Archive for April, 2008

.NET Logging Framework


Introduction There are various logging solutions available for .NET based applications. All these logging frameworks have certain advantages and disadvantages but all of them aim towards helping the user in identifying and solving issues with the applications when it is almost impossible to take help of other debugging and monitoring tools. This article tries to give you an overview of logging in general with a focus on log4net as one of the most commonly used logging framework for .NET applications. Continue reading ‘.NET Logging Framework’

IdeaReboot Referral Program


Lets Grow Together - IdeaReboot is pleased to announce its IdeaReboot Spider Program. IdeaReboot is a client-focused, human capital solutions provider with its headquarters in Redwood City, CA and regional offices Florida. It provides its services to leading IT firm country wide in helping them with their staffing needs for Direct, Temp & Temp-to-Direct hires. The services include:

  • Direct Hire
  • Contract, temporary and project staffing
  • Temp-to-Hire
  • Individual career counseling

As a fast growing IT Staffing Solutions provider in the industry, IdeaReboot understands the importance of maintaining and furthering its contacts in the IT network. It adopts this program to recognize its colleagues and partners who refer IT professionals & candidates at different career stages and domains to us or makes us aware of opportunities where our services could be utilized. IdeaReboot believes in building a long term relationship with our partners and creating an ongoing revenue stream for them with every referral.

CANDIDATE REFERRAL*
IdeaReboots Candidate Referral Program provides a tangible benefit to any individual who refers an outstanding IT candidate to our attention for possible placement.
Referred candidate accepts job offer and begins working
Referral reward is released as soon as within 30 days of a successful conversion

JOB ORDER REFERAL**
IdeaReboots Job Order Referral Program provides a tangible benefit to any individual who refers a placement opportunity to our attention. The benefits available depend on the type of job order referred.

PERMANENT PLACEMENT

  • Referral benefit can be a significant percentage of the candidates annual salary.
  • This percentage may vary based on the annual salary of the candidate.
  • In some cases the Referral benefit can be a fixed amount closed between the referrer and IdeaReboot.

TEMP, CONTRACT OR PROJECT PLACEMENT

  • A referral which results in the engagement of IdeaReboot on a temp/contract or project placement
  • Referral benefit can be an ongoing revenue stream which is a percentage of candidates hourly rate
  • In some cases the Referral benefit can be a fixed amount closed between the referrer and IdeaReboot which is a one time amount dispersed in the first 30 days of the contract

* IdeaReboot’s Candidate Referral Program does not apply to any individual that IdeaReboot is working with, is in its database or approaches IdeaReboot directly.

*** In order to avoid the appearance of impropriety, the “IdeaReboot Spider” Program is not available to persons whose primary responsibility is hiring within IdeaReboot.

Please feel free to call us with questions, comments or concerns at (650) 632-4346 or (650) 587-0832. Be sure to visit us on the web at www.IdeaReboot.com or email us at leads@ideareboot.com

Ten Tips for Finding the Most Suitable Staffing Solution Provider


Staffing Solution providers nationwide employ an average of nearly 3 million workers each day, providing companies with unrivaled workforce flexibility and giving human resource professionals rapid access to talent. Staffing firms also offer competitive wages and benefits to attract outstanding people, and the firms provide free training to millions of temporary, contract employees & permanent employees.

In todays dynamic and extremely competitive business climate, finding the right job & employer is a key for it, not about just finding another job but BUILDING YOUR CAREER. How do candidates stand to gain by working with a staffing firm? 80% of staffing companies do not market candidates, instead focus on client requirements since that is the primary source of revenue for them. However, a staffing firm is as critical for candidates as it is for the employers to find the right talent. For starters, you can benefit from the staffing firms client network in finding you a job with some of the leading employers in a domain that completely fits your profile. Of course, the list does not end here and there are other advantages of selecting the right staffing solution for your self. Continue reading ‘Ten Tips for Finding the Most Suitable Staffing Solution Provider’

Candidate Management Process


If one just replaces the word chaos with the word Staffing industry, the above quote by Tom Barrett sums up the entire staffing industry of today. In may 2007, when the Idea of IdeaReboot was still at a very nascent stage and we were still debating the rationale of going into the Staffing domain. The one thing that struck us was the chaos and the opportunity that this chaos holds.The Staffing industry is a highly competitive market with very few standards and even fewer processes in place. The result is total chaos. How many times a candidate who has just Nunit testing mentioned in his/her resume has got a call from a staffing company for a testing lead position? How many times the Candidate has been called for an interview and later realizing his/her profile does not match with the requirement? How many times the clients receive the same candidates from different staffing companies for the same requirement? There are numerous such instances that cause heartburn, pain, wastage of time and effort during the recruitment process for both the clients and the candidates. Given the nature of demand in this industry, the staffing companies do get away with murder and they are somehow able to place their candidates but if we see the value they add to the clients and candidates during this whole process, the answer would not be very surprising nil.The situation portrayed above might paint a very grim picture of the staffing industry but all is not lost and lets not forget it gives an immense opportunity for growth and bringing some semblance in this chaos for the staffing companies who wants to walk that extra mile and this is the premise on which the IdeaReboot was started. The vision for IdeaReboot was very clear, Quality not quantity will bring in the order.There are three entities in any recruitment process Clients, Candidates and the Staffing companies. The objective of this article is to focus on the interaction between Candidate and IdeaReboot, how IdeaReboot works with its candidates and how its processes work towards adding value to the Candidate which eventually leads to saving time and effort, pain, heartburn and confusion.

Given below is an image which explains the IR Candidate process, the services which IdeaReboot provides to the candidate and the value addition that a candidate gets by working with IdeaReboot.

About IdeaReboot


Overview
IdeaReboot is a Human Capital Solutions Platform which uniquely mobilizes

  • people
  • skills
  • alliances
  • technologies
  • processes

to offer top-notch services and resources to companies which employs IT workforce. Founded by technologists and HR experts, IdeaReboot is the result of years of research and analysis of the proven practices of the Staffing industry.IdeaReboot believes in a comprehensive, complete and high quality solution for meeting your workforce requirements. We maintain focus on a strategic alignment with your recruitment strategy and processes. We understand that these may differ from firm to firm, project to project and job to job. Thats why we are highly agile in our approach and have kept our solutions flexible and scalable enough to meet your unique needs. Whether you are looking to fill up an immediate position, proactively managing your future requirements or need some corrective measures for your workforce strategy, IdeaReboot is the partner you can trust.

History
IdeaReboot was founded in 2007 after a series of brainstorming sessions that included months of research on different industries and creative ideas. The IdeaReboot team that has core technologists who have been in the IT industry for the last decade decided to dive into the Staffing Industry with a vision of creating a hybrid model that would combine the traditional offline staffing services with a technology based online staffing solution. What started off as a small effort has now reached a few states in United States with the head office in Redwood City, CA. The client list within the first year already consists some of some of the leading IT consulting and product companies across United States.

 

Address & Contact Details
9055 SW 78th ST,
Suite 1409,
Miami, FL 33156
desk: +1.315.683.3001
fax: +1.305.397.2534

Terms & Conditions


Disclaimer This website may include inaccuracies, typographical, and/or clerical errors. IdeaReboot hereby disclaims any obligation, endorsement or warranty to update this website or any of its content. IdeaReboot does not guarantee the accuracy of the materials or the consistency of any advice, opinion, statement or other content displayed or distributed through the website. You, the user, agree that any reliance on any such opinion, advice, statement, memorandum, or information will be at your sole risk. IdeaReboot withholds the right, in its sole discretion, to correct any errors or omissions and modify any other content at any time in any portion of the website without notice.

Terms of use The term IdeaReboot shall mean IdeaReboot Inc. and the term User shall mean the user who is browsing the website www.IdeaReboot.com (site). IdeaReboot may modify these terms and conditions at any time without prior notice to the user.IdeaReboot does not want to receive confidential or proprietary information from the user through the website. Please note that any information or material sent to IdeaReboot will be deemed NOT to be confidential. By sending IdeaReboot any information or material, you grant an unrestricted, irrevocable license to use, reproduce, display, perform, modify, transmit and distribute those materials or information, and you also agree that IdeaReboot is free to use any ideas, concepts, know-how or techniques that the user sends for any purpose. However, names will not be released unless: (a) we obtain users permission to use the name; or (b) a notification is sent first about the materials or other information user submits or (c) IdeaReboot is required to do so by law. By using the website, the user agrees to follow and be bound by the following terms and conditions:

Trademark Policy IdeaReboots name and logo are trademarks that belong to and are the property of IdeaReboot Inc. Under no circumstances may these be used without prior written consent from IdeaReboot Inc.

Intellectual Property No content, graphic images, animations, audio, video, html code or buttons from this website may be copied, modified, reproduced, republished, uploaded, transmitted, posted, displayed, resold or distributed in any form without prior written permission from IdeaReboot . All rights not expressly granted herein are reserved. IdeaReboot may monitor access to the website. Unlawful use of the materials appearing on this website may infringe copyright, trademark and any other applicable laws, and could lead to criminal or civil penalties.

Description of services Through its array of services IdeaReboot offers the user a variety of domain expertise. The Services, including any updates, enhancements, new features, and/or the addition of any new services, are subject to the Terms of Use. Unless otherwise specified, the services are for your personal and non-commercial use. The user may not modify copy, distribute, transmit, display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any information, software, products or services obtained from the services.

Legal Notice The user makes any information available knowing that IdeaReboot may publish it. The user warrants that the material is fit for publication. User agrees to indemnify IdeaReboot if any third party takes action against the company in relation to the material the user submits. By submitting material, the user grants IdeaReboot an unrestricted, irrevocable license to use, reproduce, display, perform, modify, transmit and distribute this material or information, and also agrees that IdeaReboot is free to use any ideas, concepts, know-how or techniques that the user sends for any purpose.

Limitation of Liability In no event will IdeaReboot be liable for damages of any kind, including without limitation, direct, incidental, consequential or punitive damages arising out of any parties use of or inability to use the website, or any information provided on the website, or for any other reason whatsoever. IdeaReboot shall hold no responsibility for any kind of damage to the user’s computer system including any loss of data, loss of use or system virus that results from the download of any content, material, and/or information from IdeaReboots website.

IndemnityUser agrees to indemnify, defend and hold IdeaReboot harmless from and against all losses, expenses, damages and costs, including reasonable attorney fees, arising out of or relating to any misuse by the user of the content and services provided on the website. International users and choice of LawIdeaReboot maintains this website in Florida, USA and the user agrees that these terms of use and any legal action or proceeding relating to this website shall be governed by the laws of Florida without reference to its choice of law rules. If the user attempts to bring any legal proceedings against IdeaReboot, the user specifically acknowledges that IdeaReboot is free to choose the jurisdiction of their preference as to where such action against us may be held.Member account, password, and security. If any of the Services requires the users to open an account, then the user must complete the registration process by providing IdeaReboot with current, complete and accurate information as prompted by the applicable registration form. User will also choose a password and a user name. The user is entirely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of the password and account. Furthermore, the user is entirely responsible for any and all activities that occur under the respective account. User agrees to notify IdeaReboot immediately of any unauthorized use of an account or any other breach of security. IdeaReboot will not be liable for any loss that the user may incur as a result of someone else using the users password or account, either with or without the users knowledge. The user may not use anyone else’s account at any time, without the permission of the account holder.TerminationIdeaReboot may terminate user’s access to the website at any time for any reason. The provisions regarding disclaimer of warranty, accuracy of information and indemnification shall survive such termination.

Job Seekers - Myths & Misconceptions


Like anything else that has existed for a long time, job hunting as a practice also has a few myths associated with it. The moment you start recognizing these myths, you would suddenly be looking at a brighter career and will certainly have a lot more options in front of you.

Myth #1 if you dont see it, it does not exist A common thought process amongst job seekers but still inaccurate. As per the Federal Employment Service in CA, as much as 85% of opportunities are not marketed or made available through the traditional channels that include newspaper ads, federal and state employment agencies, private agencies or even search firms. HOWEVER, as per one of the white papers from First Advantage, 07 - there are 44 million GenXers in the workforce to replace 77 million retirees. There are millions of executives who get new jobs every year. Continue reading ‘Job Seekers - Myths & Misconceptions’

Resume Writing Services


A paper published by Association of Job Search Trainers in 2007 brought out a few very interesting facts about the importance of a resume and a recruiters psyche.

  • Most recruiters review a resume for 10 to 30 seconds.
  • Employers consider very few resumes to be excellent. Based on general surveys,
  • 98% of resumes received require 78% of revision.
  • 84% of employers prefer a one page resume for anyone with less than 5 years of experience.
  • 80% of screening happens with the resume.
  • The most important elements on your resume are your work history and experience.
  • Spelling errors and typos have the worst impression on Employers or recruiters.

So, those 10-30 seconds pretty much define your future with the recruiter and the only one thing that influences that decision making is your resume. To steer clear of the recycle bin one needs to have a skillfully crafted resume that will dramatically increase the response rate from recruiters and shorten the job search time. Without exaggeration a professionally written resume can lead to 5k - 10k increase in your offered salary. A resume is supposedly you at your best and any mistakes there reflect carelessness. It should be a compelling force that makes the employer reach out to you and schedule the following rounds. It not only helps you bridge the gap between you and the employer, it also defines the direction of your interview. Despite these known facts, candidates normally find it challenging to create the right resume. Summarizing a 10 year work experience in a single line in the objective section can be tough but not impossible. The first line in the resume sets the tone for everything else. Another aspect that makes resume creation tough is the ever changing standards & guidelines for resumes. In a world of Google search and search engines, having the right keywords without losing the central focus in a resume is the key.

IdeaReboots resume services

IdeaReboot has a team of resume experts, trained in resume writing best practices & guidelines with extensive experience in scanning and writing resumes across various domains & career stages. Our services are available for FREE to our candidates who work with us for either full-time or part-time jobs. Here are a few services & advantages offered by IdeaReboot as part of its service model:

Highly trained-professional team of resume writers - Our team of resume experts not only use their resume writing skills but also leverage their IT experience to guide our candidates come up with the right resume for their career stage.

Direct and personal interaction -Our career coach and resume expert will go through multiple iterations with you to understand your job preferences, experience history, skills set and use all that information to come up with a well crafted resume. Customized and well designed resume - Resumes for each candidate are customized and designed to meet the needs of their target audience with the objective of motivating employers to review the resume in detail. Each candidate gets a copy of their resume in word and PDF format.Interview guidance Besides helping our candidates with a high standard resume, we also make them go through a series of technical and soft skill evaluation based on their domain and guide them through the entire process. The technology panel works with the candidates and grooms them for the interviews. Our extensive evaluation package includes a thorough assessment and feedback packet that can be used by the candidate even in future.

Satisfaction and guaranteed at no cost - At the end, IdeaReboot offers an entire package that includes a well defined industry standard resume that places you on top of the pack along with constant career guidance with interview tips & a detailed evaluation feedback packet that goes a long way even beyond your new job. And all this at NO COST!!! Its our effort to go above and beyond for our candidates and offer that edge that can compete with the best in the industry.

IdeaReboot Workforce Solutions


IdeaReboot believes in a comprehensive, complete and high quality solution for meeting your workforce requirements. We maintain focus on a strategic alignment with your recruitment strategy and processes. We understand that these may differ from firm to firm, project to project and job to job. Thats why we are highly agile in our approach and have kept our solutions flexible and scalable enough to meet your unique needs. Whether you are looking to fill up an immediate position, proactively managing your future requirements or need some corrective measures for your workforce strategy, IdeaReboot is the partner you can trust.Flexibility in the choice of staffing strategy is of key importance in meeting your workforce requirements. We thoroughly understand that and aim to deliver our solutions for all kind of hires:

Direct Hire We ensure that your long-term investment in direct hires pays off well. Our stringent evaluation process ensures that only the best of breed are filtered to your recruitment process. Our candidate assessment is tuned not only towards evaluating the technical prowess but also focuses on evaluating the adaptability, flexibility and the well-roundedness of the candidate.

Consultant HireContract hiring is an important part of recruitment strategy either for the flexibility it offers or the niche talent it brings. We maintain a roster of highly trained professionals who have consistently exceeded clients expectations. They cut across a wide spectrum of domains and technologies and are trained to quickly adapt, learn and deliver.

Temp-to-Hire There is a serious investment of domain and technical knowledge that goes towards training contract hires. These resources sometimes become attractive for your business to hire them as full-time employees. We are committed towards the success of our clients and candidates alike and unlike some of the staffing agencies, we encourage temp-to-hire. Although our services can be mixed and matched, tailored and scaled for your unique needs, they broadly fall under the following three categories.

  • Tactical Hiring
  • Strategic HirinG
  • Workforce Consulting

Tactical Hiring
Tactical hiring runs the majority of project requirements. Our services are tailored for an extremely quick turnaround for such on-demand requirements. We understand that these are always urgent in nature and should have been filled by yesterday without compromising on the quality of the candidates.

  • We ensure that your open positions reach out to the largest audience possible in the quickest possible way.
  • We have a ready talent pool of 55,000 candidates, an extremely viral Idea NETwork of referrers, partners and professionals;
  • We advertise your positions on numerous job boards and manage submissions to open job search engines.
  • Backed by an extremely stringent evaluation process, we have consistently maintained a high conversion ratio that ensures you do not have to deal with an unwanted load of sub-standard resumes and candidatures.

Strategic Hiring
Strategic hiring is quickly emerging as a frontline recruitment strategy and is critical in taking the HR function of your business to the next level. It helps in maintaining the competitive edge of your business by proactively managing your workforce requirements ahead of time. For volume-based recurring needs to support a constant stream of talent, IdeaReboot builds a sourcing program, led by experienced analysts to align our research capacity with your specific needs.This typically involves a collaborative approach to

  • analyzing your project requirements in the light of your business goals and competition,
  • assessing and correcting gaps in your current candidate reach and
  • formalizing an efficient and high quality evaluation programWe recommend a commitment of 3-6 months for building up and executing such a strategic sourcing plan, marketing your brand to the right candidate audience and significantly enhancing your talent pool.

Workforce Consulting
This is a logical extension of our Strategic Hiring solution where we apply the rigor of years of research, analysis and learning in building the most suitable workforce strategies for you. We understand the nuances of short, mid and long term HR strategies and how in certain cases they may conflict with each other. There is no one-size-fits-all solution and hence for suggesting any corrective measures, we believe in building a collaborative process that combines your ideas, expertise and knowledge of your business goals with our experience and analysis. We establish an interactive environment based on dialogue with your team, encouraging people at all levels in the organization to contribute to a solution that will work. We thoroughly assess your HR processes to identify gaps. We go on to develop an execution plan for implementing the best practices for successful human capital management. Our consulting team brings on board seasoned expertise on the following functions:

  • Recruitment strategy
  • Evaluation of Vendor management solutions
  • Employee assessment and selection
  • On-boarding practices
  • Talent and team development
  • Performance management
  • Compensation strategy
  • HR processes and policies
  • Employee retention practices
  • Employee growth programs

Besides the HR expertise, we also bring a unique technology advantage to you. Idea Reboot has in its core, a technical team that comprises of the brightest in the industry who have architected solutions for several business domains and led project teams of various sizes. On a per-need basis, we leverage this expertise to help your technology team with solution-architecture, project planning and design.

The IR Factor - Why IR…


IdeaReboot is a Human Capital Solutions Platform which uniquely mobilizes

people skills, alliances,technologies, processes

to offer top-notch services and resources to companies which employs IT workforce. Founded by technologists and HR experts, IdeaReboot is the result of years of research and analysis of the proven practices of the Staffing industry.

IdeaReboot Advantage
IdeaReboot offers a gamut of services which aims at providing you with an ADVANTAGE that will help address the issues impacting your recruitment strategy. With these advantages, you are well set to beat your intra-industry recruiting competition.

Reducing Cost to Hire Our services despite being world-class come at a highly competitive price. We achieve cost savings by employing repeatable, optimized processes driven largely by automation and best practices. All these cost savings are passed directly to you, significantly reducing your cost-to-hire. Just so you know we consider a 25%-35% agency fee of a full-time hire ludicrously high!

Reducing Vacancy Cost Our quick turnaround time with a high-conversion rate in providing well evaluated, high quality candidates is aimed at significantly reducing the number of days a position remains vacant. We share with you the candidate-book consisting of all who were considered by IdeaReboot for a given position. This ensures that the more you work with us, the faster and bigger your talent pool becomes, ready to be employed for your future needs.

Increasing Candidate Reach We employ our proprietary S.E.A.R.C.H tool (Search Engine Adaptation for Recursive Candidate Hunt) to reach candidates which are well beyond the reach of job boards. Coupled with our existing quality network of professionals, the tool guarantees us a virtually limitless scope for reaching candidates.

Bridging Communication gap We market your job requirement on various channels across the Internet. These include job search engines, job boards, sites and blogs with viewership from potential candidates. Besides this, we float your requirement on Idea Net (IR network), and very quickly it gets a viral spread. In the past, we have ourselves been amazed at the magnitude of responses we received.

Resolving Retention crisis While the retention capacity is determined largely by the market opportunities and workplace dynamics, we go an extra mile in guaranteeing you a free replacement for any of our candidates quitting your firm within a reasonable period of time. Alternatively, we also provide consulting services that could help you understand and manage your workforce attrition issues.

How We Add Value
Idea Net: the staffing network - Over the years, we have invested heavily into creating a valuable network for us. We have built an active talent pool of over 55,000 available candidates and have created a network of 4000 (and ever-growing) referrers, partner firms and professionals who are always keen to generate referrals for us. We also maintain active mailing lists of our own and are a part of a number of popular ones which advertise jobs to a large number of candidates. We periodically conduct seminars with several industry associations to constantly expand our network. All of this is what we collectively call Idea Net. We effectively utilize this in generating quick and massive, viral responses to your requirements. This also plays a critical role when we attempt to execute a program for recruitment branding for you.

Invaluable Team Our team is our biggest asset. We come from very diverse backgrounds, experience and expertise. From HR experts with over 20 years of recruiting background to seasoned technologists, from sharp industry researchers & analysts to fresh-out-of-college statisticians, from researching psychologists to nerdy web surfers, we have an eclectic mix of talent that is highly adaptable and efficient in working out smart solutions and rendering top-notch services. Idea Reboot has been founded by hardcore technologists who have created enterprise-scale applications for several business domains. With a been there, done that advantage, we are uniquely placed in thoroughly understanding your project needs and requirements not only as HR experts but also from the perspective of project managers, architects and team leads.

Dedicated Account Analysts We believe in building an enduring relationship with you. We dedicate analysts to work exclusively with you to build and tailor our services to meet your objectives. The analysts are experts in developing solutions after understanding your workplace dynamics, business goals, success criteria, corporate fit, technology and requirement needs.

Redefining S.E.A.R.C.H. Search Engine Adaptation for Recursive Candidate Hunt. We have developed a sophisticated tool for adapting various open/specialized search engines and professional networking sites to crawl the entire Internet and help us accurately search for candidates and their resumes. The tool offers us a rich set of options and flexibility and its results guarantee that if a candidate exists anywhere on the internet, he/she is reach-able by us. These candidates are typically not available on existing job-boards, thus giving us and eventually you a tremendous advantage.

Evaluation & training We maintain on board a panel of technologists who have been trained in the best practices of interviewing and training. The panel maintains a rich set of question bank and internal online/offline training materials. They apply rigor in evaluating a candidate in terms of the assessment content, coverage and scoring guidelines. The evaluation process applies a progressive methodology of assessing the candidates in several rounds. After each such round, a detailed feedback is given to the candidate, which forms the basis for subsequent assessment rounds. Additionally, we provide free training to deserving candidates to close any minor before he/she can be considered a perfect fit for your needs.We have the resources, processes and infrastructure to completely take over your candidate assessment function and reduce your imputed cost-to-hire. On a per-need basis, we also conduct 3rd-party online testes/certifications for our potential candidates. As an additional service, we also execute on-demand background checks and verifications.

Competitive Pricing Our services come at a highly competitive price. The attractive part of our model is that you get a whole gamut of services free and you pay only for the converts. These free services typically include job postings to multiple job boards, search engine submissions, viral response elicitation, candidate-mining, evaluations and recruitment branding. Besides saving costs through repeatable, optimized processes incorporating the best methodologies, we also aim at reducing the need for “middleman” staffing firms, thereby further reducing our costs. All our cost savings translate to reduced fees for you.

Recruitment Branding Majority of the firms allocate a large part of their marketing budget only to reach out to the target audience of their services and/or products. We believe that potential candidates form an equally important audience segment for your branding initiatives. We translate this belief into a set of services that help you reach out to the largest possible talent pool with a message containing the unique success proposition that your business model and workplace stands for. Our Idea Net and dedicated account analysts play a critical role in defining that segment and building such a recruitment branding program.