Why Is It Important To Conduct Pre-Employment Background Checks

Why Is It Important To Conduct Pre-Employment Background Checks

by | Oct 28, 2018 | Guest Post

Whenever there is a vacant position in a company, the human resource department goes through the same process to fill the position. Firstly, they would have to publish the job description on paper or online to reach out to individuals looking for a job. Upon receiving applications, the employer will then sort out the applicant pool to find potential candidates for the job and to schedule their interviews. The interviews, whether on-the-phone or in-person, will supply the employer with information so they can assess if the applicant suits the job.That?s how the employment screening process usually goes; however, one important step was forgotten: the background check. If it seems quite excessive to go through that extra step, here are four reasons that might change your mind before you hire a prospective employee.

Highlights If There Are Any Criminal Records

Criminal records are the top reason why pre-employment background checks are being run. Of course, you?d want to hire only the best people in your company, and sometimes the existence of criminal records help you with deciding.Having a criminal record does not necessarily mean that the applicant will not be hired, though. Reportedly, 90% of employers would automatically disqualify applicants who were convicted of crimes related to violence, theft, or dishonesty. These charges imply that the applicant may be dangerous, unreliable, or not suitable for hiring which is a red light.The number is a lot lower if there were only minor infractions found; only 32% would disregard your application. An employer has the right to possess this information to decide in the best interest of the company.

Flags Past Infraction

Alongside the criminal history, some background checks will also flag driving records, credit histories, or other relevant information. Some may argue that several license suspensions or some missed payments and debt have nothing to do with how the applicant will perform their job.However, if the position entails driving or handling of money, this may be an important deciding factor. For example, you hire a driver without running a background check, and he gets into an accident because he was driving under the influence. You later find out that this was not his first DUI charge when he was apprehended by the police. If only you had run a background check, you could have avoided this situation completely.

Verifies Education and Certification

For some positions, such as managerial roles, the employer sometimes requires the applicant to be of at least a certain educational attainment and have specific qualifications. Around 75% of employers would reject applicants who have lied on their resumes about their educational attainment.If you think that altering their educational history just to land a job is uncommon, you?d be surprised at the number of people who lie about their degrees or diplomas. James Morris, the president, and chief operating officer of EmployeeScreenIQ, claims that they come across fake degrees and diplomas easily a hundred times per week. With that sheer amount, you should already be convinced to do a background check on your applicants.

The Honesty of the Candidate

Everything just boils down to the honesty of the applicant in their resume and their interviews. In addition to the 75% mentioned above, 44% would disqualify applicants who lied about their dates of employment, and 34% would reject those who altered their job titles. Background checks involve calling former employers to confirm the information on their resumes. A dishonest applicant is not someone you want to hire.In addition to that, 75% of employers would ask potential employees to divulge any criminal history before they even run a background check. Usually, when the applicant lets their potential employer know about their circumstances and perhaps do a little explanation, it might do better than when the employer finds out by himself after the background check.To help you sort through the pre-employment background check and to learn more about the different qualifications in hiring an employee for your business, you can check this business?blog.

Conclusion

Employment screening takes up a lot of time, effort, and money. You need it for the betterment of your whole team, work, and company. From here, you want to hire the right person on the first try to save wasted resources if you find yourself in the screening process again.Conducting a background check also confirms if the applicant were truthful and transparent in their resume and in their interview which are some characteristics you?d want in all your employees. You would also want to keep the safety in the workplace and integrity of the company in case you run into an applicant with a dodgy history.If you want to avoid all of the complications that could arise without getting a background check on your applicants, you better start upgrading your employee screening process to get a comprehensive profile of your potential staff. After all, better be safe than sorry!
11 Plugins Every WordPress Blog Should Have – 2018 Edition

11 Plugins Every WordPress Blog Should Have – 2018 Edition

by | Oct 24, 2018 | WordPress

WordPress is one of world?s most popular content management platforms. With easy to use free blog tools and self-hosted sites, WordPress has a lot to offer. From amateur site-runners/owners to seasoned industry veterans, everyone is in love with WordPress and none can deny the fact that not only is it easy to use, cool, and chic, but also extremely robust, and thanks to its thousands of plugins, a complete solution for website management.WordPress maintains a repository of many powerful plugins which developers and site owners appoint to give their websites a complete feel. While the utilities of these plugins vary, many among the plug-in bank exist to serve a single purpose. So choosing a couple among them, gets quite confusing. ?And to further add to the confusion, not all of these apps are free to use. Some of them are Premium, but most of them are freemium(Plugins which offer basic functionality for free but require you to purchase them if you need to add additional features). Now because there are so many plugins in the WordPress Plugin directory, it is not possible to rate each one of them and tell you which ones you should have and which ones you shouldn't. So instead, we have created a list of some must-have plugins for your WordPress websites. So let?s jump in!
  1. WP Smush- image optimization
A picture is worth a thousand words. Yes, and especially nowadays. An image can be used to pass on a plethora of information which will reduce the amount of content you would have had to write instead just to explain the same thing. Also, images bring a lot of visual appeal to your website as well.But while they are incredible tools, images take up a lot of storage space and take too long to be uploaded and downloaded. This problem intensifies for slow speed networks. This can be disastrous. So to reduce the size and loading time of these images, plugins like WP Smush exist in the WordPress plugin repository. What this tool does is compress your image using advanced compression techniques and makes sure that the quality of your image remains intact. It is a freemium plugin.
  1. Yoast SEO
It doesn?t matter how beautiful or useful your website is; if it can?t be reached, then it is of no use, to you or your users. Search engines are a major source of website traffic. Most users will be able to use your website only if a search engine can index it in search results. Thus you need to make sure that search engine crawlers can get to your site. Search Engine Optimization is just as vital for you as having a website in the first place. It makes sure that your site has been designed in a way in which search engines can get to it. For WordPress sites, a plugin called Yoast SEO is there to do all of that. It helps you in creating more SEO friendly content which will compel search engines to list your website higher in the search results. The key to SEO is to provide users with relevant information and not to catfish them onto your sites for the sake of views. Latest algorithms followed by search engines these days are extra cautious of such trickery, and so, you need to prove it to these bots that your website has relevant content.From choosing proper keywords and writing your articles in a way which makes the most of these keywords, to tell you how to format your article to increase its visual appeal, Yoast SEO does it all.It is a freemium plugin.
  1. Jetpack
Jetpack is a plugin which has been developed by the creators of the WordPress itself. It is a powerful tool which is jam-packed with many functionalities which will help your website in ranking higher in search results. Jetpack looks after Security, traffic growth, image optimization, and many other such things. It contains an upgraded distribution function which automatically shares your content with other third-party tools like search engines and helps in increasing your site traffic. It is a free plugin.
  1. Akismet
Developed also by the good people at WordPress, Akismet is one of the top anti-spam plugins in the WordPress plugin repository. It goes over all the comments on your website and provides users a history after flagging the spam content. It is basically a one-stop tool for you to make sure that your website remains free of any sort of spam. It is a default plugin which comes along with every WordPress core installation. It is a freemium plugin.
  1. W3 Total Cache
Among the most significant setbacks your website can suffer from, one is a longer loading period. If your website has a lot of CSS work and if the images on your site take too long to load, then users will get frustrated and exit your site. The solution to this problem is caching. Caching is the process of storing temporary data in small memory segments called caches. There are many caching plugins in the WordPress plugin repository. What they do is they save temporary HTML files in users? cache, so that the next time they load your site, it will not take as long as before. This will increase the traffic on your site and your SEO quotient too. W3 Total Cache in one of the most popular caching tool on WordPress. It allows you to cache web pages, databases, browsers, etc. Because of the reduced loading time, you will get higher rankings in search results, and that will lead to higher site traffic.It is a freemium plugin.
  1. Security Plugins
We can?t overstate the necessity of having security. Countless malicious bots are roaming the spectrum which will latch on to your site and make it collapse in a matter of seconds. So you need to have armor against these cancerous troublemakers. There are many plugins in the WordPress plugin repository which will enhance the security of your website. Some of them are:
  • All in One Security
  • Wordfence
  • BulletProof Security
  • Sucuri
  • iTheme security
There is no clear winner and no clear loser among these tools; all of them are high-end plugins which are very good at their jobs. So you can pick anyone you like for your website.
  1. Everest Forms- Easy Contact Form and Form Builder
One of the key pages every website needs to have is an excellent looking contact page. It needs to be visually fetching and at the same time, needs to give users just the right amount of information. Furthermore, contact pages these days allow users to contact you directly, without them having to send you an email. It enables users to type in some information about themselves and then jump straight to their query, complaint or question.To create such contact forms for your WordPress site, plugins like Everest forms exist. One of the biggest advantages of Everest is its incredibly easy to use drag and drop interface. It lets you create your contact form by merely picking up elements from the side of the interface and dropping them anywhere you like on your workspace. And not only does it let you create fundamental forms, but also advance ones with Google reCaptcha support, redirect page options, etc.It is a free plugin.
  1. Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights
Studying your traffic and knowing more about it will help you in creating a better site and increase the user traffic. There are many insight tools for WordPress websites which help you in obtaining vital stats for your website. The best among them by leaps is Google Analytics for WordPress by Monster Insights.This plugin will allow you to monitor various real-time statistics for your website and will create multiple demographics and interest reports to better your knowledge about your site traffic.It will also allow you to keep an eye out on your product popularity and because it comes integrated with Google Adsense, the stats related to your ads will also be made available to you as well.It is a free plugin.
  1. MailChimp for WordPress
It is very crucial that you keep in touch with your users. And to that, nothing is more effective than a properly created marketing mail which you can send to all your users in one single click and then track the results in bulk. Plugins like MailChimp are excellent email marketing tools for every site owner to have. It allows you to create beautiful subscription forms in your blog and can also be integrated with any other forms on your site like- Contact forms, checkout forms, etc. It is a freemium tool.
  1. Google XML Sitemaps
It is another SEO tool which your website needs to have. Google XML Sitemaps creates a sitemap for your website which makes it easier for search engine bots to browse through your website. This in return will help search engines in getting a better idea of your site structure and index it higher in search results. It is a free plugin.
  1. WordPress Amp
WordPress Amp is a plugin which can add AMP (Accelerate Mobile Pages) to your website. With just a few clicks, this tool can make your site mobile ready. AMP HTML is an open source solution by Google which lets you turn your websites into mobile-optimized content which can then be loaded anywhere you like. WordPress Amp brings a lot of other things to the table as well. It boosts up your site SEO, brings more traffic from Google, improves user experience, and using Adsense and Woocommerce, it allows you to earn extra money by selling goods.It is a premium plugin.ConclusionUsing the above plugins, you can manage your website and juice out the maximum profit from it. They give you a complete control over your website and make sure that you get your money?s worth out of it. Apart from these, there are many other useful plugins which you will find in the WordPress plugin repository. But be sure you go over all of them and compare them against each other before you buy them though. And if you are not that technically inclined, then you can hire a website development firm for a robust process and flexibility to develop paramount solutions.

Want to Develop an App like Honk: Here are 4 Features That Must Be Added For Making an Uber like App for Towing

by | Oct 19, 2018 | Off Topic

Want to Develop an App like Honk_ Here are 4 Features That Must Be Added For Making an Uber like App for TowingWhen it comes to long drives and traveling almost everyone gets a sense of enthusiasm and energetic spirit. Nothing wrong about it, but one thing that demands user attention here is, how to remain prepared enough to combat with the issues that arise at the roadside. Well, yes, they are obviously uninvited but being attentive and aware of the roadside assistance solutions can be a big savior in the scenario.Problems such as tire damage, running out of fuel, sudden lockouts, losing on the keys, winch out and the mechanical issues might occur. Although the probability of occurring such problems is unconditional, what if someone gets struck with any of the issues.Well, we have ample of mobile apps such as Honk, Urgent.ly, StrandD, etc. is standing out there for handling such dilemmas on the roadside. One of the biggest apps that gathered huge publicity in the niche out of the above there is ?Honk?. The former app is being developed by Honk Technologies, a Los-Angeles based start-up. The app is linked to over 3500 roadside assistance partners and is gaining an immense about of visibility with its empowered roadside solutions.Thus, if you liked the concept and is eager to invest in the mobile app development market, this post will take you to the right track targeting the tow truck app, Roadside Assistance Apps and towing app development.See Related:So, get in touch with the best and most powerful features that must be added to your roadside assistance app.
  • Find nearby assistance and services
This can be counted as the basic feature of your on-demand roadside assistance mobile app. The users must be able to find the nearby service providers and towing facilities for fixing the problems. Allow the users to schedule or to select the type of services they seek to use.In case of the vehicle breakdown or in the cases of tire replacements or locking problems, the app must be able to connect them with the most convenient and nearby service station.
  • Geo Location
Under this feature, the user can track the real-time location of the service providers that have been assigned to them and the duration they might require to reach the required destination.It helps in delivering a flawless user experience and at the same time proves a boon for the driver as well. The service provider can also determine the location of the car and the user, thus can make necessary provisions for reaching him out as soon as possible.Furthermore, allow your users to call the driver in case of some urgency. This will add a good note to your app. Other than this, in-app chatting can also be integrated into the app for delivering an impeccable user experience.
  • Push Notification
This is a great way of keeping the user engaged and informed. Deliver the confirmation to them, once their request has been accepted. Updates regarding the new service providers added or the services that are provided nearby to their location can also be sent to the users.Messages regarding the payment can also be delivered to keep the users aware of the transaction status.
  • Payment gateway integration
?uber paymentThis is a very crucial feature that must be integrated if you planning to have an app like Honk. Payment gateways such as PayPal, Braintree etc. can be added into the app for making the transaction. Digital modes such as Credit card, Debit card, and net banking should also be integrated into the app for making the billing more transparent.

Conclusion

Roadside assistance apps are certainly new in the trend. They are referred to as Uber for towing services, because of their On-demand nature. The above blueprint of the features will make it simple for you to develop an app like Honk.Therefore, just find the right app development agency for getting your app ideation deployed in the correct way and embark with the more innovative roadside app models for capturing a large user base.
The Anatomy of e-commerce Website Design That gets More Traffic

The Anatomy of e-commerce Website Design That gets More Traffic

by | Oct 15, 2018 | Off Topic

For selling and branding of their products, online merchants have left no stone unturned. Especially, while e-commerce trends have been growing by leaps and bounds. Nowadays, consumers have adopted the online buying method rather than going to brick-and-mortar stores.To better reach out to more customers, retailers have employed "What you see is what you get" philosophy. The aesthetics of website design is as important as its functioning. Today, we are going to discuss some of the E-commerce website design tips that can actually generate more traffic and conversions to your online store & best web design course.So to turn on the online store into a profit-making machine, here are some of the E-commerce design trends 2018 for your online store.

  • Attractive Material Design:

By using, Material Design (a design language) which is introduced by Google in 2014, one can enhance the aesthetics of a website by incorporating padding, depth effects such as lighting and shadows. Materials designs make more liberal use of grid-based layouts and responsive animations and transitions. Due to eye-catching layouts and design, Material designing is useful for appealing more store visitors. It is involved in retaining visitors, which helps increasing store level activity. For this reason, material designing go long way in brand recalls and helps generate brand awareness. More importantly, attractive material design aids to augment the E-commerce sales. This e-commerce website design tip can help you attract more potential customers. ?

  • Card UI Layouts:

As a key element of a material design, card-based UI layouts look fashionable and attractive. What is more encouraging is an implementation of these card layouts in their core design by leading social media app Pinterest!Card layouts are also used in building content in a neatly-organized manner. As a result, visitors can read and browse the content easily. This ultimately simplifies visitors? decision-making process and they can get information about related products. ????Card layouts are being widely adopted because of three reasons; its responsiveness, readability, and fitting proper into the latest social media friendly store layouts. The cards help you to simplify arranging and rearranging the content on the pages and improve the loading of page faster across the store.Therefore, material design and card UI layouts are one of the best E-commerce website design tips.

  • Incorporate videos:

We know that, a video is a highly effective communication system. It conveys more information to store visitors by just one glance. Integration of videos in E-commerce website design facilitates users to share it on social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and many more. ?As a split between an actual video and GIF, integrated video plays instantly as the page loads and establishes your brand's look and feel. By adding a video of a man wearing a shirt on a product page for shirts can actually help store visitors to visualize how a product would fit them. It's yet another way to drive conversions.

  • Minimal menus:

If you sell a large variety of products then you must find a way to sort out your products so that it is clearly visible. Store visitor can always go further and dive deeply into the specific section for more products. Firstly, your Ecommerce website design needs to be engaging and enjoyable so that visitors can spend more time on the site. ?For that, website design should be less scattered than expansive. A less messy menu gives visitors a good impression of the site. Moreover, oversized menus are an even bigger issue while using mobile phones. A menu which covers the whole smartphone screen irritates the customers which in turn affect the traffic and e-commerce sales. So, by using these e-commerce website design tips you can avoid such mistakes to have a better faith of visitor on your website.

  • Product page as Landing page:

Have you ever wondered why Apple store's landing page is spellbindingly attractive? It contains all the required elements to appeal to the vast number of visitors; stylish navigation layout, catchy product description, lucid product photography, and strong call-to-action. Now, online stores are catching customer's attention by making the product page as a landing page. As the customer lands on a product page he is mesmerized by the detailed and vivid photographs, which keeps him attached to the store. Eye-catching call-to-action is well placed so that it attracts the visitor to click and become the proud owner of the product. Therefore, by using these E-commerce website design tips, online store owners can increase their conversion rate.

  • Large Font size and Image background:

There has been ascending trends of using larger font and background in the online store. Fonts and background are so nicely placed on the website so that visitors can simply browse their product and buy it easily. Additionally, E-commerce stores use real product photography instead of using edited photography. Therefore, it is a more engaging experience for users. The practice of displaying people using the product has set a trend. There are many advantages of using real photos and background. Actual photos give a product the authenticity and gain the trust of visitors. ??

  • Encouraging In-store pick-up:

This approach doesn't work for every online retailer since not everyone has brick-and-mortar stores. Although, people prefer to get the products faster than ever before, and buy online, in-store pick-up works toward that aim. It describes why customers use this option than ever before. Retailers are using this option by showing inventory at nearby stores on their product description page. It has become the center of attention for the companies having physical stores nearby, which in turn has given benefits to customers as well as businesses. Encouraging in-store pick-up will also increase B2C E-commerce sales. Hence, you should focus on this option while considering e-commerce website design tips. ???

  • Adaption:

Device independence and content adaption have grown rapidly in past few years. Device independence refers to the goal of having a single web that is accessible from any of the devices.Adapting to any device of websites is not a new thing. It would become more fascinating if it can be made to adapt to the user themselves. For instance, based on the user?s age and visual sensitivity, the website could reorganize itself to include larger and important elements.

  • Knolling:

Nowadays, a new trend in e-commerce store has arrived. The concept called "knolling", in which all the products which are identical in the category are placed in a symmetrical way. After that, the photo has been taken from the top of them. This process of knolling attracts visitor?s attention and improves conversion rates.

Conclusion:

To keep on improving the design of your E-commerce website is very imperative in this cut-throat competition of online marketing. Even more important is to make it visible to more visitors, thus by having a great and unique design which increases your e-commerce sales growth and conversion-rate; we hope that above-furnished e-commerce website design tips will help you get a toehold in the e-commerce market. Also remember to hire a good e-commerce development company, which has a fair amount of experience in e-commerce website design and mobile app design for e-commerce stores.Author Bio:Meet the COO of Excellent WebWorld and the web tech lover. Mahil has all the knowledge of Drupal development, Website Design, and Magento eCommerce Development Services. His blogs are helping lots of start-ups to understand how to improve the website performance and how to enhance web designs.
Why You Need to Build an Email List For Your Business Right Now

Why You Need to Build an Email List For Your Business Right Now

by | Oct 11, 2018 | Business, Marketing

If you talk to some small business owners about email lists, they can see the whole thing as positively archaic. It can seem to some like it is going back a little, especially when you think about all that we have at the moment, from social media and websites. However, it still remains a really vital tool for your online marketing strategy for your small business. If you think about the social platforms that you have to join, they all have a requirement of an email address. So it is still very much relevant, and still a modern way to communicate.The advantage for small business owners is that having an email list of subscribers is a great way to help your business. Sites like GrowthSupermarket.com show just how much creating an email list can have on ROI, especially compared to other online marketing methods. Plus, it also has advantages over modern media. Think about the social platforms that you use, for instance. What happens if they just become unpopular or your target audience just get a little tired of it? This happened to things like MySpace, and is Snapchat still what it once was? If social media platforms go and you don?t have an email list, then you can lose a lot of customers. Having an email list helps you to remind them that you?re still there, and you can share the latest offers and news with them.There are plenty of other advantages to email lists too. Think about how personal they are. They can bed edited to have that person?s name or share things that they might like because they bought some similar from you before. Plus, it lands right in their inbox. It is way more personal than simply seeing something on your social media feed. And in a similar way, emails like this are also pretty necessary. People will be checking emails pretty much daily, at work and at home, as there are things that they need on there, from work news to things like their kid's school information. So it is something that will get noticed when your brand pops up in their inbox. People don?t always check their Facebook.com feed or their Instagram feed, and if they didn?t for a few days, then that is people that you are missing with your social content.Creating an email list and then sending out newsletters or information on it is pretty inexpensive too. A lot of online marketing doesn?t have to cost a lot, but this is going to be one of the ways that cost the least. You can also really make it customizable, which is what is going to help draw your customers in and keep them coming back to your business again and again. There are several ways to build up an email or subscriber list for your business. But starting sooner rather than later is a good way to not miss anyone. An incentive to join usually helps, but if people like what they see and good things come into their inbox, then they will stick around.