During my days as a Project Manager for The Bank of New York (now acquired by Mellon Bank), my primary role was to implement a new system that would ultimately save the company tens of millions of dollars in spending on temps and consultants.  (The term was more eloquently put as "Contract Labor").  Be that as it may, this system was a Vendor Management System and I personally evaluated over a dozen vendors and so I think I know a thing or two about evaluating software that makes life easier from a recruitment standpoint.  Applicant Tracking Systems (henceforth known as ATS), is a different story though.  ATSs aren't really known for saving a company a ton of money (although most claim to in soft dollars) but their mainstay is that it will make the application process from initial submission to offer and onboarding, a seamless and painless ordeal.  And while this might be true, I had to kiss a lot frogs before we got our prince in the form of Vurv. 

 

Vurv was formerly known as RecruitMax and they changed their name in late 2006 to Vurv.  The word verve means "to have chutzpah or gumption or that certain je nai se quoi".  I have to be honest with you, I really did hate the name but after awhile it kind of grows on you.  In any event, I evaluated a lot of these ATS systems before we decided on Vurv.  Vendors like JobScience and a number of others came in close but ultimately we had to go with what the other 43 CHW facilities were going with...Vurv.  Implementation was very easy but training all of the hiring managers was another story.  We had to have several training sessions since hiring managers are known for not being able to make it to training and we also employed Webinar technology to train the rest.  But even before training, we needed to figure out what it was about an ATS system that we needed.  In a simple word:  Everything!  Mercy Medical Center Redding was so reliant on paper (paper applications, paper transfer forms, paper requisitions....paper, paper, and then a healthy dose of paper).  S

 

We needed our ATS to be scaleable and grow with us in terms of number of users, volume of activity and also in terms of reporting features.  Secondly, we needed something that would truly automate the application, interview and onboarding processes.  Thirdly, it had to be a system that was web-based, user-friendly and easy to learn.  Lastly, the difficult part was to establish buy-in from management that this was the way to go.  It didn't help that early on during the post-implementation phase of Vurv, there were some technical issues and some managers weren't trained yet.  I was on the phone with our ATS Support Team a lot (or e-mailed them) and in terms of the renegade hiring managers that somehow eluded our training, I would stalk them and train them in their own offices in a one-on-one "quickie-session" to teach them how to create requisitions, check on status, review applications and perform next-step functions.  In a nutshell I was teaching them the basics to get by.  After now having used Vurv for the better part of a year and a half, I not only like the tool (although there does need to be some additional functionality that could be useful), and I think Vurv has a future.  By the way, I heard recently that Vurv (the company) was acquired or merged with Taleo, a behemoth in the Vendor Management Systems space. 

 

In the end, I could actually write a book on ATS implementation, post-implementation challenges and daily usage not to mention how it can help you effectively partner with your hiring managers.  But since there is limited blog time and blog space, I will ask that if any of you have specific questions, please e-mail me at sung.kim011@chw.edu and I would be happy to answer your questions about Applicant Tracking Systems.  The take-home lesson though is that you want a product that is backed by a financially strong and solvent company, has good 24/7 support, offers outstanding initial training or "train-the-trainer" options, and is user-friendly enough while being robust as a system.  Clear as mud, right?  I wish you the best of luck and remember, not automating the recruitment process is a shame.  Look into what options are out there for your organization and spearhead the movement towards change.  After all, inspiring vision and leading people towards change is the definition of leadership, isn't it?  Good luck, everyone.  Stay tuned for next week's blog on recruitment advertising.

As my first blog was really more of an introduction of myself, I decided to use this blog posting to go over a topic that all of us are (or should be) interested in:  sourcing.  That one word can either make a recruiter salivate or cringe.  Why is that?  Well, for one thing sourcing has traditionally been hard to do.  It meant casting the net out using sources like job board resume searching, networking, and even cold calling.  Not to mention actually posting ads in newspapers or other print media only to have to go through stacks and stacks of resumes.  (If you were even lucky to get resumes from newspaper/magazine ads).  The recruiting world has now almost unanimously agreed that print media is not only obsolete in finding most job seekers, but that it also increases Cost-per-Hire (CPH) and Time-to-Fill (TTF) metrics.  In my own sourcing efforts at Mercy Medical Center Redding, I try not to use print media.  When I do, I not only use it for posting my jobs but more importantly as a branding tool for name recognition.

 

So without print media, then what else can you use?  Well, for one thing let's start with a basic premise.  Whatever technology you have at your disposal, let it work for you.  Let me give you an example of what I mean.  At Mercy, we use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) called Vurv.  Vurv was formerly known as RecruitMax and Vurv (the company) has recently been acquired by Taleo (the giant in the industry of Vendor Management Systems).  Be that as it may, Vurv (the system) is not as robust as it should be but it does do a good job with all of the basics.  Though there are many components of functionality that are missing, it does have a great "agent" or "bot" that can go out and source the entire enterprise-wide database for you on a daily, weekly, monthly or whatever-basis to yield resumes of qualified candidates for you.  Since CHW is a large enterprise (44 facilities) the agent, called AutoSpot, has a large database to mine and extract from.  I have made several hires from candidates that were AutoSpot-sourced. 

 

This is just one example but you can also do the same with the job boards as well.  Monster, CareerBuilder, and HotJobs (not to mention countless other job boards) offer the same types of resume search agents as Vurv does.  I have made several hires from these as well.  The beauty of these agents is that you determine which keywords to include and you can make the search specific by using "quotations" to do so.  Other Boolean string commands like AND and OR also help but the bottom line is, automating this function has easily cut my sourcing time down by at least 50%.  You can use that time to do other more meaningful things like generating management reports or developing strategy.  In any event, these are just a few examples of how you can have technology work for you.  In the end, you need to be a good steward of your own time.  Recruiters are very busy people and without strong time management skills and tools that help to automate your work, you will be at a distinct disadvantage. 

 

I invite you to try these agents with your ATS or with the job boards to which you have a subscription.  I guarantee that you will reduce your sourcing time, make life easier for yourself, find qualified candidates and be a happier recruiter for employing my advice.  Happy hunting and God bless!

As the first blog posting for ERE, I want to keep this fairly light in reading and content.  I blog on several other sites but this is my only "professional" blog.  To give you a bit of an introduction into why I chose to blog for ERE, for one thing I believe in what ERE is doing.  Sharing in an open forum of Recruitment Professionals those issues that plague all of us is a very healthy way to let off steam, present new ideas and gather insight into how others think, feel, process and implement.  Secondly, I am hoping that at some point during my tenure as an ERE blogger, I actually help someone who has a dillema or problem that they are challenged with.  Lastly, I wanted to blog on ERE because it seems like everyone else is chiming in on their expertise...so I thought, "Why can't I"? 

 

A little background on me...I'm a seasoned Recruiter with nearly 15 years of experience (mostly corporate although I've done agency-side and consulting as well).  My track record is mostly in New York City where I am a graduate of City College of New York.  I have worked for major Fortune 500 companies (either as a consultant or an employee) handling hard-to-fill staff, management, and senior management positions.  My wife and I relocated to Redding, California to be closer with family and to give our daughter Christall, a chance to live in a quality area free from crime, terrorism and other such pitfalls.  Home is New York for me in my heart but now we hang our hats in Redding.  I've been the Recruiting Manager for Mercy Medical Center Redding for two and a half years and enjoy what I do (which is recruiting for everything; from nurses to housekeepers to "C-level" folks). 

 

Right off the bat, one of the things that I found to be different in my new role at Mercy was that I had very little union experience prior to joining them.  At Mercy, the RNs are represented by CNA (California Nurses Association) and "everyone else" is represented by SEIU (meaning the majority of Allied Health and Ancillary).  Though the relationship with both unions has been an arduous one, it is still encouraging to see that there are and have been some improvements to said relationship over time.  Having said that, what really helps me do my job there and is a big selling point about Mercy is that we truly adhere to a strong set of core values that are derived from our mission:  furthering the healing ministry of Jesus Christ.  Having that type of mission and that set of core values (Dignity, Excellence, Collaboration, Justice and Stewardship) means that we absolutely hire to a profile.  We have a "type" that we look for, in other words.  This type of person is someone who at any level embraces Servant Leadership practices and philosophy. 

 

Trust me, I won't go into a long dissertation about Servant Leadership, although some of my favorite authors include folks like Max De Pree, Peter Drucker, Ken Blanchard, etc. all of whom have written about or referenced the principles of Servant Leadership at some point in their venerable careers.  Anyway, I'm looking forward to honing in on some topics (both light and serious, capricious and profound).  Stay tuned for my next entry which will focus on Sourcing for Healthcare Candidates.