plumbing for future releases, including a coming Job Board update and new publishing features planned for Summer 2018.
Here is a detailed list of changes included the May 3, 2018 update:
Email
New ‘Insert Field’ options have been added. ‘Name.Photograph’ inserts a picture of the applicant, which can be helpful in Pipeline letters. The ‘Searcher.PositionList’ feature creates a clickable list of the selected positions, linking back to the Job Board.
In PCRMail, the menu icons for Compose, Get New, etc. have been relocated to the left side of the screen for easier access.
Our new Email Campaign feature, paired with our Analytics, is now available as an add-on:
Record Management
The ‘Merge’ action for Company and Name records, previously only on search results screens, is now available on Rollup List.
The Duplicate Names Report under the main Reports menu can now be run by Email Address only.
The Duplicate reports now include a Rollup filter for smaller-scale duplicate management projects.
When performing a search using the basic three-field search form for Names, Companies or Positions, you can now use the breadcrumb navigation link to return to the form without losing your search criteria. (This behavior was already present in the Advanced search.)
Activity Search queries are now saved for later re-use from the Action menu.
Phone Fields
In previous editions of PCRecruiter, the ‘Ex._____’ suffix for phone extensions was visible on all phone number fields. This will now only be visible for numbers that do not begin with a + and that exceed 10 digits.
System / User Management
The Copy User screen now begins without any options selected, and has a new ‘Select All’ option. A ‘Save as Default’ option has been added to save time when applying the same changes at a later date.
The options to copy Name, Company, and Position layouts have now been separated so that the layout for a single record type may be copied to other users. This also applies to copying Record Cards and Activity Defaults.
A new “Create/Update Profiles” option has been added under User Securities > Other. This new setting gives non-admin users the option to create and edit Profile forms.
The “Enable User Level Security” option has been moved to the Groups panel and has been renamed to ‘Restrict Access.’
The âIgnore All Securityâ option for System Administrator security has been renamed âFull Permissionâ
The âDiversity Source Listâ has been renamed âEEOC Sourceâ for clarity.
Positions &Â Interviews
A new Action item, ‘Copy Position’, has been added. This will generate a duplicate of the current Position under the same Company, which can be edited before saving the record.
The ‘Interviews’ tab within Name records now can be sorted by clicking the column headers.
The âPlace Appointment on Scheduleâ option can now be given a default setting to save selecting it each time
Default search options can now be stored for âLink to Positionâ screen.
New options have been added to display ‘number of Interviews’ counts in both Position Rollup lists and Position Search Results.
Rollup Lists
On the ‘Add Rollup’ screen, we have renamed âDescriptionâ to âNameâ and âMemoâ to âDescriptionâ so that they match the labels used when looking at the main Rollup menu.
On the ‘Recently Viewed’ Rollup screen, hovering the cursor over the Description will now display the entire Description.
Splitdesk
A new option allows users to hide the predefined Splitdesk Types: Candidate Owner, Company Owner, Interviewer and Position Owner. This is done by un-checking âUse ownership fields on Candidate, Company, and Position Recordsâ.
Work History
The ‘History Fields’ sections for Work History, Education, Licenses, References, and Military have been updated with a clearer and more streamlined interface in Profile forms.
PCRecruiter is ready for the GDPR
Main Sequenceâs guiding principles in regards to EU Data Protection Laws are to:
Remain continuously informed about the status of actual legislation, current recommended best practices as presented by the EU government, data protection authorities, and pertinent private industry exemplars, and accomplish technical requirements associated with compliance.
Ensure that customers are offered the longest practicable lead time to make required changes and minimize business disruption, including any ongoing obligations to Main Sequence, associated with Main Sequenceâs compliance, or non-compliance, with relevant EU Data Protection laws.
The Genesis of GDPR
The pertinent law, scheduled for full-effect 25 May, 2018, is EU Directive 016/679, headed âGeneral Data Protection Regulationâ. The now-standard acronym is âGDPRâ. The GDPR law is presented as lengthy assembly of principles related to nearly every aspect of handling information.
The GDPR is structured around detailed and defined roles for the various parties involved with handling information. The persons that are the subjects of information (candidates, clients) are called Data Subjects. The parties that process data (recruiters) are called Data Processors, and the parties that collect and use the data (such as Main Sequence) are Data Controllers.
The GDPR rule developed in light of the previous rule, and from a political process that unfolded over the previous decade. The political sticking points involved with international data protection are inescapable when subjecting firms with varying interests, assets, and exposures to various sovereigns, and arriving at dispute enforcement mechanisms that are actually compelling of good behavior.
So far, these structures have taken the form of quasi-treaties. One that was heavily relied on by Data Processors was known as âSafe Harborâ. Safe Harbor was built around a memo of understanding between vendors and US government agencies that the vendors would reasonably respond to EU data protection authority demands.
Eventually, the EU judiciary did not find that protection to be adequate, and in ruling C-362/14, the EU Court of Justice determined that Safe Harbor would no longer suffice for compliance with EU Data Authority rules.
This decision created immediate disruption and uncertainty for hundreds of cloud vendors and thousands of customers. In response to that pressure, the EU executive body (EU Commission) issued COM 566 (November 2015), stating that Data Exporters who had executed contracts with Data Importers containing unmodified EU provided standard Model Contract Terms (and appropriate appendices) would be compliant until further notice. These contract terms are explicit and comprehensive, although enforcement remains situational.
Main Sequence’s Status as Data Controller
Main Sequence interprets section (106) of Directive 016/79 (âThe Commission should monitor the functioning of decisions on the level of protection in a third country, a territory or specified sector within a third country, or an international organization, and monitor the functioning of decisions adopted on the basis of Article 25(6) or Article 26(4) of Directive 95/46/EC.â) as authorizing us to continue offering EU Model Contract Terms until at least 25 May 2018 or such time as the EU Commission no longer recognizes the Model Contract Terms as sufficient safeguards under Directive 016/679.
Along with GDPR, a successor to Safe Harbor was created. Itâs called Privacy Shield. Main Sequence is a certified participant in Privacy Shield as of 20 November, 2017. That certification may be found here.
In EU Commission COM(2017) 611 (final), the Commission states that: âIn its Decision of 12 July 2016 (âthe adequacy decisionâ), the Commission found that the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield (âPrivacy Shieldâ) ensures an adequate level of protection for personal data that has been transferred from the European Union to organisations in the U.S.â
Main Sequence is satisfied that Data Controllers may use our services in the reasonable expectation that they will be found adequate under GDPR.
A key open question of enforcement for Data Processors appears to be the question of where data must be hosted. On 16 October, 2017, The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in the case United States v. Microsoft, which turns on the question presented to the court:
Whether a United States provider of email services must comply with a probable-cause-based warrant issued under 18 U.S.C. 2703 by making disclosure in the United States of electronic communications within that providerâs control, even if the provider has decided to store that material abroad.
On 23 March, 2018, The Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act, commonly known as the CLOUD Act, was signed into law. The CLOUD act contains a provision that requires email service providers to disclose emails within their âpossession, custody, or control,â even when those emails are located outside the United States. This law rendered moot United States v. Microsoft, which was dismissed by the Supreme Court on 17 April, 2018.
This development removes a significant potential incentive for the EU to demand in-region hosting services.
PCRecruiter Compliance
In addition to the model contract terms, Main Sequence notes the following in regard to compliance with Directive 016/679:
PCRecruiter security settings will be set to high by default
Consent management tools already exist in PCRecruiter for opt-in and opt-in renewal + status notation. These tools are being streamlined and extended for GDPR, and GDPR specific training/consulting/configuration will be available to our customers prior to 25 May, 2018.
Data portability tools already exist in PCRecruiter to download individual data records as report objects. As with consent management, these tools will be streamlined and ready for use when the law comes into effect. The data portability requirements of the GDPR, in particular, are likely to be developed by enforcement practice subsequent to the 25 May, 2018 effective date of the regulation.
Main Sequence will provide complete database return to customers upon request.
Main Sequence will report to a customer any data breach within 72 hours of discovery.
Search and sort tools to facilitate removal of no-longer pertinent data at appropriate intervals already exist in PCRecruiter.
Main Sequence will perform all minimum legal requirements for EU Data Processors, and in the event of a default by Main Sequence of any EU Data Processor requirement, Main Sequence will release any EU Data Controller customer from any future contractual obligations and /or waive any early termination fees associated with closing a PCRecruiter account prior to contract expiry.
Main Sequence will actively monitor compliance responsibilities for EU Data Processors operating in the United States and processing EU Personal Data.
Pseudonymisation is not a required technique, but may lower exposure to notification requirements in the event of a security incident. It is unlikely that PCRecruiter records can be fully pseudonymised because direct identifiers (data that can be used to identify by cross-linking through other information that is in the public domain) such as addresses, phone numbers, etc. are essential recruitment information. Pseudonymisation features may be expanded in PCRecruiter (for example, âblindedâ C/Vâs) or coded candidate submissions which could work to limit further interrelationships between recruitment firms and their customers as pertaining to the GDPR
Main Sequence has no role in selecting a Data Protection Officer for customers, or in acting as one on behalf of customers.
Main Sequence recognizes that our customers may require support to configure PCRecruiter for essential tasks associated with their role as Data Controllers. Important steps for Data Controllers include, but are not limited to:
Documenting Security of Processing
Evaluation Pseudonymisation/Encryption
Assessment of Compliance
Data Breach Notification Planning
Estimating Data Protection Impact
Identifying Data Protection Officer
Design Data Acquisition and Maintenance for Minimum Impact
Review/Update Processor Contracts
Audit Record of Processing Activities
For customers requiring certification for PCRecruiter as a Data Processor, please refer to our Privacy Shield certification. For customers seeking information/training/configuration of Data Controller tools within PCRecruiter, please contact your Main Sequence sales consultant or submit a request to our online support system to schedule services.
GDPR Compliance Features
The following capabilities will be available upon request in the first week of May, 2018:
GDPR Data Fields
A GDPR tab on all name records, which contains new fields for tracking the Consent Date and Consent Purposes.
Consent Status Highlighting
Records with Consent Purpose set to Awaiting Consent or Revoked Consent are flagged in orange and are automatically opted out of all list-based email. Names that exist in the database at the time of activation will be automatically set to Awaiting Consent.
Consent Form Letters
Consent Form Letters are generated, which include âInsert Fieldâ merge tags leading the recipient to affirm or revoke consent. Selecting Deny sets the Consent Purpose field on the name to Requested Deletion.
Job Board Consent Requirement
A configurable consent agreement is added to the PCR Job Board so that all online applicants are prompted to affirm consent before proceeding to submit information.
Activity and Consent Log
The system adds New Activity types for tracking consent activity, and also adds a dedicated “Consent Log” panel for retaining all details and notes pertaining to consent collection.
Inactive Record Identification
An EUC Consent Purpose filter is added to the Identify Inactive Records panel, facilitating the location of inactive records and adding them to a list for Forgetting or other handling.
Global Change
A new Global Change option allows admin to apply consent setting to multiple records at once, such as all names that have Requested Deletion. All changes are recorded to the Consent Log.
Forget and Download
New Forget and Download action items appear for admin-level users, allowing them to relegate any single contact to the Forget Bin or to back up the recordâs fields and attachments locally. An option also exists for âauto-forgettingâ records that remain without consent for a given period of time.
Forget Bin
Once ‘forgotten,’ a record is given an ID and sent to the Forget Bin admin area. The email remains visible in the bin only. The ID takes the place of the record in Position Pipeline history.
Our popular PCR Capture Chrome extension gets a fantastic new “PCR Match” feature in today’s update, and we’re also opening registration for a webinar with our partner Verified First.
We’ve released a brand new update to the PCR Capture plugin for Google Chrome today. This new update includes support for Resume-Library.com and a brand new feature: PCR Match. This great workflow enhancer can skim any webpage for “FirstName LastName” formatted links and tell you whether that name is already in your database. If it is, you can send an email, add to a Rollup, and more right from the page you’re on. Check out the details in this video:
PCRecruiter’s integration with IBM Kenexa Assess on Cloud puts a fantastic library of over 1000 assessments and tests at your fingertips. Check out this brief demo video to see how the system works.
The latest update for PCRecruiter includes integration with IBM Kenexa Assess On Cloud, bringing a broad range of candidate assessments to your selection or development process. Whether you’re gauging job fit, traits, or skills, PCRecruiter and Kenexa Assess can help you find the right people for any level from entry to C-Suite.
Our newest PCRecruiter update rolls out on Tuesday, February 22, including nearly a hundred fixes and improvements, along with a couple of great new integrations and features.
The PCRecruiter ASP receives a long-awaited software update on Tuesday, February 22 which includes nearly a hundred improvements and code tweaks throughout the software.
Our development team has been working tirelessly on these fixes and infrastructure projects, many of which pave the way for some big features to be announced soon. We’re happy to be able to release these changes to you today.
Although most of these changes will not be immediately apparent to our users, three of the more noticeable items are:
A new integration with IBM Kenexa Assess, bringing an extensive library of robust candidate assessments to your placement process.
A new feature for Profile Forms which will immediately store the completed form as a read-only PDF for secure archiving or easy printing/emailing.
The PCR Capture extension for Chrome has been configured to recognize data on resume-library.com.
We’ll be posting in-depth videos about these new features in the coming days, as well as announcing some more very exciting updates, so please follow us here on the blog and on our Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn Group.
The reviews are in, and PCRecruiter has earned the 2018 Top Rated award for Recruiting Software from TrustRadius.
The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are unique in that they are an unbiased reflection of customer sentiment, based solely on user satisfaction scores. In order to earn a Top Rated badge for Recruiting Software, products must be in the top tier of the category with 30 or more reviews and ratings. Every reviewer is verified and every review is vetted before publication to ensure buyers can make truly informed decisions.
According to reviewers, PCRecruiter is living up to their promise of being a trusted name in online recruiting and resume management. Usability, reporting and flexibility for a range of business models were commonly cited strengths across PCRecruiterâs 35 reviews and ratings.
Read on to see what other users had to say.
âPCRecruiter is a seamless database system that allows simultaneous contact with LinkedIn and Facebook data.â
âWe use PCRecruiter system wide at Cerca Talent. We use it for both recruiting and sales which is difficult for most other ATSs on the market. In looking for a reasonably priced applicant tracking system with all the functions of the major players, PCRecruiter has been the right solution for us for over 10 years.â
âI have used PCRecruiter (PCR) for over 15 years. If every vendor that we work with was as good a PCR my life would be a lot better. The functions of the software meet all of our needs; customer service is extraordinary, if you have a suggestion they listen!
PCR has evolved over the years to keep up with new things that are happening like social media. As stated they listen to suggestions and take input seriously.â
âPCRecruiter is used to manage both recruitment job flow and business development activity. Having started my own business and currently working independently it is essential to the bulk of my day to day activities. Being able to customise different elements of the database means that I am able to search and categorise according to what matters most to my business. New options for attaching files through Outlook has improved workflow significantly.â
âPCRecruiter is being used across the entire organization. The main and major business problem we were able to address was the creation of a centralized database for all of our business groups to use for their clients that expand across several industries, verticals and locations.â
Main Sequence is honored to be included in this list and to appear among such fine company. To learn more, read this guide on how TrustRadius Top Rated works.
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