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OneWire Releases New Candidate Interface Improved Candidate Experience and Engagement, Overall Ease of Use Ensure Better Matches and Better Talent, Faster

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - May 8, 2012) - OneWire®, where finance professionals get hired, today announced the most robust update to its candidate application to date, including new design, process, and feature enhancements to better connect finance talent with relevant employers. The release simplifies the workflow for both candidates and employers, allowing candidates to create secure profiles in a matter of minutes and easily manage their applications, matches, and preferences. This enhanced user experience will allow both candidates and employers to engage more often and on a deeper level.

"Candidates are at the center of OneWire's ecosystem. We are thrilled to provide them with these new features to help them connect to the right finance jobs, faster. We've spent the past several months polling our community and have completely redesigned the candidate interface to deliver the enhancements our candidates are looking for," said OneWire President and Co-Founder Brin McCagg. "Not only do these features improve ease of use, but they encourage interaction between candidates and employers -- delivering a better experience for both."

The release offers a number of significant improvements:

• A shorter sign up process brings applicants into the OneWire community faster. A new sign up form requires half as many data fields up front, reducing candidate frustration.
• A completely redesigned profile layout helps candidates create their detailed profiles quickly and easily. The new design provides clear prompts to guide job seekers through the profile completion process, ensuring that individuals create relevant profiles and improve their matches with hiring employers.
• Revised navigation, language, and a new style guide improve the user interface and ensure that users always have access to action items. Candidates can more easily review the status of their job applications, receive suggestions for similar positions, and join employers' Talent Communities, improving engagement with employers and connecting job seekers to relevant jobs, faster.
• Integration and normalization of international data across licenses, certifications, board tests, GPA and the military allows candidates around the world to fully complete their profiles and be evaluated on a standardized scale.

"This release focuses primarily on the candidate side of the OneWire talent community, but both our constituencies -- job seekers and employers -- benefit," said McCagg. "We are continuously working hard to help our clients hire the right finance talent, faster, and connect candidates to the right finance job, now. We're excited about the progress we've made in this release to deliver on those promises and will continue to innovate going forward."

There is no charge to candidates to join the OneWire finance talent community. Connect with the right finance jobs by visiting www.onewire.com.

 

Despite an increase in on-campus hiring this year, less than half of graduates are expected to have a full-time job by the time they leave college. According to a recent study by Rutgers University, only 49% of graduates from 2009 to 2011 found a full-time job within a year of... OneWire

College graduation is a time for congratulations, excitement, and…debt. Fortunately, 2012 is seeing an uptick in the economy and hiring. The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) indicates that employers are hiring 10.2% more graduates than they did in 2011. Landing your first job is the perfect time to... OneWire

The U.S. Bureau of Labor announced this week that jobless claims remained almost unchanged from last week and worse than economists’ predictions. As a result, there is growing concern that the job creation we saw earlier this year may be short-lived. Jobless claims have been above 385,000 for three weeks... OneWire

The U.S. Bureau of Labor announced this week that jobless claims remained almost unchanged from last week and worse than economists’ predictions. As a result, there is growing concern that the job creation we saw earlier this year may be short-lived. Jobless claims have been above 385,000 for three weeks... OneWire

NEW YORK, NY, Apr 25, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- 

WHO: OneWire(R), helping employers hire the right finance talent, faster

WHAT: Is sponsoring and exhibiting at the Human Capital Institute 2012 Strategic Talent Acquisition Conference, which aims to address the changing role of talent acquisition by highlighting three main drivers: Social Media & Technology, Candidate Sourcing & Technology and Recruitment Optimization.

WHEN: The conference will be held from Monday, April 30 through Wednesday, May 2, 2012.

WHERE: HCI's 2012 Strategic Talent Acquisition Conference

Crowne Plaza Times Square 1605 Broadway New York, NY

OneWire will be presenting its unique recruiting solutions at Booth No. 34.

DETAILS: Despite a market brimming with job seekers, finding top finance talent with the relevant skills and experience is a great challenge for today's organizations. One of the best ways to improve talent acquisition, though, is to provide a more positive candidate experience. When organizations develop a recognizable employment brand, foster a reputation as a great place to work, and maintain ongoing relationships with top talent, they can secure the candidates they need to meet business objectives before the competition does.

During HCI's Strategic Talent Acquisition Conference, OneWire will showcase its unique recruiting solution and premier talent community of finance professionals to recruiting leaders, right in the heart of New York City -- the financial capital of the world. Visitors to the OneWire booth will learn how the company's cutting-edge sourcing tools, candidate-maintained community and precise matching technology connect employers with the industry's most qualified talent in less time and at a lower cost.

To learn more about how OneWire helps employers hire the right finance talent, faster, visit www.onewire.com today.

About One Wire OneWire is the premier destination for employers to connect with high quality finance talent. Employers use OneWire to source and recruit top finance candidates, and hundreds of thousands of job seekers use OneWire to get matched to relevant job opportunities and connect directly with hiring companies. OneWire's suite of cutting-edge sourcing tools and powerful matching technology help top financial firms, Fortune 500, and Global 2000 companies to attract, target, and hire the right finance talent. Candidates create detailed, confidential OneWire Profiles, which provide them with complete control and visibility throughout their job search. Our clients know that the right talent is a company's greatest asset. Hire the right finance talent, faster, on OneWire. Learn more at www.onewire.com .

According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, investment banks still aren’t in any rush to hire. New regulations and fewer mergers and acquisitions have led a number of banks to begin to cut down their robust investment banking groups. Those anticipated to be leaving include not just... OneWire

Hoping to land an internship in finance or accounting?  There’s still time!  Top companies are using OneWire to hire undergraduate interns for both the summer and fall.  Internships are an excellent way to get your foot in the door at a great company—and can often lead to a fulltime offer.  Check out a few great internship opportunities below.  Sign into OneWire, and Express Interest in the position to apply! 

 

1. Global Public Finance Internship – Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA
New York, NY   2. Undergraduate Intern, Enterprise Security – T. Rowe Price Group
Owings Mills, MD  
3. Intern – Adams Capital
Atlanta, GA

4. Audit Internship - Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA
New York, NY 

5. Intern, Undergraduate Front Office Equity Programmer – T. Rowe Price Group
Baltimore, MD

 

Some Companies Go Nontraditional to Find Right Fit

by Kathy Gurchiek

 

Andrew Johnson, 23, landed the full-time job as master model builder at Legoland Discovery Center Chicago in March 2012, becoming one of four people in the U.S. and eight people in the world to hold the title of master model builder at the company. 

But landing the job required facing his employer’s nontraditional screening process, which included submitting a one-minute YouTube video and participating in a public build-off with seven other finalists before a panel of eight judges—including an HR professional—plus a 100-member audience and NBC TV cameras. 

Children in the audience were allowed to talk to the applicants as they worked on three timed Lego-building challenges. Audience members could vote on which candidate they liked best.

Legoland chooses to go nontraditional in its candidate screening because “there’s not a traditional day here,” said Cassi Weber, general manager of Legoland Discovery Center Chicago. 

The person hired had to be creative at developing models for the thousands who visit the center, to interact easily with children and the news media, to enjoy working with Legoland guests, to be able to think and respond quickly, and to serve as the center’s “face,” Weber said.

The video had to show something the candidate had built with Legos, but the application process involved some traditional elements: cover letter, resume and online application. Those making the first cut had an initial phone interview with HR.  

“It was a lot of extra work for us,” Weber said of the unusual process, but “we needed to test the skills of those [finalists].” 

Welcome to the new world of nontraditional candidate screening.  

In 2011, a Minneapolis advertising agency began asking candidates for its 10-week paid summer internship program to apply in a series of 13 Twitter messages over 13 days for a chance at an interview.  Some of those interns have gone on to become full-time employees.

It “gave our applicants the opportunity to showcase their digital understanding and creativity while highlighting their personality and passion for advertising,” said Debbie Fischer, Campbell Mithun’s vice president/HR manager, in a news release. “We were blown away by tweets that basically created personal applicant campaigns by presenting content, industry insights, and, quite frankly, a lot of great humor.”

The process allowed applicants to take advantage of Twitter’s linking functionality to make their case beyond their 13, 140-character messages by connecting to video, pictures, documents, websites—anything they chose. 

One applicant in 2011, for example, linked to scenes from a graphic novel, another to a video of her hitting the ski slopes. In 2012, another applicant invited fellow applicants to a tweet chat he created to talk about the application process and the advertising industry; the company could view screen shots of the discussion.

Using social media in this way, Fischer said, was “innovation at its best” and reflected the culture at the 79-year-old company where all employees are encouraged to tweet and be digitally savvy.

Relinquishing Control

It also required a different internal strategy. 

“It’s a little nerve-wracking because there’s no case study to take a look at,” Fischer said of the HR challenge to a nontraditional approach. “There’s no benchmark. You have to relinquish control essentially, which is hard [but] to me the benefit is so great.”

It also required staffing the selection process differently and creating a system for monitoring and capturing the thousands of tweets, Fischer said.  An online app allowed applicants to track their tweeting progress and compare their activity to others.

A group of 37 employees—the company’s Twitter Response Teams—assisted HR with tracking and responding to applicants. Once the application window closed, HR met with the Twitter Response Teams to discuss and lobby on behalf of the applicants and choose 32 finalists to be interviewed in person or via Skype. 

Finalists underwent an average of three traditional interviews, including meeting with Fischer and former interns who became full-time employees.

The firm’s unorthodox approach changed little in 2012, except for devising a better way to track all the applicants, their tweets and links.

 “It was a lot of work, and it was worth it,” Fischer told HR News. “It wasn’t a great process for just normal hiring, but I really do believe there’s a great ROI,” including the national exposure and drawing a more diverse group of internship applicants.

“It attracted the right candidate for us. This was speaking their language.” 

Finding that right match between employer and candidate is what it’s all about.

“The worst thing for the candidate and the worst thing for [any] firm is to have a turnover situation in a short period of time,” said Brin McCagg, co-founder, president and COO of OneWire.

“The more you can do upfront … the better.”

OneWire, a New York City-based company that provides recruiting solutions to employers and job candidates, conducted a contest on Facebook during two weeks in January 2011 to find the most memorable job interview.

While some entries were entertaining, such as the interviewer who fell asleep, the contest underlined the “total mismatches in the [candidate screening] process, which obviously points to a lot of inefficiencies with the candidate and the firm,” McCagg said.

“The objective is to try to find the right people, sort through them efficiently and get the right candidates and put them through a test or evaluation or trial sales challenges or analytic test or whatever is appropriate for the position to get to the right person,” he said.

“A lot of companies out there just kind of wing it,” he said of the interview process.

Some employers have started asking candidates to perform tasks. A 2012 Forbes article highlighted how some organizations are requiring prospects for high-level positions to do more than answer interview questions. Candidates might have to give presentations, create a product or perform market research. 

It’s a practice that’s permeated the interview process for some low-level jobs. 

An unidentified job candidate for a shift leader position at a Pinkberry frozen yogurt store in Atlanta wrote on Glassdoor.com about an "American Idol"-esque interview in June 2010 that involved giving a 30-second commercial about the company in front of about 20 other applicants.

Another job candidate at a Pinkberry in Canada wrote of a full-day interview process that, along with traditional questions, included donning a hat and apron and handing out a platter of frozen yogurt samples under the interviewer’s gaze.

Some assignments might signal that the organization is trying to determine if the candidate has a long-term future with the company. A company that sells and serves coffee might have opportunities that allow a person who fulfills drink orders to rise up through the ranks. In that case, the company “probably is looking for a different type of person than just somebody who will be perfectly content to serve coffee every day,” McCagg said.

Then there are the oddball interview questions, such as asking a candidate to give five uses of a stapler that don’t entail using staples, or how he or she would prove a hypothesis that Germans are the tallest people in the world.

McCagg said he’s used such questions, noting they can be effective in understanding how a person thinks. 

“If it’s a job that requires analytical skills, I don’t need to know the exact answer but I do need to know how a person answers a question,” he explained.

Asking the candidate to calculate how many golf balls fit into a school bus, for example, can demonstrate how to approach a problem, he said.

Unorthodox questions might give the interviewer a glimpse into the candidate’s personality, according to a 2011 CareerBuilder survey that found hiring managers are starting to use such questions to size up candidates better. 

Some questions they’ve surprised candidates with: Are rules meant to be broken? Do you believe in UFOs? Are you a pencil or a pen? What do you do when you see a spider in the house? Can you drive in bad weather? If given a brick, what would you do with it?

The spider query could be a way of determining if the candidate delegates the problem; the driving question looks at whether a candidate can perform under pressure; the brick query is trying to plumb vision and initiative, according to CareerBuilder.

So is the nontraditional route the way to go for your employer?

Legoland’s Weber advised HR professionals and employers not to be afraid of the nontraditional approach in order to make the best hire.

“This really got us to the right candidate,” she said of the YouTube video and build-off. “Maybe we need to start going down some of those nontraditional paths” with other Legoland openings. Although, she added, “maybe not to the extent we did with Andrew [Johnson].”

Kathy Gurchiek is associate editor for HR News. 

 

Harnessing the Power of Social Media – Without the Headache By Brin McCagg   The Kony 2012 film has more than 87 million hits on YouTube. Invisible Children, Inc. has more than 3.2 million members on Facebook.  Kony 2012 – reminiscent of a presidential campaign – aimed to make a heinous warlord famous so that his crimes would be known and, ultimately, he would be captured. It took a little known cause to mainstream awareness in less than a week.  How did they do it? Kony 2012 harnessed the power of social media and personal networks in a big way.
Just like advocacy has changed, so has the business of recruiting. The question is no longer if social media is part of the recruitment strategy but instead, how it can be best used to attract the right candidates. Social media can be time and resource-intensive, especially with so many platforms to manage and monitor; but there is a way to harness its power without the headache: use the right technology, put candidates in control and engage an army of referrers.
Talk to any recruiter, whether it’s in the financial services, pharmaceutical or professional services industry, and they share the same concerns: finding the talent they need when and where they need it. But chances are, if you can find someone with a particular skill set– say, a commodity broker – someone else in their network (or their network’s network) will have a similar education, experience or career path. We’ve noted in previous posts that relationships matter; but relationships extend beyond a single candidate to his or her personal and extended network. And, the value of the network increases if relevant people are part of the chain.
How can you harness the power of an extended network and optimize social media to find the talent you need?
Let candidates own their information
A cloud-based talent community lets candidates easily create and update their own profile. Unlike the typical application process that requires candidates to start from scratch every time they want to apply for an open position, users can create a single profile to apply to multiple opportunities. Updating information in one place is easy, so candidates are more inclined to post their current status, achievements or career developments, enabling recruiters to access to the most current data.
Streamline the posting process
Aggregating all sources on a single platform not only simplifies the posting and reviewing process, but also provides better reporting and insight into which online sources deliver the best candidates.
Look for a match
Whether it’s a discussion group on LinkedIn, a hashtag denoting a particular topic on Twitter or another online network, communities are important for finding specialized talent. Looking for a Harvard MBA? A Ruby on Rails developer who speaks Japanese? A broker who has worked for Goldman Sachs? Identify communities where people with similar skills or experiences are engaging and encourage them to communicate your opportunities to their network.
Promote sharing
Make it easy for candidates, employees, recruiters and hiring managers to share job postings with their online networks—there’s power in a third-party endorsement.  Functionality that allows individuals to post an opportunity on their Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter pages can help organizations find the talent they need. Not only does this tool give the company credibility as a great place to work, but it begins to create and engage a community.  Even if someone isn’t ready to make a move or is not a good match for the position today, most people like to be helpful and can extend the reach of your talent search.
Motivate employees as brand ambassadors
Who knows your culture and business better than current employees? A cloud-based application makes it easy to match internal people with opportunities and allows them to quickly share available positions within their networks, helping organizations connect to the right talent, faster.
In the information age, companies need a recruitment strategy that effectively harnesses the power of social media. A candidate-maintained community and access to innovative sourcing tools can help organizations match candidates to new opportunities, leverage the power of internal networks, and build pipelines to meet their hiring needs today and in the future.    

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One of the most basic interview questions can often be one of the most difficult to answer: “Tell me about yourself.” Where do you begin and where do you end? According to career expert, Connie Thanasoulis-Cerrachio, people offer rambling, incoherent answers to this question all the time.  What’s the trick?  You must prepare and practice for this question in advance; you need to have a 15 to 30-second “elevator pitch” that you can pull it out at a moment’s notice.  Thanasoulis-Cerrachio recommends starting the creation process by writing down a full page of things you would want to say to an interviewer.  Then, cut down those notes by 50 percent, keeping only the most important points.  Then keep cutting until you are down to a quarter of a page.  From those points, pull out three bullets that offer a solid summary of your career.  

After that, it’s time to practice!  Experts suggest practicing in front of a mirror or a friend.  Make sure your presentation sounds enthusiastic, even if you’re bored from practicing it so much.  Delivery can be just as important as content.  Once you’ve mastered your pitch, you can use it in networking situations in addition to your interview…You never know when it may come in handy!

If you are an entrepreneur, the world of start-ups is both daunting and exciting and starting a company from the ground-up comes with both rewards and challenges. In most cases, you learn as you go. However, prior to taking the big leap, fellow entrepreneur, Laura Wallendal, Co-founder of WorldBrain, has... OneWire

Looking to hire top talent from the graduating Class of 2012?  Learn where and how Millennials are searching for jobs!  Experience, Inc. and Achievers recently surveyed 8,000 students to learn more about their job search behavior.  The survey determined that 83 percent of Millennials currently use social media in some capacity, and an increasing percentage is turning to social media for job searching.  LinkedIn, in particular, is becoming far more popular in Millennials’ job search—35 percent claim to use LinkedIn as a primary source for their job hunt, compared to only five percent two years ago. 

However, the Class of 2012 is not overlooking more traditional methods.  About 88 percent of those surveyed said they plan to submit applications directly to employers, and 73 percent will be using their college career centers.  In addition, 72 percent want to attend networking or recruiting events.  When asked what they think is important when choosing a job, most Millennials said career advancement opportunities (54 percent) was the most important factor, followed by interesting, challenging work (51 percent), and salary (51 percent).  So if you’re looking to hire young talent, take this knowledge into account!  Hiring the best talent can be a challenge these days.

Roundtable Meeting Highlights the Difficulties and Opportunities Experienced by Corporate Recruiters in Financial Services When Pursuing Top Talent   NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - Apr 2, 2012) - OneWire®, delivering better talent faster, announced today findings from its recent client advisory board. Through this program, OneWire has been able to gain insight into how its clients juggle multiple systems to acquire talent and the challenges they face during the hiring process.    OneWire gathered key clients for a roundtable discussion on the strengths and shortcomings of the range of recruiting technologies used by their organizations. As prominent financial services firms ranging from medium-sized boutique firms to global investment banks, each organization needs to hire and retain top talent in a competitive industry. During the meeting, participants shared their thoughts on the sourcing tools, candidate relationship management (CRM), and applicant tracking systems (ATS) utilized by their firms, discussing what works well for them and what areas have room for improvement.   The advisory board meeting provided OneWire with key insight into what its clients are looking for in recruiting solutions and the particular challenges of integrating multiple platforms, such as their sourcing tools, CRM, and existing ATS systems. The company learned that although clients recognize the inefficiency of using multiple systems to execute their recruiting process, there remain challenges to eliminating redundant systems and reliance on proprietary databases -- challenges OneWire is striving to overcome.   "Our clients are leaders in the financial services industry, vying for specialized, high-performance talent," said Brin McCagg, co-founder, president, and COO of OneWire. "Although some of them rely on OneWire as their sole recruiting solution, others are balancing an array of systems. These firms seek innovative and integrated recruiting platforms, and delivering on these requirements remains a priority in our development." McCagg continued, "These advisory board discussions are instrumental in helping us to develop industry-leading solutions that better connect recruiters to top candidates and ensure that organizations can easily attract, select and retain the talent they need to grow their businesses."    

In a fluctuating economy where a person might considering taking any job that he or she can get, it makes you wonder…are people actually happy with their jobs?  According to CareerBliss, an online job site that recently conducted a survey evaluating career happiness, the answer is yes.  It was found that those people who are happiest with their jobs, often have the same type of jobs.  CareerBliss surveyed over 100,400 employees with varying careers (excluding executive level jobs) from February 2011 to January 2012.  Employees were questioned about factors such as their satisfaction with employee-boss-coworker relations, company culture, growth potential, wages, responsibilities, and control of their job tasks.  From this, the Happiest Jobs in the US were determined:

1.    Software Quality Assurance Engineer
A Software Quality Assurance Engineer evaluates and reviews a product prior to the final product being released.  They are often involved in software development from beginning to end.

2.    Executive Chef & Project Manager (Tie)
An Executive Chef performs tasks such as cooking, creating the menu, and training staff.  A Project Manager coordinates buying, selling, and the entire transaction involved in real estate.

3.    Bank Teller & Warehouse Manager (Tie)
A Bank Teller works with customers and handles the cash.  A warehouse manager coordinates supplies, distribution, and the overall supervision of a warehouse.

Although the top 5 jobs may seem surprising, many people cite their happiness as being a result of the people that they work with. Other jobs that made the happiest jobs list such as Accountant, Human Resource Manager, and Customer Services Representative can also be attributed to the people factor.  This finding is further emphasized upon discovering that people who hold jobs with regular people interaction, tend to be happier employees.  People spend the majority of their time at work so whether you are currently employed or looking for a new opportunity, this is definitely an important finding to consider.

Do you go crazy sitting at your desk all day? You body may be telling you something important! We always knew sitting at your desk and staring at a computer screen all day wasn’t great for your physical or mental health, but a recent study determined just how bad it... OneWire

After Dodd-Frank regulations took effect, the need for compliance officers began to increase in the banking industry – and now with the Volcker Rule taking effect this coming July, jobs in compliance are going to be in even more demand.  In fact, many job resources are already reporting surges in compliance hiring, particularly in major cities such as New York, Chicago, and Dallas.  From major investment banks, to regional and community banks, compliance officers will serve a major role and often report directly to top tier management.  

Considering a job in compliance?  It’s certainly worth looking into! Banks are looking for all ranges of experience; while chief compliance officers will need to have extensive experience, other firms offer training for entry- and low-level hires.  In addition, compliance salaries can range from $70,000 to $90,000 at smaller banks and over $150,000 at investment banks and hedge funds.  Want to learn more?  Click here to review jobs in compliance on OneWire!

In the past few years, Wall Street banks have had some trouble staying afloat amidst regulations and turbulent financial markets. However, it seems asset and wealth management firms have been doing just fine. While CEOs’ bonuses shrunk considerably at the country’s top investment banks, bonuses at some top asset management... OneWire

Wall Street seems to be making a comeback! Last month, the finance sector added 6,000 jobs, compensating for the 5,000 jobs lost in January. In addition, the unemployment rate in the industry decreased from 6.9% in January to 5.3% in February. There’s also been tremendous growth in accounting jobs, which... OneWire

The job market seems to be looking better and better these days, and a recent survey by ManpowerGroup just reported some more good news! The survey determined that employers in all 50 U.S. states are planning to increase hiring between now and June. These expectations were the most positive that... OneWire