My last stats related post I was laying out my baseline group of trackers and widgets. I also said that I wanted to look for a newer, more comprehensive stats tracker. Thanks to two of my commentors, R.Mainz and Scott over at TechFires I found two very nice counters/trackers … really!

R.Mainz suggested I try GoStats (who is a fellow Entrecard user, like me) and check-out their in depth stat tracker. I can tell you, for drilling down on your site clicks, these folks at GoStats have this friggin’ thing buttoned down. While I am unable to access some very specific analysis tools, because I am using the free version right now, this site has massive potential for everyone! And, using the free version is purely my choice - do not read anything into this one bit, please. I am on a very fixed income presently and free is my way, today!

Scott (TechFires) sent me over to GetClicky. Scott’s site TechFires also uses Entrecard, which for me gives very serious street-cred when it comes to a referral to another site/tool. And, I have to tell you, hands down, these folks make an awesome tool! I have pretty much moved all the other trackers OUT of my daily start-up routine in the morning. All my bookmarks are out of the Firefox start-up bookmarks group I use - it just has GetClicky! You just have to see the tool to believe it - truly. I, and this is always personal, love their interface, ease of use, and powerful incorporation of AJAX. Not overdone at all, it just moves the way I like to move around a site. One caveat for now, from the folks at GetClicky, is that they cannot CURRENTLY support sites that get 50,000 page views per day. I am, a small fish, so this was a no-brainer for them to sign me up. And, I can have up to 3 sites with less than a combined traffic rate of 3,000 page views per day (1,000 page views per site), for FREE! Not bad, eh?!

Anyway, wanted to update you all on my search for a nice, throrough, and pleasing tool for stats and trackers to use with all of my blogs and sites.

Almost Done Looking …

Alright, now that this new blog is getting a little traffic (thanks to Entrecard) I’ve been looking at the numbers. I’ve used mostly StatCounter and SiteMeter over the last 3 years of blogging. On my other blogs, the data isn’t as important to me, just that I see who is clicking through and how long they stay. However, today it is a very different story because I’d like to confirm the response to an add placed on an Entrecard site I’ve chosen. Therefore, for this new blog, I’ll enumerate for you all the tracking widgets and services I’m using - you’ll see how eclectic this is right now!

Here’s a quick list, with a little extra background on each:

• Added StatCounter first, because, well, I’ve always used them
• Added SiteMeter because TTLB requires a SiteMeter tracker (see next item)
• Added an “old standby” for me, which is The Truth Laid Bear (TTLB)
• Added the WordPress stat plugin so that I could track from within my own site (clever, eh?)
• Added another new site/ranker I found on another site, IZEARanks
• Added an Alexa tracker - for the fun of it ’cause I’ve never ever showed any sort of kick-up on Alexa.
• Added Technorati ’cause it goes well with other StumbleUpon users - they like to have ya “Fave” them (even though I’ve not been faved back - hey, FAVE me!)

I’ve gotta say, all these crazy counters are just not giving me what I need or want! I know, you’re saying, “But Steve, you picked all the free ones, Dude! So, spend some coin!” That’s all well and good if the company was generating revenue and also I had a JOB!

You’d think that there would be someone out there with a site that truly saw every flippin’ hit … wouldn’t you?

Still Looking …

For as long as I have been a hiring manager, I have been faced with the problem of getting the right candidate for the open req - or reqs if I was lucky. Back in the day - you know before online job sites, resume scarfing/scrapers, and formal in-house onboarding tools suites - we had a notebook (the paper kind!), a pen, a spreadsheet, limited e-mail capability, and the phone and a FAX machine. If you wanted to get a candidate into the queue, you contacted your HR Team for the approved list of “head hunters” and you started collecting resumes. Alas, the fun begins …

On the other side, the recruiters that I worked with back in the day were troubled every single time they began a new relationship with a hiring manager. There is really no nice way to put this, but, more often than not the HR Team and their hiring managers weren’t very clear or helpful in making the relationship work. Recruiters were saddled with tons of paper needing to be sifted through, having to make keyword-based searches using tools ranging from the well developed to the really clunky, and these sites and tools not being very recruiter savvy. Let’s face it, our recruiting teams continue to face these huge challenges today, and they can really use support! Alas, newer tools hit the market …

Today, there are so many tools, so many sites, and these solutions are huge and expensive requiring considerable tweaking to get it right. Often I hear from both hiring managers and recruiters that we really haven’t matured. True, these web-based services (SaaS) or heavily entrenched corporate tools (say, Oracle/PeopleSoft) have made great strides in organizing the candidate pool, providing accountability to keep candidates moving through the system, and even giving everyone an easier way to get the candidate into the company (onboarding), it’s still a very inefficient system and relationship.

Is there really room out there for another tool? Is there truly a very simple process, based upon some “old school” approaches, that can make the relationship flourish? And, hopefully, can you provide me with this tool, at a very competitive price, and help me get what I need, regardless if I am the hiring manager, the HR Team, the recruiter, the senior executive, or even the candidate?!

We here at Staff IT Right© know we have what you need. Keep reading, we’re listening, and we know …