Heather James

Don't just love your job, LOVE your company!!! Since 1999, Lightspeed Systems has provided smart solutions for school networks, working to make learning safe, mobile, and easily managed. With our K12 school partners, we have helped protect and engage more than 10 million students around the world. Why Work Here? We work diligently and intelligently as a team to create innovative solutions and better ways of doing things. Every day, every employee has an opportunity to change the world in the most meaningful way: by improving education. Lightspeed Systems has the mentality of a start-up (collaboration, access, innovation) with the stability of a company that’s been around since 1999 — and we get bigger and smarter every day.

Senior Talent Acquisition Consultant (contract role) for Bankrate.com and Bankrate Inc's credit cards entities (CreditCards.com, Wallaby Financial, The Points Guy, MillionMile Secrets, and NextAdvisor) as well as Bankrate subsidiary, Caring.com. • Provided hiring managers and teams with training in ATS best practices, interview techniques, and use of social media in recruitment. • Slashed reliance on third party recruits by 84% YOY while driving exponential growth in company hiring rates. • Leader in design of innovative employee referral program, successful in improving referrals for critical roles from 65 in 2016 to 375+ in 2017.

Recruited as company’s first Human Resources hire to build & manage wide range of HR functions including talent acquisition, on-boarding, performance management, terminations, benefits enrollment/administration, and payroll. • Led initiative for and communicated corporate-wide benefits upgrade, expanding benefits while reducing costs. Implemented online benefits enrollment process creating more accurate records and enrollment resource and improved ongoing employee experience. • Eliminated multiple state payroll fines by analyzing and resolving prior year taxation issues. Corrected employee tax deductions resulting in increased annual take-home salary for majority of employees. Ensured compliance with other audit, regulatory and legal requirements. • Implemented ATS system to more effectively process incoming applicants and led change to recruiting and interviewing processes to provide better candidate experience.

Senior Manager, Recruiting : October 2012 - January 2015 Senior Manager, Human Resources & Recruiting : January 2011 - October 2012 Recruiting Manager : June 2010 - January 2011 Led seamless assimilation of seven acquired companies into existing HR and recruitment processes across multiple locations, including internationally. Created and implemented industry-leading recruitment and talent management programs including employment branding differentiation strategies, social media and networking, summer internships, and university recruitment. • Achieved improved analysis, reporting and planning capabilities within streamlined daily operations through integration of new HRIS system. Immediate and ongoing cost savings of 47% per employee. • Consistently exceeded hiring goals, successfully recruiting 550+ full-time employees over four years. Grew new Austin office from 1 to over 360 and company from 67 to 500+ employees. • Proactively identified and capitalized on new recruitment strategies reducing agency costs to <1% of total hires. • Created and reported recruiting metrics, evaluating and implementing strategies to ensure ongoing success in attracting and retaining high quality candidates in support of company’s long-term growth and expansion. • Played key role in company recognition as an employer of choice through increased brand recognition and candidate pipelines earning status as Top Workplace by the Austin American Statesman and Best Company in Texas by Texas Monthly.

Provided marketing and research services to a company in support of a new service offering. Generated, identified and qualified new business leads for offshore software development services.

Working with primarily with early-stage start-ups in the high-technology sector, managed the full lifecycle of recruiting projects for executives, with an emphasis on hard-to-fill positions within the semiconductor industry. Currency in many different bleeding-edge technologies to a conversational level. In-depth analysis of technical requirements and applications across multiple sectors to include Semiconductors, Networking, Software, Communications Systems, Sensors, Solar, and more.

(Early-stage, seed money real estate investment firm. Company shut-down due to lack of funding.)

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