We’ve been burning the midnight oil the last couple of weeks to pump out a new and improved job recommendations engine and dramatically expand our network of companies in our application update engine.  We’re happy to announce that we just rolled these great updates.  We hope you like the results. 

Here are the details:

• New & Improved Job Recommendations: Every time you track a new application with StartWire, our recommendations engine gets smarter. We analyze your applications,  look for key characteristics you like (and dislike) and use these to recommend better jobs.  You can edit and enhance these Likes and Dislikes on our new recommendations , tab with a few simple mouse clicks…so you can tune our engine to an even higher level.  Give it a try. The results are awesome…and as always…we’ll let you know about any Insider connections you have for any job we return!
• 1334 New Companies Added to the StartWire Application Update Engine: Job seekers and companies alike are ‘into’ our our application update engine. Job seekers love the fact we are closing the ‘black hole’ and companies are ecstatic about the fact we are helping their applicants feel better about their recruiting process.  Today, we’re happy to announce we’ve added 1334 new companies in the last month…bringing the total network to 4,000+ supported companies.

And BTW, last week was the best week in StartWire’s short life. New users, tracked applications, and site usage is going through the roof. Thank you all for spreading the love about StartWire. 

StartWire is completely free for job seekers; you can sign up here.

About StartWire

StartWire™ closes the ‘application black hole’ by providing job seekers with free, automatic updates on their job applications from over 4,000 employers via e-mail and text. StartWire™ also provides a suite of tools that streamline the job search process from recommendations on where to apply and friends who can help, to status indicators of your chances of getting a call based on your application date, the age of the job, and industry benchmarks.

StartWire™ launched in early 2011 to rave reviews and write-ups in US News & World Report, About.com, AOL Jobs, CNN, ERE, HR Executive Magazine, & Career Xroads. StartWire™ is the 1st product commercialized by StartDate Labs™ – a recruiting and job search technology incubator. StartDate Labs is based in Lebanon, NH.

Who wants to make time for spreadsheets or room for post-its in the summer? 

At StartWire, we think it should be as easy to keep track of your job search as it is to make plans for cook-outs and get-together with friends.

Our release today makes it easier to keep track of your job search with the following enhancements:

• Better feedback from employers: Get e-mail or text updates on your job application status at over 2,500 companies (the list is growing) 
• At-a-glance information on how old a job posting listing is — we give you information on how many days it’s been since you’ve applied as well as a gauge of how active the current position is.
• The ability to store comments on job applications — or get automatic suggestions on where to apply based on your interests.

As always, StartWire allows you to track and keep records on any job you’ve applied to online. It’s free, private, and information is shared only with those of your trusted friends you want to be in the know on your job search.

You can set up a StartWire account here or by forwarding any e-mail confirmation message (you know the “don’t call us, we’ll call you message you get when you apply for a job) to apps@startwire.com 

Check it out, and drop us a line and let us know what you think!

Wouldn’t it be great if employers got graded for their part in the job search process too?

Enter the Candidate Experience Awards 2011 – a competition for corporate recruiting organizations operating in North America. The award process evaluates and recognizes organizations that deliver outstanding candidate experiences. Companies that apply will receive confidential benchmark data on how their scores compare to the applicant group as a whole. Companies that meet or exceed the award standard will receive a C&E (pronounced “candy”) award designation. Finalists will also receive special recognition. The C&E Awards ceremony will be on October 4, 2011, at the HR Technology Conference in Las Vegas. There is no cost to apply for the award. (Editorial disclosure: StartWire is a sponsor of this award.)

The C & E Awards are being produced by a non-profit organization called The Talent Board. We sat down with two key players in the project, Talent Function Group co-founders Mark McMillan and Elaine Orler, to get an overview of this new program.

What is Talent Function?

MM: TalentFunction is a talent acquisition consultancy. Staffing leaders hire us to make their teams more effective.  We are known most for our expertise in helping companies get the most out of their recruiting technology. If I’m in an elevator with someone outside our industry, I like to say that “We are the management consultants for the recruiting function.”   

What drives this award?

EO: The genesis of the C&E Award (pronounced “Candy”) was a coffee meeting between Chris Forman and I in November 2010. An award idea was proposed by Chris, and I couldn’t have agreed more. From my perspective, the last 16 years of my career has had a focus in some way on the candidate experience. From my first role of recruiting in a fast paced corporation to the need to constantly evaluate how candidates are being communicated with in regards to their submission. Every consulting engagement has an aspect of thinking about the critical talent needs and the behaviors an organization wants to present in recruiting that talent. How corporations treat those that they are interested in is shadowed by how they treat those that they are not interested in. And the latter is a population of thousands, and in some cases millions to key organizations. Getting that experience right is no longer an optional exercise for organizations, and is now a critical competitive advantage.

MM: If you are a recruiting consultant, you tend to hear about candidate experiences all the time. Your friends, and friends of friends, share their job search experiences with you. For Elaine and I, we have heard too many bad stories over the years. I have also experienced this personally; here is one example of the impact that this can have on an organization’s reputation.

Everyone involved in the C&E Award has a strong conviction that this [candidate experience] could be better.  This is our industry and we all want to do something about it.   Companies need help.  Most recruiting leaders need help making the business case to their management.  We feel that the best way to affect change is to create an award that highlight what companies are doing well.  The goal of the award is to re-enforce a standard of humane treatment.

We are doing our best to design the competition, and we think this will help the market see how leading and forward thinking companies are respecting their candidates. To achieve this goal the survey has three rounds and includes a component that directly approaches and solicit feedback from candidates who have applied to work at the company. If companies aren’t willing to let their candidates be surveyed, that demonstrates they are not that serious.

Another key principle to this award is absolute transparency. Anyone can go review the survey questions. We don’t want to have an award that is subjective, but rather one that is clear in its criteria for evaluation and success. We want to be as open and as forthcoming as we can be. We’re trying to affect a standard on how candidates are treated. We want other companies to see how they can do things better.

The Board Members including Gerry Crispin and Ed Newman are equally passionate about this issue. Gerry Crispin, for example, does his own secret shopper approach to this every year.

How does the award work?

The award is organized in three phases. The first phase is a 45-question survey that is designed to surface how the company designed their candidate experience. The survey is comprehensive and it provides the basis to identify and define and industry standards.   

Companies that meet the standard will qualify for second round of the C&E Award.  In phase two, we survey the company’s employment candidates directly to get a sense for how the company’s approach is actually working. The companies that do well on the candidate survey will go into the third round where a panel of expert judges will review, discuss, and confirm how they are delivering their candidate experience. We expect to find that some companies are really doing some amazing, innovative practices. We expect to give the award to all of the companies that meet the C&E standard. That number will be as large as there are companies that meet the C&E Award standard.   And beyond that we will be offering the award “with distinction” to those companies that are really setting superlative examples. The C&E Award is about highlighting a standard, not about just recognizing a small group of companies.

Are there any simple steps that companies can use to make life better for candidates?

There are several steps that companies can do to address the candidate experience and improve it immediately.

Typically the first line of complaint from a candidate is the lack of information shared about their status and consideration. Corporations can easily and quick reduce this frustration by improving the messaging distributed regarding status. Examples include providing candidates with a timeframe on when to expect to hear. “We are still receiving applications we expect to make our decisions in the next 10 business days” is an example. This sets an expectation and assurance that their submission is still under consideration. In this case the company needs to follow through, which leads us to the second most voiced complaint. “I think I’m being considered then I find out they filled the position. “

Companies can easily improve the overall communications to candidates by messaging them about their status as it happens. If a candidate is no longer considered, giving them that feedback in a timely manner provides them the respect they need for having completed the process that in some cases can take up to an hour to complete. Encouraging them back to the website to apply for another position, gives them a call to action that can be the difference between them going to a site to complain about how bad the experience is, and them following the link back to the site to see what new opportunities have been posted

How will the award help companies to refine their own practices?

Each company that applies will get a comprehensive report that benchmarks how they are doing in comparison with the aggregate group. They’ll know where they stand.  This is a compelling value and we aren’t aware of any place else companies could go to get something like this.

How can companies learn more about your program? 

http://www.thecandidateexperienceawards.org/ 

The deadline to apply for consideration is July 15, 2011.

New functionality makes that ‘thanks for applying’ email the key to closing the dreaded application black hole and getting hired

Lebanon, NH (PRWEB) June 13, 2011

– StartWire™ (http://www.startwire.com), a start-up focused on radically improving job search, announces a major upgrade that addresses one of the big complaints of online job seekers: the dreaded ‘application black-hole.’  The newest release of StartWire allows job seekers to track and get automatic updates on their job applications from thousands of employers by simply forwarding their application confirmation email to apps@startwire.com.

Using this new feature, a job seeker simply shares basic information with StartWire about where they’ve applied and their application by emailing their ‘thanks for applying’ emails to apps@startwire.com or completing a brief web form.  StartWire’s application update engine then provides automatic alerts for all ‘tracked’ applications and instantly notifies the user with an email or text message alert if their job status changes.  Additionally, StartWire’s recommendation engine provides job seekers with job and job search recommendations based on their actual application history.

“Just like TripIt.com brought order to chaos in the travel industry by allowing frequent flyers to organize and socialize their trips by simply emailing their disparate itineraries to plans@tripit.com, I believe this new release shows StartWire is doing the same in job search,” says Kim Mohiuddin of Movin’ On Up Resumes.

StartWire co-founder and EVP, Tim McKegney commented on the release: “Jobs seekers can now organize their job search, get automatic updates on their applications, find out who they know at a target company, and receive targeted job search recommendations…all by hitting the forward button in their inbox. And the best part is that StartWire™ is free and works across all industries and functions.”

Today’s release supports application alerts for more than 2,100 employers with that number set to grow to more than 5,000 in the coming weeks and months. 

About StartWire

StartWire™ launched in early 2011 to rave reviews and write-ups in US News & World Reports, About.com, AOL Jobs, CNN, ERE, and HR Executive Magazine. 

Well, it’s been a long month but the DEV team @ StartWire is happy to announce a major upgrade to StartWire.

Here’s what you’ll notice:

• You can now track where you’ve applied and get automatic application status updates just by emailing your application confirmation to apps@startwire.com.  That’s right, just take the ubiquitous ‘thank you for applying’ email, hit forward, and send it to apps@startwire.com.  If the email contains all the data we need to track your application, you’re done. If not, we’ll let you need to do next. Regardless, it makes keeping your job search organized and out of the black-hole a snap!

• A super-cool, new user interface.  We opened up the application, added a home page that includes some great easy-to-follow instructions, and made some of our most popular and powerful features a lot easier to use.

• Our jobs tab is now a recommendations tab.  We’ve talked to thousands of you about what you like and don’t like about your job search. Besides the black-hole, your #1 beef is that you’re flooded with jobs that don’t match your interests.  We’ve taken that to heart and have replaced our Jobs tab with our new Recommendations tab.  Now we SUGGEST jobs to you based on your profile, where you’ve applied, and who you know.  It’s version 1.0…so we’d love your input…but we think this is a critical 1st step to ending job spam. Check it out!

That’s it for now. If you haven’t checked out StartWire, we encourage you to stop by. If you like what we’re doing, share StartWire with everyone you know. If you don’t, write to us so we can fix it.

Happy Friday and Happy Job Searching,
The StartWire Team

StartWire research study finds that 50% of new hires applied within first week of job posting.

Lebanon, NH (PRWEB) June 2, 2011

StartWire™ (http://www.startwire.com), a start-up focused on closing the job application black hole today announced the results of a study examining the relationship between a job offer and the timing of a job seekers’ application.  

Data from over 6600 hires and across 10 industries show a consistent pattern: The early bird gets the job.

Of those hired 27% applied within the first two days after a job was posted. Nearly 50% of the hires were applicants who applied within the 1st week; approximately 75% of all hired candidates applied within three weeks. “Job seekers underestimate the importance of being at the front of the hiring line,” says Chris Forman, CEO & Co-Founder of StartWire™.

 “Once a hiring manager or recruiter does an initial pre-screen of candidates and makes an interview list, they rarely look back at applications that come in later. To optimize your chances, apply as soon as you see a job, and seek out an internal contact within the company who can put in a good word for you.”

“This research sheds light on a long known but little discussed reality in corporate recruiting,” says Mark Lotz, Principal at Camden Delta Consulting and former head of Talent Acquisition for Kimberly-Clark Corporation. “Given the upswing in hiring, corporate recruiters are often working on filling many positions. The reality is that if they find enough qualified applicants to satisfy the hiring manager, they rarely have time to go back to review the resumes of any new applicants.”

The data for this study was derived from a private, internal StartWire research project looking into online job search and hiring behavior. All participant information is being kept confidential. This study used blind application data from 15 leading employers gathered over the last 12 months. Application data was collected across all functions and levels. 

About StartWire™

StartWire™ closes the ‘application black hole’ by providing job seekers with free, automatic updates on their job applications from over 2,100 employers via e-mail and text. StartWire™ also provides a suite of tools that streamline the job search process from recommendations on where to apply and friends who can help, to status indicators of your chances of getting a call based on your application date, the age of the job, and industry benchmarks.

StartWire™ launched in early 2011 to rave reviews and write-ups in US News & World Report, About.com, AOL Jobs, CNN, ERE, HR Executive Magazine, & Career Xroads. StartWire™ is the 1st product commercialized by StartDate Labs™ – a recruiting and job search technology incubator. StartDate Labs is based in Lebanon, NH.

Want more information on the study? Contact us.

Whew…what a couple of weeks.  Thanks to all the new users of StartWire! Your passion and energy are infectious. We’ve been burning the midnight oil keeping up with your requests.

Here’s a quick list of what we’ve launched in the last 7ish days:

• Dedicated portals for Boston & NYC that integrate our wicked cool local, job search news and the powerful job search tools on StartWire. Check them out at boston.startwire.com and nyc.startwire.com.
• A much better list view on the applications tab that allows you to see not only the last time we got an update on one of your jobs…but also the last time we checked.  We also have a nifty mouse-over for long statuses updates so you don’t have to click into the detailed view.
• An integration with Glassdoor so you can get instant salary data, employer reviews, and interview questions for all your applications. 
   
• A new ‘StartWire Share’ implementation that allows you to share your job search objectives with people that you trust.

In the next few days, we are adding some major upgrades to our job search functionality (yes…we heard you…we need advanced search), a slew of new employers to our application update network, and a better UI for update postcards.

Will keep you posted. Keep sending ideas!

Best,

The StartWire Team

Want to keep your resume — and job search — out of the proverbial black hole? Check out this video interview with StartWire CEO Chris Forman, and learn how to get better feedback – and a faster response from employers.

Thanks for stopping by!

If you haven’t dropped by our site yet,  We are in open beta and are learning and growing everyday.

On this blog, we’ll share the latest and greatest news on topics ranging from innovative job search strategies to interviews with hiring managers.

Plus, you’ll hear from our co-founders Chris and Tim, who’ve spent years working on the recruitment side of the job search process, designing products used by over 70% of the Fortune 500 to attract talent.

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