Newton Software, a company that launched earlier this year, has now released Newton Analytics.
The product is a reporting platform that enables organizations to analyze large volumes of real-time data and make quick hiring decisions using various visualizations. This is the first of the company’s several planned releases of analytics technology for the recruiting industry.
At its core, the software is meant to provide companies with information that can ultimately improve their hiring efforts. It does this by using a simple dashboard and making all the information available on one central Web page.
The software lets companies quickly analyze their recruiting program and answer the most common questions that arise throughout the corporate recruiting process, including whether or not the company has applicants in the pipeline to interview, if the company is acting on those applicants, how long it takes the company to make a hire, where the company is missing opportunities and what serves as the best source of applicants.
Newton Analytics uses easy-to-read graphs and charts that allow you to zoom in on information so you can more easily see where the metrics are coming from. You can choose a certain date or specific job and see how many active and passive candidates applied, how many candidates the hiring manager accepted and denied, how many candidates the company wanted to schedule interviews with, how many candidates accepted an interview offer, how many offers were made and how many people were hired.
So what sets Newton Analytics apart from competing solutions? First, it allows executives to slice, sort, visualize and manipulate large sets of hiring data in an easy-to-use dashboard that enables them to quickly find trends, identify and act on important issues and drill down to specific data points.
Perhaps most importantly, the software allows companies to see what they’re doing well and what they could improve on during the recruiting process. Users can monitor stage-to-stage interviewing performance and missed opportunities, including unscheduled phone interviews or declined offers.
Because the software relies mainly on its visualizations – including several graphs and charts – HR departments can use the data they find within the software to hold staffing meetings. Also, anyone in the company can be given access to the software, including CEOs, CFOs and others who normally aren’t involved in the hiring process.
Anyone can partake in a fully-featured trial of Newton for 30 days. Beyond that, a basic membership costs $149 per month, a plus membership is $249 per month and a premium membership is $499 per month.
The company said its analytics software is being released at just the right time, as many recruiters and HR professionals are tightening up their efforts and are expected to do more with less.
“Newton was conceived, designed, and built from the ground-up with a driving motivation on our part to one day offer our clients the kind of robust analytics features that organizations need to be competitive,” Newton Software CEO Steve Hazelton said.
“No matter how many bells and whistles you get, nearly all of the popular recruiting software systems in the market today struggle to provide their users with the most fundamental insights in hiring,” he added, “Where do we have bottlenecks? Can I course-correct before it’s too late? Is everyone involved in the recruiting process doing their part? Am I spending money on the right resources?”
Joel Passen, co-founder and vice president of marketing at Newton, said that even though the software is geared toward recruiters and companies, it will ultimately help job seekers have a better experience during the recruiting process.
He said the software forces companies to pay attention to every candidate, and those who want to decrease the amount of time it takes to make a hire will do a better job of acknowledging them. Passen said companies who have used the product in beta have increased their throughput by 25 days, meaning candidates won’t have to wait as long to hear back from the company.
Newton, which currently has 25 paying customers, already has plans for the future. Aside from releasing more advanced analyzing technology, the company also plans to begin selling its product to recruitment process outsourcing companies in September.
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August 12th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
I love products like this. They are very helpful, although what is there to analyze in the recruiting industry. Some of the largest and most successful recruiting firms teach their employees, “it’s not rocket science.” You recruit with a focus on a particular industry, and the rest is doing good business, productivity, productivity and more productivity. Once you start looking too deep into recruiting and the running a recruiting business, you lose track of the basics; gaining accounts/jobs to fill and finding talent to fill those jobs. The money always follows…… Although I must say not all companies are managed equally and not all recruiting companies have refined their processes to be successful, which leaves a definite need for products like Newton Analytics… There is no doubt that Newton will bear fruit from their analytics product.
I would also recommend InovaHire.com. InovaHire.com is the latest “Free Social Networking Job Board and Live Job Interviewing Site.”
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August 12th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
I have to say as a former owner of a Web based ATS for recruiters in 2000-2002, I have to agree with Eric. There’s historically been very little incentive for a recruiting firm to invest in complex technology (complex defined as anything beyond a working phone system) since most firms are working with recruiters on commission (no sale, no money–though arguably not the goal of the firm) and basics have worked for decades.
That said, it’d be nice to see this change. There’s a limited budget for this type of system when push comes to shove. Owners will tell you they want it and they want it to jump through hoops of fire–for free.
As for a corporate implementation of Newton, it’s certainly going to have to be a small to, perhaps, medium sized organization with no demands for customized/configured workflows, and no overly complex recruiting processes.
Newton is hitting on a key missing attribute of most HR software–simple-to-get-to and pleasing data visualization. HR and HR vendors have failed to deliver on the power of metrics and data insight for far too long. I hope Newton opens up a new conversation with the recruiting departments and this type of insight starts to become a demanded function of every system–regardless of size or cost. The legislative value of ATS is at a point of diminishing returns (we’ve got that part figured out) and now it’s about moving to business value from supporting systems. Simple tactical metrics are a good start–though not as much value to the business as more predictive metrics can be.