In an environment where competition is fierce you need to attract top candidates. Stonefish eRecruitment combines a user-friendly web site where applicants can view current employment opportunities and apply for them online, with back-end automated administration to streamline short listing and interviews.

Stonefish eRecruitment works only in HE and the public sector. We know your recruitment needs.

Stonefish eRecruitment can reduce lead time from job specification to appointment by two weeks.

Let Stonefish help you take the burden out of recruitment so you can appoint the best.

For technical problems please follow the link below to submit a support request.

Click here to send a support request

For general help and advice on using the system or to discuss any problems you are having please give us a call on: 0115 646 5486

Comments from an HR Manager, Administrator and IT Administrator

Patti Gram, HR Services Manager

Background

When the Institute of Education wanted to move our recruitment processes from the 19th to 21st centuries in one leap we had no idea that the choices of online recruitment products geared specifically to the Higher Education sector would run from slim to nil.

We operated a cumbersome and applicant-unfriendly recruitment process: an applicant would read our press advert, request an application from the email address quoted in the ad, only to be sent an application form which told them to complete and return in five hard copies! These in turn would be distributed to interview panel members for shortlisting and interviews. The entire eight week process would end up as a pile of paper back in HR.

When I researched existing software used by a variety of public sector organisations. I found that there were very good and sophisticated packages out there which were not perfect fits for an HEI and seemed to have been pared down to try and meet an HEI budget. We elicited suggestions through the Association of University Administrators forum and three respondents mentioned the user-friendly University of Nottingham recruitment web site and its user-friendly application form.

Nottingham HR were kind enough to invite us to view their Stonefish eRecruitment system and we were impressed by the automated ‘wow’ factors of the application form and the design features specifically tailored to the culture and practices of an academic institution. Stonefish had already developed their product further to automate recruitment all the way through to appointment.

Implementation

Stonefish Software won the tender for our eRecruitment system and we went live in October 2007.

Like all new things introduced to rarefied academia, the movement from paper-based to online system was not without hiccups. Although greeted with enthusiasm by applicants (as evidenced by our online exit survey) some selection panel members were rather less keen. Staff initially resistant cited reasons ranging from technological (remote users unable to access the system due to browser incompatibility or unfamiliarity with a web interface) to process (an aversion to performing ‘administrative’ tasks such as online grading of applications and printing) to procedural (an existing culture of non-documented and non-accountable applicant selection practices).

As our pilot progressed, applicant feedback drew our attention to quality of our selection criteria and the difficulty of providing fresh, sharp and meaningful answers to questions which were repetitive in the information they asked. This was a good prompt to hone our post criteria and include this in our Recruitment and Selection Training.

Results

The system has now handled over 200 recruitments. Resistant staff were assured that this was not merely an administrative tool but had wider implications for our compliance with legislation, risk management and equalities best practice. The transparency afforded to recruitment and selection by the online system will serve to ensure that each recruitment meets risk management requirements in protecting the Institute’s reputation for fairness in hiring and data protection. Applications have increased, particularly for academic posts and through the reporting tool we can track jobs by such criteria as type, department, number of applications, applications with diversity, recruitment sources and cost of sources.

The ability to shortlist remotely has become a considerable boon to our academics, who often work from home or other remote locations, as they can access their respective applications to view from anywhere with internet access. Any paper based applications received are scanned into the system. Interview panel members do not have to wait until a job closes and hard-copies have been delivered or posted to them to them (often with inherent logistical delays to this process) but can view the status of their jobs at any time and begin to work through their shortlisting from the time the first applicant has applied. Positive feedback includes comments from two external academic panel members, one of whom subsequently recommended the system to his own HR department.

In the survey completed when submitting an application, applicants have told us that our application is unique in the way each section can be completed and printed separately for reference, and in the order chosen by the applicant, giving the applicant the advantage of seeing what is required in different stages so necessary materials can be gathered and a more thoughtful approach applied.

From a purely HR perspective, eRecruitment has given staff in our faculties greater control over their own recruitments and reduced the administrative burden for central HR. It has reduced our recruitment lead time from 8 to 6 weeks and raised our profile as a best-practice employer.

Caroline Catmur, HR Administrator

Our e-recruitment system was implemented in October 2007 and it has definitely changed our recruitment process for the better. Everything is much more streamlined and it is much easier to deal with enquiries and manage the process as everything is online. It saves so much time and paper (due to everything being online, hardly anything needs to be printed) and is a really easy system to use. Candidates and selection panels alike find it much better than the old, out of date system!

The help we get from Stonefish is first class. They're always on the end of the phone or email, answer all our queries extremely quickly and efficiently, and often do beyond the call of duty to help us if we've made a mistake. They are always willing to make changes to the system and take our ideas for adaptations on board. I would definitely recommend them.

Phuong Tran, Senior System Analyst

Implementation was very easy, we gave them access to our server and they installed it without any problems. I wasn't timing it, but it probably took a day. All we had to do was give them access to our database.

Support-wise they have been very excellent. I don't say this from most software companies (and we have a lot of third party companies) but they are the only ones I would recommend out of everyone we deal with (I have high standards). So far - the problems we have with them are really Institute of Education's problems - e.g. the website wasn't sending email because we were patching our mail exchange, the website wasn't working because we shut down our server, etc. They are always quick to notify us when our systems are down (e.g. why was your database down at such and such time?), even when it's 10 o'clock on a weekend.

Their response times have been excellent. When you email the Stonefish Helpdesk, they will reply very quickly. Just recently, our Deputy Director was unable to access the website on his Mac laptop. When I emailed the Helpdesk at 10.21am I received a reply at 10.48am with advice that solved the problem.

Maintenance-wise, I'm the only one in the IT team who is responsible for the software from our end and it has not been a drain on my time at all. This is particularly good as we are a bit overstretched at the moment, so what we need is to have third party software suppliers who:

• Know what they are doing
• Provide reliable software
• Have excellent response times
• Can support themselves without needing huge amounts of inputs from my department

Compatibility Issues - none so far. It works on Safari, IE, Firefox, etc. We update our patches religiously and this has never tripped up Stonefish's software (whereas other third party websites have stopped working). If there was some compatibility issues in the future, from their track record I am very confident Stonefish would be able to provide a solution quickly and efficiently (unlike another of our software suppliers whose only response was "don't apply Microsoft Security updates" - which you can imagine was completely unsatisfactory).

Frankly, I can't recommend them enough.

If you currently operate a paper-based recruitment process that is cumbersome, unfriendly to applicants and administratively time consuming, Stonefish eRecruitment has been developed for your HR department. With over 17 years working within The Public Sector, our online system is the only one designed solely for public sector and HE recruitment.

Holds details of current employment opportunities on your web site. When an applicant registers their details are stored to make the application process quick and non-repetitive.

Allows applicants to subscribe so they are notified when new jobs are advertised; automates correspondence with applicants at each stage of the recruitment process.

Match redeployees to vacancies with exclusive advertisement periods.

Ensures all applications are completed in a consistent manner to HERA role analysis selection criteria, making them easier to evaluate.

Designs bespoke web pages to integrate seamlessly with your institution’s web site.

Allows interview panel members to evaluate and score applications online as soon as they are submitted, from any online computer, anytime, anywhere.

Automatically reminds applicants and interview panel members to complete key tasks and produces reference requests.

Makes interview and test scheduling simple.

Generates interview packs for selection panel members.

Online referencing allows automated contact, chasing and collection of references.

Works to the two ticks "Positive about Disability" standard. Equal ops data is hidden from shortlisting panel members but alerts HR so that applicants with disabilities who meet the minimum essential criteria are always shortlisted.

Affords best practice transparency to recruitment and selection by ensuring that each recruitment meets risk management requirements in protecting the institution’s reputation for fairness in hiring and data protection.

Produces management report data such as number of posts advertised, recruitment sources attracting best applicants, jobs receiving the most hits, number of submitted applications, and appointments with diversity.