• Quality equates to the volume and depth of contractors in the talent pool.  With over 5,000 contractors we have a quality database that encapsulates a range of different skills.  The database of contractors grows every day, providing even more selection as time continues.

• Sourcing quality candidates is one of our main priorities.  Through targeted PR campaigns, advertising, referrals from our existing contractors and social marketing – we can build up numbers in key professions and skill-sets.

• Through job activity generated from other organisations using Crackerjacks, we can effectively attract more suitable candidates to the talent pool – enabling our candidate database to continually grow.  Inevitably all businesses using Crackerjacks to source contractors will benefit from this.

• By reference checking every person on the site we give you confidence in your choice of contractor.

• Our proprietary performance rating system indicates those who excel in the work they have done.

• Our tool is completely bias-free – you have direct access to the best available person for your role.

• Covering all professional contracting areas – IT, Finance, HR, Sales and Marketing + Other specialties

• Personalised Talent Alerts lets you see who in your industry has just signed up. Please see this link for more information.

• Automated email and SMS updates to keep you on track with listed contracts (i.e. when candidates apply and respond to profile requests and when jobs require attention).

If you have any questions, please contact us on – business@crackerjacks.co.nz

For $2 per month you are entitled to the following with Cardplus:

• Savings of 5c per litre off the petrol pump price
• Free weekly delivery of the Sunday Star Times for 6 months
• Fly Buys points during launch offer
• Multiple cards linked to one account

Click the link below for more information:
New Shell Cardplus Fuel Card Offer for 2010

To receive the Shell Cardplus application form, email us on Solutions@crackerjacks.co.nz quoting “Cardplus offer” and we will send you the registration form.

So whatever you plan to use your fuel savings for, whether it’s subsidising your company vehicle, or carting the family around town, these savings will prove to be handy.

1.  Dispaly your logo on job postings

You can now upload your company logo on your business account.  This means your logo will be displayed on your job postings.

To set this up; log on, select the Account tab, and manage the company details to upload an image.

2.  Automated reminders – direct to your inbox

We know that you’ve got a lot on, so to help out, we’ve added helpful reminders that are designed to keep you on top of your recruitment projects.

Handy emails now notify you when; a contractor applies, whether a role has been left idle for too long or to request information after interviewing that automatically updates your account (just to name a few).  These prompts keep you on top of the process, without it becoming a headache.

3.  Profile request text messages

To speed things up further, when you request a contractors profile, they now receive a text message along with an email alert.  This means they can get back to you faster, enabling you to start interviewing for urgent contracts in hours, not days.

To find out more about these functions or to see how they apply to your account, please contact us on business@crackerjacks.co.nz, (09) 914 8540 ext. 2

Here’s a snap-shot of some of the talented contractors who can be found on Crackerjacks.  To find out more about the three contractors below, log on to your business account – or create one, and enter their CJ number into the search box.  If you like what you see, post the job and request their full profile.

Chris W. – Business mentor/Motivational Speaker

CJ4154

What do you do?

I am a business mentor, life and career coach. I also specialise in presenting staff training workshops and seminars focused on delivering exceptional customer servi ce, developing dynamic and inspirational leaders, developing team spirit and healthy, positive, highly productive cultures.

What do you enjoy about contracting?

I love the freedom and autonomy to choose to work with people who are truly committed and determined to be the best they can possibly be; becoming champions in their chosen field.

Rate expectations?

$100 per hour direct through Crackerjacks.

Ngaire S. – Chartered Accountant/Business Advisor

CJ4183

What do you do?

I specialise in providing businesses with financial expertise for project work, analysis and various accounting functions.  I take pride in giving assistance that comes from years of advanced training, technical experience and financial acumen.

What do you enjoy about contracting?
I enjoy the variety of positions that you can undertake, the challenges that you encounter, the flexibility of the working hours, and the wide spectrum of people that you meet.

Rate expectations?

$70 per hour direct through Crackerjacks.

CJ2828

What do you do?

I have two main fields of expertise – on-call IT support for SME’s and consulting/development within Microsoft Excel and OpenOffice.org.  This includes automating regular tasks, simplifying end-user interactions, helping to prevent user errors, and Microsoft Office training.

What do you enjoy about contracting?
I love contracting because of the variety of different jobs that I get to experience.  In any given week I could be running network cables, installing a new server, training an Excel user, or automating an entire task.  There’s never a dull moment.

Rate expectations?

$95 per hour direct through Crackerjacks.

Contractors can enter and operate in your organisation in a number of ways. They can either be engaged directly with your organisation (i.e. through Crackerjacks) by issuing an invoice or timesheet for work done and receiving payment via accounts payable, engaged as a ‘fixed term’ worker on the PAYE system, or they will be handed over to a recruitment agency for payroll and management.

The practice of using multiple agencies, in many cases combined with a direct sourcing effort, gives rise to multiple sets of costs, on-boarding processes, time sheet approval, invoicing and payment.  There are variations between the way insurance, contracts, visas and statutory and company compliance polices are addressed, therefore putting your company at risk of policy irregularities.

Additionally, reporting is non-standard or not apparent, cannot be consolidated and, critically, gives no visibility of spend.  These variations create the exposure to additional costs and unmeasured risks to the organisation as well as cumbersome processes for hiring managers and accounts payable.

These methods present a myriad of potential problems to organisations. Research shows that approximately 85% of organisations using contract workers are not even able to determine how many contract workers they have, nor can they determine what those contractors are doing or how long they have been doing it, where they were sourced from or how much they are being paid.

The above is an excerpt from a CXC Global Research Whitepaper that discusses current models and practices, risks and the Disaggregation Process for Best Practice.  To request a copy of this whitepaper or to find out how CXC Global assists businesses in achieving Best Practice please contact Kirsty Erasmus on (09) 353 1981 or Kirsty.erasmus@cxcglobal.co.nz

In terms of business sectors on Crackerjacks, IT/Computing is the most highly represented followed by Professional Services, Manufacturing, Banking Finance, Retail/Wholesale, Advertising/Media and Telecommunications.  Please note there are numerous other sectors – these are just the top seven.

Want to know more?  Simply log on to your business account – or create one (free of charge) to conduct a search and get the low-down on our proven performers.  Keep in mind – to request a person’s full profile you need to have a live role posted (which is free of charge too!).  If you are interested in a specific skill set, or certain business sector experience, we suggest you set up a Talent Alert to be notified when people who meet this criteria register.

Happy searching,

The Crackerjacks team

From the conception of Crackerjacks, our fundamental goal has been to minimise the cost of recruitment while still delivering the best talent.  To achieve this we utilise the latest technology to provide you with a cost effective and feature rich recruitment solution.  As technology advances so will Crackerjacks, allowing our business users to enjoy the benefits.
Crackerjacks is not restricted to the traditional model of recruitment or the costs structures.  Our “Lean” operation means the numerous steps that traditional recruiters do manually are now automated.  This allows our team to focus their time and energies in supporting you where it adds the most value such as;

• initial briefing and obtaining a thorough understanding of your requirement
• reference checking
• screening candidates based on your brief etc.

Our automated process objectively highlights key talent on Crackerjacks – which can be easily accessed through a search or a talent alert email and then delivered directly into your organisation.

]]> http://www.crackerjacks.co.nz/resources/what-makes-us-so-cost-effective/feed/ 0 http://www.crackerjacks.co.nz/resources/account-management-restructuring/ http://www.crackerjacks.co.nz/resources/account-management-restructuring/#comments Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:43:29 +0000 Crackerjacks http://www.crackerjacks.co.nz/?p=1736 By Stacey Airey

Crackerjacks Business Support Partner

A colleague of mine in the advertising industry was recently contacted and asked to come back post a major restructuring. The terms were flexible, the job and clients familiar, and the company was hoping that she could slip back in and pick up the accounts that had not been managed well in her absence over 6+ months.

This organisation had experienced a recent major restructure and had lost many seasoned accounts professionals. As it turned out the experienced Account Manager with the relationship and depth of experience was the one coming back to pick up the pieces after new team members were not meeting the clients or companies expectations.

What do companies do when trying to fill the gap when an experienced staff member with the key relationship on the account leaves?

Fixed term employees and professional contractors are often used in organisations for fixed periods of time.

A Fixed term employee is employed for a specific duration and purpose. The employer and employee enter into a fixed term employment agreement in which the end-date is  specified and the employee is placed on yourpayroll.    Fixed term employees are generally paid the same rate as permanent staff, with the additional benefits such as annual leave, sick leave and superannuation packaged in their remuneration.

A professional contractor is self employed; this means they’re not employed by you or included on your payroll.  Their services can be engaged for any duration.   Because contractors have to cover their own sick leave, annual leave, and superannuation etc. they usually will charge a higher hourly rate than what permanent staff are paid.  Click here to find out how contractor’s can work out their fees.

Both of these types of contingent staff are present in the organisation for capped periods of time and should be managed differently to permanent staff.  Click here for some tips on managing a contingent workforce.

Different organisations have preferences for the type of contingent staff they use.  We’ve noticed that the public sector prefers the use of fixed term-employees, as opposed to professional contractors.  To control costs, this is a favourable option, because fixed term employees are usually remunerated at a lower rate than contractors.  Hiring fixed term employees enables HR and Line managers to lower their long-term staffing overheads, while still havingthe right skills in the organisation when they need them.

On the flipside a number of private companies opt to hire professional contractors.  The advantages of this include; minimal paperwork for the company to administer, instant access to expertise for short-term and long-term projects and an objective opinion to improve business processes.  By having a self-employed professional on hand, project-work and staffing vacancies can be covered with minimum interruption .

Whether it’s fixed term employees or professional contractors, Crackerjacks can help your business source quality candidates.  You can access your Crackerjacks talent pool of over 3,600 candidates anywhere and at anytime, ensuring a fast response to your businesses contingent staffing needs.

You can register, post jobs, search for candidates, create email talent-alerts, interview and review reference checks ALL for free.  You only incur a fixed monthly fee once you engage a candidate – $500 per month for full-time and $250 for part-time and these fees are capped at 12 months.

So what are you waiting for – register now, or if you are already a business member log on to see the new talent on Crackerjacks today.

To have a closer look at this talent – be sure to set up Talent Alert on your business account.  This will notify you, on a two weekly basis, of professional’s who register with Crackerjacks who are of particular interest to your organisation.  Now is a great time to be building your candidate talent pools with Crackerjacks.  Savvy businesses who do so will be one step ahead when business picks up.  For more information on talent pools please read this article.