submission management Archives

9 ways your online Form builder is costing you time and effort

You may think that online forms are the fastest way to manage your call for applications, especially when you quickly start receiving applications. However, you are only saving time in the beginning of the process. Once you begin accepting applications, it becomes a nightmare. You are left alone with a vast number of applications to process.

Alternatively, a submission management software like Untap Compete is designed to simplify every step of the process. It is your optimal solution to launch and most importantly manage your calls for applications efficiently saving time and effort.
Let’s face it. It is easy and cheap to get started with form builders or/and email attachments. However, you find yourself lost trying to process all the applications. You end up wasting more time than you initially saved.

A dedicated submission management system will allow you to manage, evaluate, and communicate all in one place with just a few clicks.

How can you benefit from Submission Management Software and overcome the problems you face with Online Form Builders?

1. Workflow instead of just an initial setup
While online forms start the process quickly and easily, you get overwhelmed when you start receiving the applications. With a submission management software, there is a streamlined workflow covering every step of the process with the help of a set of features you choose based on your needs.

2. Screening and Filtration in one place
In online forms, screening and filtration are done separately, which requires so much manual work. However, the right way to do it is in the same place, with evaluation forms to give accurate scores and auto-scoring to calculate total scores and rank submissions automatically.

3. Judges and judging panels access
Instead of sending information to third parties and manually putting scores on submissions, you can do both tasks in one place by inviting judges to access submissions.

4. Communication with users is made easy.
Communicate directly with judges, applicants, and other team members on the system. Send emails in bulk, and set reminders to communicate feedback with applicants. Have a summary of all users in one place with all their relevant information.

5. Real-time analysis of submissions
Your dashboard includes a real-time analysis for your call for applications that tracks the performance of your call for applications so you can take corrective actions when needed.

6. Multi-phase rounds
Create multiple rounds for the same call for applications. Seek more information with more advanced stages. Qualify participants from one phase to the next based on the potential they show for each phase.

7. Flexible submission form builder with no limitations
Use a sophisticated drag and drop submission form builder, supporting file uploading.

8. Auto-save applications and submit later options
It is hard for applicants to fill their applications in one sitting with no ability to edit and continue later. Applications need to be auto-saved for the applicant’s convenience.

9. Have the complete picture of applicants and potential applicants
Monitor potential applicants who just signed up or still did not complete their application. Send them reminders to submit. If you only view the submitted applications, you are losing contact with all the potential applicants who still did not click on “submit”.

In conclusion, a Submission Management Software like Untap Compete streamlines the submission process and makes it easy for you to receive, screen, evaluate, communicate, and filter submissions. It is also just more convenient from the applicants’ point of view.

Learn more about Untap Compete plans and features.

How can you make your call for applications work more efficiently through the multi-rounds feature?

Is it always best to use a one-time submission form to get all the information you need from an applicant before you make your final decision regarding their application?

Let us tell you our secret sauce to smartly manage your call for application and have everything put in one central place.

Creating an application funnel with multi rounds, each round with its own submission form and evaluation criteria will make collecting more information about your participants and managing the evaluation process much easier.

You break up your process into phases (i.e.: rounds) along the funnel then qualify participants from one phase to the next based on the potential they show for each phase. This ensures a high completion rate and makes it easier for your team/judges to filter applicants more efficiently, as it allows them to accept and reject applicants after being shortlisted and passing the eligibility phase.

Benefits of the multi-round applications process

The applicant submits the most relevant information at each phase
Create an application funnel with multiple phases and only applicants who show potential for that particular phase get qualified for the following one.
Create an eligibility phase to filter out irrelevant applications, so you invest your time evaluating worthy applications.
Be able to get different input for every phase depending on the requirements.
Define relevant eligibility criteria for each phase independently.
Manage everything centrally and have all information in one place.

Setting things up:

With Untap Compete we made it easy to set-up rounds and get everything up and running in no time:

Set-up round start and end dates for the applications as well as the evaluation phase.
Using a drag and drop form builder to build your submission form.
Same for the evaluation form, defining your evaluation criteria for the respective phase.
Invite judges to evaluate submissions.
Select the applications to proceed to the next round and the ones to get disqualified.
Repeat for as many rounds as you need.

Finally, always remember it is very easy to open a call for applications. How you manage it afterward makes the whole difference in terms of time and effort invested and the final results you reach.

Why you should go for an online hackathon for your next software developer hire?

Hiring the best and brightest software engineer is becoming one of the biggest challenges for many companies and startups, as there are more software developer openings than qualified people to fill them, according to the research from the app association there are 223,000 job openings for software developers in the US alone while the demand for applications predicted to grow three times by 2020.

With hiring challenges such as lack of experience, technical skills and software skills (workplace experience), and high salary demand, we have to ditch the old-school and replace it with more innovative and up-to-date methods to attract the right talents.

Here are 6 main reasons why you should consider online hackathons and coding challenges for your next hire:

1. Attract qualified candidates: Hackathons and coding challenges attract aspiring talents looking for a dynamic organization that values innovation and collaboration, talents who are up for a real-life challenge and aren’t afraid to tap into a competitive space to show their skills and bring what they have to the table.

2. Asses your candidates’ problem-solving skills, how they see real-time problems and the steps they take to tackle them is as important as the final solution they reach.

3. Test teamwork and collaborative skills, since online hackathons allow for working in teams, you can assess skills that can be very hard to test through interviews or home assignments like leadership and teamwork.

4. Working under pressure, since online hackathons are tied with a limited timeline, you get to test who can endure extended hours of intensive work to solve a certain problem when needed.

5. It’s efficient yet flexible! based on your timeline and resources, you get to choose the scale, ranging from a coding challenge that only takes a few hours, to a hackathon which takes from a few days to a few weeks. It is worth mentioning here that it has been observed that the recruitment time is cut down by almost 80% in hackathons

6. Evaluate accurately based on a set of predefined skills, giving scores based on all of the previously mentioned criteria rather than just the final output.

To conclude, many companies are moving towards online hackathons to reach the right talent as it is a cost-effective and time-efficient method, especially when using a dedicated platform to run the whole thing, you can pick a convenient software based on your budget and the kind of support you are looking for.

We encourage you to try your first experience with online hackathons and share with us how it went!

You can check out Untap Compete solutions here.