It’s Not Too Late…You can still keep your promise to your staff and get them up and running with the latest technology in applicant tracking software.

Summer has officially arrived, the weather is warmer, the kids are out of school and your Recruiters and Temporary Consultants have been scrambling to keep their heads above water. At the top of your “to do” list for 2014 you promised yourself and your staff you would purchase new staffing / recruiting software.

This year has proven to be phenomenal for the staffing industry. U.S. staffing companies employed an average of 2.96 million temporary and contract workers per week in the first quarter of 2014, up 3.2% from the same period in 2013, according to data released by the American Staffing Association. Your Temporary Consultants will not see any lag in business as the year progresses. With the demand for contingent workforce remaining high, the need to be efficient and organized is your first priority as a business owner.

I have had many conversations with owners, partners and managers regarding what finally brought them to the realization that now is the time to bring in new staffing software. The overall theme was not only have they gotten busier, they did not want their staff wasting their time on “stupid stuff”. They have assembled a great crew and owe it to them to bring updated technology into their lives. With so much paper sitting around the office, imagine how it would feel to finally go paperless!

Have you considered the ease and simplicity of taking and filling orders from one database? With complete candidate and client management (CRM), job orders, temporary assignments, resume submittals and interviews can all be tracked with just a few keystrokes. Once a job order has been entered into the system, it can simply be duplicated in the future when the client has the same request again.

Importing resumes from email, your website and job boards is essential in today’s busy market. The automatic creation of a candidate record, complete with skill sets, job history and education will be the result of parsing in the resumes. Think of how efficient your staff will be if they could bring in multiple resumes all at once while checking for duplicates at the same time.

The ability to search for candidates to fill job openings from the job order screen will do away a lot of unnecessary time digging through applications and outdated availability lists. When the client requires particular tests, background checks and certifications, wouldn’t it be easier to locate them right in the candidate’s file? Emailing the client resumes, tests and certifications all at once will eliminate additional data entry and multiple emails.

Current technology will allow you to take on more business and continue to grow, add more offices and staff. As generations are leaving and new generations are coming into the workplace, keep in mind they are accustomed to working with portable devices. Accessing emails, client and candidate information while they are out on the road is what they will be looking for. Gone are the days of dragging along a printed list of available candidates to fill immediate staffing needs. Accessing additional clients in the area while making sales calls will be simple to view on a mobile device. Attracting this talent with an outdated system will not be possible.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Employment Statistics Survey Summary for May, 2014, over the past 3 months, employment has increased by an average 234,000 per month. Temporary help services accounted for half of the employment change in May. This means we are going to see this pace continue. If you have not started the process of investigating what is available for your business, you need to start now. Your staff will be forever indebted to you.

To learn more about Ultra-Staff Staffing Software Download the Whitepaper Below.

Nancy Nesti is a National Sales Manager at Automated Business Designs, Inc., software developer of Ultra-Staff staffing software for the staffing and direct hire industry. Ultra-Staff is a full-featured business solution with components for front office, back office, mobile and web suite. For more information on Ultra-Staff go to www.abd.net.