The Microsoft Office System Accelerator for Recruiting

The recruiting accelerator is a solution designed for larger organizations with permanent human resources staff engaged in regular recruitment cycles. The accelerator is useful for scheduling interviewers and collecting feedback, but it is formal and requires adherence to a rather strict process. For this reason, smaller organizations may find it too stodgy to implement. For organizations that do engage in significant recruiting, however, the solution does have value. It is these larger organizations where most of the recruiting challenges are found.

Once applicants have been identified, an organization faces significant challenges when guiding individuals through the recruiting process. Criteria must be developed against which to judge candidates. Internal resources must be scheduled to interview the applicants for various competencies, and their feedback must be collected so a hiring decision can be made.

The recruiting accelerator attempts to solve these problems by creating a centralized site where all resources are coordinated and feedback is collected.

The Recruiting Process

The accelerator provides a SharePoint Services team site as a home for the recruiting process. The site is designed to recognize the role that an individual plays in the recruiting process. The web parts display available job openings, candidates currently interviewing for the positions , and interview feedback. Figure 11-5 shows a portion of a typical recruiting site.

Figure 11-5: A recruiting site

From the recruiting site, the hiring manager selects positions and reviews candidates. A link is associated with each candidate that allows the hiring manager to plan the interview process. The form allows the hiring manager to set up the competency areas that will be investigated during the interview process and schedule company personnel to perform interviews. Figure 11-6 shows part of the InfoPath form for selecting competencies.

Figure 11-6: Selecting competencies for the interview process

Personnel who are scheduled to interview the candidates receive a meeting request generated by the accelerator. The meeting request contains a link back to an InfoPath form for providing feedback and evaluating the candidates against the competency areas. When all of this information is collected, interviewers may make hiring recommendations that can be viewed at the recruiting site.

Along with the recruiting site, the accelerator also provides a somewhat separate solution for tracking resumes. This resume tracking facility allows candidates to utilize a web service and an InfoPath form to submit resumes to an organization. These resumes can subsequently be made available to interviewers.

Solution Architecture

The recruiting accelerator is built upon a foundation of InfoPath forms, web parts, web services, and two SQL databases. The client uses the InfoPath and the web parts to interact with the recruiting accelerator. The web services are responsible for all the data manipulation behind the scenes. Figure 11-7 shows a conceptual drawing of the accelerator architecture.

Figure 11-7: The accelerator architecture

Data Stores

The recruiting accelerator consists of three data stores. Two of these stores are SQL Server databases ”named Recruiting and Resume ”and one is the Exchange 2003 store. The Recruiting database is the store for information regarding open positions, scheduled interviewers, and interview feedback. The accelerator uses Exchange 2003 to retrieve free/busy information and send meeting requests to interviewers.

Web Services

The recruiting process is broken down into four main stages: resume submission, selecting competencies, scheduling interviewers, and receiving feedback. The recruiting accelerator consists of four web services that facilitate all aspects of the resume submission and interview process. In each case, you must properly customize and configure the web service to successfully utilize the recruiting accelerator.

Resume submission is handled by the web service Submit.asmx , which is designed to submit resumes to the back-end data store. The web service that ships with the recruiting accelerator is sophisticated, but unsupported. The documentation on the service is poor. Furthermore, it uses special web service extensions and is configured primarily to support the Microsoft demonstration for which it was originally created. As a result, you are most likely going to create your own web service specifically designed to meet your needs. Later in the chapter, you will create a simple web service to fill this need.

Competency management is handled by a web service that can download standard competencies and make them available for the interview process. The web service that ships with the accelerator provides some default functionality, but it must be customized for your organization to receive the correct competencies.

Interview scheduling is accomplished through a web service that works with Exchange 2003. Free/busy information is retrieved for selected interviewers and the hiring manager creates a schedule based on this information. When the schedule is created, the hiring manager can send out meeting invitations using the web service.

InfoPath Forms

InfoPath forms are used throughout the accelerator solution as front ends to the web services. When candidates create a resume, they do so using an InfoPath form. The form is then submitted and stored in the Resume database. Similarly, when hiring managers plan the interview process, they use an InfoPath form to set up competencies and schedule interviewers. Interviewers use an InfoPath form to provide feedback on the candidate.

Customizing the Accelerator

As I have pointed out already, the recruiting accelerator must be customized to work correctly in your environment. In fact, the installation, customization, and configuration of this accelerator is not trivial. Nearly every aspect of the solution must be customized and configured by hand. You can easily imagine attending a weeklong training class focusing on customization and configuration ”although no such class exists as of this writing.