Thank you to all that participated in the 2011 Avionté Client Connection Forum.  If you didn’t have the opportunity to attend and are thinking about joining us next year, check out what some of our attendees had to say. ?

• “To all those at Avionté who helped to make last weeks Conference so productive, oh and so FUN too, thank you so much for your efforts to make us a better Company!!” – Lynda
• “Thank you so much for inviting me to attend your Client Connection Forum.  It was wonderful to watch your clients interact and how much love and respect that they have for all of Avionté.  It was really something special to see.” – John
• “It is very refreshing  to see how interested you are in what your customers think and how important it is for you to make changes to ease the process for us.  I am certain that we have chosen a vendor that we share the same values with and that is very satisfying.  This was by far the best software session that I have ever attended.” – Annette
• “I cannot begin to express what a great job you and John and the whole crew from Avionté did this past week. It is no wonder why you have such loyal clients. Yall did an awesome job and I hope to come back next year!” – Dee
• “Another great forum.  I have quite a bit of information to bring back to the staff” – Mark
• “The Client Connection forum was put together very nicely and it presented us with opportunities to hear from others and learn more about Avionté”  prospective customer
• “The networking events were great, it was nice to hear how other users are using the Avionté”  -Katie
• “Great experience!  Thank you for all your team’s hard work in putting this forum together and providing a great experience!” -John
• “Great job, very beneficial” -James
• “Very much appreciated the one-on-one opportunities with the Avionté folks throughout the forum” – Kristen
• “It was fabulous!  Enjoyed the content, food and entertainment” -Amber
• “Your team is warm, friendly, easily approachable and very helpful” -Lauren
• “Great conference!  Really informative and should help me to implement training strategies and refine employee use!” -Sheri

I love the opportunity of visiting with other staffing professionals.  I enjoy hearing about what they are doing, how they have overcome obstacles, new lines of business they are pursuing and overall what is working for them.  In addition, I like to share my experience.  Prior to joining Avionté I spent over ten years in staffing and recruiting.  Although not an expert, I saw my far share of action and learned a lot along the way.

I had just been promoted to Assistant Manager when the company I worked for decided to start a direct hire division.  They had looked at several options, such as training internal staff to recruit for high level positions or bringing on a team that already had experience in recruiting and acquiring new orders.  This division would operate separately from the temp division, but we would share customers.

One of our customers that used us often for temporary positions contacted us about helping them fill a VP position.  This was one of the first big orders for our new direct hire division to work on.  The account manager and one of our owners went over to meet with the president and gather some information.  Upon returning to the office they shared the specs with me.  I had about one year in staffing and had mostly worked in light industrial at the time, although I had placed a couple of entry level engineers; which means that I really didn’t have much experience with this type of placement.  I scanned the information, and told them I had the perfect candidate.  My boss smiled at me, and explained that I probably didn’t completely understand what they were looking for.  I assured her that I did and I wanted to contact him and talk about the position.

At this point I should probably tell you a not so little secret about myself.  I am competitive, not just a little competitive, ultra competitive.  In high school my swim coach told me that I probably had the worst form he ever saw, but I did well because I wanted it more than anyone else in the pool.  If there is something I want, I’m relentless.  One of the greatest compliments I received while working an account was that I was a “bulldog”.

Since I knew this person well already, the initial part of the prescreen was pretty easy.  When we got to the technical portion of the interview, I was in a bit over my head.  I gathered up the information that I thought would do the best job in selling him to our client and e-mailed it to my boss.  She reviewed it, and agreed that I just might have found someone that would be a good match.  She cautioned me that most of the time clients need to see several candidates before they will even think about making an offer.     Just because that’s the way it normally happens, doesn’t mean it always happens that way.  They interviewed my candidate and made an offer within a couple of days.

There are a couple of morals to this story.  First, don’t under estimate someone who is passionate and motivated.   I figured I couldn’t lose.  We didn’t have anyone else in the pipeline, so why not take a look at my candidate?  Just because they didn’t come from one of our experienced recruiters didn’t mean they wouldn’t be a good match.

Good recruiters are simply good networkers.  Anyone can post an ad, dig through a database or ask for referrals.  Being well connected with others is what to look for in a recruiter.  It doesn’t matter if this person is filling six figure positions or entry level.  They have to know people, like people and remember people in order to be effective.  Of course you have to use all the tools available, such as the above, but having that network is the most effective.

When you find that person who shows an interest, encourage them!  After my placement I was given all sorts of tools to help hone my recruiting skills.

Who on your staff might be the next big thing in your company?  What are you currently doing to train, motivate and cultivate their talent?  You might be letting $$ slip away because you haven’t taken the opportunity to see what hidden talents your staff may possess.

Check out our FREE webinars for June.  To register simply send us an email.

June 7, 2011  11am Central                     Advanced Search – Digging in your database

June 23, 2011 9am Central                      Candidate Management

June 28, 2011 10am Central                   QuickPlace – How and why you should be using it

Keep watching for more FREE webinars in June

Check out our FREE webinars for May.  To register simply send us an email.

Wednesday May 11th at 11am C Using Outlook in Avointe

Learn the  differences between Exchange, POP3, and IMAP accounts. Setting up all three of these account types, and how to utilize Outlook within Avionte.

Tuesday May 17th at 11am C Deduction Setup and Transaction Types

Check out our FREE webinars for April.  To register simply send us an email.

Wednesday April 20  11am CDT – Advanced Search

Monday April 25 11am CDT – Admin Tools

Tuesday Arpil 26 11am CDT – Candidates

By Laura Schmitz

As many of you know, I travel a lot.  I almost always rent a car and have come to some conclusions:

1.       Best City with no traffic any time of any day: Reno, NV

2.       Worst City for traffic:  Atlanta, GA by far worse than NYC or LA or Paris or London (it once took me 3 hours to go 8 miles in Atlanta on a Tuesday; I’m renting a ten-speed from now on.)

3.       Weirdest highway entrances/exits: Toss-up between NH, Milwaukee, WI and TX

4.       Nicest and most Courteous drivers: AR & OH

5.       Best Drivers (in as far as they know the rules of the road like how to merge, etc.): WA

6.       Worst Drivers possibly in the world:  My home state of MN, it doesn’t matter where you go; the Twin Cities or in the most northern rural cities, they can’t drive!

Whether you look at the passive aggressive speed monitors who hang out in the left lane at 54 mph staying right next to the guy in the right lane or the ever annoying who speed up just as they’re supposed to yield to the merge or those that simply don’t pay attention to the Road construction signs (all 10 of them in ever increasing size, blinking patterns and neon indicating a closed lane); they still wait until they’re going to run over a cone before they get over.   Keep in mind that there are 2 seasons in MN: Winter and Road Construction; so this is a good 5-6 months each year.  But what’s really got me going is a new phenomenon:  NEVER using a blinker.  I mean all of a sudden, you’re driving along and out of the corner of your eye you see a car drifting your way and lo and behold they’re in your lane about 2 inches from your bumper.  It’s maddening!  Do Minnesotans not know about this great, timeless piece of technology called a blinker that allows them to alert other drivers as to their intentions to switch lanes or take an exit or turn?  Do they think that like headlights this has gone automatic and the car just KNOWS to signal for them?  Every day I experience my heart skip a beat as I envision the 10 car pile-up that was just miraculously avoided because some moron didn’t use a blinker and without looking just veered into the next lane.

So, I do have a business parallel to talk about (thanks for letting me get all of that inner road rage off my chest).

Just like the blinker in your car, the signals you send when utilizing the technology you have invested in can be used to indicate to all the other drivers in the business where you’re going.  Software is great, I happen to think that Avionté is some of the best software out there, but if it isn’t paired with a solid base of process and procedure, it’s just like the MN driver weaving in and out of traffic like an out of control race car driver.  Without process, users don’t know how to be most efficient or effective; they become aimless drivers on the highway, nearly avoiding collision all day long.  From applicant to candidate to placement, do you have a process that everyone is following?  From prospect to customer to placing an order, do you have a process that everyone uses? Avionté has great functionality to base these processes around, and we continue to improve upon it.   Are you up to speed on everything that Avionté has to offer to enhance your everyday processes? Are there things that you’re doing that are kind of a nuisance but you have just gotten used to doing it that way or didn’t have the time to see if it could be done better?  Now is the time.   I’ve had the pleasure of visiting and working with clients in the past couple of months to do consultations and refresher training and with even just a few tweaks to process have seen companies increase their productivity and retention by utilizing what had always been there for them to use.  Please contact me today if you’d like to talk about your process, workflow and procedure to ensure you’re getting the most out of your investment but also signaling to your staff the best route to take to reach the ultimate destination: Success.

Tuesday March 29 at 11am CST – Mass Mail and Favorites

Thursday March 31 at 11am CST – Text Messaging

Wednesday April 6 at 11am CST – Admin Portal

Contact the Training Team to reserve your spot.

If you could…

• Engage new staff
• Shorten time to productivity
• Build confidence
• Make new hires feel welcome and excited
• Decrease turnover and increase retention

Wouldn’t you?

Providing professional training for your new hires will accomplish all this and more!  Great care and thought was taken selecting your new staff member, now give them the tools to succeed!

Front Office training (2 hours)

• Basic navigation
• Basic Employee
• Basic Customer
• Basic Contact
• Basic Order
• Basic Assignment

Back Office training (2 hours)

• Basic navigation
• Overview of Employee, Customer, Contact
• Basic Time Entry
• Basic Payroll
• Basic Billing
• Basic AR

Each session is only $50 per user!  E-mail us today with the session you would like to attend.

Front Office: Monday February 14th 10am-12 CST

Back Office: Tuesday February 15th 10am-12 CST

Have you missed one of the past Tips of the Week?  Here are some of my favorites that our users have found to be helpful.

Counters are Cool

Who Changed That?

Match ‘em Up Automatch

Paycheck Voids/Reversals

Save Time – Shortcuts

Generating Resumes

Do You Document?

Forgotten Timecards

I’ve Got Skills

Sometimes Basic is Best

Search Options

Too Many Tabs

Favorites v2010

Keeping Track of Candidates

Start Sheets

Do You Inspect?

Ending Assignments

Tracking Sources

Quarter End Reports

Look What I Can See

My Favorite Child

Assignment Changes

Data Requirement Message

Mass Resume Parser

QuickPlace

Mass Mail

More Than a Message

Mass Mail

New Back Office Features

Search Options in Advanced Search

New Back Office Features

Adding Transactions to Orders

Agency

New Resume Parser Feature

Web Time Entry

Employer Health Reporting

Do you have an idea for the Tip of the Week?  Send me an email.

We will be offering the following FREE trainings this month.  Feel free to contact us to get additional details.  Each session is limited, so sign up early.

January 14  11am-12pm CST           Admin Tools

January 18     12pm – 1pm CST        Favorites/Mass Mail

January 26       1pm – 2pm CST        Advanced Search

February 2        1pm – 2pm CST        Web Portals