Decision Toolbox Blog: Blog/News

With the Memorial Day holiday upon us, there’s no better time to step up our efforts to help unemployed U.S. veterans enter or re-enter the civilian workforce. There are currently more than 250,000 unemployed veterans in the marketplace, and this number is expected to rise to nearly 1 million veterans seeking employment in the U.S.

In return for the sacrifices they have made for us and for our country, we believe it’s our collective duty to do what we can to assist these men and women in the next chapter of their lives.

Being a national, full service recruitment firm and Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) provider, we at Decision Toolbox (DT) feel we’re in a unique position to do just that.  Enter our Vetted Vets program, designed to bring a pool of pre-qualified veterans and quality job opportunities together, and give our veterans a 2-week head start on these opportunities.  In addition to feeling the satisfaction and positive reputation that comes with doing the right thing, other benefits of hiring veterans include:

• Vets make highly valuable employees through their reliability, dedication, loyalty, leadership skills and team attitude.
• Tax incentives are available to employers for hiring veterans. The credit ranges from $2,400 for hiring veterans who have been looking for a job for more than four weeks to $9,600 for hiring veterans with service-connected disabilities who have been looking for a job longer than six months.

Vetted Vets

The Vetted Vets program affords transitioning U.S. veterans an advantage in the job market:  a 2-week head start on job openings. How is this done? For the first two weeks of a Vetted Vets search, we will ONLY look at applicants who are U.S. veterans. We will:

• Develop unique marketing tools to attract the right vets for the job.
• Disseminate the position through direct channels to veterans transitioning from the military.
• Manage the vet applicants in our unique recruiting portal, including video answers to one or more job-specific questions (when possible).
• Vet them via phone interview.
• Present the top veteran candidates to hiring managers for final review.

Decision Toolbox is pleased to offer the Vetted Vets program to employers at an extremely low price, cutting deeply into our own revenue. Why, you may ask? Because it’s simply the right thing to do and is our way of giving back.  We look forward to working on this win-win initiative with employers that are looking to do the same.

For more information on the program and how to participate, visit Vetted Vets.

(Pictured: Decision Toolbox founders, Debra and Jay Barnett circa 1992)

A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.
~ Wayne Gretzky

Founded in Southern California in 1992, this year Decision Toolbox (DT) rings in its 20^th year in the recruitment services industry.  Much has changed in our space over the years and while we’ve always been ahead of the curve, we’ve proudly maintained a keen focus on continual growth, evolution and original creation. Wise but always learning, we like to think of ourselves as part Yoda and part Grasshopper (a Yodopper, if you will).

The Early Years

In the beginning, Decision Toolbox was known as Pullscreen Communications, focusing on “double impact advertising” as a way for companies to maximize newspaper ads and avoid the high fees associated with using headhunters.  The company’s founders, Jay and Debra Barnett, were passionate about bringing new, win-win alternatives to the recruitment space, where clients would say “Thank you” when they received their bill, rather than “Ouch”!  Meanwhile, across town, Kim Shepherd was busy launching a new division of her recruitment firm focusing on high volume services at low fees.  When Kim became a client of Decision Toolbox, she and the Barnetts realized that their companies were completely complimentary and aligned on providing an innovative, quality-focused, low fee alternative to high cost headhunters.  What would make better sense than for these like-minded entrepreneurs to partner on their shared vision?  And in 2000, that’s just what they did when Kim Shepherd joined Decision Toolbox as CEO.  Many have since asked, “Why would a company choose to leave money on the table and NOT jump on the high fee bandwagon so common in the recruitment services arena?” The answer is quite simply “because it’s the right thing to do” – and this founding philosophy remains at the heart of what Decision Toolbox is today.

What’s in a Name?

Some have asked, “Why the name Decision Toolbox?”  Because every step of the hiring process presents a decision point for someone in the process – the client, the applicant, the recruiter, the candidate – and we provide decision support tools and resources to help ensure the right decisions are made at each step.  Today, our name is more relevant than ever as we have been inventing and adding groundbreaking tools to our toolbox throughout our 20 year history, and that makes for one deep toolbox!

What We’re Doing is Where It’s Going

Since status quo is not in DT’s DNA, our rear-view mirror is rather small.  We only look back long enough to identify how we can do something better, and then move forward with implementing those ideas and more.  As of this writing, DT is a 100% virtual company with nearly 100 employees located across the country.  Our clients range from smaller start-ups to large, well-known organizations.  We are known for recruitment best practices – leveraging technology and building out processes – and thought leadership in the human capital space. The last 20 years have certainly been a wild ride and we are proud of our accomplishments, but that’s enough of the past.  Our goggles are in firmly place, our foot is on the gas, and we’re eyeing where we’re going next!

DT Timeline

• 1992 – Jay and Debra Barnett found Pullscreen Communications
• 1993 – the company is rebranded as Decision Toolbox, and the cornerstone DT decision making tool is born – the Jobinfo Writeup, a hand-crafted, job-specific marketing piece not designed to attract the MOST applicants for a position, but the RIGHT applicants
• 1994 – DT launches additional ground-breaking decision making tools:  the job-specific Resume Supplement and Hiring Manager Interview Worksheet
• 1995 – as the Internet takes off, online versions of DT’s decision making tools are introduced
• 1996 – Decision Toolbox introduces Recruiting Machine, its proprietary technology platform and Applicant Tracking System (ATS)
• 1999 – applicant sourcing is added to DT’s services
• 2000 – Kim Shepherd joins DT as CEO and immediately builds out a full-service recruitment team
• 2001 – things change as terrorists attack the U.S. on 9/11, the dotcom bubble bursts and recession ensues
• 2002 – DT survives the economic downturn by going 100% virtual – this proves to be a fortuitous turning point for the company
• 2003 – Decision Toolbox introduces its first RPO offering, years before it becomes industry standard
• 2003-2008 – DT continues to fine tune processes and add functions into Recruiting Machine, including candidate video interview clips
• 2008 – DT Hires first salesperson – VP of Sales
• 2010 – Kim Shepherd publishes her first book, The Bite Me School of Management: Taking a Bite Out of Conventional Thinking
• 2011 – DT builds out Sourcing Team, Quality Department and DT University (DTU), an online training program for internal new hires
• 2012 – Kim Shepherd champions “Vetting Vets”, an initiative to qualify U.S. veterans for entry or re-entry into the civilian workforce
• 2013 – Stay tuned!