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Tick Tock – Time is Ticking Off Your HR Workday Clock

How many times have you caught yourself saying, “If only I had more time…” If you had an extra hour, two hours, a full day or whatever the amount of time, how would you spend it? In the world of Human Resources, it is not difficult to feel as if one’s wheels are spinning during the workday. HR representatives have a full plate of roles and responsibilities. Regularly we are told, “Here is a vacant position. Fill it.” Filling vacancies does not happen with a snap of the fingers. Positions need to be filled yet we need time to recruit and then screen the candidates that have applied for those positions before those stellar candidates choose employment with another organization. Compliance policies and laws, paper resumes, electronic resumes, this recruiting tool, that publicity source, social media, phone screens, personal interviews–eeeek! How can one person or even a team effectively stay organized to complete these tasks in efficient detail in order to seal the deal on hiring the cream of the crop? Maybe Superman can save the day?!?

Since time is a resource that is very limited, and HR professionals wear many hats on a regular basis…finding tools and tricks that allow them to be more efficient and productive is a big priority. One such tool is Software as a Service (SaaS). In the context of the HR realm, these web-based solutions help streamline detailed tasks in an efficient manner so an individual or team can effectively maneuver through the recruitment, hiring, and/or onboarding processes, for example. ExactHire’s HireCentric applicant tracking SaaS solution can centralize the Human Resources functions representatives strive to successfully complete on a daily basis.

Here are five examples of how HireCentric can boost your organization’s HR efforts and save your staff members time:

Web-Based Accessibility

HireCentric is available wherever you have Internet service. Talk about convenience–there is no need to go to the office to access a candidate’s file because it is right at your fingertips. Also, if you are traveling for work, you can keep abreast of the vacancies and the candidates applying for those roles so when you get back to the office, you will not need as much catch up time.

Job Templates

In HireCentric, you can create job templates that make it easy to create multiple current and future job listings. Create a library of customizable templates so you do not have to recreate a job description over and over.

Applicant Correspondence

In HireCentric, you can create email templates to help you communicate with your candidates quickly and easily – but without sacrificing personalization. All candidate contact information is centrally located to make it easier for you to call or email. You can send an email to one or to many candidates with a click of the mouse.

Ongoing Process Improvement

With HireCentric, evaluation is ongoing. In the Reports tab, you can run a variety of reports to help you identify the data you need for internal and external reporting. Within the ATS, there are nearly two dozen unique reports available for use, and if that is not enough, you can create a customized report that meets your needs. Also, it can be integrated with some of ExactHire’s onboarding and employee assessment tools.

Standardization & Compliance

HireCentric offers you tools for tracking activities so that you may be compliant with Affirmative Action Planning, Equal Employment Opportunity and even your own company guidelines. In addition to creating your own unique applicant disposition status codes, you may input screening questions that are consistently asked when applicants apply for various positions to help you identify the candidates who do meet minimum basic qualifications.

In a work environment where time is money and money is time, a company must be fiscally responsible. If your company is not using HireCentric, it is time to take a look. Time is ticking by. Who needs Superman to save the day? With HireCentric, you can be the time saving hero to your organization!

Image credit: 52 Weeks of Photos- Week 42- Time by Louise Docker (contact)

Umm…I Can’t Come to the Office Because of the #Polarvortex

A snow day! The best words of winter to anyone under the age of 18… and often 21. Here in Indiana we’ve been impacted by the “polar vortex.” The winter witch dropped over 14 inches of snow within 24 hours. While it created incredible sights and terrific workouts (shoveling snow), we were all stuck in our homes for days.

Think of all the great things you could do! Wash all of the bed sheets, mop the floors, reorganize the home office, get a headstart on that New Year’s resolution of exercise. Sounds lovely, huh? Based off of my Facebook news feed, however, I believe most of my friends actually have messier houses, have eaten everything in sight, and several can’t stand to be trapped with their loved ones in a house for a few days.

Similar to my friends, I did not have an opportunity to tackle all of those great things (aka household chores) I mentioned earlier because I was busy having one of the most productive work weeks I’ve had in a very long time. That’s right, no snow day here; it was business as usual.

The Wonders of SaaS During Snow

Just because it’s snowy where I am, doesn’t mean it’s snowy where my clients are located. As long as we have electricity and internet, we can keep the doors open for business. We often talk about how our ExactHire technology solutions are SaaS products. Software as a Service, or SaaS, applications can be accessed anywhere you have an internet connection. Forgot your laptop at work before the snowstorm? No worries…grab your personal laptop or tablet and access the software via the internet.

Because many people are confined to their home during these snowy days, I noticed an uptick in the amount of jobs being posted. Way to go administrative applicant tracking system users! Good job on working through the “distraction” of snow, and children, and anything else staring you down during your time at home. I also noticed an increase in the number of people applying for jobs.

Clearly we cannot tell, too far in advance, when the weather will give us such a large amount of snow, but we can file this bit of information away for later this winter or next winter. If people are snowed in, it’s worth your time to share your posted jobs to social networks – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

If you’re not currently using a SaaS product for your hiring process, I would recommend checking out our selection of applicant tracking and employee onboarding software options by visiting our resources section or contacting us for further information. If you are already on board, I hope your snow day was productive.

Keep warm everyone!

Background Checks & Hiring – 7 Things to Consider

Since the revised EEOC guidance rules were published in 2012, there has been much speculation and frustration among employers as to the use of criminal history checks in the hiring process. These updated guidelines for background checks are especially challenging for small and mid-sized organizations, as they typically don’t have the legal resources readily available to help keep them compliant.

I’ve heard these complaints from clients over the past 18 months. At the same time, I’ve been fortunate enough to receive some tips from background check providers as to what employers can do to help avoid any undue exposure. Below are some of the things they’ve shared with me that I might recommend:

#1 – Have updated job descriptions

Everyone has heard this ad nauseum, but with these EEOC revisions, this is even more important than it has been in the past. And, if you are using an applicant tracking system such as HireCentric, creating updated job descriptions can be done quite efficiently through the use of job templates.

#2 – Be very careful in asking about criminal convictions on your employment application

While the finer points of this bear further discussion with a qualified Labor & Employment Law attorney, the key is to avoid any appearance that applicants having prior criminal convictions are excluded from serious consideration. Beyond this suggestion, many states have actually implemented legislation that makes it illegal to even ask this type of question on the employment application.

#3 – Consider only criminal convictions relevant to the job for which an applicant is applying

The fact that an applicant committed a crime is no longer considered sufficient reason to exclude that person from consideration for a position. In addition, you must be able to show that the crime for which that applicant was convicted creates risk for the organization if they are placed in a given position. An example…the fact that an applicant was convicted for shoplifting doesn’t pose any undue or unreasonable risk for the employer if the applicant is being hired to run a manufacturing machine. However, if that same applicant is being hired to manage company funds, most would agree that the shoplifting conviction is more relevant to that position and could create exposure for the employer.

#4 – Convictions must be recent enough to indicate significant risk

This is very subjective, but the intent here is to make sure that applicants who were convicted for offenses many years ago aren’t excluded from consideration unnecessarily. Another component to this is that applicant attempts at rehabilitation and recent job performance results should be considered. If someone was convicted of a crime 15-20 years ago, but has been employed and showed good performance in positions since then, that conviction likely shouldn’t be used as a way to disqualify the applicant from consideration.

#5 – You get what you pay for

There are a number of inexpensive ways to gather criminal history for applicants. While this isn’t meant to be a “plug” for any particular provider, this is an area where cutting corners can result in big penalties. Be sure to use a qualified provider of these services who can not only provide the conviction history, but who can also provide advice and counsel when needed.

#6 – Confirm convictions at the original source

This is an extension of the point above. Once a conviction shows up in any criminal history search, be sure your provider can locate and provide information from the original source…typically found at the county or municipal level. Since many of these government entities are not fully computerized, this often requires someone physically visiting a courthouse to manually locate and confirm the conviction information contained in the criminal history search.

#7 – Allow applicants to challenge any convictions found

By law, any conviction information found in a criminal history search must be disclosed to the applicant for potential appeal. It’s not uncommon for someone to have a conviction show on their record, when the actual person convicted of the offense is a different person. They may share the same name, but have completely different dates of birth or Social Security numbers. When using a provider, be sure they will either notify applicants on your behalf (ideally) or provide you the means to do so yourself (at a minimum).

By way of full disclosure, I am not an attorney and this is not meant to be legal advice. Instead, these are some effective tips that have been shared with me since the revised EEOC guidelines were released in 2012. I hope these are helpful for your organization, but I recommend speaking with an attorney or a representative from your criminal history provider for more details on this topic.

For more information about ExactHire’s applicant tracking software or potential background checking providers, please contact us today. 

Image credit: 3D Scales of Justice by Chris Potter (contact)

Should I Use Cognitive or Skills-Based Assessments for New Hires?

It’s no surprise that in an age where there are often many candidates applying for any given job, many hiring managers are using pre-employment assessments to review applicants. Using assessments can help a company find new employees who are the best fit for its company culture and for the position. There are several kinds to choose from; picking the right one for your needs depends a lot on the organization and the type of job being filled.

Cognitive Assessments

These assessments test a person’s ability to process information or thoughts. These tests are similar to IQ tests. They can measure memory, numerical and reading comprehension, speech, the ability to learn and even problem solving capabilities. Hiring managers may use these tests to help determine if the candidate is likely able to meet the performance requirements for a job. By doing this, the new hire and team will be more efficient and this productivity can lead to reduced employee turnover. While pre-employment testing should never make up all of a hiring manager’s employment decision for a candidate, assessments can certainly contribute to around 25-30% of the decision.

Job Skills Tests

These are tests based on a specific job skill that is required for a position. The skills in question might be very broad or very specific. Broad examples include general math, Excel, customer service or grammar skills. More specific examples of these tests might include automotive technology, light industrial math, accounting software, legal terminology or medical billing. As you probably can guess, this type of assessment can be useful in many types of industries. If you need to fill a position that requires proficiency in Excel, than you want to make sure the candidate is up to speed on this software – the skills test would be perfect for this situation. Also, skill-based tests can be useful when hiring for a lot of job openings at once – jobs that require particular skills. You can rank the many candidates based on their scores and do comparisons.

Behavioral Pre-Employment Testing

Assessments that test the behavioral traits of an applicant, especially when combined with cognitive or job skill tests, are also useful. Behavioral traits are sometimes referred to as “soft skills,” but are still very important, especially to job fit and one’s potential to assimilate well into a company’s culture. Just a few examples of the kinds of traits tested include: independence, energy level, assertiveness, sociability, objective thinking and decisiveness. Knowing how the candidate is hard-wired to think and respond to situations is just as important as knowing if one has the skills or IQ to do the job. This type of assessment can help ensure that an applicant is more likely to mesh with the team, department and/or overall organization.

Depending on budget, you may not be able to give assessments to each and every applicant for all open jobs. However, in the long run you may opt to use any one of these (or two depending on the type of role involved) to make sure you make the right hire for your company – especially for the positions that are particularly difficult to fill and/or that experience relatively high turnover.

Selecting a partner to help you administer validated, job-relevant pre-employment testing can prevent you from making a bad hiring decision, as well as save you time, money and frustration! ExactHire offers options in all of these assessment categories and can even assist in building customized job pattern models to establish targeted performance ranges for your organization – these models are invaluable when analyzing candidate results.

For more information about our products, please contact ExactHire.

Image credit: Exam by Alberto G. (contact)

How Do I Calculate ROI For Applicant Tracking System?

There are several ways to calculate the return on investment (ROI) for an applicant tracking system (ATS). But to start, you need to first determine the cost of your hiring activities without an ATS.

Equation #1: Time Cost

Let’s say we have an HR Employee who handles hiring (I’ll call her Joy). Consider the number of hours that Joy works on hiring activities in a week (H) and multiply that number by her amount of pay per hour (P).

If H = 40 hrs.

and P = $20 per hour

Then, H x P =  $800 per week focused on hiring activities without an ATS

An applicant tracking system could easily reduce that employee’s work by 25% and cost as low as $30 per week (C). So let’s look at the ROI in that scenario:

If H = 30 hrs.

and P = $20 per hour

and C =  $30

Then, (H x P) + C =  $630 per week focused on hiring activities with an ATS..a savings of $170 per week or a 560% ROI.

Equation #2: Labor Needs

But what if Joy can only review 40 applications per day and your organization really needs to review 60 applications per day? If you want to get through 60 applications in a day without a backlog–and without investing in applicant tracking software, you’ll need to hire another person.

So if one employee (E) can review 40 applications per day (A) and you need 60 applications reviewed per day (N), let’s determine how many additional employees you’ll need.

If N = 60

and A = 40

Then, N ÷ A = 1.5 employees to review 60 applications per day.

Equations #3: Labor Cost

Now, let’s combine the results of both equations to find the time cost for this scenario where hiring is the solution to meeting capacity requirements.

(H x E) x P = $1200 per week focused on hiring.

Now we have a ball-park figure we can use to see if the cost of the ATS is equal to or less than the additional labor cost.

Reducing Labor Cost With Applicant Tracking Software

An ATS can review applications more quickly than a human through the use of automatic scoring and/or disqualification filters associated with answers given for application screening questions. With the aid of these filters, the applications can be sorted and the reviewing process can begin with those applicants that most closely align with what you are seeking for that given position.

This means that Joy in our example above should have no problem reviewing 60+ applications per day, saving the organization from hiring a part-time employee and saving $400 per week in labor costs…or $1600 per month. When you consider that the price of HireCentric ATS starts at $120 per month, that’s a big return on your investment!

ROI for Applicant Tracking System Analysis Factors

Beyond the time cost savings, let’s consider some of the other items to factor into your ROI analysis:

  • Focusing on just the more-qualified applicants (as determined by the screening questions mentioned above) usually leads to better hires, because recruiters and hiring managers are no longer buried by resumes. Better hires tend to ramp up faster, perform better and stay longer. This means a better bottom line for your organization.
  • Candidates no longer “slip through the cracks” — the better ones are more quickly identified and may be contacted quickly to avoid them going elsewhere.
  • You’re now building an actual candidate pool from which to draw later. This means fewer postings to paid job boards and dollars saved because of it.
  • Jobs may be shared through social media by both your applicants and your existing employees. Again, this means more quality applicants without over-relying on paid job boards.

My experience is that focusing ROI efforts on time savings alone tends to fall on deaf ears when approaching a CEO or CFO for approval. Using some of these alternative ideas, along with the time savings and low cost nature of an applicant tracking software tool, should improve your odds of making a business case to executive management and getting the solution your organization needs.

If you would like to discuss pricing and/or ROI for ExactHire’s applicant tracking software further, please contact us today.

Are Electronic Signatures Valid?

Because our employee onboarding software utilizes electronic signatures, we are quite frequently asked “are electronic signatures valid?” The short answer is…yes.

Requirements for Valid Electronic Signatures

However, for this to hold true, there are conditions that have to be met. These were established with the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN) of 2000. While you may wish to consult your Labor & Employment attorney for more details, I’ve listed below the core requirements that must be met for an electronic signature to be valid:

  • The person signing the document must be allowed to view the completed document before being asked to provide his/her signature — this is to prevent any potential fraud in these types of transactions.
  • The signature must be unique and verifiable — whatever device or software tool is being used to capture this must be able to record how the signature was entered, when (time & date), and how it is tied to that individual (password, IP address, etc.).
  • The document may not be altered after the signature is affixed — as with the first point above, this is designed to make sure agreements can’t be changed after a person has signed them.
  • The signature must capture the consent and understanding of the person providing it — this may be accomplished a number of ways, but is designed to make sure any “fine print” is made clear and obvious to any parties involved in the electronic signature process.

These guidelines are based on the federal ESIGN Act (referenced above), and apply to interstate commerce. However, there are states that will occasionally designate certain documents as not eligible for electronic signature recognition. While this doesn’t happen frequently, you should certainly check with your organization’s attorney before moving ahead with any service/solution that utilizes this process.

That exception notwithstanding, most any new hire documents are certainly eligible for e-signature. This includes files like I-9’s, W4’s, direct deposit forms, company policies and procedures, employee handbook acknowledgments, etc.

Selecting an Onboarding Software Vendor

Because this is a newer type of offering for most HR software providers, when going through the process of selecting a partner, please be sure to confirm that the vendor’s electronic signature process will pass muster, if challenged. The benefits of onboarding software are compelling, but you want to be sure you partner with a provider who understands and can explain how their tool complies with these protocols.

If you’d like to learn more about ExactHire and how our paperless onboarding software can benefit your organization, please visit our resources section or contact us today.

How Do You Assess Employees On The Job?

Well, this blog about assessing employees hits home as I just had my one-year work anniversary with ExactHire. I love my job, by the way, and wish everyone could enjoy coming to work as much as I do! (I am not kissing up because I have already had my annual review!) But, it brings up a good question that affects all employers regardless of size of company or industry…how do you assess employees?

There are multiple traits that can be reviewed to assess your employees:

Quantitative Measurements – these should be the most obvious characteristics to review

  • Performance Objectives – These could be set by management as goals for the employee or for the overall organization. Examples might include sales goals of a specific dollar amount, obtaining a set number of new accounts/clients or safety goals in a production facility.
  • Cost Effective – The employee’s productivity during his/her time at work vs. the cost to have him/her there. This can be a simple measurement for some types of jobs, like in the manufacturing industry where it is easy to count output of units produced, but it may be more complicated to compute in other industries such as consulting or healthcare.
  • Absenteeism or Timeliness – Here is an easy one – most companies have some type of system in place to keep track of tardiness or absenteeism of their employees. Make sure that your employees are not abusing the system.

Personal Behavior – how the employee conducts himself/herself on a daily basis

  • Works well with team – This is important to all jobs but is much more imperative to certain positions or industries. Depending on the nature of the business, if an employee is not a team player, that can make a work situation miserable for many people.
  • Creativity – Again, this one can depend on the position, but overall, reviews how well the person handles change, problem solving and other situations that require the employee to “think outside the box.”
  • Follows policies – Whether in management or low man on the totem pole, this one says a lot about people. Is your employee a strict follower of the policies or is he/she a “rule breaker”? Review how this can affect his/her performance and the performance of others.

Appraisals – evaluations done by various people anytime of the year for various reasons

  • Self – Asks the employee to look at himself/herself to review how he/she thinks he/she is performing at current position.
  • Manager – This is the most standard evaluation given…what does the boss think of the employee? This is important but is far more useful when combined with other evaluations.
  • Peer – This one can be tricky but is equally important. Peers often have a lot of insight into the employee’s overall productivity.
  • 360 Degree – All of the above! ExactHire offers a “360 degree survey” that takes into account all of these appraisal types to produce an overall summary or performance picture of the employee. These are very useful for a company to use for an annual snapshot of the team dynamics as a whole, as well.

Employers can use assessments to reevaluate employees at any time, measuring their cognitive and behavioral traits. If you have any concerns regarding a new hire, keep in mind that the use of employee assessments can help retain talent. In the long run, you will be able to find a good fit for your company as well as for the job at hand. The right person for the job will be more productive and stay engaged in his/her work…creating a positive atmosphere for everyone.

Image Credit: By Employeeperformance (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

7 Ways Human Resources Can Use Application Management Software

When you purchase software, it’s always nice to learn everything about what the software can do right away. However, we all know this is not always a realistic possibility depending on the extent of available features. Sometimes, you have to “grow” into the application. With ExactHire’s applicant application management software we are occasionally asked for ideas on other ways this employment application software can be used. Here are the highlights:

As An External Employment Application

Let’s start with the most traditional and primary use of the ATS – an external application to invite applicants to apply to open positions.

As An Internal Application For Interoffice Transfers

The ATS can also be used for existing employees that want to transfer to another position within the company. You can create an internal employment application and post jobs exclusively to your internal job board. If you would like to, you can also post the jobs to both job boards – internal & external. The advantage of a separate internal application is that you can ask your internal applicants different questions and allow the application to be shorter. For internal applicants you may want to know how long they’ve been in their current positions or if they have been on a performance plan in the last six months.

Additional Applications For Volunteer Management, Internships, Executive Candidates, etc.

If your regular external application won’t meet the needs of all your external applicants, you can have separate applications attached to job postings focused on volunteer opportunities, internships and/or executive positions. These applications may either ask different questions than your regular external application; or, they may just need to be shorter in order to engage these audiences of individuals to apply.

Build An Applicant Pool Over Time

You can also post jobs for future opportunities at your company. Adding screening questions that ask what type of job one would seek and/or why the applicant is interested in your company is a good way to help you review those applications. This helps you to have a reservoir of applicants for when you’re ready to begin an active search down the road.

Record The Applicants’ Movement And Notes

In addition to simply collecting applications, the ATS is really wonderful to help record where applicants are in the process for you and your team. First interview, second interview, etc. This work flow record keeping ability comes in handy when you have more than one person touching applicant records. Notes, in addition to statuses, can be recorded…including the author of the note.

Applicant Reporting

All of the recordkeeping comes in handy when it’s time to access reporting options in the system. If you are subject to Affirmative Action Reporting or Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reporting, the software can help simplify that process. Some reports come standard with the software, and others can be built in the reports section. Even if you are not required to do compliance reporting for governmental purposes, chances are your financial department will want to see efficiency reporting to justify your recruitment spending…all of which can be pulled from the software, as well.

Requisition Management To Approve Positions

Requisition management is another feature available for use within the ATS. Requiring approval on potential positions is often a critical piece of the hiring process. After all, budgets are critical in successful businesses and if you’re hiring someone, it’s good to know if you have the budget, as well as management approval, for such activities.

There are many other benefits applicant tracking software can bring to your organization. If you have questions, please feel free to contact us. It never hurts to ask the question!

Image credit: Number 7 by Eric Gravengaard (contact)

Top 5 Considerations For Understanding Employee Assessments

Employee assessments have been around for decades. Organizations use them for hiring, team-building, conflict resolution and succession planning. While there are many legitimate options for these tools in the marketplace, there are many more that either aren’t very reliable or, worse yet, aren’t legal to use in certain situations. I get asked about these a lot, so it seems to make sense to help frame out some of the key things to consider if you’re currently using (or plan to use) assessments in your organization.

For my purposes here, I’m going to focus on behavior/personality assessments. That’s because these are the types of assessments whose accuracy and applicability are typically most difficult for people to confirm.

The Big Five Personality Traits

Most of these assessments are ultimately based on the “Big Five” personality traits. To make it easier to remember, you can use the acronym “OCEAN”:

  • O = Openness (degree to which someone is open to a variety of experiences)
  • C = Conscientiousness (willing to work, self-discipline)
  • E = Extraversion (importance of social stimulation)
  • A = Agreeableness (cooperative vs. antagonistic)
  • N = Neuroticism (need for stability)

Beyond these Big Five, most assessments now have created varying numbers of sub-scales to look into these various traits in more detail. Regardless of how they might be configured, having this basic working knowledge can help you to make sure a given assessment has at least the beginnings of being legitimate. Now, let’s look at five items that can help you be even more discerning in your evaluation:

Ipsative vs. Normative

Ipsative assessments are forced choice tools that provide a measurement of a person’s relative strengths in various categories. These types of tools tend to be used more in post-hire activities, as they don’t compare a person to others.

Normative assessments measure a person’s characteristics against confirmed patterns of normality — the population at large. Due to this, these types of tools tend to be used more for hiring.

Validity

Validity defines what characteristics an assessment is measuring and then determines if that assessment is truly measuring those characteristics. In other words, does it do what it’s supposed to do? There are a host of ways to validate assessments, but asking a provider for their validity studies is an excellent way to gauge how well the solution is put together.

Reliability

Reliability defines how dependably (or “reliably”) an assessment measures certain characteristics. This is usually gauged by how consistent the results are for groups of people who take the same assessment multiple times. Typically, you’ll want to work with an assessment that has a reliability score of .80 or better. As with validity referenced above, reliability figures are typically included in most assessment providers’ validation studies.

Distortion

One of the primary concerns for many people considering assessments for their organization is how easily others may be able to manipulate results. For any tool you’re considering, be sure that it has a way to detect this. Often called distortion or candidness, most quality tools will be able to flag those who have provided answers that are inconsistent.

Benchmarking

To help assessments really enable you to better understand what key traits are common in your high (or low) performers, it’s important to be able to benchmark existing performers within your organization. This usually includes looking at both ends of the performance spectrum. Being able to use results of real people performing certain functions within your culture and work atmosphere allows you to zero in on those particular traits/characteristics that are difference-makers for you.

Assessments, when used appropriately, can be significant predictors of success. They can also help you handle conflicts, promote from within and ensure current staff are in the best positions possible. I hope these core items help you choose the best options for you and your organization.

For more information on employee assessments available through ExactHire, please contact us today. 

Image credit: Pinky & the Brain by JD Hancock (contact)