So, what is lean hiring you ask? Lean hiring is a process defined by the same core principles as lean manufacturing, the philosophy that revolutionized process management in the 1990’s. “Lean hiring is the systematic approach to recruiting that increases overall productivity by eliminating wasted steps and periods of inactivity, maximizing resources and promoting consistency.”

Newton is the brainchild of former corporate recruiters (that’s us) who began developing the product in 2004 after becoming frustrated with existing commercial recruiting platforms. Having run corporate recruiting programs for nearly 10 years with hard-copy resumes, fax, email, spreadsheets and legacy software- we wanted to leverage the benefits of internet technology to help us provide a better service to our clients. We wanted something that would make rolling out, ramping up, managing, and improving hiring programs easier. We wanted something that offered a more collaborative recruiting experience. And, we needed something that was intuitive and easy-to-use for recruiters, candidates and hiring managers. Essentially, we needed something that would make the recruiting process as simple as possible.

As former recruiters, we have managed hundreds of thousands of applicants through hundreds of recruiting processes. Over the years, our hiring process became more complex with ever increasing forms, spreadsheets, candidate sources and work-arounds.. Finally, the “Newton apple” fell on our heads and we realized that we had to eliminate all of that complexity and as they say in the world of  lean, bring the entire recruiting process in control.

The second part of our collective epiphany was that the recruiting process is a natural candidate for lean. In simple terms, recruiting is a series of sequential waterfall tasks that are defined by a series of yes / no decision events. At its root, the hiring process is not complex, but there are several magnets for wasted activity (or inactivity) that can slow it down, confuse people, and lead to breakdowns / failures. We set out to eliminate all of the steps that waste resources, cause inconsistency, and add unnecessary steps to hiring.

Newton is designed to move applicants through each stage of the process in a systematic, orderly, and continuous manner and to eliminate periods of inactivity between each stage. This workflow is native to Newton and doesn’t require weeks of customization to leverage. On the same token, it’s also not designed to allow users to add unnecessary steps to hiring.

We’ve built years of practical recruiting knowledge into Newton, offering our customers a competitive advantage from day one. Think of Wal-Mart turning itself inside out, offering its industry-leading supply chain and logistics systems to any and all outsiders, even rival retailers. Or, imagine Amazon renting out everything it uses to run its own business, spare computing capacity on its thousands of servers, data storage on its disk drives, and the millions of lines of software code that coordinates all that (they do this). When you choose Newton, you get a recruiting platform that’s designed around a proven, fully optimized workflow that promotes collaboration, captures critical data for compliance, and provides game-changing analytics. It’s not just a tool … it’s an infrastructure for recruiting.

Here’s how it works

Optimize your recruiting workflow and HIRE FASTER.

Translation: get rid of all the “muda” (lean lingo for waste) that slows down your hiring process

The easiest way to hire people faster is to eliminate wasted steps in your process and reduce periods of inactivity i.e. waiting. Newton standardizes the stages of your recruiting process while maintaining enough flexibility to address dynamic events. Knowing all the stops in a process makes it easier than ever to measure recruiting performance and to pinpoint and eliminate periods of inactivity which lead to inefficiency. Newton standardizes the process of hiring by removing inefficient activities (i.e., friction) in the hiring process, reducing periods of inactivity (wasted time) and promoting decision making (green is go, red is no).

We’re also looking into ways to incorporate an electroshock device that will “notify” people when they have a task to complete but, we’re not sure if it’s legal.

Use Newton real-time analytics measure stage-to-stage performance

Automate iterative tasks and MAXIMIZE YOUR RESOURCES.

Translation: automate the crap that frustrates the heck out of your recruiters

One of the pillar concepts of lean processes is “autonomation” (from Toyota), or smart automation. Newton is designed to automate repetitive tasks, freeing up recruiters to do what recruiters do best – talk to other humans. For example, with Newton’s Thank You Letter feature, never before have recruiters been able to improve the candidate experience with so little manual work. For many years, the best practice literature has said that every candidate should get a Thank You Letter, yet probably less than 1% of company recruiters actually send them out. (We imagine that a decent percentage of the companies that do send these emails are mostly Newton customers . One click and recruiters are back to work and applicants are in the know and feeling more positive about your company.

We’re trying to figure out a way to automate meetings, but that may be a ways off.

Improve the candidate experience without creating extra work for your team with Newton’s Thank You Letter Feature

Stay in compliance and improve quality of hires by PROMOTING CONSISTENCY.

Translation: collect the right information all the time so nothing goes down on your watch

In a complex system, consistency is only achieved through discipline and a whole lot of practice. Newton fast-forwards user training because the decision process is as simple as “yes” or “no. Newton allows you to operate and manage a streamlined recruiting process that promotes consistency across all departments. Ultimately, consistency drives more than just efficiency or cost reductions, it’s also critical for promoting compliance. No matter what size recruiting program you’re running, recruiting is subject to government regulation and only Newton will help you capture all the essentials automatically.

Newton is like insurance for your recruiting program.

Stay in compliance by promoting consistency.  Newton is insurance for your recruiting program.