Staffing Robot - Web design and marketing services for companies in the staffing industry

Staffing Robot Gets a New Look!

There's a saying you may have heard before - "the cobblers children have no shoes." This saying could definitely be applied to us. When we launched Staffing Robot as a website design and marketing services firm for staffing companies we were overwhelmed with the amount of companies seeking out our services. We love all the companies we've had the opportunity to work with and are really proud of the work we've been doing together. But we've been doing so much work we never really took the time to do any for ourselves.

Until today!

We're completely excited to now show you the new look of Staffing Robot.

Next week we'll be launching our new brand to include a new website, mobile website, blog, social pages, portfolio site and much more!

Here are the new items we're looking forward to showing off.

New Logo:

We've always had a bit of a retro look and color palette but wanted to take this even further. We've created lots of different robots but we'll let you find them all on our site next week. 

New Website:

With our website we had 3 main goals (stop me if you've heard this one before):

• Simple
• Useful
• Creative

We think we achieved these goals. Instead of having too many options and a bunch of content to navigate through we've created only two main navigation options (About and Services) that take your through a few slides each, describing the services we offer and information about our company.

From there, we made finding the services customers are interested in super simple. We consolidated this information in one location - right under the 'How can we help?' tab found along the bottom of every page.

Finally, instead of a traditional website look we went with something more unique and creative. We built the site to work more like a presentation and it's lots of fun to swipe through on your iPad. Give it a try!

Our old corporate site was located at http://www.staffingrobotonline.com. However, starting next week you'll find our corporate site at http://www.staffingrobot.com and our blog at http://www.staffingrobot.com/blog.

New Mobile Website:

One of the best services we provide to staffing companies is mobile website design and development. So,of course we couldn't forget a mobile site for ourselves!  Our mobile site is simple to get through, optimized for smart phones and provides you with all the information you need to learn more about us or contact us.

New Blog:

Staffing Robot started as a blog so we put some extra attention into our new blog design. Starting next week you'll find our blog at http://www.staffingrobot.com/blog. Our new blog will let you easily explore categories, feature our latest blog, comment on our posts and view our social streams. Also, since we had so many people interested in advertising with us we've created some ad space to help promote your services! Want to run an ad? Contact us and let us know.

Our goal is to keep bringing you relevant news and information on the staffing industry, specifically related to design, marketing and technology so be sure to subscribe to our blog via RSS or email.

Social Sites:

We are also updating the look of our social sites next week so be sure to follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook to check out the new pages!

New business cards:

Note the new phone number! 866.991.1849.

T Shirts!

Oh yes! We also have T-Shirts! Everyone loves T-shirts right? If you're a Staffing Robot customer we'll be sending you one of these. If not, but you [robot head] staffing tell us and we'll let you know how to get one!

We have much more to announce related to our new brand over the next several weeks, but we'll leave it at this for now. Let us know what you think about our new look below. And, if you're ready to be our next innovate client, be the first to use our new contact form on our new site (my personal favorite part of the site).

And don't forget - starting next week, you'll find our company site at http://www.staffingrobot.com and our blog at http://www.staffingrobot.com/blog.

New Sites Make Social Recruiting Even Easier

All good recruiters know that social media isn't really about connecting with friends and family. Instead, it's really about finding great candidates.

A recent survey from Jobvite revealed that over 90% of employers will use social media for recruiting in 2012. This kind of data suggests that traditional methods of sourcing candidates are no longer effective. This also mans that traditional tools for finding a job are also outdated. For example, the resume.

Even at our company, the first thing we do when screening a new hire is look at their social presence represented on professional sites like LinkedIn. In today’s economy, most companies can't afford to make a bad hire. You can gain so much more information from someones online profile than you can from a simple summary, tailored and reduced to a single piece of paper.

For a long time LinkedIn has been the go to site for reviewing professional information about potential candidates. Others like Branch Out are gaining traction and Facebook is even rumored to be getting into the job game. However, there's a new site that launched last week from a Portland Oregon company called Vizify that is sure to be a game changer.

Vizify is a stunningly visual way to view a complete overview of someones career, work history, education and overall social presence. (You can check out my personal Vizify profile here). You can see years of experience, topics they discuss on line, and interesting factoids about them. One of my favorite features is viewing their locations page - a interactive guide to where this person has lived. All of this information is laid out in a beautiful presentation that is easy to navigate and incredibly interesting to look at.

As more and more sites pop up that visually represent individuals in interesting and engaging ways, it's only a matter of time before resumes are no longer even requested. Sites like About.me and Flavors.me also offer visual representations and aggregates social profiles. However, we think Vizify far outpaces these services and it's only in beta.

What's your opinion recruiters? Are you still working off of resumes or are online sites taking over that function for you?

Also, what are some of your favorite sites for gathering professional information on candidates? Share them with us in the comments below.

How Staffing Agencies Can Reward Employees For Exceptional Customer Service

Customer service is the key to success for almost every business - especially when it comes to staffing agencies. Your employees spend hours every day talking to your customers and candidates. Their interactions can make a huge difference in your customer satisfaction and ultimately your bottom line. 

Measuring customer happiness for your staffing company is critical. However, motivating your employees to provide great customer service is also something you should should focus on. If you're like a lot of companies though, it can be difficult and time consuming to know where to get started with all of this.

Look no further! Today we are happy to announce the simplest way to instantly motivate and reward your top performing employees for providing exceptional customer service. Introduction Kudos - a new feature in Hively!

What are Kudos?

Kudos are a simple way for employees to give each other feedback or for managers to reward employees. Think of it like a ‘thanks’ or a ‘pat on the back.’ 

Just like with Hively customer feedback, if you receive a Kudo you will be instantly notified and have the Hively Kudos badge prominently displayed on your leaderboard profile for your team to see. You will also receive +1 count for each Kudo you receive. Kudos are separated from customer feedback and don’t effect your customer happiness scores.

But we didn’t stop there!

What’s better than getting a Kudo? Getting a Kudo with a gift card reward! We recently partnered with Tango Card to enable our customers to provide real time rewards to top performing employees. Tango Card provides virtual gift cards that can be redeemed for cash or other gift cards like Amazon, Starbucks, Nike and Zappos. If you’re a Hively team member, simply sign up with Tango Card and you can start adding gift cards to any Kudos you send your team members.

To learn more about the other great features we released in Hively today check out the full announcement here and let your staffing company get started with rewarding your employees! Sign up for Hively. It's free to try!

 

New Site Launched: Advanced Medical

Kyle is a Physical Therapist. He can get a job anywhere. So can you.

 
That's the tagline we used to guide the recent project we just completed with Advanced Medical. And it's not just a tagline. Advanced Medical is a therapy only staffing agency placing traveling therapists all across the country. Their innovation, creativity and embrace of technology has produced tremendous growth for their company over the last few years and things are only going up from here.

This project had a lot of components and enabled us to experiment with some techniques and technologies, thanks to Advanced Medical allowing us the space to be creative and trusting us to deliver.

Updated Brand
We fist updated the Advanced Medical brand. We didn't do a complete rebrand, just changed up some of the styles to give it a cleaner, more modern look. We also presented the brand in additional styles so it could used more universally.

Website
We had several primary goals with Advanced Medical's new site:

• Simply the site while presenting the same/similar information
• Not loose any SEO they've earned over the years
• Create more interaction and engagement

We started with the home page. We cleared most things out of the way so potential candidates could focus on the main thing they're looking for - JOBs! However, if these candidates are looking for more information they can get it quickly with just a click.

 

We then created a custom travel therapy job board and improved the work flow for their candidates. The job board is easy to navigate and presents job options quickly and simply.

We also present Hot Jobs throughout the site that are relevant to the modality or state mentioned on the page.



Advanced Medical does a lot of work with new grads so we made their Therapy New Grad section a primary focus of the site.

Finally, knowing Advanced Medical has a huge focus on customer happiness, so we made it easy for their customers to request travel therapy staff and also intro them to some of the friendly faces they'll be working with at Advanced Medical.

Other highlights of the website include:

• Chat Widget
• Stylized contact forms
• Modal pop up windows
• Job detail pages
• Facebook comments on the blog

Advanced SEO
- What advanced SEO you ask? Well…it's are a secret. But it's awesome. We promise. :-)

Mobile Website
And finally our favorite part of the project. The mobile website! Did we mention we love building mobile websites for staffing companies? No, well, we do. Love. Building. Mobile. Websites!

With this mobile website we used JQTouch. Sweet! JQTouch is an excellent mobile platform that brings the power and interaction of jQuerry to the mobile web. This is the first time we experimented with the platform and we were quite pleased with the results!

The jobs on the mobile website are front and center and we made it easy for potential candidates to find the right job for them by simply selecting the appropriate modality.

Candidates can easily apply for jobs, call Advanced Medical or share any job they want right from their mobile device! Nothing to install and works on every mobile smart phone. FTW!

Check out the new Advanced Medical website and mobile website and let us know what you think! Also watch for more to come with the projects we have coming out with Advanced Medical. Stay tuned!

We are extremely grateful to have the opportunity to work with Advanced Medical. We consistently put out the call asking for customers looking to be innovative with their technology and marketing efforts. Advanced Medical answered.

So now we'll ask again. Innovative customers wanted: Who's next?

 

Hiring Demand for Physical Therapists on the Rise

Heads up recruiters! More great data from Wanted Analytics, this time showing a significant increase in demand for Physical Therapists.

With the increase in hiring demand, it is likely that Recruiters will find Physical Therapist openings hard-to-fill. Our Hiring Scale™ shows that one of the most difficult conditions will be in Washington, DC. It's probably not surprising since demand tripled in the past year, yet the available talent supply has not grown at the same pace. 

 

 

QR Code Marketing Tips For Your Staffing Company

Have you seen these odd looking shapes before?

 

 

 

 

 

Most likely you've seen them on movie posters or magazine ads. Although similar, these symbols are not bar codes or UPC symbols. This funny looking square of black pixels is called a 'Quick Response Code' or 'QR Code' for short.

If you're unfamiliar, A QR Code is a simple ways for people to quickly interact with web based content through a mobile device. QR Code usage has increased greatly in recent years due to the wide-spread public acceptance of smart phones. Nielsen recently released a study revealing that 43% of all U.S. mobile phone subscribers own smart phones. For subscribers between the ages of 25 - 34, that percentage goes up to 62%. All of these phones are capable of scanning QR Codes.

The process for interacting with a QR Code is simple:
1) Download a QR Code reader app on your smart phone. You can easily find them in the appropriate app store for your iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile phone, etc. Some cost money but there's really no reason to pay for one. The free ones work just fine.

2) Now, when you see a QR Code, bring up your QR Code reader app on your phone. Next, scan the image, similar to taking a picture (many of these apps scan as soon as the QR Code is in focus), and you will be taken to web content through your mobile phone such as a web page, contact information, images, etc.

 

QR Codes are simple to make. You can have your favorite staffing website design and marketing company make them for you or you can create them yourself for free. Just google for 'QR Code generator' and you'll have plenty of good options. You can generate QR Codes in different sizes and you can also brand QR Codes with different symbols and colors. Be careful though, if you change up too many of the pixels the QR Codes won't be scannable. Also, some QR Code readers have a difficult time with QR Codes in different colors. Just be sure you test your final product with multiple devices and apps.

So, now that you know what a QR Code is and how to make one, most likely you're next question is - "What can my company actually do with QR Codes?"

Here are some ideas and creative suggestions on how your staffing company can effectively use QR Codes in your marketing efforts:

Magazine and other print ads. QR Codes are a great way to bridge your offline and online marketing efforts. Simply add a QR Code into any print material you produce and you'll be able to instantly share web content with your audience. The best part? You now have an even easier way to track the success of these print campaigns.

Company feedback cards. Looking for customer feedback? Create some feedback cards with QR Codes to hand out to your customers. You can create cards to ask for company wide feedback or employee specific feedback.

 

Business cards. Placing a QR Code on your business card is a great way to present a more interactive connection with someone you just met or a new customer.

 

Poster displays and clothing. Next time your at a trade show try placing QR Codes on all of your posters, display materials, even company clothing (shirts, hats, etc.)

Event marketing. The next time you're participating in or putting on an event, consider places you could add a QR code. Everything from leave behinds to print outs of our slides make great places for QR Codes.

Where should your QR Codes link to? Thought you'd never ask! Here are some suggestions on where you can link your QR Codes to for the best results:

• Your cmpany website
• Your company Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or other social pages
• Web contests, games and referral programs
• Exclusive content
• Special coupons or discounts
• Targeted landing pages - especially ones with forms to help you generate new business leads.
• Company contact information.
• Personal contact information. QR Codes can do more than simply link somewhere. They can actually store data like your personal contact information. This way, when someone scans your QR Code, all of the contained contact information is instantly pulled into the contact list on their device. 
• Downloadable content like a white paper or infographic.
• Your job board. Recruiting new candidates? Handing out cards and promo items with QR Codes linked to your job board is a great way to get the attention of new candidates on the go.

Two final tips when it comes to QR Code marketing.
1) Be sure any web page you bring someone to from a QR Code is optimized for mobile devices. Using a mobile marketing tactic like QR Codes and asking people to engage with you through their mobile device, only to bring them to a web page not optimized for mobile devices is a major fail.

2) Don't put QR Codes in your email signature or on a web page. No one is going to scan an image on a web page with their mobile device - just to go to a web page. Please just don't do it. Please.

QR Codes are an excellent new marketing opportunity for your staffing company. There is also a lot of supporting data out there suggesting QR Codes are here to stay and rapidly gaining in popularity/usage. Think of QR Codes as a perfect way to bridge your offline and online marketing efforts for your staffing company.

Questions or want more information on what your staffing company can do with QR Codes? Contact Staffing Robot today.

Helpful links and Resources:

QR Code Apps:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/qr-app/id320140689?mt=8
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/qr-code-reader-and-scanner/id388175979?mt=8
http://news.cnet.com/qr-code-readers-for-iphone
https://market.android.com/details?id=la.droid.qr&hl=en

QR Code Generators:
http://www.systemid.com/barcode_generator/
http://qrcode.kaywa.com/
http://goqr.me/
http://tag.microsoft.com/home.aspx

Creative examples of QR Code marketing:
http://mobilecustomersurvey.com/
http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/inspiring-qr-codes/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GbplSdh0lGU
http://cardswapp.com/
http://www.awwwards.com/10-creative-uses-of-qr-codes.html

OR Nurses, ER Nurses, ICU Nurses - Which Job Is Easier To Recruit?

Wanted Analytics is a site dedicated to delivering business inteligence data around talent acquisition. They provide the data through their application in ways that are visually appealing and easy to understand.

Clients in the staffing, HR, RPO, media, and government sectors use WANTED Analytics™ to find sales leads, analyze employment trends, gather competitive intelligence, forecast economic conditions, and source hard-to-fill positions.

Wanted puts out a lot of data around healthcare job modalities. You can get summaries from a lot of this data simply by subscribing to their blog. For example, in a recent post they put forward data on the difficultly level between recruiting OR Nurses, ER Nurses and ICUS Nurses. The results are pretty interesting.

 

 

Another recent post supplies data on the best places to post jobs ads on the web for registered nurses.

 

 

Top Stories in the Staffing Industry 2011 and Some Predictions for 2012

Another year of discussing staffing industry news, marketing tips and events has passed so we thought we'd recap some of the big staffing industry news and events worth mentioning from 2011. Here are the biggest and most relevant stories that had an impact on the staffing industry in 2011 and some we think will have a bigger impact next year in 2012.

Top Staffing Related News in 2011

Staffing Agencies. It was another great year at the Healthcare Staffing Summit put on by the SIA. A lot of great data about the industry and where it's headed in 2012 was shared.

One of the biggest stories relating to staffing companies this year was Maxim Healthcare's $150M fine for defrauding Medicare programs.

The Economy. It's not news anymore to state that the down economy is still having a big effect on the staffing industry. Many hospitals felt these effects in the form of massive nursing strikes throughout the country. However, at least this year there were some larger signs of improvement, particularly in the healthcare staffing industry.

Health IT. Health IT was big news this year. Everything from EMR mandates and implementation, to major health IT investments.

Mobile. Mobile is definitely getting hot in the staffing industry. Mobile recruiting, mobile apps, mobile websites, etc. are all playing a larger role in the day to day operations for staffing companies. Lots of data was put out about mobile tech adoption with healthcare professionals. At Staffing Robot we were happy to be part of this growing trend by creating the first mobile website in the healthcare staffing industry. Our prediction is that next year mobile will be even more popular if not in fact critical to all staffing companies.

Infographics. Infographics were a hot new marketing trend in the healthcare staffing industry and were everywhere this year. It was definitely a growing trend to see people coming up with new and creative ways to visualize data and use them in their marketing. We expect to see much more of this trend in 2012 as infographics are a fantastic way to communicate large amounts of complex data in a very simple and often beautiful way.

VMS Growth Slows. VMS/MSP solutions have seen significant growth over the last few years. However, this year, the SIA reported that VMS/MSP growth has shown signs of slowing. This next year should tell us more about the slow down and whether this is just a factor of the economy, a trend or market saturation.

Social Media. Lots of new here. Google released the +1 button and their social networking site Google +. Google + had tremendous initial growth and recently released brand pages. We expect that in 2012 all of us will have a Google + page.

Facebook launched its timeline feature and the Apply with LinkedIn button was also a big event this year. This new feature allows people to apply for your jobs with their LinkedIn profiles.

Mergers/Acquisitions. This year, Cerner acquired Clarvia, greatly expanding its technology offerings. However, the biggest news in this area was the acquisition that 'almost happened.' Kronos made an attempt to acquire API Healthcare but it was quickly stopped by the Department of Justice based on fears of anti-competition.

Staffing Robot. At Staffing Robot we also had a big year. We were fortunate to work with a lot of great staffing companies creating new brands, designing websites, developing applications and providing marketing services like SEO, PPC, Social Media and even print materials. For some of these efforts we were even awarded the eHealthcare Leadership award for Best Website in the Healthcare Category. Woohoo!

In addition to working on so many interesting projects with such great clients we also launched a new product this year we're very proud of. It's called Hively and it lets your customers give you real time feedback with 1 click, at their convenience. The adoption in the last few months has been great to see and the feedback from our customers has been tremendous. We'd highly encourage you to make measuring your customer happiness a top priority for 2012. Get started on your resolutions early and sign up today!

Your Stories. Did we miss any big events or staffing related news stories from 2011? If so, post them in the comments below.

We hope you all had a great 2011. Here's to an even better and more prosperous 2012!

Cheers!

 

 

What's Your Staffing Company's Mobile Recruiting Strategy?

Here's a great post about mobile recruiting from the Recruiters Lounge blog. In this post, Jim Stroud chats with Michael Marlatt about mobile recruiting.

The 3 biggest take aways we got from the video:

• Be sure your recipients have opted in to your campaigns
• Have a clear Call To Action - confirm a job, download information, fill out a form, etc.
• Be sure your sending them to a page that has been optimized for mobile. This one is perhaps the most important. Texting your candidates and bringing the a page that hasn't been optimized for mobile = serious fail.

What's your mobile recruiting strategy? If you don't have one we should talk. Contact us and we can discuss your mobile recruiting strategy and optimizing your web presence for mobile.

VMS and MSP Growth Slowing: SIA Reports

The Staffing Industry Analysts are reporting data suggesting VMS and MSP adoption is slowing.

The percent of large buyers reporting use of VMS and/or MSP in 2011 was roughly flat with the previous year, according to just-released research from Staffing Industry Analysts.

The full report is behind a paywall unfortunately, but the summary is available. It would be very interesting to see the data as it relates specific staffing segments.

Back in 2009 we posted a snapshot estimating VMS/MSP adoption based on the VMS/MSP providers in the healthcare staffing industry. This was just a high level estimate but already seemed to identify a market nearing saturation. There are only about 5000 hospitals across the nation and now, almost 3 years later, there have been new players in the industry and VMS/MSP adoption increased dramatically. In healthcare staffing, it makes sense that adoption would slow. 

Any signs or data suggesting that's the case (or not the case)? Post in the comments below.