MCH

Hi Brenda.  Tell us about your role at MCH.

Brenda: I oversee our HR committee, which works with the typical HR stuff: benefits, employee moral issues, any kind of thing that comes up HR-wise.

How do you use ApplicantStack?

Brenda: Well, part of my role is to maintain all of our hiring processes.  I’ve been doing this for a couple of years as the HR director, but it’s been kind of crazy because we’ve never had an online application.  People would email and request them and I would have to send PDFs over all the time and it just got to be a real hassle.  So I got to thinking, all these companies have online applications so it can’t be that hard to do it.  So I searched for a product and found ApplicantStack and started using it.  We just really needed to get that online application to our website so we can see if it would make a difference

Has it made a difference?

Brenda: It’s been very, very helpful and it saves me a LOT of time.  And our applicant count is definitely up.  Now, to be honest, I’m not sure it’s all due to having the online application, because with the economy the way it is I would expect to have more applicants, so it’s hard to measure.  But my thought is that if you make it easier for people to apply you’re going to get more applicants.  So I think some of [the increase] is due to having the online application.

What was your process before you used ApplicantStack?

Brenda: We have affirmative action requirements because we have a government contract, and in the beginning we had to even number our applications.  So I would have to scan in an application for everyone who applied and send it to them.  In time it got a little better and I would just save a PDF of the application on my desktop and I would send it out per request, but I still had to send it out every time somebody wanted an application.

And what is your process now with ApplicantStack?

Brenda: Now, with ApplicantStack, I don’t have to do all that.  I get notified from the system when somebody has applied.  I still have to log it for our affirmative action but I don’t have to send something out to every applicant.  And the other thing is a lot of applicants would call and ask us what jobs we have available.  Previously I would literally go through each one of the positions over the phone, or email a list to them.  Now I just direct them to our website where they can see all our postings and then can even apply online.  So it’s been very helpful for us.  And the managers love it because they get everything at once, whereas before they would frequently get the application and resume separately.

What kind of jobs do you post through ApplicantStack?

Brenda: We post everything through ApplicantStack now.  Right now we have jobs posted for our IT, Sales, Marketing and Research departments, and its working great.  There was one position that I was a little leery of, because it was a lower level entry position and I wasn’t sure people would use the online application.  But I talked with the hiring manager and she was fine with trying it in the online system.  Well, since we posted the job online she’s had over 30 applications come through the online system and only 4 walk-ins.  So now all our jobs get posted online.

Where do you post your jobs?

Brenda: We post to our website, to LinkedIn, Craigslist, Monster, and some on Careerbuilder.  We also post to KCBMA, which is a direct marketing association, and to colleges and universities.

Last question, just for fun. If you could have any job in the world, what would you want to do?

Brenda: You know, I really like what I do.  I did work in the medical insurance field before this job and the constant change was a major headache.  HR changes too but I’m very happy in this field.

Hi Bill. Tell us about First Bank and Trust and your role.

Bill: Here at First Bank & Trust, I’m in charge of customer service, customer convenience, customer satisfaction, and how we present ourselves to customers, which includes anybody who we want to recruit for a job opening.

What role do you have in hiring and recruiting?

Bill: I oversee our HR function. I have an HR director, who’s also in charge of our corporate values.

How do you use ApplicantStack?

Bill: Last year it was in our strategic plan to get to an automated process where potential applicants could access our website and apply directly to us from wherever they were without having to come to a location. We wanted to enable them to do it electronically. So we did a thorough analysis to determine the best software product for doing this and ApplicantStack was the product we chose.

What was your process before ApplicantStack?

Bill: Our process prior to going to the online application and evaluation process was that somebody had to print the application from our website, then either fax it to us or bring it to us.

And what is your process like now?

Bill: By going with ApplicantStack we’ve accomplished the online application process but in addition to that the real benefit that we’ve seen is the ease of tracking applicants and communication with those applicants. We can now generate an electronic response to them and keep track of communication, and narrow it down from the process of bulk applications down to qualified candidates and then proceed from there. And we do all this in a very efficient manner that keeps the applicants informed and gives us a clear record of how all that transpired.

What kind of people do you hire?

Bill: We hire the full gamut, entry level all the way up to management level positions, through this process. One of the advantages that we found was that the complete anonymity and confidentiality of people who want to apply through this process prevents them from having to physically make an appearance at the location, which does at times compromise their confidentiality.

Where do you post your jobs?

Bill: We post to external job boards and link them back to our ApplicantStack job board on our website to apply. We post to Lubbockonline, KCBD, and Monster. We also post to specialized sites when we’re looking for certain criteria. For example a mortgage underwriter will go to a mortgage underwriting site, or if we’re looking for a lender we’ll go to a bank lending recruitment site.

Would you recommend ApplicantStack to others?

Bill: After having evaluated all the different options that we had for going with an electronic online application process and analysis, we felt like ApplicantStack met all of our expectations and now is exceeding those.

OK, last question (and it’s important). If you could have any job in the world, besides of course your current one, what would you want to do?

Bill: I’d be the ranch manager for my ranch.