Category Archives: HR Technology

T3 – Ruutly (@_Ruutly) – The future of job postings

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This week on T3 I take a look at job branding technology, Ruutly. Ruutly is a technology that is embedded into the top of your normal, boring, text-based job description/posting, turning into something modern that is highly interactive, branded and completely digital.

With such a high focus on candidate experience, it’s a wonder why organizations haven’t focused more efforts in developing a great job presentation to candidates, but the reality is most job postings are pretty much the same as they’ve been over the past twenty years or so. Sure, you now have them in a pretty frame with your logo, but it’s really the same old text-based, cut and paste job description with some prettier wrapping.

Ruutly allows you to do your job postings differently, and still work within your ATS. That’s huge. Many of the job posting/job branding technology to this point has been outside the ATS, which always made it a bit clunky to use. Ruutly turns your job posting into an interactive, branded piece of content, placed directly at the top of your normal job posting, ensuring there’s no change to your apply process.

What I like about Ruutly: 

– Simple, easy to use text editor that allows you to build a ‘ruut’ (the interactive job posting) to be placed “above the fold” of your normal job postings within your ATS. What does “above the fold” mean? It means, this will be placed on the part of the screen that you see first, no having to scroll down. The old text-based job description will now be below the ruut. Research shows candidates spend 50% of their time on job descriptions ‘above the fold’.

– You can easily embed video and secondary content into the Ruutly job posting. This is great for all of that content you have for candidates, like ‘why our city is great to work in’, awards, news items, benefits, etc. You can also use this space to show career path of the position someone is applying for, or related positions they might be interested in applying for.

– An administrative dashboard shows you stats on your job postings that most people never see, like, total views, total clicks, average time spent on a job posting, total applies, etc. This is a great way to do some A/B testing to find out which job postings perform better.

I love this type of technology (I’ve also reviewed ViziRecruiter and GoSizzle, as well, in a post titled “Pimp My Job Description“) because there is such a high level of frustration in organizations on how bad our job descriptions are. HR hates them. TA hates them. Hiring managers hate them. Yet, we change everything we do in talent acquisition, except the job postings! This makes it easy and effective. Check them out, it’s pretty awesome technology for not that much of an investment.

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – just send me a note – timsackett@comcast.net

T3 – ENGAGE (@engage_talent) – Using Predictive Analytics to Source Talent

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This week on T3 I’m reviewing the sourcing solution ENGAGE. ENGAGE allows recruiters to source from a real-time stream of over 100 million passive candidate profiles and receive alerts of when a candidate is more than likely ready to ‘engage’ you in a conversation about a new job.

How does ENGAGE know that a candidate is in the mood? Welcome to the world of predictive analytics! Named one of Gartner’s 2016 Cool Vendors, ENGAGE has built an algorithm that is fairly accurate in guessing when a person is probably more likely to be ready to change jobs.

The science behind combines a ton of stuff: competitor data, Glassdoor rating of their current company, key stats, recent company news, etc. Based on the algorithm they color-code each candidate from red to green. Green meaning they’re more likely to be able to be recruited.

ENGAGE uses 15 plus people aggregators to pull in the 100 Million plus profiles. They’ve also partnered with Payscale to also provide a ballpark salary range of the candidate based on all the criteria they’ve been able to gather on the profile.

What I liked about ENGAGE:

– ENGAGE allows you build both candidate and company ‘watch’ lists. You can build a search for let’s say “Facebook” and it will continually update your list as people at that company move from red to green, or vice verse. You can also do this by skill sets and search strings for candidates. Having a list that could change daily of when someone is ready to be recruited!

– Get daily emails sent to you on your most recent alerts for your most likely recruiting sources.

– ENGAGE also has a Chrome extension that allows you to easily pull information on target organizations and keep internal notes without having to jump back and forth into the system. This extension also works with LinkedIN showing you the ENGAGE information with one click directly from LinkedIn Recruiter.

– It has an intuitive search interface that will show you ‘similar’ candidates not only based on search terms, but on the type of target organizations, locations, etc. Also, the system allows you to export your search lists and easily upload them into your CRM.

– ENGAGE has made large investments into also providing actual candidate phone numbers and email addresses, and not just main company phone numbers, but actual cell phones, direct dial extensions, etc.

One thing that ENGAGE isn’t being sold for, yet, but I instantly saw as a secondary value is actually tracking the ENGAGE score of your own employees. Retention of your own talent is one of the most important issues we face an ENGAGE can actually be used to show you when someone in your own organization is most likely getting to the point of being recruitable.

Knowing this would allow us to set up a save strategy and work to re-recruit the individual moving them back into the red ENGAGE score, and less likely they’ll leave our organization. There a ton of sourcing tools on the market. Most of which are based on legacy data scraped from various places. What I really like about ENGAGE is the predictive nature. Well worth a look and demo (enter the code “fistfuloftalent” for a 5% discount).

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – just send me a note – timsackett@comcast.net

T3 – GoCo (@GoCoio) – Zenefits-like with a Better HRIS platform

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This week on T3 I take a look at the Zenefits-like HR software solution GoCo. GoCo is an all-in-one HR, Benefits and Payroll software platform that you can use completely free. Why can you use it for free? Because like Zenefits, there’s a ton of money to be made by managing your employee’s benefit program!

So, Zenefits started this industry. Basically, we’ll give you free software if you allow us to manage your benefits. GoCo one-upped the game by doing virtually the same thing, but building a better HRIS platform for you to use! What this means is if you really aren’t married to your benefits broker for some reason, you can get some great value out of an organization like GoCo.

I think this type of system is perfect for SMB organizations, and those HR shops of One, or two, who are asked to wear a thousand hats and given virtually zero budget to do it with. That’s a lot of HR pros out there right now! But, the GoCo HRIS platform is also much better than most mid-sized organizations are using as well!

What I liked about GoCo?

– Very robust HRIS suite that is fully mobile optimized, full employee self-serve dashboard, digital onboarding, allows multiple locations and states with unique onboarding for each and 24/7 access to benefits advisors.

– Performance Management – unlike most in this space PM is a luxury and GoCo does a great job with providing a real-time feedback mechanism where employees can respond to their supervisors feedback, managers can keep private notes, schedule their one-on-one meetings, and it also can integrate with Slack.

– Time off and tracking with customized built-in rules and policies, automated approval with supervisors via email that links back to payroll, and employees request through their own dashboard.

– Payroll fully integrated with the likes of Paylocity, Gusto, ADP, etc. Make all of your changes, additions, and corrections within GoCo and everything gets pushed to your provider automatically.

– Document management – send any new or updated docs to employees and GoCo notifies and tracks all required actions and the admin dashboard will easily show who is not compliant.

– Total workforce tracking – use temporary or contract employees? GoCo tracks all of these resources as well, which is unique for almost any system. This makes it super simple for HR to track your full workforce in one system.

I’m a little surprised that more organizations have jumped on board to free HRIS software like GoCo, but much of it has to do with the belief you don’t get anything for free. In reality, most of us have no idea how much money is actually being made by our insurance brokers! Zenefits opened our eyes to this, and GoCo seems to have taken it to the next level.

Using this type of organization doesn’t increase your insurance costs. But your brokers will make you believe you’ll get worse service and increased costs. For the most part, I haven’t heard this feedback coming from the user community. Most actually love it, because they finally have real HR software to help them manage their workforce. Well worth a demo, if you’re in this demographic.

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – just send me a note – timsackett@comcast.net

T3 – Smarp @BeSmarp – Connecting Employees with your EB Content

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This week on T3 I take a look at the employee communications application, Smarp. Smarp is a comprehensive communications app that connects employees with the employer’s online content, generating positive brand awareness and exposure by empowering employees to participate in the internal and external communications of the company.

The Smarp app ensures employees are well-informed whether they are at the office or on the go and allows them to improve their own professional brand by helping them position themselves as thought leaders in their fields through the content they share. At its core Smarp is an application that allows an admin (HR, marketing, EB, etc.) to schedule content to be distributed to employees with simple one-click access for them to share the content with their social circles that they decide.

Smarp can easily be used for Employer Branding, but it’s not limited to only HR and Recruiting, all employee communication within the organization can leverage this tool. Smarp is a better way to share and exchange content amongst your employees.

The things I liked most about Smarp: 

– Smarp gives you an easy to use tool that gets your branded (or approved) content into the hands of your employees, then rewards them for consuming and sharing the content with a broader audience.

– Mobile App, with an Admin desktop interface, Smarp also allows your employees to recommend content to be shared across the organization, with specific locations, groups, or departments. This let’s the organization source content that your employees are already consuming and finding value in.

– Smarp has a major gamification element that rewards employees, through a point-based system. Not only are employees rewarded for sharing the content, but they are also rewarded for the quality of the share, thus, the amount of reshares, likes, comments, etc. also count for more points. It’s not only about the quantity they share but about the quality of the share. These points give each employee a “Smarp Score” that is tracked on an organiational leaderboard. Employees then use their “Smarp” points to purchase items you choose, give to charities, etc.

– The Admin dashboard has a great analytics engine integrated that truly gives you the metrics you need to know which content is performing the best, with which groups, etc. It will show you the reach of individual pieces of content, your estimated earned media value (EEMV), and allow you to disable certain share networks you might not want to frequent.

– Internally, Smarp also allows your employees to engage with content and drive collaboration within the organization, while also sharing the content externally, without any of the internal dialogue reaching the outside. I love this feature. It allows you to have dynamic conversations internally, without fear of the public seeing what’s going on behind the curtain.

– Smarp also allows you to share job postings if you have a unique URL for the job posting. Also, if you have an RSS feed to your jobs these will be brought in automatically if you would like that ability for your employees to share these jobs externally and give you the ability to measure this kind of activity.

This application is more likely one that would be used by larger organizations, or more tech-savvy organizations who have an employee base that would embrace this type of activity. Built as an annual license per employee user, organizations will get the most out of this with high user adoption, which can be tricky if you’re not prepared. I was impressed with what Smarp has to offer, not only for HR and Recruiting but how this tool could easily be used across the enterprise for employee communication.

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – just send me a note – timsackett@comcast.net

T3 – VISANOW Rebrands as Envoy

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It’s no secret that recruiting technical talent in the IT and Engineering sectors is next to impossible. Because of that, more and more organizations are digging into the aspects of hiring foreign technical talent for positions they have open throughout the world.

VISANOW is a technology that provides an immigration management platform allowing you to seamlessly hire and manage a global workforce with an army of internal staff and attorneys on retainer. VISANOW announced today they are rebranding as Envoy. The comprehensive brand relaunch includes a new logo, positioning, website, content hub (www.worldreadyworkforce.com) and URL (www.envoyglobal.com).

From the press release:

“Nearly 20 years ago, VISANOW was founded to simplify and expedite the arduous immigration process by combining expert legal representation and proprietary technology. As the HR industry and global talent marketplace has evolved, we consistently hear from our customers that they’re seeking an end-to-end global workforce management solution so that they can take advantage of opportunities — wherever they beckon. This rebranding effort combined with the recent release of the latest generation of our immigration management platform underscores our ability and commitment to serve as our customers’ envoy as they build and manage a world-ready workforce,” said Dick Burke, president and chief executive officer of Envoy…

Envoy’s patented cloud-based platform aids companies leveraging both inbound and outbound international talent — offering transparent and simplified immigration services that help save time, money and stress as well as increase efficiency and security. Its features include organization, collaboration, planning and compliance modules that allow businesses to manage their international workforce around the world from one intuitive online platform. Dedicated teams of experienced and knowledgeable immigration attorneys and a global network of local practitioners provide Envoy customers consistent, proactive and personalized counsel. This combination of expert counsel, high customer touch, automation, and transparency offers an unparalleled user experience — driving a net promoter score of 77.

Envoy empowers companies to acquire the best talent regardless of where they are in the world; helps mobilize employees around the world to take advantage of business opportunities; and enables the management of entire global workforces, providing a strategic, proactive view into workforce and financial forecasting and compliance.

Simply, Envoy helps take the fear, stress and complication out of your immigration hiring process. Hiring visa candidates was always a stressor for me in the past because I didn’t feel I fully understood it clearly and I didn’t want to pay high priced attorneys. Envoy can help walk you through the hiring process, step-by-step, for a fraction of the cost of shopping this work to the outside.

T3 – The 100 Hottest HR Technologies on the Planet

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My good friend William Tincup (@WilliamTincup) is probably the single smartest person I know in the HR and Talent Technology space, worldwide! That’s saying a lot because this space is filled with smart men and women.

At HR Tech Fest this year, William made a comment on stage that there is roughly 21,000 HR and Talent Technology companies in the world. Seems like a number I can’t even get my head around – I might know 250 or so!

To prove his point, William quickly put together 100 of the hottest companies on the market and shared them on LinkedIn. Since most of you don’t visit LI but once or twice a month, I wanted to share them here as well.

My suggestion is to demo one of these companies each month. One hour of development per month, 12 hours total for the year. Any of us can do this. Pick out the ones that make the most sense to you, in your role. This will change you professionally. You’ll be smarter. You’ll see what your competition is doing. You’ll begin to think more strategically. Yes, just be looking at, and better understanding the technology that is shaping your profession!

Yes, just be looking at, and better understanding the technology that is shaping your profession!

This list is alphabetical. None of these organizations are paying me (yet). If you’re not on it, but want to be, connect with William on the Twitters and just ask.

Notes to HR Vendors #6 – Client Holiday Gift Ideas

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I’ve done a few presentations titled something like, “HR Tech Buyers Guide”, “How to Buy HR Tech”, etc. The presentation is designed for HR and TA practitioners to help them become better buyers of HR Tech. To understand the crap that HR and TA Tech vendors do and say to get you to buy stuff you might not need, want, or will use.

The interesting thing about these presentations is that half the audience turns out to be the actual vendors themselves wanting to hear what it is I’m telling the real HR and TA leaders! It’s smart for the vendors. It helps make the better sellers as well. Well, at least some that actually listen!

Based on these interactions I decided to build a series of what has come out of interactions with the vendors themselves, aptly named “Notes to HR Tech Vendors”. Look I don’t alway have to be creative! Enjoy!

Notes to HR Vendors #6 – Client Holiday Gift Ideas

There two ways this post can go, 1. A post about the gifts you actually give that are awful, 2. A post about gifts you could give that people would actually enjoy. I haven’t figured out which way this one will end up, so here we go…

About this time every year I start receiving gifts in the mail from HR and TA tech vendors. Ironically enough most of the HR and TA companies I’ve highlighted on my widely popular and over-shared weekly tech review, T3, rarely send me anything, even though they share with me constantly how many sales they’ve actually made because someone read about them on this blog. But, I’m not bitter, I did it for me, not you.

The gifts I start receiving are from the vendors I’m actually paying. Makes sense. They want to keep getting paid and figure if they send me of their ‘popular’ desk calendars I’ll for sure sign up again next year to use their product or service!

It’s fashionable in the HR and TA blogging community to post pictures of the gifts we receive from vendors, thanking them for being so nice. This isn’t the real reason we post these pics. The real reason is to shove it in the nose of the other bloggers who didn’t receive the gift in a petty one-ups-manship of who’s someone better because they got a logo mug filled with stale candy and you didn’t.

I personally hate this game, but I didn’t create it, I’m just a player. Hate the game, not the player!

So, what are the best gifts you could give? It really depends on the margin business you’re in. If you’re selling background check services, you’re probably not spending much on client gifts. If you’re selling annual HRIS enterprise level software, you might be handing out Mini-Coopers for all I know.

If I was in charge of gift giving to your clients, here’s what I would suggest:

– Free Consulting Service and/or Product. Here’s the thing, you know what your clients suck at, probably better than they do. Help them fix something, something they would usually pay for, but you have the expertise to solve it with little effort.

– Something Personal to your Main Client Contact. I have a client who loves chocolate. I send her chocolate. I don’t send everyone chocolate, because Ted, another client, doesn’t like chocolate, but he loves craft beer. It takes a little more effort, but it means more. (Side note for HR Vendor Executives – this is also a good test to find out if your sales folks have been building relationships! If they have no clue, they have no clue!)

– Development Opportunity for the individual or their team. I once had a vendor ask me to do a half-day workshop with a corporate recruiting team. It was the vendor’s gift to the client for being a great client. I had this happen with another vendor who had me come and have breakfast with a TA team and share ideas and thoughts on how they could improve. I’ve also had vendors invite me to a leadership conference on their dime.

– Anything sweet that can be shared. No fruit isn’t sweet! I’m talking candy, cookies, etc. That stuff is magical, it disappears almost instantly in an office setting! Fruit get’s thrown away in about two weeks.

– A great bottle of wine or spirits. If your client is a drinker, they’ll appreciate this more than you know! Most of that appreciation will come around 7pm on a Friday night, and they’ll remember you! I can tell you CareerBuilder sent me a great bottle of wine once. Many vendors have sent me bottles of Gin from all over the country. I appreciate those vendors the most!

– A Note to their Boss. What!? It’s simple and cheap. A handwritten note to the executive they report to, or even above them all the way to the CEO, saying how great it is to work with a smart and caring partner, someone who is constantly trying to make your organization better, and I thought you should know.  Explain what makes them better than other peers in their field. That gift will give back in many ways!

– Something they wouldn’t normally buy themselves. High-end Sunglasses, Wireless Beats, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, etc. For a hundred bucks you get a “Wow! OMG! Thanks!” You get remembered. I personally had a vendor give me a Northface jacket with their logo on it. I wear it often!

There you go from free to a few thousand dollars, all will make a statement, all will make people remember you when it comes time to budget more money for your product and services. If you want to know what won’t work, hit me up after the holidays and I’ll tell you the worst gifts I got!

 

 

 

T3 – Employee Feedback tech – Growbot @TryGrowbot

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This week on T3 I take a look at the employee feedback and recognition technology Growbot. Growbot is a Slack add-on. So, now I need to back up and explain the heck Slack is!

Slack brings all your work communication together in one place. It’s real-time messaging, archiving and search for modern teams. It’s like emailing, text messaging and social media messaging all wrapped into one.

Slack is what many organizations are now using to communicate internally with each other, as an organization, as a work group, individually. It allows you and your teams to discuss and share information quickly.

So, what does Growbot do ‘on’ Slack?

Growbot is one of many new add-on technologies that organizations can use in collaboration with Slack. Growbot allows you to aggregate all the feedback and recognition your team is giving to each other. The ‘bot’ tech works when you use keywords like, “Kudos” or whatever word you want to track.

When Growbot recognizes one of the keywords being used within a conversation at Slack it will pop up a notice to the individual with a short positive message. This simple technology helps encourage you and your team to drive the culture you want.

Most organizations will tie their keywords back to their values, so when those keywords are used Growbot will go into action. On the organizational side, you can see what values are being recognized and shared the most, and by who and to who they are being shared.

Individuals can also pull their own stats by giving a simple command to Growbot, “Stats” and it will show them how many times they received and shared feedback, and the reactions they’ve gotten from those shares.

You can also tie Growbot back into your rewards system and give points for recognition, etc., allowing your employees to then use those points to purchase items, donate to a charity, etc. Growbot is currently being used by over 6,000 companies on Slack celebrating the achievements of their employees.

So many organizations are using Slack now as their primary means of communication. I love that within this communication tool, Growbot found a way to drive and deliver more positive feedback amongst employees!

T3  Talent Tech Tuesday  is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great HR, recruiting, and sourcing technologies that are on the market. None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion. There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find. If you want to be on T3  send me a note.

 

T3 – Technical Interview Technology – @eTeki_Inc

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This week on T3 I take a look at the technical interview technology eTeki. One question I get asked often by TA pros and leaders is around finding a technology that will help them select technical hires better.  There are some ‘test’ type technologies on the market, but those are really difficult to actively select from and the tests are usually super generic.

It’s not a hidden fact that most HR and TA pros/leaders have little functional knowledge when it comes to technical positions. Internal IT groups are stretched thin, so using your own staff as part of the selection process becomes a huge hindrance to most organizations. Still, hiring managers are expecting TA departments to do a better job at filtering out technical candidates who can’t walk the walk.

Along comes eTeki. eTeki is an interviewing platform that uses screened functional IT talent to do live interviews. It’s like ‘Uber’ for selection. Need to interview a developer? eTeki will partner your organization with a developer skilled in the same technology you have, plus skilled in interviewing technical candidates.

What I really like about eTeki:

– eTeki interviewers don’t tell you who to hire or not hire but give you detailed scoring and comments based on the technical skills you want assessed. Since these interviewers have no vested interest in who gets hired, you get more of an unbiased assessment than with your internal team.

– Every eTeki interview is recorded with video, so you and your hiring managers can go through and see the entire thing if you want. Also, the interview platform has a collaborative code editor in 50+ languages so you can see code snippets of the candidates you’re assessing. The platform also has a shared whiteboard function and screen sharing.

– Super simple to use for all three parties, the candidate, the company and the interviewer. A coded personal link is sent to the candidate with a password, face to face video, nothing to download, mobile enabled.

– Crowdsourced interviewer rating system ensures the interviewers who are using can actually do what they say they can do. You can see comments from other organizations who have previously used these interviewers to screen their talent. Currently, they have over 1200 interviewers in their marketplace, 80% are U.S. based. Basically, experienced technology pros looking to supplement their income by doing interviews (where the Uber comparison comes into play).

– The platform gives freedom to the interviewers to dive into skills they see a candidate has, as well, that you might not have asked, but will find valuable based on the role and job description you provided them, on top of assessing all the stuff you asked them to assess as well.

The cost per interview varies on the interviewer who sets the price, but the marketplace usually keeps them in the $40-60 per interview range. That’s a real bargain when you think about how much per hour you pay your own internal technical employees, plus the training and information you get on each candidate.

Another piece of this I like is that if you find an interviewer that you really like and they’ve shown to give you really good information to make your selection decision, you can personally request them for additional screens as well. The platform continues to evolve as more and more organizations use it and have different requests for additions, and eTeki has shown they’ll work to evolve the platform even more in the future.

Well worth a look if you are in need of a great technology screening tool and need to move candidates through the process quicker.

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great HR, recruiting, and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – send me a note.

Notes to HR Tech Vendors #7 – Stop It Already With All These Titles!

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I’ve done a few presentations titled something like, “HR Tech Buyers Guide”, “How to Buy HR Tech”, etc. The presentation is designed for HR and TA practitioners to help them become better buyers of HR Tech. To understand the crap that HR and TA Tech vendors do and say to get you to buy stuff you might not need, want, or will use.

The interesting thing about these presentations is that half the audience turns out to be the actual vendors themselves wanting to hear what it is I’m telling the real HR and TA leaders! It’s smart for the vendors. It helps make the better sellers as well. Well, at least some that actually listen!

Based on these interactions I decided to build a series of what has come out of interactions with the vendors themselves, aptly named “Notes to HR Tech Vendors”. Look I don’t alway have to be creative! Enjoy!

Notes to HR Tech Vendors #7 – Stop It Already With All These Titles!

I went to an HR Tech vendor website the other day. I wanted to get a demo. You see, I’m in the market for a new ATS. Something specifically designed for staffing firms, but that also has some really modern CRM functionality (let the emails pitches begin!).

The crazy part was that this vendor had nowhere on their site where I could schedule a demo, or have someone contact me for a demo! I could see a 3-minute video demo and I could try their product for free for two weeks, but not just schedule a demo.

So, being a headhunter by trade, I go searching for a Sales Pro from this vendor. They had about 100 employees on LinkedIn and crazy enough, I couldn’t find a sales pro listed! But, here’s a list of titles I find:

Customer Success

Program Managers

Product Managers

Strategic Account Mgrs

Pre-Sales Solutions Consultant

Renewals Mgr

Engineers

Marketing

Enterprise Sales Leader

Account Executive

Implementation Consultant

Partner Manager

Lead Renewals Mgr.

Product Development

Sales Engineer

Commercial Sales VP

Now, I’ve been around the game for a while, so I figured this organization was using “Account Executive” instead of some other way to identify who the heck was actually selling. To confuse matters, they also had people with the title “Commercial Sales” and “Enterprise Sales”. I’m not sure what the difference was! I also couldn’t figure out what the hell a ‘Renewals’ person was vs. a ‘Lead Renewals’ person.

I didn’t even write down all the titles I found, but out of 100 employees, there had to be at least 50 different titles! I’m wondering if this is that millennial trophy thing I’ve been hearing about?! Let’s throw out titles to the crew like a rapper making it rain at a strip club!

The only thing you really need to do in selling HR software is let people know how to go about buying your software!

What “titles” would I prefer? How about:

  • Sales Rep
  • Solution Sales Rep
  • Call Me to Buy Our Crap

99.9% of organizations aren’t going to just sign up for the free version of a major HR/TA software. It’s great that you’ll let me use it for free, but I don’t have time to hassle around with that. I want a demo. Then, I might play in your free sandbox a little. I’ll compare against others. Then, I’ll make a decision.

So, we all think this one example of this poor company is funny, right? The problem is, it’s most HR Technology companies and many of the companies that I love! Can we stop it already with these freaking titles!?