We've been evaluating a new tool called PostTrak™ for a couple of weeks. From here, it looks like the sort of incremental move that facilitates the delivery of any number of promises.  By actively and accurately managing every response from every job board, PostTrak™ allows a recruiter (or recruiting department) to build a completely accurate knowledge base that shows how various vendors respond. Over time, this knowledge base will give a specific company the specific expertise required to precisely target online recruitment advertising spending.

Although there are similar tools and lots of similar promises, we know of no other tool that is designed to integrate seamlessly with any ATS vendor's product or enterprise software installation. Compact and focused in its execution, PostTrak™ solves a single problem comprehensively. It's the focus and ease of integration that makes it so powerful. We're sure that it's the single point solution to a single point problem that makes the solutions of other, larger issues fall into place. Because the PostTrak™ solution does not depend on the availability of some other system (like similar functionality that is causing problems in the BrassRing user base), the data can be generated and integrated as a baseline for all systems.

Custom reporting makes it possible to build the database that allows tracking of the process from sourcing through disposition, the entire employment lifecycle. The core media performance metrics elegantly measure the output of a given job board, tag the response accordingly and seamlessly pass the results through email. Statistics can be generated by job, vendor, geography, time or discipline.

Since every response to every job ad is tagged with an identity, tracking can be accomplished at any of a variety of levels. We'll be using a standardized feed of jobs to produce an industry scorecard, something like a "Response Power Ranking" based on this data. We may, as opportunity makes itself available, expand the ranking system to include various vertical markets and niches.

The biggest surprise? PostTrak™ is a product of the oft-maligned RecruitUSA. The downturn has not been kind to any of the companies who are the middlemen in our industry. From advertising agencies to the JAD companies, the recession has had its most dramatic impact on firms like RecruitUSA. Only HodesIQ has demonstrated anything like similar innovation in the midst of the down cycle..

We'd suggest that you avoid the rush and arrange a demo of the PostTrak™ functionality. We're pretty sure that it's the first solution to a problem that allows an individual company to develop media planning based on experience while tagging each response in order to provide a front-end foundation for workforce analytics.

-John Sumser