Fast on his feet

By John Brandon

Chuck Aaron is a resume-searching guru. Working out of his home in Columbia, Md., Aaron has developed a streamlined process for running Professional Services Guild (PSG), the technical staffing firm he launched in 1999.

Providing fast service has made his small firm attractive to large companies, insurance providers and defense-department contractors.

Because my business is small and automated, I can be very quick on my feet, says the former railroad company executive, who first looked to technology tools to avoid hiring full-time employees.

Ten years running professional services divisions for big companies taught him that every job search must be fast and reliable. Clients expect immediate results, and job candidates choose companies that provide speedy
placements.

To speed up office processes, Aaron has simplified as many as possible. Every document gets loaded onto a laptop using a Fujitsu high-speed scanner, reducing paper clutter. He uses Starfish’s TrueSynch software to copy client
contacts to his cell phone, and Symantec’s PC Anywhere to remotely control clients’ systems, who sometimes rely on PSG for quick diagnostic help. He has one computer dedicated to processing faxes, and another for receiving
voice mails.

All this frees Aaron up to find leads, a task that he’s also streamlined. He searches sites like Monster.com and DICE.com for job skill matches, copies resumes automatically into a staffing database, and maintains a robust technical skills repository. The automated resume search-and-save process has saved his company $21,000 in work-related expenditures over the past three years, he says, and his clients are thrilled with the response time.

PSG helps us complete the necessary interviews and reference checks within a timeframe that meets our requirements to rapidly fill critical openings,
says John Heinz, president of ATSG, an information technology planning and strategy company.

In the past, Aaron manually added candidate data into the ACT! content management system. Now, he loads it automatically into ACT! 2000 using ResumeGrabber, a $249 add-on from eGrabber Corporation. ResumeGrabber is so
fluid, it barely requires any training or effort, Aaron says. On the Web, he can highlight text and press one key to add it to the database. Or, Aaron can grab the entire resume using another keystroke.

In ACT!, the ResumeGrabber add-on automatically inserts new records into the database, fills in keyword data, and matches the new candidate with a specific skill set category. Candidates are matched with an appropriate
opportunity faster than the competition, giving PSG a competitive edge without administrative overhead. And the tech tools make PSG look like a bigger player in the market.

Ultimately, Aaron says ResumeGrabber saves him about ten hours per week in administrative tasks. Combined with his other home office technology tricks,
Aaron says his streamlined company is positioned for quick growth. Now if he can just find a tech tool for picking up his mail at the post office.



John Brandon writes frequently about networks and wireless technology for The Chicago Tribune, LAPTOP, T3, and others.