In this post I’ll describe a service we’re using called Zartis, that helps avoid some of the pain commonly associated with growing a business.

The process of finding, interviewing and hiring the right candidates for a job is a time consuming process to say the least. And it’s one we very much underestimated in the first round of jobs we advertised. We also made the mistake of conducting our first hiring round over email. For four or five applicants, that’s not so bad but when you hit 100 applicants per role where team reviews per candidate are required it can get messy. We also like to respond to every applicant, not just the ones we hire or interview. This all takes time of course.

We gave Zartis a trial run on the second hiring round. Zartis is a social recruiting service that allows you to run your hiring process in a very manageable way. I had the privilege of working with the creator of Zartis a number of years ago so I had high hopes for the service. And as expected, it didn’t disappoint.

Zartis allows you to create a branded recruitment site. This is what you direct applicants towards. The site contains all the relevant details about your company along with details about each of the roles your company is looking to fill. Applicants apply for specific roles through the appropriate link and this queues them up for review by the appropriate hiring manager. A profile is created for each applicant in the queue and each of your managers with access to the site can comment on how suitable a candidate may or may not be. This allows for very easy team reviews.

Once a candidate has been reviewed by all the relevant managers, their status can be updated accordingly. If suitable, they can queued up for interview. Zartis will present an editable template email to invite the candidates for interview on your behalf. After you’ve interviewed the candidate, you can use Zartis to offer them the role. If the candidate didn’t measure up, you can have Zartis decline the role. In either case Zartis will again offer to email the candidate a personalised response on your behalf.

Needless to say our second hiring round was a smooth and efficient one. Zartis did exactly what it promised to. It’s also backed by an active, responsive team and it’s extremely affordable.

The service integrates cleanly with our website too. You can either add a snippet of markup or you can use a WordPress plugin. We’ll absolutely continue to use Zartis as we grow. If you’re looking at scaling your business, I highly recommend you check out Zartis.

Grimm’s Hansel and Gretel is our biggest and most interactive children’s book to date. It feature 39 beautifully presented pages of text, eleven fun and interactive pop-up scenes with simple games and tasks to perform along with full professional voice narrations in four languages.

You can find out more about Grimm’s Hansel and Gretel at the product website. For press information, including localised screen shots and press releases, please download the press pack.

App Updates

We have quite a few app updates going live today as well. The most notable of which is, of course, the long awaited Retina update to our classic literature apps, 3D Classic Literature Collection, Grimm’s Fairy Tales and Sherlock Holmes. We’ve had a lot of requests for this feature update and we’re delighted to finally have it ready just in time for the holidays.

As always, we would love to hear your feedback. You can send us an email at feedback@idealbinary.com or you can catch us on Twitter and Facebook.

November 1st 2011 – Ideal Binary, the Dublin, Ireland based developer interactive books for Children is delighted to announce that its Grimm’s Rapunzel for iOS has been awarded iPod/iPhone Kids’ App of the Year by the influential ilounge (http://iLounge.com) the internet’s top site for iPhone and iPad information and reviews.

“As parents of young children, we’re always thrilled when app developers create fun new ways to tell stories,” said Jeremy Horwitz, Editor-in-Chief of iLounge. “Ideal Binary’s version of the classic Grimm’s Rapunzel is a wonderful example of ‘thinking outside the box’ — literally making the pages of a book burst to life with interactive elements, voices, and art that would have been impossible only three years ago. A beautiful concept with great execution.”

Available on iPad®, iPhone®, iPod touch® and Mac® platforms Grimm’s Rapunzel is a uniquely presented adaptation of the classic Grimm Brothers’ tale. Featuring beautifully illustrated interactive 3D pop-up scenes to accompany the text, the reader can interact with the story in an entirely new way, playing with screen elements or viewing scenes from new perspectives.

“We’re thrilled to win such a prestigious award” said Ideal Binary co-founder Kevin Doolan. “iLounge is a key authority and go-to source for trusted reviews, so this is a great endorsement. We look forward to entertaining many more iLounge readers with a full roadmap of titles over the coming year.”

Grimm’s Rapunzel is the second in a series of books which also includes Grimm’s Red Riding Hood and a soon to be released retelling of the classic Hansel & Gretel story.

Find out more at http://www.idealbinary.com

Twitter: @idealbinary
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/idealbinary

Founded in 2008, Ideal Binary is a Dublin, Ireland based developer and publisher of interactive entertainment content. Building on it’s proprietary PopIris™ enhanced ebook engine, Ideal Binary develops highly innovative and entertaining software including interactive books and games.

Voting is open to the public! Please show your support by voting for Ideal Binary as Application Developer of the Year here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FWVJYS9

There are 4 categories, and you must vote in each category for your vote to count. Thanks for your support!

We’re also happy to report that the app has appeared up front on the Mac App Store in New and Noteworthy and as a main feature! This is our second Mac book app to be featured prominently so we’re very happy, to say the least!