Today we have one more very special member of the development team to introduce you to – John Tavener
John has been with the Placement Partner team for almost 5 years now and has contributed a massive amount of innovative, value-adding features to the system in this time. He also happens to be a passionate musician who knows how to shred it on a guitar! A sure sign that creative flair plays an important role, even in our tech office.
Here is what John has to say about his journey with the Placement Partner family:
You are probably the superhero of Placement Partner because you are all about developing any new Features and Benefits that our system has to offer! What would you say is the most exciting part of your job?
I enjoy pretty much all aspects of developing. Whether it is adding new features or updating existing features. I’m the guy who spends hours pouring over new information and researching ideas to make the new features work and integrate smoothly with the existing architecture. It’s tough work; endlessly making a little progress and then running into a new challenge which must be navigated. But in the end, reaching our goal and launching cool new features is incredibly rewarding!
What goes into developing these features and benefits?
All of our feature additions come directly from our clients. We are constantly listening to our users to find out what could be a key aspect that could benefit their workflow. We sit as a team and assess whether it is viable and whether this change would deliver the best possible value for the resources we put into the project. Once we have determined the best course of action then start developing, always keeping the client in mind as we do so. It’s actually quite a complicated process because we have hundreds of clients to take into consideration every time we make a change to the system. Luckily, over the last 2 decades, we have learnt how to use our client feedback in such a way as to maximize the benefits and deliver a system which keeps all of our recruiters working smarter, and not harder.
Who are you thinking about when making these changes and how do you ensure you answer the brief every single time?
Firstly, communication with the client is key! We have been through the learning phase where we might have assumed to know what our clients wanted and we know all too well by now that a lot can be lost in translation! As such, we stay in constant contact with our clients to ensure that we are answering the brief correctly and solving real-world problems, rather than just delivering bells and whistles.
And secondly, I’m always thinking about the client and their workflow when I develop new tools. We understand the recruitment process and the challenges faced by recruiters better than any other South African Recruitment Management System. I’m certain of that!
Is there anything in the pipeline that our clients can get excited about?
I’ll let you all in on one feature which I’m incredibly excited about! With the imminent update to Placement Partner (affectionately known as Placement Partner V8), we are proud to be launching Zoom integration. In this Covid-19 environment, having video meeting functionality which plugs directly into Placement Partner will benefit our clients massively.
Although we are all struggling in these difficult times, its incredible to see our work on features like Video Interview Tool and this new Zoom Integration really being adopted in the South African market. Our Video Interview functionality was way ahead of it’s time when we first launched it in 2018 but now, tools like these are absolutely essential. It’s great to know we have equipped our clients with these essentials ‘ahead of the curve’!
