WEDDLE’s 2011 User’s Choice Awards: The Elite of the Online Employment Industry

January 25, 2011, Stamford, CT – With one out of five Americans either unemployed or underemployed, there’s never been a greater need for employment assistance. Knowing where to go to get the best support, however, can be a challenge as there are now more than 100,000 employment sites operating on the Web. WEDDLE’s 2011 User’s Choice Awards solve that dilemma.

Now in their seventh year, WEDDLE’s annual User’s Choice Awards are the only accolades in the online employment services industry in which actual users – those who are looking for employment and those who are looking for employees – are able to vote for the employment sites they think work best. “We believe customers count most,” says WEDDLE’s Publisher and CEO Peter Weddle. “While pundits will always have their favorites, it’s the people who use the sites who really know which are most helpful.”

The winners were selected in balloting conducted throughout 2010 at the WEDDLE’s Website (www.weddles.com). Thousands of unique ballots were cast and while they do not represent a scientific survey, they do recognize the intensity of support for the top thirty vote-getters – the 2011 User’s Choice Award winners. They are:

About WEDDLE’s LLC
Since 1996, WEDDLE’s (www.weddles.com) has conducted ground-breaking research among both recruiters and job seekers on the Web. Its findings are widely regarded for their analytical rigor and often cited when identifying the Best Practices in online recruitment and job search. WEDDLE’s research has been reported widely in the media, both in the United States and around the world. In addition, WEDDLE’s is the largest publisher of guides to the 100,000+ employment-related sites currently operating on the Internet. The American Staffing Association has called WEDDLE’s Publisher Peter Weddle, the “Zagat of the online employment industry.”

by Sandeep Acharya

A few weeks ago I wrote about your DATA, use it when you need it.  I am going to stick with the data theme for this post as well.

Having been in the staffing industry for over a decade, I have been involved in many staffing software implementations at customers all over the United States.  Almost everyone knows that moving from one software to another is going to be challenging, time-consuming, but also exciting (obviously there are reasons for the switch).  Everyone knows there will be training, parallel and then a live week in the software implementation process.  But very few people understand the data conversion, what is involved or how much it will cost.

The data conversion usually is the most difficult and time consuming piece of the whole project.  There are many things which a company should consider before starting a data conversion:

 1.)  Which pieces of data are the most critical to run your business?

• Payroll and payroll taxes
• Past invoices and accounts receivable
• Contact information for your customers, contacts, applicants and employees
• Messages or notes regarding discussions with your customers, contacts, applicants and employees

2.)  How much data do you need (last two years, five year or as long as your company has been in business)?

3.)  Will you have your current software available after the implementation of the new software?

• This will help determine if you need all the data or can go back to the old software if needed
• As more and more companies choose to go the ASP (hosted) route always ask your previous software vendor for a complete backup of your data before leaving

4.)  And probably the most important question: How much are you willing to $pend on the data conversion?

• As software gets more sophisticated more data is being captured
• Most staffing software has over 300 tables where this data is being captured.  Converting every piece of information isn’t practical or cost effective. 
• Which leads me back to #1: Figure out what pieces of data are the most critical to your business

Once these questions are answered your team will be better prepared for the data conversion piece of your software implementation.

By Katie Grutsch

As you are well aware by this point, there are new tax benefits available for employers who employ and retain unemployed workers.

These provisions are part of the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act and will have a significant impact on most of our clients.   We’d like our staffing software solutions to assist you in this process and ensure the ability to accurately track and take full advantage of the tax benefits available to you.

In order to help you do this, we have created a simple procedure for you to follow.

1.)    Flag the employee who qualifies for the credit. To do this, add a new config choice for Employee Extra.  Then, on the config choice property for the Extra value that you just created, make sure the SystemName is Affidavit_Signed.

2.)    Avionté has an Advanced Query called Payroll Liability_Aff that we can upload (based off the Payroll Liability report). It will pull for anyone who has the Employee Extra label you designated with Affidavit_Signed as the SystemName.

3.)    Interested in utilizing the query?

Please let me know or send your request to support@avionte.com and we’ll be happy to upload it to your system.

Any other questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

Here are a few tips and suggestions to get the most out of your online application:

• Keep it simple – Your goal shouldn’t be to gather all of the applicants information, but just enough to know if this is someone that you want to bring in for an interview or not.
• Reliable information – Just remember who is filling out the application and how reliable the information is.
• Useful information – The more free text answers the applicant can fill out, the harder it will be to search on that information. Limit them to answer the questions how you want them to answer the questions by using drop downs or check boxes.
• Time friendly – You need to be able to quickly enter the entire online application. If it takes longer than 15 minutes to fill out, you lost the battle and lost an applicant!

Check out Chris Brablc’s blog for additional ideas on building your talent network!

by Sandeep Acharya

Recently I was watching a television program when a commercial came on with the slogan, “It’s my money and I need it now.”  The commercial (to probably no one’s surprise) was for a law firm trying to get money for individuals when they need it.  For some reason it got me thinking about the staffing industry.  Its My Money & I Need It Now Commercial on YouTube

As a staffing company owner your biggest asset is your DATA.  Certainly you can argue that your employees are your biggest asset.  Without your employees your company is not able to put people to work, close new business, get people their paychecks and so on.  But how well was your Branch Manager or VP of Sales able to function the last time your servers went down? How did these team members function when they were not able to get at your company’s critical data to make a call, send an email, or create a check for the person standing in the lobby waiting to be paid?

Over the last five years there has been a major shift in staffing companies outsourcing their data to staffing software professionals, like Avionté.  Avionté has the data infrastructure in place to host your most critical data.  This also includes off-site backup facilities with multiple internet service providers.

Those in the staffing industry know it is a 24 hour a day business.  Along with knowing the data is safe and accessible, data hosting is attractive to staffing firms because servers, networks, applications, bandwidth and other equipment are all managed by someone else, leaving staff to do their job effectively and efficiently when they need to: from the office, from their home or from the road. 

Your DATA is the most critical piece of your business.  Make sure you take care of it.  Make sure you trust the people who care for it.  And make sure you and your team are able to use it, WHEN YOU NEED IT!