In a recent survey, more than a quarter of the responding CFOs said they increased accounting staff in the past two years. Indeed, the biggest growth in jobs right now seems to be occurring in the professional- and business-services sector. But chances are the majority of those organizations are still hiring the old-fashioned way: posting openings and sifting through piles of résumés.
Not Esker, a French-based document-automation company that has gone from 220 full-time employees to 280 in the past two years. “I haven’t looked at a résumé in nine months,” says Esker managing director and U.S. chief operating officer Steve Smith, “and I won’t look at résumés anymore.”
Instead, Smith uses Unrabble, a cloud-based, software-as-a-service hiring tool that eliminates all the paper, résumés included. “If a candidate approaches me the old-fashioned way and sends me a résumé, I send the person the link to the tool and tell [him he’s] got to go through this process,” he says. “Within 30 seconds, I can tell if it’s worth my time looking into this person.”
Unrabble is browser-based. Instead of submitting a traditional résumé, candidates fill out an online form, and the hiring company can then sort applications based on qualifications for the position. The Unrabble tool is searchable (job experience and companies can be checked), interactive (candidates can be ranked), and easily shared with any number of people. It also enables users to search a candidate’s Facebook page and Linked-In profile without having to hunt for them on the web.
Smith chose Unrabble over two other tools; one required a software installation, the other lacked desired functionality. He estimates Unrabble has reduced the amount of time Esker spends on hiring by 20% to 30%. The premium service costs $49 a month for 10 open positions; more than that, the price goes up.
“I haven’t run it through an ROI calculator,” Smith says, “and I haven’t calculated the dollar savings. But if you figure just my time alone, and what I’m paid, and the time I’ve saved — it’s more than paid for itself.”