EXCITING NEWS (and a new post)!!!

Catapult HR Readers!  I have very exciting news...after nearly 3 years, Catapult HR has moved!!!  I have a new website where you can find all old Catapult HR articles, in addition to new material.  Additionally, our branding has changed and we are now Slingshot HR.  You can now find us at:

http://www.slingshothr.com/

The new site still has some work to be done, and you can anticipate some upgrades in the next few months.  However, to get things started on the new website, I have a new post up, and it's really going to strike a cord with any sports fans or those interested in sports careers out there.  Check it out here:

5 Steps For Your Sports Career Strategy


For the next few posts, I'll continue to post on here on Catapult HR when a new article goes up on Slingshot HR.  But what are you waiting for?  Get over to Slingshot HR and subscribe for email alerts when new posts go live!

A special thank you to all of my readers and subscribers.  Without you, the need to graduate to a bigger and better blog would not be possible.

Always,
Rachel

If I Were 22...

Apologies for the lack of consistency in posting again.  You may notice this blog is now written by Rachel O'Connell, instead of Rachel Rush, which will hopefully explain my recent absence.

This post is a little less HR related, and a lot more self-reflective, but I think it still has some career tidbits for you.  A few months ago, LinkedIn thought leaders and influencers across the platform wrote articles giving advice to their 22 year old selves.  I found it really interesting to see the advice these folks wished they had received sooner because that type of insight is only provided when we really learn things in life.  The occasional self reflection is important, and we all know that hindsight is 20/20.  While I’m not quite as far removed from 22 as some of the influencers on LinkedIn, there’s still some perspective I’ve gained – and who knows, perhaps one of you reading this will find value in it.

I prefer to work in 3’s, so if I could give advice to my 22 year old self, I would advise me to:

1. avoid student debt
2. begin with the end in mind
3. inventory my productivity

Let’s begin with avoiding student debt, as this is probably the most obvious of the three.  I’ve talked about this before because I think it’s a really important topic.  I’m part of the most indebted generation of all time.  My parents generously contributed to my undergraduate education allowing me to avoid loans, but I financed my attendance at business school.  Business school was a good choice for me – it gave me the business foundation I lacked from undergrad and my early work experience, allowed me to connect with some really intelligent and awesome people, and helped me grow up in ways I didn’t realize I needed to.  I would make the same choice today.  However, I would make different choices about how I paid for grad school.  Looking back, I would have potentially put it off for a couple more years until I had saved more money…I would have worked more during school…and I would have found cheaper housing.

Now, let’s talk about beginning with the end in mind.  I’ve always been somewhat goal-oriented, but I didn’t realize just how well goal setting worked for me until I was in graduate school.  If I set a realistic and reasonable goal, I can be and will be very prescriptive in how I pursue that goal.  Some people achieve success in different ways, but this is what works for me.  Now that I know this about myself, I think back to all of the career counseling I received when I was younger.  In high school, I was unsure what I wanted to do, and had advice coming at me from many angles.  Even as I started college, I was bombarded with people telling me where my strengths were, and the types of jobs that would make me happy or that I would be good at.  I partially followed their advice, and eventually found my way.  But I think there’s an easier way for young adults to make big decisions like “what they want to do with their lives” and that is to begin with the end in mind.  It’s hard to think so far ahead at 22, but having the most honest discussion with yourself that’s possible will make this large life decision a lot easier.

• If you could have your dream retirement, what would you be doing and where? 
• When/if you have children, how much flexibility do you think will be required in order to give them the childhood you would want for them? 
• Think about what other goals do you have such as where you want to live and whether you want to travel (to where and how often). 

The answers to all of these questions (in addition your strengths and passions) should guide your career decisions because if your career allows you to do the things in life the way you want to do them…you’re going to get the most satisfaction and happiness possible from your job, and ultimately life.

Lastly, let’s talk about why I would advise myself to “inventory my productivity”.  I struggled to put words to this concept for the past few years, and finally found what I was looking for on the blog of Thomas Stanley.  He says America’s workforce is on a continuum where you have hunter/gatherers at one end and cultivators at the other end.  He describes the concept using the example of educators.

“Educators/teachers/professors do not inventory, they do not cultivate.  So what if a professor gave 3,000 lectures?  He will not be paid again unless he gives the 3001st.  It is a minority of educators who ever publish/inventory their hard work in the form of books, study guides, workbooks, etc.” *

The idea is that today’s productivity or labor is directed into building springs of future income.  This is a concept that needs to be discussed in our schools and something that would have been nice to think about at 22 as I was beginning my career.

I have very few photos from age 22.
This was before camera phones & selfies.
Good Lord this girl has a lot to learn.

My boss always says people reflect about and make decisions in their life in three general categories:  family, career and money.  His idea is that at any point in time in one’s life, one of these categories is most important and that the order of importance changes throughout your life.  I try to and will continue to try to keep family off this blog, but hopefully this provided a little insight to all you 22-year olds (or your inner 22-year old) on a couple of my lessons learned around the other two.

*Quote taken from www.thomasjstanley.com.  

The 3 Pitfalls of Managers

I’ve been a little MIA lately – apologies for that.  I’ll throw out the old “I’ve been busy” excuse, partially because it’s true, but the real reason I’ve been MIA is that I’m lacking inspiration lately, and have been avoiding writing just for the sake of writing a post.  However, this week the inspiration bug bit me again - I hope you learn a little and enjoy!

During last year’s appraisal process at my organization, we rolled out some revisions to our manager training curriculum.  One of the small changes we made was a reference to Google’s Project Oxygen.  If you read about leadership or HR, there’s a decent chance you already know about this project.  Here at my company, we recently received and analyzed the results of our annual employee satisfaction survey.  We use a company called Workplace Dynamics to help us conduct our annual survey for full-time staff.  Overall we had a great year, and I’m proud of the work our managers did and continue to do to improve our workplace and their staff’s job satisfaction.  However, as in most organizations, some managers were more successful in this area than others.  Google’s Project Oxygen is significant because it helps explain some of this differentiation in managers and thus, employee satisfaction.

Google's "people analytics" team lead
the efforts on Project Oxygen.

Background on Project Oxygen:

Statisticians inside Google embarked on a cross-functional project to build better bosses. People typically leave a company for one of three reasons, or a combination of them. The first is that they don’t feel a connection to the mission of the company, or sense that their work matters. The second is that they don’t really like or respect their co-workers. The third is they have a terrible boss — and this was the biggest variable.  Managers also had a much greater impact on employees’ performance and how they felt about their job than any other factor, Google found. So, as only a data-mining giant like Google can do, it began analyzing performance reviews, feedback surveys and nominations for top-manager awards. They correlated phrases, words, praise and complaints.

Later that year, this “people analytics” team at the company produced what might be called the Eight Habits of Highly Effective Managers.

These eight habits are:

1. Be a good coach.
2. Empower your team and don’t micromanage.
3. Express interest in team members’ personal success & well being.
4. Be productive & results oriented.
5. Communicate and listen to your team.
6. Help your employees with career development.
7. Express a clear vision and strategy for the team.
8. Demonstrate technical skills so you can help advise your team.

Google also identified three pitfalls of managers:

1. Have trouble transitioning to the team.
2. Lack a consistent approach to performance management & career development.
3. Spend too little time managing and communicating.

It’s funny because the first time I read about Project Oxygen, I essentially laughed out loud because what they found is not rocket science.  I’d be shocked if this post was the first time you’ve heard any of these ideas about being a great leader or manager.  The ideas that coaching, empowerment, being results oriented, developing a vision, communicating, etc are recipes for being a great leader have been written about for decades.  Google’s project is only unique and noteworthy in the fact that they were able to validate these ideas with data and numbers.

How this applies to you:

If you are an HR practitioner, or an organizational leader of some kind, I want you to think about your organization’s leaders.  Think about the ones that everybody loves.  Do they embody some or all of the eight characteristics that Google defined?  My guess is yes.  When I think about our organization leaders that people truly love working for – they’re brilliant at the basics, which is essentially what Google has defined for us.

Now, think about the managers whose teams are less engaged or the leaders that people complain about.  If you do a true evaluation of their leadership style, I think you can find the root cause of their poor leadership embedded somewhere in one of the three buckets of pitfalls that Google also outlined, which is why I find those 3 pitfalls almost more helpful than the eight effective habits.  As HR, our job is to help diagnose organizational or leadership issues, and create and execute plans for improvement.  Many managers may have additional issues or circumstances they are dealing with, but if you’re stuck diagnosing an organizational or leadership problem, I encourage you to start here.  The other common pitfall I find for leaders is not having the right people in the right jobs, which can be a tough call to make as the HR person, but it’s important for your organization’s health to call it out.  The other lesson we can learn from Google in this area is the importance of getting information; performance information, engagement information, satisfaction information, etc.  You can’t properly diagnose problems, and subsequently develop effective plans or programs without it.

Additional information on Google’s Project Oxygen: 

New York Times

The Street

Harvard Business Review

The Future of Learning (And Why You Should Be Leading The Charge)

McDonalds' cleverly branded
corporate university.

My last post was about the value of graduate school for HR professionals.  While my article was in favor of graduate school, the student loan crisis is undeniable, and many people writing about similar topics argue that graduate school, and even college, no longer provides a reasonable ROI to justify the choice, especially Ivy League and other reputable schools.  With higher education being unaffordable for many Americans, will learning and development of US adults slow or cease?  I don’t think so, but I do think it’s shifting. 

Unfortunately, with so many people questioning the value of higher education, the ultimate result may be that the rate at which degrees, specifically graduate degrees, are obtained will likely plateau or taper.  Most people go to graduate school today because they are trying to make a career change, hope to reignite a stagnant career, or just love learning.  However, if they can’t provide a continued learning experience for themselves, it will increasingly be incumbent upon employers to provide adult learning and development to their staff.  Now, corporate universities are not new.  We already know that employers of choice make learning and development a priority.  I believe this is just the beginning – as higher education becomes increasingly unaffordable, US employers will need to help pick up the slack in order to get the talent they want and need. 

This is a slight throwback to my post, “Hire Character,Teach Skill”, and to build upon those ideas, I think that more organizations need to focus on training, and develop this as a real strength within the organization.  There are two general buckets of training that you can provide to employees – skill training and behavioral training.  While many organizations provide some skill training, there are still a significant number of job openings that expect candidates to come to the table with every single skill listed in a job description.  In today’s world, this isn't very practical.  This is the reason that business people say they are still struggling to find the right talent, amid 8%+ national unemployment rates.  Imagine a business environment where each job posting accounted for some level of skill training for the new incumbent, whether formal or OTJ, lengthy or brief.  De-prioritizing the necessity of so many skills, and specifically, niche skills opens up a lot of possibilities to hiring managers and businesses.  And back to my previous blog post, it may mean they increase quality of hire by focusing on character, rather than skill.

Don’t have the resources to provide weeks of training to every new hire?  Not a problem – there are ways to work around this.  I’ve worked in small businesses for most of my career, and I know that money, time and resources can be scarce.  I’m a firm believer in the building of trainings (versus buying), and managers and leaders within your departments can help.  They are your personal subject matter experts, and honestly, the best for building and delivering skill-based training.  Work with them to build a training agenda, and then work on the “meat” of the training and be sure to include detailed skilled based information, and practice where possible and applicable.

There is also behavior based training, and this is one area that our traditional education system is relatively poor at.  Behaviors like relationship building, professionalism, critical thinking, problem solving, adaptability, etc. are all behaviors that employers regularly outline as being important or critical to career success, however, most universities and graduate programs offer little focus in these areas.  So basically, you just have to pray that you are naturally gifted with these behaviors, or that you had a parent/teacher/mentor along the way that instilled these characteristics in you.  US corporations are doing more than most other formal education systems to advance behavioral learning.  For example, organizations heavy in sales staff tend to experience a lack in the areas of critical thinking and prioritization.  Like more technical skills, these are skills that can be taught.  In fact, if your other people and HR processes are setup well (i.e. staffing, performance management), then the data should be able to tell you exactly where your workforce needs help.

Now, believe me, I know many of you, particularly those of you working in smaller firms, are reading this and thinking, “wow, nice idea but too bad I don’t have any money!”  I want you to believe me that what I suggest in this post can be done on shoestring budgets.  It requires you to be innovative and resourceful, but being the cutting edge, thought leading HR professional I know you are, you will find a way.  How do I know this?  You don't really have a choice.  If you're are going to continued to be effective in your job, and if companies in our new economy are going to continue to thrive, the workforce will need to gain the skills necessary to do today's work.  If formal educational institutions aren't providing it, you had better be working on a solution for your firm.

If you've implemented skill or behavioral training in your organization, particularly on a tight budget, please comment below.

3 Points about Grad School for HR Pros

 Last weekend I traveled to Milwaukee to the SHRM North Central Regional Conference to speak about talent management, and had the good fortune to meet with some current HR graduate students from my alma mater, Purdue University.  There were a delight to speak with, and are headed for great things in their professional lives.  I’d been thinking about writing on this topic for some time since I get questions about it somewhat frequently, but feel inspired after taking a trip down memory lane while in Milwaukee.   Additionally, this coincides with a project I’ve been tackling at work around career pathing.  It’s fascinating to understand the career paths of various individuals, and the experiences that brought them to where they are today.

I went to grad school and studied HR Management and I chose a program within a business school so as to give me the business basis I lacked from receiving a liberal arts undergraduate degree.  I went to Purdue University for both undergraduate and graduate school.  Now, before you think this just one in a long line of articles recently questioning the value of graduate school, hear me out as someone who’s lived this path, and had to live with the decision for several years now, post-graduation.

 

My undergraduate degree is in communication, specifically organizational communication and PR and I’d like to start there.  I’m not a fan of my undergraduate degree, with hindsight being 20/20.  I didn’t really know what I wanted to do in terms of a career at the ripe age of 18, and I selected this major as an individual who excelled at liberal arts studies in high school, but as someone who clearly had no clue about the real world.  Communication, and all of its concentrations, is essentially a useless degree.  Now, I know some of you will disagree, particularly the PR professionals and journalists out there.  However, unless you are with a high level of certainty going to be pursuing one of these career paths, you’re better off choosing something else.  I went to an in-state school, so at about 40K, my undergrad degree was relatively affordable compared with many undergraduate degrees.  Would I pay $40,000 again for this degree?  Nope.  I’d put that money toward a business or computer science degree or studies that fall under the STEM categories.  My parents always told me I should study the things I had strengths in, but I wish they’d pushed me harder to choose a more practical path of study.

I realized by my senior year, after several internships in various disciplines, that I did not want to be a PR professional or a journalist.  I was desperately trying to break into the world of business for my first full-time job, with little luck.  The funny part, is that the economy was still booming at this point, and I was still struggling to find employment.  Based on some internships I had in HR, I decided this was a good path for me.  However, I needed to build my knowledge, skills and abilities in this area.  I decided to pursue a graduate degree because I thought it would help me stand out in my field.  Now, for the record, I am pro graduate school, in the right situations.  Here are some items to chew on as you think about whether graduate school is the right choice for your HR career.

1. Cost.  I want to get this one out of the way immediately – plus, I’m all about creating economic value (must be the business school training), so cost is something that I feel passionately about.  Higher education is more expensive than ever.  For example, my full-time two year degree rang up at about $40K, plus an additional $20K if you consider books and other school and living expenses I incurred during those 2 years.  Again, I went to an in-state school, so I came out ahead of many of my peers from a cost perspective, but even at the in-state price, I’ve questioned the value of the degree in my first few years post-school.  The economy created a situation that didn’t deliver the salary ranges I’d seen in pamphlets and based my investment decision upon (for those that were lucky enough to actually get a job).  The starting salaries listed on most HR grad programs have been adjusted since the economy tanked, but you need to carefully examine these numbers.  I encourage you to consider the amount of student loan debt you may have to incur to go to school.  Then, sit down and figure out what the expected salary would mean for you in terms of an actual paycheck.  Will you make enough on a monthly basis to maintain a reasonable lifestyle, and ultimately, get those loans paid off as quickly as possible?  For many HR grad students I’ve spoken to in the last few years, the answer to that question is “no”, and it’s better to know that on the front end of your decision, rather than figure it out when those checks start rolling in after graduation.
2. What degree?  I went through a program which was focused specifically on HR, as do many people pursuing a graduate degree in HR.  I made the choice to pursue a program which would allow me to take MBA coursework, as well as work with MBA’s and be part of an MBA cohort.  This is one of my favorite things about the degree I received, and the experience I had.  Many graduate HR programs are not part of a business school, and with the benefit of hindsight, as well as some real world experience, I can say that I wouldn’t go through one of these programs, and I’m grateful I didn’t.  I looked into and applied to several of these programs, but ultimately valued the business school experience, and as it turns out, people in the real world and in my jobs have respected that also.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I know several great HR people who went through some of these programs (i.e. University of Illinois, Michigan State University, Cornell University, etc.), but if I’m going to spend $40K - $60K or more on a graduate HR degree, then I want the credibility of surviving an MBA core curriculum for that price tag.  My recommendation is to either pursue an MBA with a concentration in HR (or related studies) or to pursue a graduate HR degree (non-MBA) that is within a business school.  I’ve also noticed that the level of prestige of the university and program does matter in HR.  There are a lot of articles on the Internet, and a lot of “gurus” that will tell you this doesn’t matter so much.  And for many undergraduate degrees, or some types of graduate degrees, this may be true.  But again, if you’re going to drop the dough on a graduate HR degree, this is one area you don’t want to go cheap on, and a time in your life when you should heavily consider school prestige.
3. What are your goals?  Finally, beyond some of the tactical decisions necessary when considering grad school, the fundamental self-reflection can’t go un-discussed.  And, when I say, “what are your goals”, I’m casting a pretty wide net here.  First, what are your professional goals?  Likely, if you’re considering a graduate HR degree, you’ve already thought about this a little bit.  But further, what are your financial goals?  Does an HR career align with those goals?  Also, what are your goals for your personal life?  Do you hope to have a family?  Do you want to travel or even live abroad?  The decision of graduate school does weigh in on these other goals in your life, and if there’s one thing you take away from this post, it should be to consider all of your goals, and how this decision aligns.  For example, one individual I know is so crushed by the weight of her student loan debt for her graduate HR degree, that she is foregoing her personal goals of starting a family, at least for the next 5+ years until she can get her financial life under control.  Another individual I know has aspirations of rising to the executive level, and seems to be on the fast track to a really big career in HR.  The problem – this individual works insane hours, and doesn’t see this subsiding in the foreseeable future.  This means less time with the spouse and family and hobbies they enjoy, but it also means that life is not set up right now to accommodate other goals like starting a family of their own or even going on one big vacation each year.

The decision to go to grad school to enhance your HR career is not a decision to take lightly.  Now, from speaking with some of my readers, I know you have good heads on your shoulders.  But, as you make all of the necessary considerations to pursuing a graduate HR degree, I encourage you to think through some of these points.  While I worked through many of these ideas in making my own decision about grad school, it would have been helpful to hear opinions from those who lived it, and how to weigh the pros and cons.  Trust me; you’ll thank me down the road!  

Yes, this pictures is a shameless
plug for my alma mater :)

While I believe that my character and work ethic would enable me to be successful in multiple capacities (and even without grad school), I'm happy with my decision to pursue my graduate degree at Purdue, and I don't think that some of the blessings I've experienced in my personal and professional life would have been possible without it.  However, I've seen others along the way who may not feel the same about their graduate HR degree.  It's all about setting good goals, making smart decisions and working hard.  If grad school is part of that process for you, then go for it!

Related Articles:

• Forbes - 10 Worst Master's Degrees
• SHRM HR Degree Program Directory
• List of HR Management Degree Programs - Wikipedia
• 2013-2014 HR Degree Rankings
• BLS Occupational Outlook - HR Jobs
• Top MBA Programs - Financial Times

Product Review: ExactHire Applicant Tracking System - MyExactHire

This is a snapshot from the ExactHire current website.

Recently, I’ve been getting some requests for recommendations on applicant tracking systems (ATS).  Now, before I get into the specifics of ExactHire, I do want to say that with some research, you may be able to find other similar products that work well for you.  The applicant tracking system was a revolutionary HR product in the early 2000’s, but has since become somewhat of a commodity, with nearly endless options available.  There are a lot of really good options on the market, at all price points.  Before buying, just make sure you’re getting the features you think you’re getting, and make sure you’re getting a fair price.  Make sure you see a demo, ask to use the system on a trial basis to check it out, and speak to other firms who’ve used the product and get a fair assessment before signing.

Now, on to ExactHire!  A note – I’ve not used ExactHire on a daily basis for nearly 2 years, and I understand there have been some upgrades to the system – which I will not be able to speak to.  The product I’m familiar with is called MyExactHire.  I’m reviewing this product, specifically for small to mid-market sized firms.  If you work for a large firm, or have a very high volume of job applicants, you may want to look at options more specifically designed for enterprise sized firms. 

Background:  ExactHire is an Indiana-based firm, which I believe was founded sometime in the mid 2000’s, prior to the economic downturn.  They have a small, but consistent team.  I don’t believe anyone at the firm actually developed the ATS software that they sell, but they do know the product well, and I believe they have a strong relationship with their developers – I never noticed an issue with the fact they didn’t create the software themselves.  You will actually notice a lot of similarities to the ExactHire ATS product and another mid-market ATS product called iApplicants – I believe they use the same, or a similar development team.

 The key staff have experience in selling HR software and as HR practitioners.  This means that they understand the HR software market, as well as pain points that you may have as an HR pro or as a small business leader.

Implementation:  As with most SAAS products these days, ExactHire does most of the heavy lifting during implementation, which is a big benefit, especially if time and resources are limited.  Typically, HR and internal IT teams have relatively little time to dedicate to initiatives like applicant tracking.  Also, if you have a lot of jobs, getting those jobs into the system can be a pain.  ExactHire handles the initial uploads of current jobs which can be a big time saver, or just a nice added benefit.  Additionally, the cost of hosting on premise is known to be an outdated business model, so the benefits of SAAS from an implementation standpoint, as well as a maintenance standpoint are really ideal for most small and mid-size businesses.  Last point on implementation is that it doesn’t take long.  They will work within your timeline, but it doesn’t take long at all to get the software up and running.

Configuration/Customization:  From my understanding, ExactHire’s new product, called “HireCentric” allows for a lot of configuration and customization.  The MyExactHire product also allows for some configuration and customization.  The job landing page can be uniquely targeted and matched to your regular website, so as to align to your branding and online messaging, as well as to create a professional candidate experience.  There is also the ability to configure the online application to ensure you are able to get the information from candidates you are seeking. 

Customer Service:  Since ExactHire is a smaller provider, you tend to get better service than you do with larger market providers.  For example, with Taleo’s ATS, you have to submit a ticket through the Oracle customer service portal, and response time is dismal at best.  ExactHire has a support email address you can use when you have issues or questions, and the response time was always under 24 hours when I had an issue.

Pitfalls:  So far, this has been a pretty good review, but this wouldn’t be valuable if I didn’t disclose some of the pitfalls, as there are always some when it comes to HR software.

• High Volume of Applicants – ExactHire is not the best solution if or when you have a very high volume of job applicants.  When you have a high volume of applicants, you need ways to sort, search and rank applicants in order to maximize your time and ensure you’re recruiting as efficiently as possible.  While you can ask questions as part of the process, the ability to rank or rate applicants based on responses does not exist.  You still have to go in and open and read all of them in order to form judgment.  Additionally, the ability to search the system is not great.  Let’s say you wanted to search all job applicants within the last year that included the term “SEO” on the application or resume.  You can’t do it in ExactHire.  Searching applicants for key terms, company names, job titles, etc. is important when your applicant volume is high, and unfortunately, this system falls down here.  However, to be fair, I didn’t find this to be problematic, until the daily applicant volume exceeded the 30-50 applicant per day mark.
• Integration with other HR systems – I don’t believe that ExactHire was created with the intention of integration with other systems.  That’s not to say that something probably can’t be built, but integration was and is an afterthought with this product.  Again, when applicant volume is lower, this isn’t so important.  However, for organizational efficiency, this becomes increasingly important, the more open jobs, and the more applicants you have.
• Reporting – the system does offer some powerful reports, particularly if you’re unaccustomed to having reporting mechanisms.  For example, it makes EEO reporting a breeze.  It also provides some reporting for applicant sources, and other general fields that applicants are asked.  However, if you want deeper analytical insight into your recruiting process such as time to hire, applicant flow, quality of applicant, etc., there’s really nothing there to help you.  There’s a focus on analytics in the world of human capital, and I imagine their newer product addresses some of these shortcomings, but having data insight capabilities is important to a lot of businesses, so be sure the reporting meets your level of expectation in this regard.

Perks:  I usually prefer to end on a positive note, so I want to list a few additional perks that I found with this system:

• You can create an entire career page using their software.  If your IT team is unable to commit the time or resources to building out a career page, you can do it yourself using this system.  In addition to the page which lists job openings, you have the ability to create other pages on your MyExactHire page that might outline employee benefits, the company culture, the application process, what it’s like to work at the company, etc.  It’s also relatively easy for non-tech savvy people to create these pages using their templates and page builders.
• You get to have a slightly closer relationship with the vendor than you might with other larger providers.  You’ll get to know the staff well, and they’ll remember your questions, challenges, and what’s important to you.  It’s hard to place value on this, but trust me, it comes in handy.
• The system automatically posts jobs to several job boards for you including Indeed.com, SimplyHired, Oodle, etc.  While not quite as high profile as CareerBuilder or Monster, and not as niche as Dice.com, these are great job boards and will secure a lot of leads for you, and help spread the word about your openings.
• The cost of this ATS is very reasonable.  For Cadillac systems, you will pay a high price tag.  And while this system doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles that the top market leaders possess, it does have a lot of great features and unlike those systems, it won’t break the bank.  In fact, for most companies, I imagine it would be pretty easy to establish a business case for this software saving budget dollars.

Overall, to all the folks who've been asking about mid-market applicant tracking systems, I would encourage you to check out solutions at ExactHire (www.exacthire.com).

If you have additional specific questions about this software, or my experience with it, please contact me at CatapultHRSolutions@gmail.com.

*I am not affiliated with ExactHire, and was not asked (or compensated) to write this product review.

The Top 3 Entry Level Jobs in Sports

I’m asked on a daily basis by job hopefuls on how to break into the sports industry.  Sports barely suffered during the recession of 2008-2009, which is surprising given the cost cutting and budget tightening that occurred, and has persisted.  Most medium sized and major universities offer majors in sports marketing or sports management - in fact there are 300 universities in the US currently offering this major with tens of thousands of graduates each year.  The problem is that the amount of people who want to work in sports, does not equal the amount of opportunities.  It’s simple economics.  For example, in my organization, it’s not uncommon for a job opening to be posted for a week or two, and for us to receive thousands of applications.  This includes both entry level, and more niche roles.  I've worked in other industries, and I'll tell you there's definitely something special about working sports, and apparently, tons of job applicants know it.  The competition is fierce, as anyone trying to break into the industry already knows.

As I opened my email on Monday morning, I had an astounding 11 inquiries via LinkedIn, just from the weekend all asking a different version of the same question, “How can I get my foot in the door in sports?”  I plan to release a special report later this year with in-depth details about the roles I'm going to describe, and further, how to position yourself for such opportunities and to get your foot in the door with a sports team.  However, for today, I wanted to give you a preview and list the top 3 entry level jobs in sports.

1. Sales.  I know this is not what many young graduates and early career professionals want to hear, but sales is where the jobs are, and ultimately where some of the best careers are built. 
2. Customer Service.  Most sports teams find that great customer service is (or should be) one of their core competencies.  This ranges from the front lines all the way to the top of the organization.
3. Public Relations.  Most teams, particularly large market teams, maintain significant staff to handle public relations matters, with high exposure even for entry level staff.

While my perspective is primarily from a baseball standpoint, I’m confident you’ll find similar entry level roles within other sports and within most pro teams.  In the upcoming special report, I plan to give you information and tools to help you increase the odds of landing your dream job in the sports industry, without the over-emphasized internship and networking tips that most experts provide.  

Stay tuned, and comment here or tweet me (@CatapultHR) to let me know of any specifics you'd like me to write about and I'll try to include them in the published report!

Note:  I am unable to respond to every job inquiry, so please reference the Cubs Careers Page for more information on job opportunities with the Cubs.