Located in a west Texas town of 100,000 people, Preferred Personnel is focused on the oil and gas industry and direct hiring is booming, according to training manager and benefits administrator Amanda Bledsoe. Although there is a need for temporary workers, with a three percent unemployment rate, Bledsoe says it's hard to find folks to send on a one day assignment.
Until January 2008, Preferred Personnel used Bridgeware's Temps Plus, a software package that Bledsoe says was built strictly for temporary placements. "We had a lot of challenges making it work for all aspects of our business. Our recruiters especially had a difficult time doing direct hire placements and tracking the information that we needed."
Additionally, once the software was customized to suit the needs for Preferred Personnel, they couldn't get software upgrades because of the customization. "We just had to deal with what we had," Bledsoe states. "It was very limiting, but we kept the software for five years because it was so expensive."
Researching SaaS solutions
"The first thing we wanted was online access," Bledsoe recalls, as many of the senior recruiters work from home or if they travel to a conference or a tradeshow, they need access to critical information.
Initially a solo mission, Amanda investigated about 20 different software solutions before narrowing the field and bringing in her management team to demo the five finalists. Besides being web-based, customer service was also a crucial consideration. As far as technical support, one company in contention, Bullhorn, concerned Bledsoe, who found it so large, "that we would call into a call center and get a number and have to call back."
Cost was another factor. Compared to Akken, Bullhorn was more than double the price. "The one thing that did it for me personally," Bledsoe notes, "was my account manager." When asked about the length of the contract, he said, 'You can purchase ona month to month basis. We want to make sure our product works for you.' Other software had a minimum one year commitment. And so, if we weren't happy with it, we were stuck with it."
Working made simple with Akken
After choosing Akken, Amanda took a call from a client she had worked with "years ago." She looked her up in Akken Staffing and there she was, exclaims Bledsoe. "Within three clicks, I was to the screen where I could input the specifics of the job and it blew me away! With the old system, to get the new contact, company and input new job order information would have been a thirty minute project."
There are other features that Bledsoe believes are invaluable to her staff's success. They include resume parsing, the easy, intuitive flow of information between screens, search capability, which she says offers many ways to get information, and customized training and automatic upgrades are provided at no additional cost.