HarQen’s Voice Advantage lets HR professionals create and distribute custom, pre-recorded interview questions to candidates through email, job posting links, social media and SMS. Candidates click on the provided link, type in their phone number and their phone rings allowing them to respond to the interview request at their convenience.  For the candidate, the interview process is similar to using voicemail and takes less than five minutes to complete.  Once the candidate hangs up, their virtual interview is posted right inside Taleo so that recruiters can review resumes while listening to candidates answer select screening questions.  Prior to using Voice Advantage, recruiters dutifully kept their notes and threw away the interview.  Now, recruiters will have access to the complete audio record that not only creates greater efficiencies but also retains valuable data for use in analyzing and understanding the total talent lifecycle.

• “We are excited to work with Taleo and provide an innovative offering that provides tangible value to recruiters immediately within the convenience of their award-winning ATS platform.” said HarQen CEO E. Kelly Fitzsimmons. “Voice Advantage has positively impacted attrition rates by 30%,” added Ms. Fitzsimmons.  “The value goes beyond efficiency to getting the best candidates hired.  Successful employee traits can now be identified as early as the initial prescreens.”
• “The Voice Advantage platform has been a game changer for us,” said Dixie Glisson, Recruiting Manager of OneTouch Direct, a business process outsourcer that works primarily with the telecom industry. “The quality of our current call center classes has never been higher.”
• “Most impressive is how easy the software is to use,” commented Matt Schreyer, Co-Founder and Principal of Instigate, Inc, a Recruitment Process Outsourcer dedicated to small and medium sized businesses (SMEs).  “In a matter of minutes, recruiters evaluate an interview and share selected responses via a link, providing hiring managers an opportunity to hear firsthand how a candidate answered key qualifying questions.”

Voice Advantage extends Taleo’s Talent Intelligence by helping HR professionals qualify job candidates faster and more accurately at the top of the hiring funnel.  By allowing candidates to speak to their skills upfront, recruiters can identify best-fit candidates within minutes. Recruiters are then able to focus on advocating candidates into positions rather than screening candidates out – which is friendlier for the candidate and more rewarding for the recruiter. Thanks to Voice Advantage’s results – which include placement rate improvement of 50% and reduction of Total Time to Hire (TTH) by 75% — HarQen won the Top Product for 2010 from HR Executive Magazine.

The integrated Voice Advantage solution is available to all Taleo Business Edition users immediately.

This is great news for our local economy and a further sign that we are seeing an (albeit slow) overall recovery.

In conditions where the talent pool starts shrinking due to employment expansion, it’s important for recruiters to make sure that their sourcing and presentation efforts are as optimized as possible.  Using Voice Advantage helps you efficiently find the best candidates, and our presentation options allow you to quickly get hiring manager feedback, reducing Total Time to Hire by up to 75%.

In cases where, unfortunately, the recovery hasn’t been very robust, an opposite problem occurs.  For those employers who are hiring, the volume of candidates can be overwhelming.  Putting Voice Advantage to work helps manage the funnel, allowing recruiters to screen candidates in 2-3 minutes instead of the usual 20-30 minutes.  Our built-in candidate notification features also allow you to quickly correspond with those candidates who won’t be moving forward in the process.  Being unemployed is hard enough; don’t compound candidate anxiety by leaving them in a Black Hole after they submit to your ATS.

Whether your local job market is strong or weak, as recruiters let’s not forget that we ultimately want to get the best person into the seat.  Voice Advantage is a great tool to help achieve that goal.

So, what’s different?

• Guides: We’ll be publishing a series of guides based on larger tasks or concepts. The first edition is The Getting Started Guide.
• Videos: View a video breakdown of different features and areas of Voice Advantage.
• Search: You can now search our entire help section to quickly find the topic you are looking for.

Check out everything that’s new here. We will be continually updating with new guides, tips and general FAQs. We hope the new help and support section serves you well!

To read the full story, click: http://bit.ly/hEPq6v

The ability to quickly jump to a previously visited section of Voice Advantage is important. Most often the spot you need to go is a location you were just at. Your browser’s “Back” button isn’t good enough, and it’s easy to quickly get lost.

Now, you can view your recent activity history, and easily click to a candidate, campaign or list you’ve visited in the past.

To learn more, check out the the video below.

We would love to hear how this addition is working for you!

A Cleaner Layout

Navigation is snappier. Colors are friendlier. Features are smarter. The new layout helps work get done faster, with fewer clicks.

The Queue

Stay on top of incoming interviews. The queue allows you to see which candidates you have yet to review across a set of campaigns. It’s a great way to know when the review process in Voice Advantage is finished.

A Smarter Dashboard

Get a more holistic view of candidate responses, campaign performance, and presentation feedback. The new dashboard serves as a better launching pad. In addition, campaigns are much easier to scan with our campaign browser.

Custom Fields

Organize candidates and campaigns with an extra layer of information. Custom fields give you the power to label candidates or campaigns with labels important to you. Come back later and search by a custom field to easily find a matching group.

Pre-qualifying Questions Are Fun Again

The old way of creating and managing pre-qualifying questions was cumbersome. We felt your pain! The feature has been completely overhauled to be faster, easier and more customizable.

You Are Here

One of the biggest recurring themes with customer feedback was a sense of being lost. We’ve addressed this by adding in better mile-markers. It is much easier to tell which campaign a candidate belongs to. Administrative features are no longer confusing.

A Sunny Tomorrow

We’re just getting started with 2011. What has already been a well-received overhaul to the original product that won “2010 Top HR Product” is just the beginning. This year we have planned big things such as more robust user management, improved candidate viewing features, and a better reporting engine. We are excited to serve you in the months ahead!

Joyce Lain Kennedy of Telegram.com offers this advice:

To avoid being chopped at the first pass in automated or live screeners, rehearse effective responses to questions about typical subjects:

• Questions about your job history

• Questions about your salary history or requirements

• Questions about your education or training

• Questions about your crossover skills (ability to do the job)

The Wall Street Journal has this to say about the kinds of questions to prepare for:

You should also prepare to answer more complex and detailed questions in phone interviews… Some examples:

• What do you know about the company?

• Why do you want the job?

• What are your greatest strengths?

• What are your career goals?

• How do you see yourself fitting in?

No phone interview is easy, but having a good idea of the questions that will be asked increases your chances to succeed. Reinforcing this idea is Bill McGowan, founder of communications-coaching firm Clarity Media Group, Inc. when he said:

“What traps a lot of people is they think and talk at the same time. They make up answers on the fly. It’s better if you know your conversational path.”

Of course, these are not the only questions that can be asked in phone interviews. Do you have other questions that come up?

Leave a comment below!

However, I was more intrigued by the thought of a Midwest tech scene. Is there a Midwest tech scene? Many people fall into the assumption that technology companies only thrive in Silicon Valley; flyovergeeks.com would like to give Midwestern tech companies the recognition they deserve… But do they deserve it?

Some, like Doug Heinz, a successful blog-writer, will say that the Midwest tech scene is palpable, but it is moving at a turtle’s pace. He is optimistic about the potential of the Midwest, but he does not think it will reach that potential any time soon, “I don’t think that this is going to be a problem in the long-run. How long? I don’t know…”

Others, such as Brad Keywell, the Chicago-born co-founder of Groupon, seems a little more skeptical about the idea of a Midwest tech scene. He addressed the issue at midVentures tech launch in Chicago saying, “Growing business outside Silicon Valley is difficult, but possible.”

The Midwest tech scene is not at the level of the West, but it is present. There are currently over 3,500 tech companies in Illinois (not overwhelming, but a presence nonetheless). I feel it is relevant that flyovergeeks.com is drawing attention to the success stories of this developing area.

What are your feelings on the Midwest tech scene? Leave a comment below!

Working closely throughout the year with our customers, we accumulated some great feedback. The things we learned showed right away – we won HR Executive Magazine’s Top Product of 2010 award. More importantly, it helped shape a redesign of Voice Advantage.

What Has Changed – A New Coat of Paint

The look and feel of Voice Advantage got a complete overhaul. Now, major tasks are easier and your daily work is more streamlined. It might sound intimidating at first, but after a day or two of use the tool will be much easier to use. Our focus was more clarity and reducing the number of clicks it takes to do key tasks. We wanted to make it fun to use Voice Advantage.

No Existing Feature Changes

There are no major feature changes to speak of. Voice Advantage will work the same way as it did yesterday. The four core pillars of campaigns, correspondence, candidates and presentation lists are still the same. Helpful features like search, custom views, custom labels, templates, departments and client branding are unchanged. The redesign will simply make it easier to use them.

Your Queue

One of the new additions to Voice Advantage was the creation of a personal queue. We built an inbox of candidates you need to review across all campaigns. Quickly breeze through reviews, saving time like never before.

What You Need to Know

You will notice the Dashboard is quite different! We put an emphasis on pushing the most important information you need to know front and center. The Dashboard is now the spot to track candidate responses, presentation feedback and campaign performance rather than just a place to browse campaigns alphabetically.

A Helping Hand

We are here to help in any way we can. Over at the help section we will be posting a series of training videos as well as updating all documentation. Videos include the candidate experience, campaign Dashboard, campaign set-up, inviting and sharing candidate information and using custom fields. We will be providing you with important information through our blog and User Guides. We welcome this as an opportunity to re-meet with you and your teams and conduct a live review of the revamped Voice Advantage application.

Timing of the Change

The update will happen overnight on Monday, February 7^th. When you log in the following morning, you’ll be greeted with a fresh view of Voice Advantage!

We welcome your questions and feedback! Please don’t hesitate to contact us for any support – we’re here to help.

Have you ever known someone who exhibited any of these traits?

· Needlessly rude to a wait-staff, taxi drivers, service workers in general

· Belittles friends and loved-ones in public

· Seems to always know the answer, whether or not it’s right is not the point

· Tends to lie about small and big things all the time and for no apparent reason

· Suffers no fools (perceived or otherwise)

· Lives for drama and being the center of it

· Always needs to have the last word

· Takes no joy in the success of others

· Always angling for more than his/her fair share

· Unwilling to see him/herself as part of the problem

These are the calling cards of a person with a “Material Character Defect” or MCD.

I can say safely that I have hired several people with MCD over the years – and one is far too many. So in the spirit of helping others, I offer the following interview questions to help spot MCD before an offer letter is sent:

1. Please tell me about the last time in which someone embarrassed you in public? How did you handle the situation?

2. When was the last time you returned a meal at a restaurant? What was the issue?

3. What is a specific personality trait that really irks you? Please tell me about a time when someone acted this way. What did you do?

4. What was a piece of personal feedback given to you by a colleague that really hurt? What was it specifically? Why did it hurt?

These questions will help identify real past behaviors and reactions opposed to theoretical actions, which tend to be idealized and not good indicators of future behavior. If you are using these questions on Voice Advantage, please make sure to break them down into multiple questions or repeat the question at the end. In a virtual interview, compound questions tend to overwhelm the candidate with too much information to process.

It is important to note that MCD is not a protected employment class. We are in no way barred from screening people with MCD, as it knows no gender, ethnicity, class or age bounds. It is not a medical condition. If I were to translate an anti-MCD hiring policy into plain speak, it would be a “No Jerks Policy” — a policy we hold near and dear at HarQen.