July 2010
1 post
HR Daily Advisor
To stay on top of the latest issues in HR Management, check out the HR Daily Advisor. Their blog and free email newsletter provide market insights, summaries of white papers on key HR Management strategies, and updates on changes to employment laws at the state and federal level.
January 2009
3 posts
Resume Updates
There are many costs involved in the service we provide at SourceSimple — the cost of advertising inventory, the cost of resume access, and the cost of time to perform the work, to name a few. As our service expands and we start to look for ways to move from start-up mode to profitability, we have to make sure the costs of our service never exceeds the fees that we charge. As expected for...
SourceSimple and Craigslist
Over the past year Craigslist has radically shifted its pricing structure. At the beginning of 2007, Craigslist only charged in 4 metro markets; they increased that number to 7 markets during 2007; during 2008 they significantly increased the number of areras where they charge, so that now Craigslist advertising charges a fee in every major city in the US.
At SourceSimple, we were previously...
Coming Soon!
One of our goals for SourceSimple for 2009 is to maximize our use of technology to deliver a higher level of service while maintaining our famously low price point. We’ve tried numerous off-the-shelf applications to accomplish this objective but none have been satisfactory. Our chosen path is to be the low-cost provider, which means we use economies of scale to prosper; the existing...
September 2008
3 posts
Partner with Us!
Our resumes from SourceSimple create the baseline for recruiting campaigns. Though baseline campaigns can definitely fill open positions, there are many occasions where more work must be done. If you believe you have a service that can add value on top of the resumes we provide, we’d love to talk to you.
Using our low-cost resumes as a base, there are myriad opportunities for enterprising...
Price Increase
We are proud to call ourselves a “low cost provider” — it it critical to our company mission to supply the best possible service at the lowest possible price. We have been able to maintain the $30 entry pricepoint for the last two years.
Due to rising costs and growth, we are raising our base price to $40 for 7 days. This price is still the lowest in the industry. Quite...
EEK - Ike!!
Hurricane Ike moved through the Houston area like a freight train through a china shop… massive, plodding, and powerful, it wrecked havoc on the city’s structures and utility systems. It made landfall last Friday night, September 12, bringing with it winds, rain, and devastation.
I live in Houston, and all of our operations are based here. Friday night around 3am I could hear and...
May 2008
1 post
Guest Article : 5 Tips for Choosing the Right Job...
Thanks to SourceSimple, you can now have an abundance of viable job candidates delivered right to you. This will save you a tremendous amount of legwork and leave you to the task of selecting the best prospects from the group. You have no doubt interviewed people in the past who seemed amazing, yet fizzled out shortly after being hired. Below are five tips to help you choose the right job...
April 2008
6 posts
24 Hour SelectSimple Sale : Pay Less Now, Use...
Today we launched the SelectSimple website. The service has matured substantially over the last month. Though it may not be perfect yet, we’ve been able to achieve positive actionable results for our pilot clients. If you decide SelectSimple is a service you’d like to try, I believe you’ll find it to be an incredibly useful tool in your recruiting arsenal. To introduce the...
Make Money with SourceSimple
A number of inventive clients have found ways to make money on SourceSimple campaigns. By incorporating our resumes into their service offerings, some SourceSimple clients have created value-added bundles which they then sell to their own clients for a fairly significant profit. While we do not yet have a formal Partnership Process for such things, we are definitely willing to discuss any idea...
To Catch a Thief - ERE Article
I’m trying to find the time to write a few articles on getting the most out of the resources you already own. Numerous clients have mentioned that they can access paid databases, but use our services anyway because we find resumes they don’t. There are approximately 50 million unique resumes across the 3 major databases, so it’s a pretty fair bet that at least 1 candidate exists...
Applicant Review for Prepaid Campaigns
SourceSimple has offered discounts on Prepaid Campaigns for almost a year now. Many of our clients take advantage of our Prepaid Campaigns to save money and time. In addition to the usual discounts and convenience, we are adding free Applicant Review to all Prepaid Campaigns purchased in April. This allows you to receive Applicant Review at no charge for as many campaigns as are in your prepaid...
Announcing 'Applicant Review'
Quite a few of our clients have asked if we can review emailed applications from candidates. When a candidate applies to a current SourceSimple job advertisement, the resume is delivered directly to our clients without interference. This is a very effective strategy for clients who are seeking greater quantity of resumes; however we also have clients who would prefer to see only qualified...
SelectSimple : Making Candidate Contact
We recently launched a new service to make the initial contact with candidates. The service is called SelectSimple. SelectSimple is a ‘baseline pre-qualification’ service, intended to establish a candidate’s interest, availability, and attitude. Clients using SelectSimple provide us with the candidates they would like to be contacted, and as many as 10 questions they would like...
February 2008
2 posts
Monster Courting Nurses
In early January 2008, Monster Worldwide acquired Affinity Labs, a San Francisco company that builds career-related communities. Among their 7 communities is NursingLink. Resumes uploaded at NursingLink go into the Monster database, and jobs posted on Monster can appear on NursingLink. Affinity Labs also hosts communities for government, technology, education, and law enforcement. Monster is...
Recession-Proof Your Recruiting
Economists seem to believe that a recession is on the way… either a recession or a slowdown which will put a damper on everyone’s day. One of the datapoints pointed towards is a 4.9-5% unemployment rate. This is a high figure for the United States. It signals that 5% of the workforce is not working. But look at it from another angle: 95% of the people in the workforce have a job! ...
January 2008
7 posts
Use Resumes for Passive Searches
When an employed candidate puts a resume into a database, they are expressing their desire to talk to someone on the outside. They are willing to look outside of their current employment. They understand that the best way to explore other opportunities is to start some conversations. The resume is the conversation-starter. It’s almost a guarantee that employed candidates with their...
Spend Less with SourceSimple
As the economy continues to slow down (the 4th quarter of 2007 was the worst quarter for the economy in 5 years), employers and recruiters are looking for ways to spend less without compromising their forward progress. SourceSimple offers a very good solution. Employers and recruiters can use SourceSimple baseline sourcing campaigns rather than paying for the staff and resources to do the work...
New 'Search Only' Option
Many of our clients already ran advertising before retaining SourceSimple, so they weren’t interested in the job posting portion of our baseline sourcing (BaSo) campaigns. Until today we used an ad hoc approach to this situation, calling the search-only campaigns ‘Modified Network Campaigns’. Starting today we have a new option on our campaign proposals called ‘Search...
Keep Longer Campaigns!
Though SourceSimple changed our campaign lengths from 10 days and 30 days to 7, 14, 21, and 28 days, any client who wants to keep the 10 day campaigns for $30 is able to do so. We are grandfathering all ‘active accounts’ to maintain the longer 10 day campaigns, if desired. ‘Active accounts’ include all clients with pre-paid packs of discount campaigns or with monthly...
Greater Flexibility in Campaign Lengths
Since our launch in 2006, SourceSimple offered clients 10 day campaigns and 30 day campaigns. The 30 day campaigns were priced at the then-maximum standard discount of 15% off. Starting January 1, 2008, we are pleased to offer our clients greater flexibility in campaign lengths and deeper discounts for longer campaigns. Our new structure is: 7 day campaigns 14 day campaigns : 10% off 21 day...
Monstrous Improvement
At the beginning of December 2007, SourceSimple started to include resumes from Monster in all campaigns. That means that every baseline sourcing campaign we run for our clients contains a complete sweep of all three major general databases — CareerBuilder, HotJobs, and Monster. Initial statistics support an approximate 20% overlap in resumes from the three sources. Thus the inclusion of...
Welcome to 2008!
Today marks the beginning of the second calendar year for SourceSimple. From an idea and a basic website in fall of 2006, SourceSimple has grown to become a stable resource for hundreds of recruiters and employers. We still have a long way to go, and we strive to improve every day. We believe this is the beginning of something that will make a truly important contribution in the field of talent...
October 2007
3 posts
Calculating True ROI
We want every BaSo campaign we conduct to create value. Real, identifiable, quantifiable value. The value is obvious when the SourceSimple campaign provides the candidate who is hired. However market statistics state that this is a fairly rare occurrence — according to data gathered over the last 10+ years, about 10-15% of positions are filled by applicants and database resumes. The rest...
SourceSimple Success Strategies
SourceSimple has a singular focus: Baseline Sourcing (BaSo). BaSo is the practice of locating active candidates and available resumes. BaSo is best done at the beginning of a search, putting down the baseline for the search much like laying the foundation before building a house.
A thorough BaSo campaign includes searching resumes and advertising. Every resume source should be tapped,...
METROPOLITAN AREA EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT:...
Unemployment rates were lower in August than a year earlier in 206 of the 369 metropolitan areas, higher in 134 areas, and unchanged in 29 areas, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Twenty-five metropolitan areas registered jobless rates below 3.0 percent, while two areas recorded rates of at least 10.0 percent. The national unemployment rate in August...
September 2007
3 posts
"I don't want candidates from a database!"
Almost every recruiter has heard it at some point:
“I don’t want resumes from a purchased database!”
While I understand the logic (the client already pays for databases, so they feel paying you for the same candidates is redundant), the logic is flawed. Here’s the problem:
* There are 80 million plus resumes in the more popular databases… that’s more...
Hey, thanks for the recognition
Baselinr was recently added to Bootstrapper’s Top 100 HR Bloggers list.
We couldn’t be more proud. Thanks, Rich McIver!
Database Searching -- not for beginners!
There has been a recent surge of ‘Virtual Assistants’ and other remote or offshore support for the recruiting industry. The idea is that recruiters can save money and time by delegating simple and routine tasks to offsite workers. These offsite workers are inexpensive because they are either living in a foreign country or are junior in the recruiting industry (often experts at admin...
August 2007
3 posts
Discounts Added to Business Model
Our sale at SourceSimple over the last two weeks produced many happy grins… so we decided to keep it!
We always survey our clients at the end of each campaign to learn what we did right and where we can improve. From today forward, all clients who complete the survey will be presented with the opportunity to purchase prepaid campaigns at a discount.
Here are the deals we are offering:
...
Sale Extended
Last week SourceSimple offered it’s clients the first-ever sale price for Ultimate Campaigns. Well, several of our clients missed the deadline and sent me emails asking if the sale could be extended.
So…
The sale on 10 Packs of Ultimate Campaigns continues for one more week! Through midnight on Saturday, Aug 11, you will still be able to purchase 10 Packs of Ultimate Campaigns at...
Memphis & Houston Lead the Charge
METROPOLITAN AREA EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT: JUNE 2007
Unemployment rates were lower in June than a year earlier in 186 of the 369 metropolitan areas, higher in 149 areas, and unchanged in 34 areas, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Nineteen metropolitan areas registered jobless rates below 3.0 percent while two areas recorded jobless rates of at...
July 2007
8 posts
Be a Groupie
By now you’re probably familiar with online Groups… you’re probably a member of one or more yourself. Here are a few tips on how to get the best recruiting results out of Groups:
1. The two biggest online Group repositories are at Yahoo and Google. Both Group sources began their lives elsewhere before they were acquired by their current owners, so both are very well...
Want cheaper campaigns?
We decided the best way to celebrate our 1,000 Campaign milestone was… how else?… with a sale! For a limited time our clients will be able to save 15% on our most popular service, the 10 Day Ultimate Campaign. Who benefits most from this sale? Any SourceSimple client who will request 10 or more campaigns in the future. Not only will clients save 15% off standard pricing, they’ll...
Thanks, Mohamed Ali
Mohamed Ali (not the boxer, the recruiter at Cisco) just released a really cool tool. He used the custom search widgets that Google offers to create shortcut searches. Recruiters can use his search site to produce better results from Google more easily. The directions are straightforward. Take a look at Big5Hire.com for more details. Thanks Mohamed, and Happy Hunting!!
1,000 Campaigns!
Today, July 25, 2007, at 6:22PM Pacific time, SourceSimple received campaign request number One Thousand!! It seems like as good a time as any for the first release of our stats to date: * 81% of clients who requested one campaign came back for another * 98% of clients are happy with the price point and the pricing model * 29% of campaigns in the last 6 weeks produced a candidate who will...
The Value of Passive Candidates
Every day I speak with recruiters who tell me they want ‘passive’ candidates. When I tell them what we do at SourceSimple, they say “Interesting… but how will that get me passive candidates?” The first question I always ask is “Why do you want passive candidates?” There is the widespread (mis)belief that passive candidates are inherently better. This is...
'A Players' Don't Exist
I’ve been in recruitment since 1996, filling various functions at various times. In all that time nearly every report I’ve read, nearly every strategy I’ve seen, has been about how to locate, recruit, and retain ‘A Players’. While the definition of ‘A Players’ is slightly different for variant industries and occupations, it always revolves around a...
Why SourceSimple?
SourceSimple is now 9 months old (launched October 30, 2006). We do ‘Baseline Sourcing’ — (‘BaSo’ —> pronounced ‘bay-so’) — we post our clients’ jobs on relevant job boards and search relevant databases for qualified candidates. It sounds incredibly simple, right? Why would anyone pay for a service that can easily be done without us?...
Time is everything
For the past 5 years, I’ve tried to blog. Blogger, LiveJournal, WordPress, whatever the latest hot flavor was… free sites, open source apps, paid apps. Routine blogging is like routine exercise: for me, it just doesn’t happen. The best of intentions die within a few days, crushed under the onslaught of other more pressing demands. Enter TUMBLR It’s really easy, man. No...