QJumpers http://www.qjumpers.co.nz Tue, 24 April 2012 09:00:00 Tue, 24 April 2012 09:00:00 Gosia Costar http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/new-post/ H! My name is Gosia, and I have been part of a QJumpers team for over a year now. It really bothers me that many people can't grasp what we do - and maybe they just don't want to! We often struggle to define ourselves - what is QJumpers? Explaining what we do and what we don't do, listing potential benefits to clients often meets a response: "Where is the catch? ".  Well, there isn't one. Really!! Yes, QJumpers  seems to be to good to be true., but I admit we do have our faults…we drink too much coffee, talk too loud, we are yet to win a  Dragon Boating  race nor Social Volley Ball game, we like costumes, we are all big food lovers  and we can't handle detox for longer than 2 days… That's us. We have created though, a great recruitment solution - an innovative online based system with a dedicated team to provide friendly and efficient customer service, to make the recruitment process easy and more time and cost efficient. That's it. I often hear  "The way we do our recruitment works fine", " We do not need a recruitment agency" -"We already have a recruitment agency we work with "  or simply  "We can't afford it". The response is frequently underlined by misunderstanding of what QJumpers do and a fear of change. I presume that's because they might perceive a change of their recruitment system as more workload to their job and a new system to learn, they are unsure if they will be able to handle it. I understand that fear, it is easy to get used to your own way of doing things. And to hold on to it. I used to organize my household budgets in beloved Excel spreadsheet. That was great; Seemed so easy and functional. Until I discovered an online budgeting option, where I could use more detailed yet more transparent features. This made budgeting even easier and I did not have to change my own system of doing it, just improved it. I also quickly converted myself to using online banking- another timesaver to the busy day for a working mum. Log in, click here, click there and  I no longer have to schedule my day so I can pop in to the bank before inconvenient 4:30pm closing, no queuing to pay bills or arrange meeting with a consultant. I can complete my banking tasks when I feel like it, conveniently, any time, anywhere, my own way. That's the way I like it. The improvements I found through the use of new tools allowed me to save time and consequently money ,and I will add-  made money managing all more fun. It's like child play! Is that too good to be true? Here at QJumpers we love results, efficiency and having fun. So we created a system that can provide you with all 3 when you do your recruitment. http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/new-post/ http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/new-post/ Tue, 24 April 2012 09:00:00 Gretchen http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2012/how-well-are-you-managing-your-recruitment-brand/ A necessary but unfortunate requirement in advertising a new vacancy in your organisation is informing the unsuccessful applicants of the outcome.  All too often candidates complain that they never heard back about their application.  In the current employment market there can be a significant number of people to correspond with and it is essential that you manage this well for a number of reasons:   It shows you have a professional approach, and appreciate the effort they have made (even if you thought they needed to make a bit more effort!).   Applicants are potential customers of your business, and your response - or lack of it - will strongly influence their perception of your organisation and the way they communicate to others about it.   With the strength of Social Media as a communication tool, badly managed communication with applicants can lead to a negative communication thread that will affect potential applicants perception of your organisation. You can respond to candidates by email, phone or letter.  Here are a few guidelines to follow: Let the applicant know the outcome as soon as possible.  The longer the wait, the more angst it creates. Appreciate the time the took it took to apply, and thank them for their interest. Always use positive language in your communication. Wish them well in their search for a new role. Giving candidates the news about their application doesn't have to be a long, arduous process.  A good Applicant Management System will have some great communication tools attached.  You can draft an email, and have it sent to all the appropriate candidates in a few clicks.   Look after your Recruitment brand, and leave applicants with a good feeling about your organisation, no matter what the outcome is.   http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2012/how-well-are-you-managing-your-recruitment-brand/ http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2012/how-well-are-you-managing-your-recruitment-brand/ Thu, 08 March 2012 10:00:00 Simon http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/december/australian-hr-technology-conference-review/ Introduction: A conference dedicated to Human Resources Technology was recently held by the Australian equivalent of HRINZ (AHRI) in Melbourne, Australia. Simon Oldham, International & Corporate Business Development Manager for QJumpers, attended the conference and summarises the main discussion points from a New Zealand point of view. The key focus of the conference was around the Human Resources team taking control of HR technology system buying decisions, cloud based software and social media in businesses.  There were various angles to these topics and I will discuss a few of them here. HR taking control of HR technology decisions There was a general mood of frustration amongst the speakers and attendees at the conference over the increasing influence the ICT team has over which Human Resource system to purchase and implement. Due to the relatively larger size of Australian businesses to NZ, there is a greater need to automate and streamline as many Human Resource processes as possible.  The most common module types being incorporated into HR systems in Australia are: Recruitment Management Applicant Management On-boarding Payroll Performance management Remuneration and benefits Learning and development Psychometric Profiling The key issue was how a provider of an HR system was evaluated and selected.  Insights from Australian organisations showed that the ICT department tended to focus on ease of implementation rather than fit for purpose.  Usability also appeared to take a back seat to ease of implementation for the ICT team.  This frequently resulted in the purchase of an off-the-shelf; one size fits all HR system from one supplier covering all modules rather than an integrated, modular, best in class solution from the a variety of providers. To the best of my knowledge, a single supplier cannot provide the best of all of the different modules needed in an Human Resources system.  Technological integration is an essential requirement for all HR modular system providers, and leading providers expect to build this into their service provision.  So why would you even consider settling for average solutions across all modules when you can get the best for each? David Guazzarotto from Future Knowledge suggested that "these are business initiatives with an IT component.  Kill the IT focus". Thankfully in NZ, HR teams appear to be still leading the technology decisions relating to their department.  Let's keep it that way! Cloud based technology Australian HR professionals are now generally very supportive of cloud based technology systems.  New Zealand seems to be a little way behind in this respect. Various speakers acknowledged the security issues involved in cloud based technology but as long as the data is stored in a first world country with a reputable supplier, the advantages significantly outweigh the risks.  Some of the key advantages are as follows: Mobility - login from anywhere on any device End of upgrades - continuous releases so no down time and always have the latest version Less reliance on your own IT team Less hard drive storage space required System changes are generally much faster than waiting on your own IT department or the supplier to fix them on site Costs are generally lower Easier and faster to install across multiple sites and countries Most suppliers who were exhibiting at the conference had cloud based options. The use of Social Media in business Social media use for business purposes in Australia seems to be on a par with New Zealand.  A surprising statistic quoted was that 5 of the top 10 largest Australian corporates have banned social media use completely as they are afraid of productivity losses through inappropriate use.  I guess they forget that nearly 50% of Australians own a smart phone and they do not need the work computer to access social networks.  The star studded panel on social media also pointed out that if an employee doesn't want to be productive, they will find other ways of wasting time.  Peter Williams, CEO of Deloitte Digital went on to say that social media can in fact be used to increase productivity and reduce staff turnover.  Deloitte Australia implemented Yammer, a social media platform similar to Facebook but only for use in-house.  They found that internal issues were raised more openly through Yammer and they could be dealt with quickly and promptly.  Before Yammer, issues were more commonly raised behind peoples' backs and this created bad staff morale.  Staff turnover reduced from more than 10% to 2% for the people who actively participated on Yammer at Deloitte Australia.  Participation on Yammer also taught their staff how to communicate appropriately on social media platforms.  Now they can actively participate on their corporate Facebook page, which assists the company in attracting candidates who will fit into their company culture. Australian HR professionals are still generally cautious and uncertain about how to approach recruitment from the likes of Facebook and Twitter - just like here in New Zealand.  LinkedIn is the most common social media platform used by HR professionals in Australia.  A show of hands indicated that around 80% of the conference audience has LinkedIn profiles.  It is also the social recruitment platform of choice, as it is easier to see the connection between using LinkedIn and finding the appropriate people as opposed to the brand attraction model that Facebook relies so heavily on. http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/december/australian-hr-technology-conference-review/ http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/december/australian-hr-technology-conference-review/ Fri, 16 December 2011 00:00:00 Gretchen http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/october/building-your-recruitment-brand-through-social-media/ Social Media sites provide a great forum to engage with customers, employees and fans of your brand.  You can truly delight your fans through forums such Facebook, and allow them to feel part of your organization.  Share new brand announcements, promotions or discounts, staff announcements, or just make a customer feel special through personal interaction. If your organization already has a Social Media presence then you will understand the benefits - but have you extended the engagement to your recruitment brand?  With more and more organizations creating an interactive platform with their fans on facebook , it is the perfect place to share job opportunities and allow engaged consumers and fans to apply for your vacancies. Recruit through Social Media QJumpers has taken their vacancies to their facebook page, and we are also putting this page in place for a number of our clients - and updating their vacancies automatically.  This enables fans and visitors to apply online, without even leaving the facebook environment. Fans can also share the page or vacancy to their friends, allowing a broader candidate reach.  Applicants from all sources, whether it is a job board, your own web page, or facebook, are delivered into an online account for you to manage.  You can dismiss, shortlist or email with a couple of clicks and since it is all web based, you don't have the hassle of installing software and keeping it up to date. If you are looking for ways to improve your social media presence, try reading "Likeable Social Media", by Dave Kerpen, who wrote his book to teach brands how to use social media to achieve likeability, transparency and responsiveness in a digital marketplace and give us a call if you want a recruitment management solution that fits into your organisation seamlessly.  http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/october/building-your-recruitment-brand-through-social-media/ http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/october/building-your-recruitment-brand-through-social-media/ Fri, 07 October 2011 00:00:00 Justin http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/july/browse-better/ Performance of web browsers has advanced rapidly in the last couple of years. The arrival of Chrome with its fast V8 JavaScript engine spurred Firefox, Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer to up their games. Chrome has seen rapid adoption and at current growth rates it's predicted to be the most widely used browser by June 2012 . I've been looking through QJumpers' usage statistics in Google Analytics and we're seeing increased adoption of Google Chrome at the expense of Internet Explorer and Firefox. QJumpers currently sees around 57% using IE, 18% Firefox, 15% Chrome, 8% Safari and less than 1% Opera.   Of the IE users we currently have 65% using IE8 and 16% using IE7. IE6 usage has dropped off to 3% whilst IE9 adoption has grown to 15%. It's great to see the newer browsers being increasingly popular with our users, but we still have about half of our users accessing QJumpers on the older versions of Internet Explorer - versions 6, 7 and 8. Google and Wordpress have already dropped support for IE6 and  Google Apps is dropping support for IE7 and older versions of Firefox and Safari as of August . Microsoft itself is doing everything it can to encourage people to  upgrade from IE6 .  We encourage our users to upgrade to the latest version of their browser in order to have the best user experience. QJumpers' web based recruitment software makes extensive use of JavaScript, and the newer browsers have optimised for this. Everything still works in the older browsers but it's a lot snappier in the latest versions. Chrome also has an excellent built in pdf viewer which is great for viewing attached resumes. If you're using QJumpers you will save time and enjoy a safer, faster browsing experience using the latest browsers. We realise that many of our corporate users are not able to choose or upgrade their browsers and we encourage you to apply pressure on your IT departments to upgrade, or maybe you could try installing the Google Frame plugin for Internet Explorer . It doesn't cost anything to upgrade to the latest browsers and you won't regret it. http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/july/browse-better/ http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/july/browse-better/ Fri, 29 July 2011 00:00:00 Gretchen http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/july/jumping-into-customisable-e-recruitment/ We have recently made a strong foray into customisable e-recruitment. Working closely with key clients who requested customised advancements to our software, Employers now have the option of delegating, approving and allowing a variety of permission levels for their job vacancies. We are always looking for ways to improve the recruitment process for Employers, and this requires tailoring our system to individual company needs at times.  QJumpers is the only company to offer a customized  applicant management system  with optional unbundled recruitment services such as on-demand Screening and Short listing of candidates. Every client we work with has had a slightly different process and the need for customization has become essential. Larger clients require different people to be involved in the recruitment process at different stages and they are often at different locations. We meet with them and design a customized system that meets their individual needs - providing extra functionality which allows them to delegate, approve and establish a variety of permission levels for job vacancies.  Business Development Manager, Simon Oldham, works closely with clients to ensure our system fits in with the way they recruit. "Our clients are always telling us how easy to use our e-recruitment system is" Oldham says, "This is what makes us stand out from the others." http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/july/jumping-into-customisable-e-recruitment/ http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/july/jumping-into-customisable-e-recruitment/ Wed, 27 July 2011 13:00:00 Gretchen http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/june/job-ads-that-stand-out/ Writing a compelling advertisement is important for a variety of reasons.  Attracting attention for hard to fill roles, creating awareness of the vacancy and generating interest - potentially viral. Check out  these job advertisements that were sure to be noticed. http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/june/job-ads-that-stand-out/ http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/june/job-ads-that-stand-out/ Wed, 08 June 2011 12:00:00 Simon http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/may/low-cost-recruitment/ New Zealand is a long way behind the rest of the world in terms of recruitment methods and technology. There has however been a noticeable move away from traditional recruiting towards moving the process in-house as a result of the recession.  But this has put extreme pressure on the internal human resources teams that have been charged to take over this recruitment process - usually without extra staff. These are the types of clients that I generally visit. I am continually surprised by the number of large corporates that do not have an applicant tracking system to take away so much of the administration time in managing the recruitment process.  I can understand that there is usually an associated capital expenditure freeze that goes along with this type of top down cost saving directive but there are options: QJumpers offers a FREE  applicant management system  and customised e-recruitment solutions Low cost/fixed price recruitment solutions A recent proposal that we made to a large corporate saw them saving over $100,000 per year in time savings just through using our applicant tracking system. Options in low cost recruitment services include QJumpers  services  but there are others around.  I am surprised at how few there are in New Zealand because this is what the market is screaming for.  Take a read of this  article  by Mark Jones that I found on recruitersite.co.uk to see what is happenning in the UK.  I find that New Zealand is generally about three years behind the UK in terms of recruitment trends and probably 5 years behind the US. So don't think that there isn't any way you can afford to do anything about your recruitment processes.  Start looking.  You will be surprised at what you find. http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/may/low-cost-recruitment/ http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/may/low-cost-recruitment/ Thu, 26 May 2011 12:00:00 Simon http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/may/put-your-recruiting-on-autopilot/ I read an article from an American blog this morning about doing some basic things to  automate as much of the recruitment process as possible . Being a smaller country where we do not have the same resource capabilities (i.e. $$$$) due to smaller company sizes, it wasn't totally relevant to us.  But it did re-ignite my passion for making NZ business recruitment processes as easy as possible - without having to spend the money or dedicate a person to look after it. Opt-in talent forms require someone to ensure the talent is always up to date and still keen - or else you will waste a lot of time chasing up candidates who are no longer keen, left the country or changed their contact details. Posting to multiple job sites (job boards) takes time and you don't really want to do it if it doesn't work.  So you need to measure where your applicants come from = more time or else money. Integrated resume sourcing = $$ ATS status updates = $$ Email marketing campaigns = $$ plus time to implement and then manage the responses. Really in New Zealand, for all businesses except for those with greater than 1,000 FTEs, the above suggestions cost more money than the return.  Especially in a small market where 90% of all job seekers go to either SEEK or Trademejobs. You can get the same results by using QJumpers to find staff.  The base recruitment service includes job advertising on SEEK, Trademejobs, QJumpers, a posting on Facebook and Twitter, reposting on various other free job boards like Indeed and Wowjobs, and most importantly of all, it comes with a FREE  applicant management system  (or Applicant Tracking System, ATS). We do all of the time consuming bits and even reply to applicants questions, post your vacancy to your careers page and Facebook careers page for no more than it would cost you to advertise the job vacancy yourself. The ATS auto replies to each applicant and you can login at any time to view your applicants and manage the job vacancy. It's all web based so no software installations are required.  There are no contracts and the result is a huge time saving for you.  You'll wonder why you didn't try it before. Sorry, this has turned into a major plug for QJumpers but that is because I know how great it is!  Everyone who tries it loves it!  And you don't need to be big to use us. But we do make customised e-recruitment solutions for the big boys too.... http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/may/put-your-recruiting-on-autopilot/ http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/may/put-your-recruiting-on-autopilot/ Fri, 06 May 2011 12:00:00 Simon http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/april/an-employment-market-of-two-halves/ It was interesting to read SEEK's latest press release about the number of job applicants increasing in the first quarter of 2011.  It was also referenced in the latest Bay of Plenty Times where I was asked to comment: http://www.bayofplentytimes.co.nz/have-your-say/news/more-people-apply-for-sought-after-jobs/3949719/?ref=nzh Looking at our applicant numbers for the first quarter of 2011, they have increased as well.  Across all of the job vacancies that we have advertised for in the first quarter of 2011, the average number of applicants per job has risen to 20.8.  This is an increase of 27% since December but this is not really unexpected.  January is always a big month in terms of jobseekers re-evaluating their future. December is usually a quiet month as people focus on Christmas parties and planning their holidays.  During a harsh economic times like we have been through recently, a lot of people are looking for a change after sticking at the same job, having to do more work to  cover for staff reductions without any significant pay rise.  They are feeling unappreciated.  Especially in the mid to lower level vacancies.  Hence the rise in job applications. The other half of the employment market in New Zealand is completely different though. We are at the tipping point of an ever changing recruitment market.  Employers have held the power since 2008 but global demands for skilled staff are now impacting New Zealand.  Industries such as IT and engineering have global shortages and recruiters are searching globally for talent.  For example, there is a need for over 5,000 IT and telecom staff for the 2012 London Olympics.  Australian recruitment firms are again coming to New Zealand holding recruitment fairs to try and lure New Zealanders over there with higher salaries.  Infrastucture projects started by the New Zealand government and the recent Christchurch earthquake has caused a surge in demand for skilled staff in these areas.  The number of applicants in these fields have decreased as skill shortages hit.  It is only going to get worse.  We are entering the worst period of global skill shortages that the world has ever seen.  Are you ready for it? http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/april/an-employment-market-of-two-halves/ http://www.qjumpers.co.nz/blog/posts/2011/april/an-employment-market-of-two-halves/ Fri, 29 April 2011 12:00:00