WO2007079525A1 - Recruitment system - Google Patents

Abstract

A method of recruiting a person by an organisation in which the qualifications, other particulars and availability of persons to be employed are maintained on a database and wherein a prospective employer may access the database to ascertain details of one or more persons who meet its requirements and, if such a person(s) are selected, an offer can be made directly to those persons. The system can provide automatic or other upgrading of the persons available time when an offer is accepted. The system provides means whereby information of both the persons and the employers so each can consider whether they wish to become associated and the system also provides means to update the persons details if an appointment is accepted. It can also provide means whereby prospective employers can contact the whole of the members on a database or particular members to disseminate information thereto.

Description

RECRUITMENT SYSTEM

This invention relates to a recruitment and communication system and, in particular, to a system which is used for the recruitment and management of short term personnel, both professional, service providers and trades people alike and the communication process it involves.

It is particularly adapted for recruitment of relief teachers and the description will be largely in relation to such persons but this does not in any way affect the generality of the process.

Schools often require relief teachers for differing periods. On occasions, they have notice of such requirements. On other occasions, the requirement is in answer to an acute matter and a relief teacher is required very rapidly.

There have previously been proposed arrangements whereby an external organisation can maintain a register of relief teachers and the organisation can be approached by schools needing relief teachers. The organisation then goes through its register, ascertains which teachers, have the correct qualifications and or who are suitable for the particular position may be available, and endeavours to make a match between the teacher and the school on a trial and error basis.

This is time consuming and can be relatively expensive. The object of the invention is to provide a means whereby the finding, employing and notifying of relief teachers, or other persons, can be facilitated efficiently.

The invention includes a method of recruiting a person by an organisation in which the qualifications, other particulars and availability of persons to be employed are maintained on a database and wherein a prospective employer may access the database to ascertain details of persons who meet its requirements and, if such a person or persons are found, an offer can be made directly to the person or persons.

The offer can be made on the internet, by way of SMS or by the person's particulars which can include a telephone contact. Confirmation emails and other information is emailed direct to the person.

The system includes means by which the provider is notified of the offer and acceptance of the position is made by the person.

Details of the employing organisation can also be placed on a database so that the person may ascertain details of the organisation and also which other organisations are available before committing him or herself to employment.

At least minimum details of the prospective employees on the database are also available to subscriber organisations so that they have a means of communicating generally to these or to selected restricted groups from the database as desired.

In order that the invention may be more readily understood, we shall describe a particular arrangement, again in association with the appointment of teachers on a temporary basis, but it is reiterated that the system can be used for any type of potential employee by any type of employer.

Teachers who are seeking relief teacher appointments or other types of work can register themselves into the system.

The teacher can supply information as to their training, their qualifications, their specific areas of expertise and their experience and geographic locations or regions that they would like to teach in and if necessary, personal information (if this is not in breach of the Privacy Act), and also can fill in a form showing their periods of availability. If there are specific types of schools or schools in a particular geographic area which are of interest, this material can also be incorporated. When the teacher enrols into the system, he or she will forward to the provider copies of their authority to teach and teacher's registration certificate (as required by the Governing Authorities eg: Education Departments - Trade Certificates etc), or will be provided with an area to indicate that these documents are to be forwarded in some way, such as electronically, faxed or posted. Also, if required, the teacher could be interviewed via live transmission such as video conferencing or cam camera technologies and or provide a scanned photograph or other images could be incorporated.

Individual teachers are provided with secure unique account names and log-in details so that they are the only persons who can access and modify the information provided.

Generally, the teacher may not have to pay to be entered onto the service, but a service fee could be levied against a teacher and, if so, means of obtaining the fee incorporated into the system. Also, in other applications either or both parties could be required to pay. A special promotion code is used where schools nominate their existing Relief Teachers.

The system provides for the full management of relief teachers for schools incorporating also those already used by the school.

Each school which is a subscriber to the system effectively enters its details onto the system which details can be accessed by teachers possibly interested in teaching at the school. Schools can also upload policies, timetables and other documents which are automatically forwarded to the teacher when a position has been accepted. These can include instructions, curriculum and such things as school student management policies, religious affiliations or teaching methods embraced and, further, if required, particulars of the fabric of the school and the availability of such things as laboratories, computers and the like. Schools are provided with a unique secure account name and log in details so that they are the only persons who can access and modify the information provided.

The school will also have restricted access to its material and will set up an arrangement with the operators of the system as to how and when they pay for the use of the system. For example, a school which uses a large number of relief teachers may have a general subscription to give it the right to use the system at all times, or all schools may pay a fee for service based upon the requirements and the satisfactory completion of these.

The school will also have an access means whereby it can examine the pool of teachers available or, alternatively, can input various criteria and examine the teachers which satisfy these. The school will also have a means to select and contact all or part of those teachers who have indicated that they are willing to teach at that school and send bulk sms or emails to these. Schools will also have the facility if they wish to expand this bulk sms facility to create their own lists, such as class, student, parent/community lists and be able to send (at a fee) bulk sms to these. This can be used to inform teachers/students or parents of school events, feedback and or specific messages, eg: Related to non-attendance.

When a school needs a relief teacher, it can go into the database of teachers and incorporate various parameters, specifically the date for which the teacher is required, whether a full day or half day, am or pm, the subjects and year level they are needed to teach, and a search of these parameters will bring up one or a number of teachers who meet or substantially meet the parameters with an indication of their skills and various information.

When schools click on the particular teacher's name, the information will be expanded and the teacher's full information will be shown.

Associated with each teacher, there is a "book now" button and actuation of this will come up and ask whether the teacher is to be booked by SMS either as an urgent booking within which a reply within 5 minutes is required or a reply which is required within 8 hours or by phone. If by SMS, the request will be sent automatically and the teacher will be able to respond to indicate whether they are prepared to accept the situation within the time frames indicated, eg: 5 minutes or 8 hours.

If the teacher does not wish or is incapable of accepting the booking, they can provide an indication that they are not available.

Once a booking has been made, the system automatically adapts to remove the days accepted from the available days of the teacher. The teacher can be prompted to correct their available days on other days when they are not available due to personal reasons, other bookings, illness, and or holiday etc this way keeping their availability current

If the booking is to^" be by other means such as the phone or video and or cam conferencing, the booking page will show phone numbers whereby the teacher can be contacted, and the proposed employer can telephone the teacher to see whether they are prepared to accept the offered position or not. If so, the screen can have a position to confirm the booking which notifies the provider that that particular teacher has accepted the booking for that particular time and, as with SMS calls, can be arranged to automatically remove the days as being days available to the teacher.

The invention allows schools and teachers to have an automated message of confirmation and or non-fulfilment of offered positions via email direct to the teacher and school immediately on notification of such.

The system is also adapted if, say, a particular relief teacher is required, to permit the proposed employer to search directly for that teacher and if they are available for the required period (or at least some of it), to make the offer to the teacher as mentioned previously. If the teacher is available for the whole period, then nothing further needs to be done. If not, the employer may have to look for an alternative teacher for some of the period.

It will be seen that the system of the invention enables effectively direct contact between the proposed employer and the teacher, and at the same time can maintain an up to date record of which teachers are available for any time without the provider having to physically take steps to change this.

The system can also include means whereby the reliability and effectiveness of the teacher can be incorporated. This may not necessarily be shown on the teacher's record when the teacher is entering material, but is shown on the proposed employer's screen when he or she is looking at the possibility of employing a particular teacher.

The system also allows for bulk communication via sms and email to enhance information exchange.

Whilst there has been described herein one particular arrangement of the invention, it is to be understood that information not mentioned and other material can well be incorporated.

Also, as previously mentioned, it will be appreciated that virtually the same system could be used in different industries. For example, if a builder required an electrician to work for 3 days, he could go into a system equivalent to the one described herein, find the possibilities as far as electricians are concerned, and select and make an offer to any particular one of the listed electricians.

Similarly, the system could be used for office workers or people in the service industry such as nurses, physiotherapists and the like.

Also, the method of communication can vary with the material to be transmitted, in the earlier embodiment it was stated that qualifications could be scanned and emailed or faxed. Also still, video conferencing or live photographs could be required in certain applications, and these could be provided.

In each different application, there may be different requirements but they will all have the same feature that there is effectively direct contact between the proposed employer and the employee without the necessity of a third party being involved although, ultimately, the third party is paid for services in matching the worker with the employer. All such variations and modifications can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.

Claims

We claim:

1. A method of recruiting a person by an organisation in which the qualifications, other particulars and availability of persons to be employed are maintained on a database and wherein a prospective employer may access the database to ascertain details of persons who meet its requirements and, if such a person or persons are selected, an offer can be made directly to the person or persons.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the database includes contact details of the available person and the offer can be made by SMS.

3. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the database includes contact details of the available person and the offer can be made by facsimile.

4. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the database includes contact details of the available person and the offer can be made by email.

5. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the database includes contact details of the available person and the offer can be made by video conferencing or cam camera technologies live or recorded.

6. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the database includes contact details of the available person and the offer can be made by telephone.

7. A method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein a person who wishes to be considered by the recruiting body enters relevant particulars onto a database, which can be amended only by the person or the provider of the database, and, where certain qualifications have to be proved, provides copies of these qualifications for noting or display on the database so that the prospective employers can be satisfied that the person meets the required qualifications for the position.

8. A method as claimed in claim 5 wherein the relevant particulars include details of the period(s) when the person is available for employment.

9. A method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein prospective employers enters relevant particulars onto a database so that a prospective employee can consider these particulars before making a decision as whether or not to accept any offer of employment.

10. A method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein, on an offer for employment being made and accepted, the periσd(s) shown on the database for which the person is available is amended.

11. A method as claimed in claim 9 wherein the amendment is done by the person amending his/her database entry.

12. A method as claimed in claim 9 wherein the employer notifies the provider that the person has been employed for a particular period and the provider makes the amendment to the data method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein employers of persons can provide a report on the performance of that person when carrying our duties associated with employment, which report can only be accessed by other potential employers and the person.

13. A method as claimed in claim 9 wherein, on an indication by the teacher that he/she accepts employment the database entry is automatically corrected.

14. A method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein employers who subscribe to the service can make use of it to forward material to all persons on the database or to selected groups there from, including individuals.

15. A method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 14 wherein the persons are professionals.

16. A method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 14 wherein the persons are tradespeople.

17. A method of recruiting a person by an organisation substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying drawings.