% fortune -ae paul murphy

A plea for open source help

I got an email last week from a guy who runs a recruitment agency and wants to adopt open source software for a specific requirement he can't comfortably afford to meet via an established commercial package.

Here's his thumbnail description of the specific requirement:

I have a client who has numerous line managers effectively hiring managers.

The system I need will allow every line manager a unique login where they can upload their job vacancies in the business which then alerts the recruiter a new vacancy has been loaded.

The recruiter opens this and it alerts that line manager that the recruiter assigned is working the vacancy for him/her. The recruiter sources the right candidates, uploads the relevant cv's which alerts the line manager/hiring manager that he/she has new resumes/cv's to review for their approval. Once they have approved these or rejected them they agree on interview times dates etc - in a calendar or something like that - which then alerts the recruiter.

The recruiter books interviews with the candidates and alerts the line/hiring manager again that the task is complete. There is a section on offers/acceptance. Obviously HR will have full access allowing them to see the whole picture and have statistics on how the recruiter is working etc.

The "etc"s on this are a little more complicated than they might sound so this has to be part of some package at least a couple of other people in the recruitment business are using.

I haven't been keeping up with developments in recruiting software and couldn't point him at anything I've actually seen in use myself - so, can you?

Note: if you're personally involved with something that might help, please comment here and/or get in touch. I'll give it about a 15 second distant sniff test and put anyone not too obviously out to lunch in touch with the guy who sent me the email.


Paul Murphy wrote and published The Unix Guide to Defenestration. Murphy is a 25-year veteran of the I.T. consulting industry, specializing in Unix and Unix-related management issues.