StaffSoft Newsletter

www.summit-sw.com/staffsoft

Volume 2, Issue 1 April 2002

A few words from our CEO

Inside this issue:

Welcome to the StaffSoft Family

Geek Corner

Do you know? 

Is your computer acting sick?   

The Recruitment Business is Personal  

On the 21st of March 2002, StaffSoft entered its 8th year of business. Through the intervening years we have constantly tried to upgrade and update our product by listening to you, our clients, and trying to let you have the best recruiting software at an affordable price.

We have added many more clients in the past year, despite the recession and the effects of September 11th. We have also successfully upgraded most of our clients to version 4.0 which has many more enhancements, together with a new look and feel and they are already reaping the benefits of being able to e-mail potential candidates from within the  job order screen as well as send

out candidates’ résumés to clients.

The SSWeb family continues to grow with increasing rapidity and the use of SSWeb, which is included in the annual subscription, almost completely removes the grind work of manually entering applicant data.

More and more clients are sending their personnel to Houston for training in our offices. I cannot put sufficient emphasis on training as so many of our Tech Support calls relate more to how to do something in StaffSoft as opposed to real technical difficulties.

 Finally, StaffSoft version 4.1 is about to be launched. The main changes in 4.1 include an interface with Peachtree Accounting, which is a seamless integration with information being shared by both programs.

We wish you, our clients, a safe, healthy and prosperous 2002. Please feel free to call me directly if you experience any difficulty with our product or service. Only by letting us know your problems can we serve you better. 

Thank you.

W. Martin Thom

CEO

 

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** Welcome new clients to the

StaffSoft Family **

We at StaffSoft would like to welcome the following companies to the StaffSoft family:

Albert Garaudy & Assoc., Inc. - Houston, TX

BestStaff Technical, Inc. - Houston, TX

PeopleFirst Staffing - Dallas, TX

JenkinStaffing - Cherry Hill, NJ

Deacon Medical Staffing - San Antonio, TX

Reliable One Staffing - Birmingham, MI

Linda Werner & Assoc. - Seattle, WA

Executive Search Solutions - Red Bank, NJ

Advance Search Medical - Des Plains, IL

SMR Group, Ltd. - Mountainside, NJ

Savvy Staffing Solutions - Worcester, MA

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GEEK CORNER by Marcus Morales

The Importance of a Good Backup

Everyone needs a reliable way to backup their data. It doesn't matter if you’re a multinational recruiting conglomerate, or a mom-and-pop headhunting firm. The kind of backup system you need may depend greatly on the size of the data you want to safeguard. Here are some of your choices:

Zip Drive (100MB & 250MB) $150 - $200

Iomega's Zip drive is widely available and inexpensive. 250MB Zip disks cost ~$15 ea., 100MB disks cost ~$10 ea.

Pros

> Easy to install and use

Cons

> Expensive per disk cost

> The drives are incredibly fragile

> Other users must have a ZIP drive to read backups

 

CD-RW Drive (650MB & 700MB) $100-$200

A large number of manufacturers make CD-RW drives and media, both widely available and inexpensive.

Pros

>Write once media (CD-R) is inexpensive, sometimes as cheap as 39 cents per disk

Marcus dealing with a Technical Support problem.

>Rewritable media (CD-RW) while more expensive, can be used over and over again

>Good storage capacity

>Anyone with a newer CD-ROM drive can read a data backup on a CD-R disk

Cons

>Not enough storage capacity to back up an entire computer to one disk

>Write once media (CD-R) cannot be overwritten once filled.

 

Tape Drive (10GB - 100GB) $200-$1000

Seagate and Exabyte dominate the tape drive market, although competing drives can also be found from Sony, HP, and Compaq. Media for these drives can also be very expensive ($50-100 ea.) depending on format and size.

Pros

> Very high storage capacity allows entire computer to possibly fit on one tape

Cons

> Installation and setup can be complicated

> High cost of tapes and drives

> Tapes and drives wear out over time.

 

DVD RAM / DVD-R Drive (4GB-9GB/side) $300-$400

DVD-RAM and DVD-R drives are expensive and can be hard to find. Prices and availability are sure to become more acceptable as one format becomes standard.

Pros

> High storage capacity

Cons

> DVD-R and DVD-RAM drvies are expensive

> There are two competing, incompatible DVD storage formats being produced

> DVD RAM disk may not read on a regular DVD drive.

 

As a rule, users should backup only their data (StaffSoft data, user's email and 'My Documents' folders, etc.), as well as anything on computer, which cannot be replaced. The operating system and software on a PC can always be reinstalled, assuming the user has their original software disks. The user should also verify the backup's contents to be sure that the data can be read if need be.

 

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Do you know?

… the F2 key, pressed from the Main Menu will display all of your Applicants, Clients, and Sourcing records all on one screen?

… you can assign multiple people at one time for a Temporary/Contract job by ‘tagging’ (double-clicking) the desired applicants and them pressing Assign?

… StaffSoft 4.0+ will import a cell phone number from a resume as long as it’s on the same line as the phone number and separated by a comma?

If you didn’t know these little tidbits that make your staffing life easier then perhaps you need some training. Learn to use StaffSoft to it’s fullest extent and get the most out of your investment. Let StaffSoft do all the work while you reap the benefits.

Call 501-771-2600 to get more information about training for you and your company.        <return to top>
Is your computer acting sick?

 
Signs of computer software problems: *Your computer system slows when you launch or work in a particular application – and sometimes even after you close it *Application features stop working. Example: Menu choices turn gray to indicate they are unavailable *An application runs poorly or crashes when running with other applications * The system freezes *Some operation in the application causes the screen to turn blue, warning you that the system has become unstable. Self-defense: Go through your maintenance routines. Run programs from the System Tools group under Windows – including ScanDisk – to make sure your hard drive is functioning properly. If you still have problems: Reinstall the troublesome application from the CD.

Dana Blankenhorn, Internet consultant, a-clue.com, Atlanta                                                                        <return to top>

The Recruitment Business is Personal

By Bob Marshall, Recruitment Educator for Top Echelon, Inc.
The one overlying basic principal that we tried to ignore through our captivation with the Internet is that our business, at its foundation, is personal. It is built, over time, on the relationships we develop with our “client people” within our client companies. And it is nurtured by our ability to follow those people from one company to the next. Because it’s personal, our business, if worked correctly, is recession-resistant and will never be replaced by job boards on the Internet. Even the job seekers understand. “Users say the boards often have out-of-date listings and the inquiries go unacknowledged by potential employers. In fact, many users are finding the job hunts conducted solely online rarely produce jobs.” (Wall Street Journal, January 2, 2002).

The WSJ article cites the percentages of hires made through the four biggest job boards:

 

Monster.com 1.40%

Hotjobs.com 0.39%

CareerBuilder 0.29%

HeadHunter 0.27%

Total 2.35%

Now do we get it? It’s not working. Oh, the Internet is fine for gathering information (its biggest benefit) and for visiting corporate Web sites. But our love affair with the Internet as the “end all, be all,” has come to an end. Like most affairs it was fun for awhile, maybe even exciting, but in the long term, it was going nowhere and it was ruining our lives.

Bob Marshall

Espro International

770-895-5550

Espro@bellsouth.net
Footnote:

I found this article of Bob Marshall’s to be very interesting and illuminating. My thanks to Bob for allowing us to use his article. Some of these job boards are not cheap… all the more reason to use SSWeb. Go to www.summit-sw.com/staffsoft and click on SSWeb on the front page.

 

W. Martin Thom

CEO, StaffSoft Corp.

 

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