WO2012079284A1

WO2012079284A1 - System for adapting information for mobile platform and method for recruitment on mobile platform

Info

Publication number: WO2012079284A1
Application number: PCT/CN2011/002089
Authority: WO
Inventors: Ashley Steinhausen
Original assignee: Dazhi Mobile Services Limited
Priority date: 2010-12-13
Filing date: 2011-12-13
Publication date: 2012-06-21

Abstract

A system for adapting information to the mobile platform is disclosed. Methods to compartmentalize information, to generate appropriate queries and to adapt the content for best presentation onto the mobile devices are discussed. An example of utilizing the inventive ideas in implementing a mobile application is also included. In another aspect, a method for recruitment on mobile platform is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of displaying an advertisement link to a mobile recruitment site to a user on a user device, providing information of at least one job advertisement, presenting pre-screening questionnaire to the user, prompting the user to answer the questionnaire, and processing the answers received, etc.

Description

SYSTEM FOR ADAPTING INFORMATION FOR MOBILE PLATFORM AND METHOD FOR RECRUITMENT ON

MOBILE PLATFORM

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims benefits of U.S. Provisional Applications having Serial No. 61/422,224 filed on 13 Dec 2010 and Serial No. 61/422,226 filed on 13 Dec 2010, which are hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

FIELD OF INVENTION

This invention relates to a system and a method for mobile platform, and in particular a system for adapting information for mobile platform and a method for recruitment adapted for mobile platform.

BACKGROUND OF INVENTION

Conventional web sites for personal computer platform contain a lot of information. When such web sites are accessed from the mobile platform such as a mobile phone, problems will arise due to having to transfer or display too much information.

More and more people regularly use mobile phones instead of using personal computers to surf the Internet. Conventional recruitment sites are tailored for personal computer use and are not adapted for the mobile platform.

SUMMARY OF INVENTION

In the light of the foregoing background, it is an object of the present invention to provide an alternate system to provide users with simplified and sorted information in using mobile platform. Accordingly, the present invention, in one aspect, is a system for adapting information to a mobile platform, comprising an information management module adapted to collect and manage information from a source; a compartmentalization module adapted to categorize or sort the information into predetermined categories and define a compartment in the information management module for each predetermined category; a mobile page generation module adapted to generate a mobile page for each predetermined category for user access to each compartment; and a user management module adapted to interface with at least one mobile device through Internet for obtaining user information and store and manage the user information.

In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the information management module collects the information from a web publishing site or a user input.

In another exemplary embodiment, the compartmentalization module uses at least one attribute as selection criteria for compartmentalization. The compartmentalization module selects appropriate chunk of the information and sends the chunk to the mobile page generation module based on a set of pre-defined rules or user's preference.

The system further comprises a mobile operator adapted to collect brand and model information of at least one mobile device, the user management module makes use of the brand and model information and adapts web pages to cater for specific device characteristics.

In one embodiment, the user management module further comprises a plurality of plug-in modules for particular device brands and models. In another embodiment, the system is implemented as a mobile career website. The information management module collects and stores positions available and job descriptions from a plurality of sources. The compartmentalization module compartmentalizes the positions and job descriptions by company wanting to post job advertisements, and the mobile page generation module generates and displays a recruitment web page to the user.

There are many advantages to the system of the present invention. The system compartmentalizes the information displayed to the user in a mobile platform. The important information is extracted and sorted due to different needs. This reduces the information transfer for a mobile phone, and thus facilitating the display of information to the mobile platform user.

In the light of the foregoing background, it is also an object of the present invention to provide an alternate method for recruitment on mobile platform.

The present invention, in another aspect, is a method comprising the step of displaying an advertisement link to a mobile recruitment site to a user on a user device. The method then provides information of at least one job advertisement. Afterwards, the method presents pre-screening questionnaire to the user and prompts the user to answer the questionnaire, and processes the answers received. The method then contacts the user prompting for the user's resume. After receiving the resume, the resume is processed to determine the most appropriate candidates, and the details of the candidates are forwarded to the potential employer for further interviews, wherein the details comprising answers to said questionnaire and information contained in the resume. In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the mobile recruitment site is dedicated for a single employer or company. The link to the mobile recruitment site identifies the name of the company to the user.

There are many advantages to the method of the present invention. An advantage is that a user no longer needs to stay in front of the computer for a prolonged period of time in order to apply for a job. The information presented to the user is already categorized in a way (e.g. by company) such that the number of job advertisements displayed to the user is already at a manageable amount when the user first enters the site. This improves the convenience of the user as this matches the behavior of a typical mobile phone user. A typical mobile phone user only concentrates on the display for a few minutes at a time, therefore by narrowing down the initial number of job advertisements displayed to the user, the whole application process from the user entering the mobile recruitment site to the user answering the pre-screen questionnaire only takes a few minutes.

Another advantage is that the user also does not need to immediately submit his/her resume at the time of application. This again improves the convenience of the user as the user may not have the resume stored at the user's mobile phone at all times, or the user may want to customize the resume for a specific job.

Another advantage of method of the present invention is that the advertisement link displayed to the user also has a company branding effect, improving the impression of the company to the user.

Yet another advantage is that the pre-screening questionnaire is provided to the user at the same time when the user applies for the job, therefore unsuitable candidates can be instantly screened at or before receiving the candidate's resume. This reduces the number of resumes that the employer or a recruiting company needs to go through and thus improves the efficiency of the recruitment process. It also reduces the number of resumes stored in the recruitment server.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF FIGURES

Fig. 1 is a block diagram of a system for adapting information for mobile platform according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 2 is a block diagram of the information management module according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 3 is an example item stored in the information management module of Fig. 2.

Fig. 4 is a block diagram showing the compartmentalization of the information management module and communication between each compartment and the user.

Fig. 5 is a screen display of an exemplary application that implements the inventive idea of the present invention.

Fig. 6 a, b, and c are further screen displays that further illustrates the operation flow of the exemplary application.

Fig. 7 is an exemplary hardware and software implementation block diagram of the present invention.

Fig. 8 is a flow chart of a method of recruitment on mobile platform according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 9a is a user device at a mobile portal site showing the advertisements to the user.

Fig. 9b shows the user device after entering the mobile recruitment site. Fig. 9c shows an exemplary pre-screening questionnaire presented to the user.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

As used herein, a mobile device or mobile phone refers to a device that a user hand-carries and can communicate to a backend server via wireless means. Typically it has a small display screen that is around 2 to 5 inches (diagonally) and encompasses cellular phones, 'smart phones' and the likes. The new class of tablet devices such as the iPad from Apple is also another form of mobile device.

As mentioned in previous paragraphs, desk-top or lap-top personal computers typically have larger screen sizes, and conventional web pages can make use of the larger screen estate to display more information to the user. Coupled with the fact that mobile users are also on-the-go, they will spend little time to browse the content. Therefore, web page designer needs to re-think their screen presentation strategy in order to display the information to the user in a succinct manner.

Referring now to Fig. 1 , the first embodiment of the present invention is a system 20 comprising an information management module 22, a compartmentalization module 24, a mobile page generation module 26 and a user management module 28 all interconnected to each other. The information management module 22 collects and manages information from a source. Then the compartmentalization module 24 categorizes or sorts the collected information into predetermined categories and defines a compartment in said information management module 22 for each predetermined category. The mobile page generation module 26 generates a mobile page for each predetermined category for user access to each compartment. The user management module 28 interfaces with at least one mobile device 40 through Internet 34 for obtaining user information, and also stores and manages the obtained user information. In one embodiment, the mobile device 40 accesses the system 20 through a base station 42 of a mobile phone operator 44, the latter is connected to the Internet 34 backbone.

As shown in Fig. 2, in one embodiment the information management module 22 collects information by downloading the information from a web publishing site 30 through the Internet 34. In another embodiment, the information is entered manually into the information management module 22 through a user input device 32. For mobile application, the information needs to be categorized or compartmentalized into smaller chunk. This can be done using one or more attributes as selection criteria for compartmentalization. In an exemplary embodiment, the attribute is the company name and only the information from one company is presented to the mobile user. Other methods of compartmentalization can also be adopted.

In another embodiment as shown in Fig. 3, the information collected by the information management module 22 comprises a plurality of items 36 where each item comprises an item description 37 and a plurality of attribute identifiers or tags 38 associated with the item. For example, if the items 36 are products, the identifiers or tags 38 could be the brand of the product, the type of the product, the price of the product etc.

After the information is collected by the information management module 22, the compartmentalization module 24 categorizes and sorts the information by at least one of the tags 38. For example, a category can be an item of a specific brand, or can be a specific product type within a specific price range etc. As shown in Fig. 4, this is represented by the items 37a, 37b and 37c all having a specific tag 38a. The compartmentalization module 24 then defines a compartment 42 in the information management module 22 for this category. The items that are in the predetermined category are then stored in the defined compartment 42 in the information management module 22.

When a mobile user requests information from the system 20, the compartmentalization module 24 selects the appropriate chunk of information and sends it to the mobile page generation module 26. In one embodiment, this is done by a set of pre-defined rules. In another embodiment, the selection criterion is based on user's preference. User's preference can be obtained or inferred in a variety of ways. As an example, it can be based on the statistics of prior use. Such statistics can be obtained from click-through analysis, which monitors the web pages that the user has visited in the past. Another alternative is to find out the kinds of mobile applications that the user has installed on his mobile device; and the corresponding usage patterns. The compartmentalization module can then make use of such information to decide the appropriate information chunk to send to the mobile page generation module.

The mobile page generation module 26 generates a mobile page for the selected information chunk. In many situations, the system 20 needs to initiate a request-response dialog with the mobile user. For desk-top computing where the display screen is large, the request as well as the response can be a long sentence. However, that is not feasible in a mobile device with limited display estate. One option is break the long question into multiple short questions. This creates bad user experience to the mobile user as he needs to answer an excessive number of questions before he can specify what he wants. In computer implementation, this means that the question-answering tree has many levels for the user to traverse. In one embodiment, the requests or questions can be sorted according to their frequency of usages, and the most frequently used question is presented first. In another embodiment where there is a long list of requests, some of the infrequent used requests can be grouped together and an intermediate request node is created for this group. In a further embodiment, the technique of Hamming distance can be used in grouping the requests together. This is but just one method of designing a suitable dialog interface, other similar techniques can also be applied.

In another exemplary embodiment, the mobile page for example comprises a list of items in the predetermined category and their details that are of interest to a user. In one embodiment, the address of the mobile page is automatically generated from the predetermined category. The link to the mobile page is then provided to the user on the mobile device 40, for example through a mobile portal site on the Internet 34, for the user to access the page displaying the information in the predetermined category.

In an exemplary embodiment, the user is prompted to enter user information before or after accessing the mobile page. The entered information is sent from the user device to the user management module 28, where the information is stored and managed. For example, user information can comprise a mobile phone number of the user or a preference of the user. In a further embodiment, the user management module 28 sends a reply to the user at the entered mobile phone number through SMS or the Internet or other means, for acknowledging receipt of information or requesting more information from the user. After the mobile page generation module 26 generates the web page, it is sent to the user management module 28 for processing. In one embodiment, the user management module 28 forwards the web page to the mobile device 40. In a further embodiment, the mobile device 40 reveals its brand and model to the mobile operator 44 when it is first connected to the mobile operator 44. This information can be passed on to the system 20. As different mobile devices have different display capabilities, namely, the screen size, the color depth, audio and vibration characteristics, the user management module 28 can make use of such information and adapt the web pages to cater to specific device characteristics. In a further embodiment, the user management module 28 has a plurality number of plug-in modules, each for a particular device brand and model. When the system 20 obtains such information from the mobile operator 44, the user management module 28 can invoke the corresponding plug-in to send the web pages to the mobile device 40. In yet another embodiment, the mobile page generation module 26 can also make use of the device information in customizing the request-response dialog for that particular mobile device.

Application

An exemplary application of mobile recruitment is disclosed here to illustrate how the various inventive ideas are applied. The system 20 is implemented as a mobile career website, where the positions available and job descriptions are collected from various sources and stored in the information management module 22. In this example, the information is compartmentalized by company wanting to post the job advertisement. Fig. 5 shows a typical screen display of web link when the mobile user browses the Internet. When the user clicks on this web link, the system 20 generates and displays a web page as shown in Fig. 7a onto the user's mobile device 40. In an exemplary implementation, this page comprises a plurality of web links 52. The user can click on any one of the web links and the system 20 displays the full job description as shown in Fig. 7b. If the user is interested, he can then apply for this vacancy. The system 20 then generates a dialog for the user to fill in the necessary information. This information will be collected by the information management module 22 for further processing. In this exemplary application, the system will pre-screen the user's answers and will send SMS or email to the short-listed candidates to request a full resume.

Hardware and Software Implementation

Fig. 7 shows an exemplary data processing device 800 consisting of both the hardware 801 and software components 802 that can be used to implement the embodiment of the present invention. The hardware components in the present embodiment further comprises a Central Processing Unit (CPU) 810, memory 811, storage 812, and multiple interfaces such as the peripheral interface 813, network interface 814, input interface 815 and output interface 816.

Software 802 further includes the operating system 850, and the application software system 20 as shown in Fig. 1.

It should be understood for those skilled in the art that the division between hardware and software is a conceptual division for ease of understanding and is somewhat arbitrary. Furthermore, the application software systems may be executed in a distributed computing environment. The software program and its related databases can be stored in a separate file server or database server and are transferred to the local host for execution. In addition, some of the processes normally executed on the server can be migrated to the mobile devices. The data processing device 800 as shown in Fig. 14 is therefore an exemplary embodiment of how the present invention can be implemented. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that alternative embodiments can be adopted to implement the present invention.

Referring now to the flow chart as shown in Fig. 8, the first embodiment of the present invention is a method for recruitment on mobile platform. The method comprises the steps of displaying an advertisement link to a mobile recruitment site to a potential candidate (called user) on a user device through a mobile portal (step 46). Upon the user clicking on the link, the user is provided information of at least one job advertisement (step 48). The user is also prompted to enter his/her contact details e.g. mobile phone number or email address during this step. When the user clicks on a job advertisement, detailed information of the job and a pre-screening questionnaire are presented to the user and prompts the user to answer the questionnaire (step 50). The answers to the pre-screening questionnaire are then received and processed to screen out candidates that do not qualify for the chosen job (step 52). The short-listed user is then contacted through email or SMS or other means, providing a link to the user that the user should send his/her resume to (step 54). After receiving the resume, the resume is processed to determine the most appropriate candidates, and the details of the candidates are forwarded to the potential employer for further processing (step 56).

In an exemplary embodiment as shown in Fig. 9a, the mobile recruitment site is dedicated to a specific employer or company, and the name of the specific employer is shown in the advertisement link to the user. In various embodiments, the advertisement link can be a banner ad 58, a text ad 60 or both. By dedicating the site to a specific company, the number of job advertisements can be limited to a manageable number on a mobile phone, as scrolling through a large number of job advertisements on a mobile phone display is very annoying to the user. This also reduces the data that needs to be transferred from the server to the user device, as the data transfer for mobile phones is not as stable or mature as the data transfer for computers, and the cost for wireless data transfer may be substantial. The link for the specific company when displayed to the user also acts as an advertisement campaign for the company and has a "company branding" effect to the user.

As each site is dedicated to a specific company, each company will have its own mobile recruitment site. Links to recruitment sites of different companies can be displayed on the same page, with the order being prioritized based on at least one parameter such as number of job advertisements available for the company or user preference based on his previous actions. For example, if the user has entered a mobile recruitment site for a pharmaceutical company or clicked on a specific job advertisement in a pharmaceutical company before, the user is more likely to pursue a career in this industry. This action is then recorded in a server and future job advertisements from other pharmaceutical companies may be displayed to the user more towards the top of the mobile portal, where the advertisement is easier for the user to identify.

The user device at step 48 is shown in Fig. 9c. The user is prompted to enter his contact details, in this case the mobile phone number at the box 62 in order to get to the next screen. The user device at step 50 is shown in Fig. 9c. In one embodiment, the pre-screening questionnaire comprises several, such as 5 to 7, short questions that only require short answers to be more convenient for the user on a mobile phone. For example, some of the questions may be "Current salary" or "Current job title". In one embodiment, the answers are chosen from a plurality of predetermined choices through a pull-down menu.

In one embodiment, the pre-screening questionnaire is processed manually after it is received in the server. In another embodiment, the pre-screening questionnaire is processed automatically on a rule-based algorithm based on the predetermined choices available to the user. In one embodiment, the resumes are also processed manually against a checklist of desirable characteristics for determining the most appropriate candidates.

In one embodiment, the user is prompted for more information for any number of times. For example, the first time the user is prompted to send his/her resume, and the next time can be a phone interview. Or in another example, the user is prompted to answer another pre-screening questionnaire before the user is prompted to send the resume. In yet another embodiment, the resume of the user is sent to the server along with the contact details of the user.

In one embodiment, the system for operating the method of the present invention comprises a server storing job advertisement data for each company and also the user data for each user. The system has a communication module that communicates with the user device through email or SMS or other means. In one embodiment, the system also has a processing module for automatically processing pre-screening questions or providing the administrator of the users' answers in a format that is easy to read and compare.

In one embodiment, the server is configured to be accessible for potential employers to client management, position management, reviewing candidate information, manual screening of candidates, checking resumes submitted by candidates and more. In one embodiment, the site accessed by potential employers is also dedicated to the employer or company.

The exemplary embodiments of the present invention are thus fully described. Although the description referred to particular embodiments, it will be clear to one skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced with variation of these specific details. Hence this invention should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein.

Claims

What is claimed is:

1. A system for adapting information to a mobile platform, comprising:

a) an information management module adapted to collect and manage information from a source;

b) a compartmentalization module adapted to categorize or sort said information into predetermined categories and define a compartment in said information management module for each said predetermined category;

c) a mobile page generation module adapted to generate a mobile page for each said predetermined category for user access to each said compartment; and

d) a user management module adapted to interface with at least one mobile device through Internet for obtaining user information and store and manage said user information.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein said information management module collects said information from a web publishing site or a user input.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein said compartmentalization module uses at least one attribute as selection criteria for compartmentalization.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein said compartmentalization module selects appropriate chunk of said information and sends said chunk to said mobile page generation module based on a set of pre-defmed rules or user's preference.

5. The system of claim 1 further comprising a mobile operator adapted to collect brand and model information of said at least one mobile device, said user management module makes use of said brand and model information and adapts web pages to cater for specific device characteristics.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein said user management module further comprising a plurality of plug-in modules for particular device brands and models.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein said system is implemented as a mobile career website, said information management module collecting and storing positions available and job descriptions from a plurality of sources, said compartmentalization module compartmentalizing said positions and said job descriptions by company wanting to post job advertisements, and said mobile page generation module generating and displaying a recruitment web page to said user.

8. A method for recruitment adapted for mobile platform, comprising:

a. displaying an advertisement link to a mobile recruitment site to a user on a user device;

b. providing information of at least one job advertisement;

c. presenting pre-screening questionnaire to said user and prompting said user to answer said questionnaire;

d. processing answers to said questionnaire;

e. contacting said user for resume based on said answers;

f. processing said resume to determine the most appropriate candidates; and

g. forwarding details of said candidates to potential employers for further interview;

wherein said details of said candidates comprising said answers to said questionnaire and information contained in said resume.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising limiting the number of said job advertisements by dedicating said mobile recruitment site to a specific employer or company for reducing data transfer.

10. The method of claim 8 further comprising displaying multiple said advertisement links on the same page and prioritizing the order based on at least one parameter.

11. The method of claim 8 further comprising prompting said user to enter contact details comprising mobile phone number and email address, and prompting said user for a phone interview when said user is determined to be appropriate.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein said processing step is processed automatically on a rule-based algorithm based on predetermined choices.

13. The method of claim 8 further comprising storing job advertisement data and user data in a server.

14. The method of claim 13 further comprising providing said potential employers with access to said server for client management, position management, information review and manual screening.