10 Technology Commandments for HR When Hiring In 2012

1.  HR shall not be intimidated by IT folk who talk in big, scary words.

2.  HR shall not let their software lead them, but shall lead the software to help meet their goals.

3.  HR shall not collect a bunch of superflous information from applicants via an online application, just because they can.

4.  HR shall not allow their marketing department to place the link to the career section anywhere but on the home page of the brand web site.

5.  HR shall not let resumes slip into the infamous black hole, but rather should get to know their ATS and use it.

6.  HR shall not buy any software without first understanding why they need it.

7.  HR shall not assume that the software companies with the biggest marketing budgets have the best software for their needs.

8.  HR shall understand and walk through their hiring process as an applicant from beginning to end at least once a year.

9.  HR shall not waste their applicants’ nor their recruiters’ time with extraneous information gathering and unncessary form validation.

10.  HR should keep asking questions of technology experts until they gain the understanding they want and need.

Sneak Preview of New Mobile Job Application

Next week myStaffingPro is releasing a new mobile job application. I thought I’d share a sneak preview of the new technology. When released, hundreds of organizations will immediately give their applicants the gift of a mobile friendly career site.

Designers and developers were given three goals for this application:

• High usability
• Integrated employment branding
• Robust online application functionality

 The career site, accessed directly from the employer’s corporate web site, launches with a career search page that looks and feels like an app, and showcases the employer’s brand:

Designed for “fat fingers”, applicants can select a job with just one touch:

Social networking tools are embedded into each job posting. Information the applicant actually cares about is presented in a simple layout:

Only minimal information is requested in easy to use form fields (again, with the small screen in mind):

Full prescreening functionality supported – customized to each job:

The applicant is given the opportunity,via an email in his inbox, to attach additional documents, like a resume and/or cover letter, to the application by using his personal computer.

I’ve seen a lot of hype out there about mobile applications. Many companies are just tweaking the width of their web site and calling that “mobile.” To create a truly mobile experience, developers need to take the time to design and develop an application that is easy to use on a small screen, contains only the information that is important to the user, and has the look and feel mobile users have become accustomed to. If you’ve created a mobile web site you’re proud of, please let me know! I’d be very interested to take a look at it, and maybe even highlight it on my blog.

An Open Letter: Choose Your Email Address Wisely, Job Applicant

Dear Job Applicant:

Please choose your email address wisely.  If you are applying for a job, your email address will appear on your job application.  Your potential future employers will be contacting you on this email address.  Please follow these simple rules for a proper email address:

• No sexual innuendos
• No references to weed or other drugs
• No swear words, or even misspellings of swear words
• No words that disparage people groups

If only I was writing this blog out of a hypothetical fear that you might use  an inappropriate email address on your job application, but alas, I have first hand experience of reviewing applications in which each or all of the above rules are broken.

So do yourself a favor, applicant.  If, for some reason, you have a highly inappropriate email address, take advantage of the multitude of free email providers (gmail, yahoo, hotmail, and many more) and get a new one, at least for the length of your job search.

Sincerely,

A Friend