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Welcome to Stonefish Software
In an environment where competition is fierce you need to attract top candidates. Stonefish eRecruitment combines a user-friendly web site where applicants can view current employment opportunities and apply for them online, with back-end automated administration to streamline short listing and interviews.
Stonefish eRecruitment works only in HE and the public sector. We know your recruitment needs.
Stonefish eRecruitment can reduce lead time from job specification to appointment by two weeks.
Let Stonefish help you take the burden out of recruitment so you can appoint the best.
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Case Study - Institute of Education
Comments from an HR
Manager, Administrator and IT Administrator
Patti Gram, HR Services Manager
Background
When the Institute of
Education wanted to move our recruitment processes
from the 19th to 21st centuries in one leap we had
no idea that the choices of online recruitment
products geared specifically to the Higher
Education sector would run from slim to nil.
We operated a cumbersome and applicant-unfriendly
recruitment process: an applicant would read our
press advert, request an application from the email
address quoted in the ad, only to be sent an
application form which told them to complete and
return in five hard copies! These in turn would be
distributed to interview panel members for
shortlisting and interviews. The entire eight week
process would end up as a pile of paper back in HR.
When I researched existing software used by a
variety of public sector organisations. I found
that there were very good and sophisticated
packages out there which were not perfect fits for
an HEI and seemed to have been pared down to try
and meet an HEI budget. We elicited suggestions
through the Association of University
Administrators forum and three respondents
mentioned the user-friendly University of
Nottingham recruitment web site and its
user-friendly application form.
Nottingham HR were kind enough to invite us to view
their Stonefish eRecruitment system and we were
impressed by the automated ‘wow’ factors of the
application form and the design features
specifically tailored to the culture and practices
of an academic institution. Stonefish had already
developed their product further to automate
recruitment all the way through to appointment.
Implementation
Stonefish Software won
the tender for our eRecruitment system and we went
live in October 2007.
Like all new things introduced to rarefied
academia, the movement from paper-based to online
system was not without hiccups. Although greeted
with enthusiasm by applicants (as evidenced by our
online exit survey) some selection panel members
were rather less keen. Staff initially resistant
cited reasons ranging from technological (remote
users unable to access the system due to browser
incompatibility or unfamiliarity with a web
interface) to process (an aversion to performing
‘administrative’ tasks such as online grading of
applications and printing) to procedural (an
existing culture of non-documented and
non-accountable applicant selection practices).
As our pilot progressed, applicant feedback drew
our attention to quality of our selection criteria
and the difficulty of providing fresh, sharp and
meaningful answers to questions which were
repetitive in the information they asked. This was
a good prompt to hone our post criteria and include
this in our Recruitment and Selection Training.
Results
The system has now
handled over 200 recruitments. Resistant staff were
assured that this was not merely an administrative
tool but had wider implications for our compliance
with legislation, risk management and equalities
best practice. The transparency afforded to
recruitment and selection by the online system will
serve to ensure that each recruitment meets risk
management requirements in protecting the
Institute’s reputation for fairness in hiring and
data protection. Applications have increased,
particularly for academic posts and through the
reporting tool we can track jobs by such criteria
as type, department, number of applications,
applications with diversity, recruitment sources
and cost of sources.
The ability to shortlist remotely has become a
considerable boon to our academics, who often work
from home or other remote locations, as they can
access their respective applications to view from
anywhere with internet access. Any paper based
applications received are scanned into the system.
Interview panel members do not have to wait until a
job closes and hard-copies have been delivered or
posted to them to them (often with inherent
logistical delays to this process) but can view the
status of their jobs at any time and begin to work
through their shortlisting from the time the first
applicant has applied. Positive feedback includes
comments from two external academic panel members,
one of whom subsequently recommended the system to
his own HR department.
In the survey completed when submitting an
application, applicants have told us that our
application is unique in the way each section can
be completed and printed separately for reference,
and in the order chosen by the applicant, giving
the applicant the advantage of seeing what is
required in different stages so necessary materials
can be gathered and a more thoughtful approach
applied.
From a purely HR perspective, eRecruitment has
given staff in our faculties greater control over
their own recruitments and reduced the
administrative burden for central HR. It has
reduced our recruitment lead time from 8 to 6 weeks
and raised our profile as a best-practice
employer.
Caroline Catmur, HR Administrator
Our e-recruitment system
was implemented in October 2007 and it has
definitely changed our recruitment process for the
better. Everything is much more streamlined and it
is much easier to deal with enquiries and manage
the process as everything is online. It saves so
much time and paper (due to everything being
online, hardly anything needs to be printed) and is
a really easy system to use. Candidates and
selection panels alike find it much better than the
old, out of date system!
The help we get from Stonefish is first class.
They're always on the end of the phone or email,
answer all our queries extremely quickly and
efficiently, and often do beyond the call of duty
to help us if we've made a mistake. They are always
willing to make changes to the system and take our
ideas for adaptations on board. I would definitely
recommend them.
Phuong Tran, Senior System Analyst
Implementation was very
easy, we gave them access to our server and they
installed it without any problems. I wasn't timing
it, but it probably took a day. All we had to do
was give them access to our database.
Support-wise they have been very excellent. I don't
say this from most software companies (and we have
a lot of third party companies) but they are the
only ones I would recommend out of everyone we deal
with (I have high standards). So far - the problems
we have with them are really Institute of
Education's problems - e.g. the website wasn't
sending email because we were patching our mail
exchange, the website wasn't working because we
shut down our server, etc. They are always quick to
notify us when our systems are down (e.g. why was
your database down at such and such time?), even
when it's 10 o'clock on a weekend.
Their response times have been excellent. When you
email the Stonefish Helpdesk, they will reply very
quickly. Just recently, our Deputy Director was
unable to access the website on his Mac laptop.
When I emailed the Helpdesk at 10.21am I received a
reply at 10.48am with advice that solved the
problem.
Maintenance-wise, I'm the only one in the IT team
who is responsible for the software from our end
and it has not been a drain on my time at all. This
is particularly good as we are a bit overstretched
at the moment, so what we need is to have third
party software suppliers who:
• Know what they are doing
• Provide reliable software
• Have excellent response times
• Can support themselves without needing huge
amounts of inputs from my department
Compatibility Issues - none so far. It works on
Safari, IE, Firefox, etc. We update our patches
religiously and this has never tripped up
Stonefish's software (whereas other third party
websites have stopped working). If there was some
compatibility issues in the future, from their
track record I am very confident Stonefish would be
able to provide a solution quickly and efficiently
(unlike another of our software suppliers whose
only response was "don't apply Microsoft Security
updates" - which you can imagine was completely
unsatisfactory).
Frankly, I can't recommend them enough.
Why Stonefish eRecruitment?
If you currently operate a paper-based recruitment process that is cumbersome, unfriendly to applicants and administratively time consuming, Stonefish eRecruitment has been developed for your HR department. With over 17 years working within The Public Sector, our online system is the only one designed solely for public sector and HE recruitment.
Holds details of current employment opportunities on your web site. When an applicant registers their details are stored to make the application process quick and non-repetitive.
Allows applicants to subscribe so they are notified when new jobs are advertised; automates correspondence with applicants at each stage of the recruitment process.
Match redeployees to vacancies with exclusive advertisement periods.
Ensures all applications are completed in a consistent manner to HERA role analysis selection criteria, making them easier to evaluate.
Designs bespoke web pages to integrate seamlessly with your institution’s web site.
Allows interview panel members to evaluate and score applications online as soon as they are submitted, from any online computer, anytime, anywhere.
Automatically reminds applicants and interview panel members to complete key tasks and produces reference requests.
Makes interview and test scheduling simple.
Generates interview packs for selection panel members.
Online referencing allows automated contact, chasing and collection of references.
Works to the two ticks "Positive about Disability" standard. Equal ops data is hidden from shortlisting panel members but alerts HR so that applicants with disabilities who meet the minimum essential criteria are always shortlisted.
Affords best practice transparency to recruitment and selection by ensuring that each recruitment meets risk management requirements in protecting the institution’s reputation for fairness in hiring and data protection.
Produces management report data such as number of posts advertised, recruitment sources attracting best applicants, jobs receiving the most hits, number of submitted applications, and appointments with diversity.
Contact Stonefish Software
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