Matching Job and Applicant : Employment: A recruitment company is making a name for itself with an international computer hookup.
When Akiyoshi Hamauchi needs candidates for job openings in Price Waterhouse’s Japanese Business Group, he cuts through the inevitable mountains of unsuitable resumes using a relatively new and computerized twist on the help-wanteds.
“Our recruiting efforts are very specific and specialized,” says Hamauchi, the firm’s recruiting manager, based in New York. Typically, he looks for accounting and computer science professionals who are English-Japanese bilingual and interested in working for a Japanese employer in the United States.
Lately, he has minimized his effort by using an international recruitment computer system that scans thousands of resume profiles of recent college graduates and mid-career professionals to locate the handful who meet his requirements.
“It’s very effective for a recruiter like me,” says Hamauchi, “who needs to look all over the United States.”
Price Waterhouse is only one of about 150 international corporations and federal agencies that have tapped into the 30,000 job-hunter profiles in the data bank of Peterson’s Connexion Services.
Founded almost two years ago by Peterson’s, the Princeton, N.J., company better known for its college and career guidebooks, Connexion Services is making a name for itself despite a tightened job market.
The list of occupations it has conducted searches for is broad--sales and marketing, teaching, biostatistics, electronic design engineering, graphic arts, occupational therapy, pharmacologic research. But the company’s forte appears to be matching qualified candidates for highly specific job descriptions. For example:
Last June, a school in Paoli, Pa., needed a teacher of the physically disabled and visually impaired. Applicants were required to have teaching credentials in special education for the blind and visually impaired from Pennsylvania, New Jersey or Delaware. Connexion pulled 16 qualified candidates from its databank.
Two months later, a utility company asked Connexion to find what it hadn’t been able to find through traditional methods--an electronic data processing auditor willing to relocate. The computer found four candidates.
In October, a Northwest research firm specializing in energy, hazardous-waste treatment and environmental earth sciences asked for candidates who majored in archeology or anthropology. Connexion provided 18 prospects, five of them with advanced degrees in those fields.
“Given the current job market, companies are totally inundated with resumes and, in many cases, they are saying that is too difficult to deal with,” says Barbara L. Thomas, president of Peterson’s Connexion Services. “That can make a service like this very attractive.”
Thomas believes network recruitment services like Connexion will lead the way in hiring for the future corporation.
“Filling positions is going to become a much more creative activity,” she explains. “Companies are going to want individuals who have a broader range of experience, who can function with a smaller and more agile staff.”
To find more of those kinds of candidates, in October the company upped its accessibility to the public by going on-line via CompuServe, one of the largest national computer networks. Now, people searching for jobs can telephone Connexion, (800) 338-3282, Ext. 561, and a 12-month computer-based registration package ($40) will be mailed to them; if they are CompuServe subscribers, they can register via the computer network for $34.95. Students get a $10 discount.
“Anyone who wants to join is welcome; CompuServe is just one more way for people to get registered,” says Thomas, who describes the majority of registrants as college educated--some with graduate degrees--and experienced. The company also specializes in positioning returning military personnel and Peace Corps volunteers. It has separate programs for finding jobs for foreign nationals who want to return to their homelands after studying in the United States.
Most registrants are interested in landing jobs with Connexion’s corporate and government clients--some of them high-visibility companies like Goldman Sachs, Pepsi-Cola, AT&T; and Rockwell International--which pay more than $275 for a one-time search.
“We do a very personalized service for the corporations and government agencies,” says Thomas, “and we deal with an interesting cross-section of individuals as well.”
