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PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions: Implementation Tips and Techniques An Oracle White Paper February 2004

PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions: Implementation Tips and Techniques

Introduction ....................................................................................................... 4 Preparing to Implement PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions ...... 4

Plan, plan, and then plan again. .................................................................. 4 A. Identify Business Drivers ....................................................................... 5

Needs Assessment.................................................................................... 5 B. Determine Program and Project Management.................................... 5

Executive-Level Support......................................................................... 5 Dedicated Staff ......................................................................................... 5 Appropriate Scoping and Phasing ......................................................... 5 Getting Ahead of Your Plan................................................................... 6

C. Understand Your Company’s Culture .................................................. 6 Change Management ............................................................................... 6 Staffing Model Assessment..................................................................... 6 Business Process Mapping...................................................................... 6 Implementation Phasing ......................................................................... 7 Phasing Decision Criteria........................................................................ 7

D. Provide Key Players with Training Before Beginning an Implementation............................................................................................. 8

PeopleSoft Enterprise Product and Implementation Training ......... 8 General Computer Training ................................................................... 8 Functional Training.................................................................................. 8

E. Make Technical Preparations................................................................. 8 Plan Ahead ................................................................................................ 8 Security Preparation ................................................................................. 9 Hardware Planning................................................................................... 9 Resume Processing................................................................................... 9 Partner Relationships............................................................................... 9 Conversion of Legacy Data .................................................................. 10 Configuring Your Applications............................................................ 10

PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce................................................... 11 Initial Setup.................................................................................................. 12 Core Table Configuration.......................................................................... 14

Jobcode Table ......................................................................................... 14 Job Function Table ................................................................................ 15

Location Table ............................................................................................ 16 Recruitment Table Configuration............................................................. 16


Applicant Tracking................................................................................. 16 Metrics ..................................................................................................... 16

PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit ..................................................................... 17 Product Configuration ............................................................................... 18

Send a Message ....................................................................................... 18 Consider the User Experience.............................................................. 19 Know Your Audience............................................................................ 19 Screening Questions .............................................................................. 20 Using Competencies and Accomplishments...................................... 20

PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Manager Desktop .................................... 21 Assessing Recruiting Roles ........................................................................ 22

PeopleSoft Enterprise Resume Processing.................................................. 27 A Few Final Tips ............................................................................................. 29 Conclusion........................................................................................................ 30 About the Author............................................................................................ 31 Appendix A: PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions Courses ......... 32 Appendix B: PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions Delivered Reports.............................................................................................................. 33 Appendix C: Recruitment Area Statuses and Relationships ..................... 34


Recruiting Solutions: Implementation Tips and Techniques

INTRODUCTION A successful implementation of Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions depends on many factors, including well-trained functional and technical resources and the use of delivered documentation.

The objective of this document is to supplement delivered documentation by:

• Providing our customers with a head start in their implementation of PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions.

• Offering broad, general guidelines around which customers can plan their implementation.

PREPARING TO IMPLEMENT PEOPLESOFT ENTERPRISE RECRUITING SOLUTIONS

Plan, plan, and then plan again. “When you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” This saying is especially true when you’re implementing PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions, an activity that is much more than just a technical exercise.

• It is an exercise in partnership between IT and functional business owners in which each person must understand his role and where it fits into the larger effort.

• It is an effort that involves changing processes and influencing a company’s culture.

• It is an endeavor that will result in major benefits if carried out with foresight, planning, and discipline.

Implementations succeed most often when performed in the context of the customer’s business processes and technical environment.

Although much of what you will read here may seem like common sense, it’s surprising how many companies think they can skip these important steps and still succeed.


A. Identify Business Drivers

Needs Assessment

Your reasons for implementing PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions are likely to go beyond simply automating a manual process. When you considered purchasing the software, you probably developed a list of your company’s recruiting business needs and evaluated product features against that list.

It is important to stay focused on the reasons you purchased the software, going so far as to identify when and how you will know when you’ve achieved each objective. You might do so in the form of a metric, such as “time to fill,” a cost-to-benefit measure, or even a survey of your users.

B. Determine Program and Project Management

Executive-Level Support

As with the successful implementation of any software, implementing PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions requires senior-level support and guidance. Current policies and practices will be challenged, and it will be important to resolve issues quickly. Make sure that you have the decision makers on your team. Develop an issue-resolution plan that sets out clear timing for resolution, rules for escalation, and strategies for mitigation. Avoid wasting precious project time because you don’t have access to the people you need to make key decisions.

Dedicated Staff

Many companies expect recruiters and other functional users to be on the implementation team while still doing their regular, full-time jobs. When the functional users and subject matter experts are unable to commit themselves to the implementation process, the final product may not meet their needs. Ensure that your recruiters and selected representative hiring managers are heavily involved in every step of the implementation.

Appropriate Scoping and Phasing

As you develop your project plan, think incrementally. Implementing PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions gives you the opportunity to start with basic configurations and evolve into more detailed, complex processes and rules. For example, include a project task to develop basic job requisition templates early in your time line. Then, add a task to develop department or job-specific job requisition templates later, perhaps when you implement Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Manager Desktop or even as a post-implementation step. This approach will enable a quicker initial implementation, which is still robust but doesn’t contain all the “bells and whistles.” You can add other features later.


Getting Ahead of Your Plan

If you decide to use any partners, establish contracts with them early in your project so that when you need to begin working with them, everything will be in place. Even the simplest contracts can take a long time to execute because of all the people involved in developing and negotiating them. Don’t let this activity delay your project.

C. Understand Your Company’s Culture

Change Management

PeopleSoft Enterprise software can enable a nearly paperless recruiting environment. But your recruiters and hiring managers may not be ready for such a change. Regardless of your company’s strategy, it is important to identify the change management challenges early in the implementation cycle to avoid resistance during rollout. Make your change management plan a priority.

Staffing Model Assessment

PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions support a variety of approaches to staffing. Whether your recruiters or hiring managers perform most of the staffing tasks, PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions can be configured to support you.

Your implementation is likely to be the catalyst for changing your staffing model. Re-engineering your processes to support your new model and to work within the PeopleSoft Enterprise system framework should be part of your planning process. Treat process re-engineering as an objective in itself rather than just as a product of your implementation. Forcing change at the time of implementation is rarely successful. Your change management plan will become especially important.

Business Process Mapping

To get a head start on your process evaluation, you can take advantage of the recruiting business process maps (BPMs) that are available. These maps, by using a swim-lane approach, show which tasks each role (recruiter, manager, applicant, and so on) is responsible for. These models describe how you can use the PeopleSoft Enterprise products most effectively. You can fine-tune the models to fit your culture.

The following BPMs are available in Visio and PDF formats for you to download and print:

• Recruiting (high-level)

• Develop the Organizational Plan

• Assess Competencies

• Evaluate Applicants

• Select Candidates


• Hire and Enable Resource

Implementation Phasing

Once you’ve determined your new processes, decide the order in which you want to implement the PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions products. You may, of course, deploy all products simultaneously. If you choose not to do so, you must implement Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce first, but you have some options regarding the remaining modules. A typical strategy is to deploy the products in the following order: PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce, PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit, PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Manager Desktop, PeopleSoft Enterprise Resume Processing. The employee referral program (ERP), a component of the PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce module, can be implemented simultaneously with the rest of the features of the module or at any time thereafter. It should be noted that full employee access to the program, for the purpose of referring people online and tracking their progress through the recruiting process, requires the implementation of Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit. The eligibility rules, the tying of applicants to the person referring them, and processes for paying out awards, however, are all part of the core PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce product.

Phasing Decision Criteria

Your choices will depend on a number of factors:

• If your immediate goal is to reduce the number of paper resumes that you have to handle, consider implementing PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit and/or Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise Resume Processing immediately after PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce. The benefits you’ll reap from each product will depend on your applicant demographics, such as the nature of your workforce and how most applicants approach their job search.

• If your primary goal is to reduce your time to hire, you may want to start with PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit. PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit enables you to place job requisitions on your company Web site, where internet-savvy applicants and employees can easily apply for positions or refer others, thereby increasing your pool of qualified candidates.

• Assess how much support your hiring managers will need from the recruiting team when the manager self-service transactions are deployed. If you think they will be fairly self sufficient, you may roll out PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Manager Desktop simultaneously with PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce and PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit. If, however, they’ll need a lot of support, give your recruiting team sufficient time to become comfortable with PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce before deploying PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Manager Desktop. Note that the deployment of PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Manager Desktop depends on how much a company wants its managers to handle tasks that were historically the


province of recruiters. The need to help managers with the recruiting process should not be the determining factor in deciding whether you implement PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Manager Desktop, but it can be a factor in deciding when to implement.

D. Provide Key Players with Training Before Beginning an Implementation

PeopleSoft Enterprise Product and Implementation Training

Too often, companies assume that because they are already using other PeopleSoft Enterprise HRMS modules from Oracle, their IT and functional staffs will not need training before implementing PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions. Without proper training, the team’s ability to configure the various tables is compromised because they won’t understand the impact of their actions and decisions. Ensure that all parties involved in the implementation are thoroughly trained before starting any major work on the project.

General Computer Training

If your new recruiting process depends heavily on electronic interaction between recruiters and hiring managers, ensure that your managers are prepared to support it. Though everybody understands that pushing work out to where it originates is a best practice, not all managers are comfortable completing important transactions on a computer. Know your managers and make sure that they receive the proper computer training well before you implement PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Manager Desktop.

Functional Training

Finally, if you are pushing recruiting tasks to your hiring managers for the first time, train them in the fundamentals of recruiting. Up until now, they may have participated only in the interview process and developing offers but may have no experience in effective sourcing and screening of applicants.

E. Make Technical Preparations

Plan Ahead

Some aspects of your technical implementation cannot be accelerated regardless of how many people you involve. A good first step is to look across your entire project time line, anticipate which technical tasks might cause delays, and start these tasks early in your project. Likewise, complete tasks that have few or no dependencies early and get them out of the way. Make sure your technical environment is ready to support your efforts.

• Ensure that your company is current on all patches and fixes before the project starts.


• Install and use the demo database immediately, and for the duration of the project, for educational purposes. Make sure that PeopleBooks context-sensitive online help is readily available.

• Set up the database environments you’ll need initially—for example, a configuration or fit-gap environment. Establish rules for using each environment to prevent team members from inadvertently interfering with each other’s work.

Failure to have a technical environment in which to test configurations and try different processes can slow your initial momentum and frustrate your implementation team.

Security Preparation

Consider your security environment early in your implementation planning. Oracle’s Consulting Services for PeopleSoft Enterprise can advise you on the various security models that other companies have used successfully with PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit. Because PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit includes an external Web site, your IT department will probably have specific security protocols that you must follow, and compliance may require more time than you expect.

Hardware Planning

Implementing PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit and PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Manager Desktop may introduce new hardware needs. Depending on your industry, your employees may not have easy access to computers. Likewise, your potential applicants may typically come into your location to apply for work rather than use the internet. To maximize the use of PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit by both groups, you may want to provide computer kiosks in several locations throughout your company. If you choose this route, the time line for approval, acquisition, and setup can often be quite long. You must therefore address this task early in the implementation process.

Resume Processing

Your technical team should also get an early start on installing PeopleSoft Enterprise Resume Processing. Ensure that all project members have read the PeopleSoft Enterprise Resume Processing Handbook, the related PeopleBooks, and the Mohomine installation guide. PeopleSoft Enterprise Resume Processing requires up to four weeks to install, and it requires unique skills apart from those typically needed to install the other recruiting solutions.

Partner Relationships

If you decide to work with any partners, establish your PeopleSoft Enterprise Merchant Interface setup early in your project. Because you can’t control the speed with which partners respond to your needs, you should begin working with them


well before you need to begin testing the interfaces. Separate license agreements are often required and take time to negotiate, so advance planning is recommended.

Conversion of Legacy Data

Finally, the decision on whether to convert applicant and requisition data from a legacy recruiting system into PeopleSoft Enterprise comes up in many implementations. Consider these issues:

• Is the data easily retrievable? That is, does it reside on your own servers in your own system or is it only reportable, residing on a vendor’s system outside your company?

• Is the data rich enough to warrant moving it to PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce?

• Can you cut over to PeopleSoft Enterprise at the beginning of a quarter, gather your last quarter/last year metrics from your old system, and therefore convert only active requisitions and the associated applicants? (Recommended.)

• Is the pool of applicants in your old system of sufficient quality to make it worth converting them all? For how long do you consider a resume viable?

• Have you compared the cost of converting everything to the real benefits of doing so?

An efficient way to rebuild your applicant pool in PeopleSoft Enterprise without converting is to “cherry pick” the best applicants in your legacy system—those you might hire if you had an opening —and send them a letter, postcard, or e-mail inviting them to submit a current resume if they are still interested in working for your company. By doing this, you eliminate applicants you wouldn’t even consider and those who are no longer interested in you. This method works best after you’ve implemented PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit or PeopleSoft Enterprise Resume Processing, because by then you have efficient methods for processing their new resumes. As a bridging process, you can open new requisitions only in PeopleSoft Enterprise once you’ve gone live but use your legacy system as a source of applicants until PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit and/or PeopleSoft Enterprise Resume Processing are implemented.

Configuring Your Applications

Four products make up the PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions suite.

PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce is a core component of the PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Resources product and serves as the foundation for the recruiting business process. This module supports all applicant tracking functionality and is heavily integrated with the rest of the PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions products.


Two self-service applications build on this foundation: PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit and PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Manager Desktop. PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit provides self-service functionality that supports employees and applicants in the recruiting and staffing process. PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Manager Desktop provides self service for managers and recruiters.

PeopleSoft Enterprise Resume Processing completes the package, providing seamless processing of resumes received online and through other channels.

PEOPLESOFT ENTERPRISE RECRUIT WORKFORCE PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce is a robust data repository for applicant and job requisition information. With this product alone, you can:

• Create detailed job requisitions for openings in your organization.

• Enter comprehensive applicant data for job candidates, including personal data and preferences such as their willingness to travel or relocate, work experience, education, training, references, skills, and languages.

• Identify and eliminate duplicate applicants.

• Track the status of each applicant against each requisition, seeing, for example, who has applied, been interviewed, or received an offer.

• Applicant tracking is critical not only to support your recruiting efforts but also for regulatory reporting.

• Search your applicant pool for suitable candidates by comparing applicant details against job requirements and then ranking candidates based on how well they match.

• Generate form letters to applicants during different stages of the recruiting process.

• Schedule and track interviews.

• Track recruiting-related expenses.

• Set up and manage a robust employee referral program.

• Create and view employment contracts for applicants.

• Hire applicants without having to re-enter all their information.

• Develop and report a variety of metrics.

Beyond the core PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Resources module and any others already in production, PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce is the first module you will implement within the PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions. It is the foundation for the remaining PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions products in the same way that Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise Workforce Administration is the foundation for PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce.


Initial Setup If you are implementing PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce first, you have some flexibility regarding what and how much to set up initially. Generally, the key to success is to keep it simple at first. Don’t obsess about the tables that support PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit and PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Manager Desktop until you begin planning those implementations. You may want to let your recruiters become familiar with the basic PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce functionality and processes first. They will then be better positioned to configure the remaining tables because they’ll better understand the context.

Despite the guiding principle of initial simplicity, if an employee referral program (ERP) is a basic component of your recruiting process, you will want to set up the rules for PeopleSoft Enterprise’s ERP, which is part of the core PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce product. It is robust and flexible and allows you to set up different programs for different kinds of jobs, including special “hot jobs” programs that motivate employees to participate actively in the staffing process.


Figure 1: The Employee Eligibility Rules pages. Note that all page images in this document are taken from

PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions 8.8.

Studies have shown that no recruitment method is more effective than the employee referral. Candidates recommended by employees tend to be better qualified than others because employees prescreen candidates, saving HR professionals time and money. (Source: “Reeling Them In: The Art of Employee Referral Programs,” by Andrea C. Poe for the SHRM Foundation, October 2000.)

The benefits derived from a strong ERP are significant and should be sought in your first implementation phase. It is not necessary to set up a complex program at the outset, but you should establish some kind of program right away.


Core Table Configuration Many of the tables you have already set up are used by PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce and will need to be examined for suitability in the recruiting process.

Jobcode Table

The Jobcode Table contains a long description field that can be used to describe the job in detail. This description can then be pulled into a job requisition. These job descriptions can be designed to provide a significant part of the information an applicant will see about the job. Each time a job requisition is created, the manager or recruiter must determine the requirements of the job and the skills required to do it. The ability to reuse such descriptions saves time later because job requisition authors no longer have to “reinvent the wheel” each time a requisition for the same job code is created. A recruiter or manager can still tailor the requirements for a specific job to suit his needs but will save a lot of time in the process.

The task of creating job code descriptions can begin well in advance of implementing PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions. A popular approach, however, is to create the long description the first time a job code is used in a requisition. By doing so, nobody wastes time developing descriptions for jobs that never turn over, and the process becomes evolutionary and easier to manage. Eventually, you will have a portfolio of well-written, standardized job descriptions. Additionally, controlling and standardizing job requisitions in this manner provides the foundation for evaluating candidates against a clearly defined set of criteria. This approach also provides the basis for developing interview questions that can be associated with the job requisition and used consistently by all managers who are recruiting for similar jobs. The overall result is a more consistent staffing process across the company.

Finally, make sure that each job has a job function code (described next) associated with it to aid applicants in their search.


Figure 2: The Job Postings/Apply for Jobs page.

Job Function Table

The job function table (the image above) enables you to group similar jobs and make them available for selection when applicants search for open positions. For example, you can create the job function “Finance” to aggregate positions whose primary responsibility has a fiscal orientation. This function can describe positions such as accounts payable, general ledger, and the controller’s office.

Assist job seekers by setting up your requisition data to support simple and intuitive searches. Use a strategy to make sure that all positions in your organization are represented by a function. Make sure also that the naming conventions you use to represent skills and qualifications reflect words commonly used in your area and industry and are intuitive for job seekers to use.


Location Table As you can see in the View Job Postings page, applicants can search for jobs based on the location of the job. Because the location data they see when looking up a location is user-defined, descriptions such as “Corporate Office” or “32nd Street Office” will not help applicants in their search. Strive for descriptions that include city and state information.

Recruitment Table Configuration

Applicant Tracking

Like most applicant tracking systems (ATS), PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce “tags” each step an applicant takes throughout the recruiting process. An applicant can have the status of Applied, Interview, or Hired, for example. These status values are delivered, and we recommend that the sequence of these values remain as delivered.

If your company must report applicant-tracking information to the government, or if you are ever subject to an EEOC audit, you must make sure that you can clearly identify the point in the process at which you must start tracking. Some companies track applicants from the moment they apply. Others don’t begin tracking until a company representative, such as a recruiter or hiring manager, has made contact with the applicant. There are no universal rules. You can configure your system to mirror the recruitment process that is unique to your organization. Although PeopleSoft Enterprise allows you to configure your system either to require an applicant to pass through all the steps in the recruiting process or to skip some steps, ensure that all applicants go through the steps required for compliance reporting.

After a careful review of the delivered values and how they are used, it is likely that these values and the sequence in which they occur will meet your requirements. If you elect to alter these table values, do so carefully because the values affect every applicant record in some way.

Metrics

Capturing status information—what happened and when it happened—is also critical for providing metrics information. Time to fill is the metric that most companies focus on, but many others yield useful information about the effectiveness of your recruiting process.

Try to determine which metrics you will be required to report before you implement so that you can make sure to capture the appropriate data from the start. Remember to go back to your business drivers for inspiration.


Some examples of metrics that you can obtain from your PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce data include the following.

Cycle Times Definition (May Vary From Company to Company)

Time to Fill Date requisition opens to date candidate accepts.

Time to Start Date requisition opens to date candidate starts.

Interview to Offer Date of initial interview to date offer extended.

Offer to Decision Date of offer to date of acceptance.

Offer to Accept Rate Percentage of offers accepted.

Offer Decline Rate Percentage of offers declined. (decline reasons could be the next level of report)

Sourcing Effectiveness Definition (May Vary from Company to Company)

Applicants by Source Applicants/resumes by source.

Hires by Source Which sources yielded candidates who were eventually hired.

Retention Rates Which sources yielded candidates who were eventually hired.

Number Interviewed per Position

Number of candidates interviewed per requisition opening.

Sourcing Effectiveness Definition (May Vary from Company to Company)

Applicants by Source Applicants/resumes by source.

Hires by Source Which sources yielded candidates who were eventually hired.

Retention Rates Which sources yielded candidates who were eventually hired.

Number Interviewed per Position

Number of candidates interviewed per requisition opening.

You will want to track other metrics that are not shown above. Metrics such as these are not provided by delivered PeopleSoft Enterprise reports, but you can obtain them easily by querying a few of the delivered recruiting tables, such as PS_POSN_APPLIEDFOR (Time to Fill), PS_POSN_APPLIEDFOR and PS_JOB (Time to Start), PS_OFFER (Offer to Decision, Offer to Accept Rate, and Offer Decline Rate). PeopleSoft Enterprise recruiting data should be able to meet your requirements for metrics development and tracking.

PEOPLESOFT ENTERPRISE eRECRUIT Companies that have successful recruiting practices know the importance of electronic sourcing and applicant administration. Online recruitment has become a


standard business practice, with large and small organizations alike taking advantage of the reach and immediacy allowed by the Web.

Features of PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit include:

• Allowing applicants to submit their resumes, references, and related materials; update their data; search for and apply for job openings; view their interview schedules online; and track the status of their applications.

• Configurability, so that different jobs can be set up to solicit different information from applicants, rather than “one size fits all.” Additionally, jobs can be designated as internal, external, or both, dictating whether they will appear on your external Web site.

• The ability to create questionnaires for individual job requisitions by choosing from a standard set of predefined questions and answers. At the time an applicant applies, he or she is presented with questions that are linked to the jobs in the job basket. The system also takes care of scoring, so it is easy to compare applicants.

• The ability of employees to refer a friend online, view the status of their application, and view the status of their own potential award.

• The submission of an application initiates workflow that keeps all interested parties informed of the new application.

Product Configuration Configuration begins in earnest when you implement PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit. You will want to make your Web site and all your advertising paint a picture of what it might be like to work for your organization. Set up your templates and job descriptions to create a strong impact on those who read them. Include in the job description what the candidate will learn, do, and become. Don’t limit job descriptions to the job; create job requisitions for careers. Use language that sends a sophisticated message designed to meet the needs of the top performer and provides a positive image of your company.

Send a Message

From the outset, build requisition templates and resume templates to attract the applicants you want and to solicit sufficient information from them to enable effective selection and screening. Take advantage of reusable text to achieve a consistent message. By using enterprise-wide templates (such as organizational competencies and interview evaluations) before moving to job-specific templates, you’ll reduce your pre-implementation time. You can develop additional templates after you go live.


Consider the User Experience

Minimize, to the extent possible, the number of pages you present to an applicant. Although PeopleSoft Enterprise enables you to request large amounts of information from applicants, consider the time it takes an applicant to fill in all the data you’re requesting. You want to ensure that they complete their application and don’t get discouraged. Focus on capturing the information you can use to screen applicants. You can usually find supplemental information on their resume. You can easily capture nonessential information via employee self service once employees are hired, so you don’t need to capture all information at the time they apply.

Know Your Audience

If you choose not to post all your open jobs on your external careers site, make sure you have a clear understanding of the preferences of your target audience. Different job-seeking populations have approached online recruiting differently. For example, a study in 2003 indicated that those most likely to search online for jobs are:

• Young internet users between the ages of 18 and 29. Approximately 61 percent of them have looked for jobs online, compared to 42 percent of those ages 30 to 49 and 27 percent of those ages 50 to 64.

• Men. Approximately 50 percent of men online had sought job information, compared to 44 percent of women online. On a typical day, twice as many men are job hunting online as women.

• The unemployed. About 51 percent of people who do not currently have jobs have internet access. On a typical day, 10 percent of the unemployed who have internet access are searching online job sites, compared to 4 percent of the wired Americans who have full-time jobs.

• African-Americans and Hispanics. Though 44 percent of Caucasians have looked for jobs online, close to 60 percent of African-Americans and Hispanics who have internet access have sought job information on the internet.

• People in sales-related jobs. Approximately 55 percent of those who have internet access who currently hold media sales jobs have looked for new job information online, compared to 44 percent of online executives and professionals and 49 percent of online clerical and office workers. On a typical day online, however, the most active job searchers are online office workers. Skilled laborers and service workers are the least likely to have looked for jobs online.

• People in higher income brackets and who have high education levels. High socioeconomic status correlates well with online job searching. People who live in households with incomes above $75,000 are more likely than people with lesser incomes to have looked for jobs online, and those with college or


graduate degrees are more likely than those with high school diplomas to have looked for jobs online.

• These numbers are constantly changing. You should seek the most current information when you implement PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit and set up your system accordingly for the best results. (Source: “2002 Trends: The Human Capital Marketplace,” an internet white paper, John Sumser, August 2003.)

Screening Questions

Surveys show that applicants answer questions more honestly on a computer than they would in a face-to-face interview. (Source: “Computer-Assisted Interviewing Shortens Hiring Cycle,” Linda Thornburg, HR Magazine, February 1998.)

Your PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit implementation is a good time to consider creating job requisition templates that contain screening questions. Such questions are a great way of helping applicants to screen themselves out and to help you screen those who don’t. These questions shouldn’t be used in place of an interview, however. Constructing detailed question sets that attempt to do more than screen applicants can be time consuming and takes a high degree of skill. Keep it simple to start with. This is an area that can evolve as you start seeing results. You can add question sets and fine-tune the ones you already have.

Each delivered PeopleSoft Enterprise job requisition and resume entry page contains some generic instructional text. A general rule for all implementations is to minimize customizations. In this case, however, customizing these instances of instructional text can significantly enhance the user experience, first for the applicant and later for the manager who creates requisitions by using PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Manager Desktop.

Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise Customer Connection is your portal to a portfolio of PeopleSoft Enterprise Partners. Here you

will find companies who can provide assistance in constructing applicant

assessment questions and offer interview design expertise, among many other

helpful hints. If you chose not to implement the employee referral program when you implemented PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce, now is the time to do it. This program is the first opportunity that employees have to refer a friend electronically. Using this feature provides employees with the incentive to refer candidates and for your company to effectively manage those referrals.

Using Competencies and Accomplishments

In configuring your system, you may want to consider using competencies and accomplishments. Competencies (which are knowledge or skill attributes that are required on a requisition or acquired by an applicant) and accomplishments (which are acquired degrees, honors, awards, and so on) are central to the recruiting process. You must house them in the core PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Resources application for use in PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions. You should plan carefully before you acquire these values from vendors if they do not already exist, before you build them once you’ve acquired them, and before you use them in an organized fashion in the requisition creation and apply online processes.


Certified PeopleSoft Enterprise Partners can provide a broad range of skill taxonomies to meet your business needs.

PEOPLESOFT ENTERPRISE eRECRUIT MANAGER DESKTOP PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Manager Desktop includes a range of tools to assist managers and recruiters alike in their pursuit of talented candidates. By using this application, managers and recruiters can:

• Collaborate electronically to share data easily in centralized or decentralized environments, thus reducing the amount of paper required to support the recruiting process.

• Create job requisitions from prebuilt templates.

• Quickly and easily broadcast job openings beyond the company’s external site to multiple job boards through integration with PeopleSoft Enterprise partner RecruitUSA.

• Search for applicants who match their job requirements. “Search for Applicants” is an intelligent search tool powered by Verity. It uses keyword, Boolean, and “fuzzy” search features. Fuzzy search includes synonyms, word stemming, and words that are near each other or in the same sentence or paragraph. You can search the entire resume text, work history, education history, skills, or other applicant database fields.

• Search the internet for passive candidates. If managers and recruiters can’t find suitable applicants in your company’s database, integrating with Advanced Internet Recruiting Strategies (AIRS) SearchStation gives them the option to search the internet. AIRS SearchStation is a Web-based tool that scans the internet for applicant resumes, including job boards, resume banks, and newsgroups. This tool is especially important if you consider the statistic quoted earlier, which indicated that fully employed people are the least likely to search online for jobs.

• View questionnaire results. The system shows the applicant’s answers, the score for each answer, and the applicant’s total score.

• Perform pre-employment checks on applicants before hiring them through integration with HireRight. The system automatically transfers users to the HireRight Web site, where they can request checks on applicants linked to their requisitions.

• View references provided by applicants and send e-mail requests for references.

• Enter job offer requests and track their approval status.

PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Manager Desktop is the key to automating the recruiting process. Without the automated processes that this product provides, the recruiter and hiring manager must still interact via fax, phone, and e-mail. With this


product, both roles can execute tasks specific to their part in the recruitment process. From creating requisitions to making offers, the manager and recruiter can expedite what previously had been a labor-intensive process.

To support this collaboration further, your organization can deploy PeopleSoft Enterprise Workflow. Workflow generates automatic e-mails and “to do” work list notifications to managers and recruiters at important steps in the process.

Assessing Recruiting Roles Company philosophies vary greatly regarding where recruiting should be performed and who should perform it. PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Manager Desktop can be configured to support virtually any model. Without resorting to customization, you can configure the Manager Homepage (the following image) to give managers the full complement of recruiting activities or only a few.

Figure 3: The PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Manager Desktop homepage.


Issues to consider:

Does your company prefer that professional staffing personnel, who present only the top candidates to hiring managers, source and screen candidates? Or are your hiring managers sufficiently skilled in the business of recruiting so that they can source and screen? Consider prebuilding searches (for example, on the Search for Internal Applicants page, following) that managers can use to save time and facilitate good searches.

Figure 4: The Search for Internal Applicants page.


• If hiring managers source and screen candidates, can you manage the situation in which multiple managers are going after the same candidate? If this situation is not managed well, the candidate will get the impression that the company is disorganized. The PeopleSoft Enterprise solution provides the tools to manage this process, if procedures are established and followed.

• If you plan on using a PeopleSoft Enterprise partner, such as RecruitUSA, to post your open job requisitions to the internet (beyond your company’s Web site), determine ahead of time how you will manage your costs. Centralizing the process in the recruiting department and not giving the capability to hiring managers is one approach. Another approach is to allocate the costs back to the requisitions being posted so that managers can manage their own costs.

• The Post Requisitions to Internet page controls which job requisitions will be sent to RecruitUSA and which will be made inactive from the job boards.

• PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Manager Desktop introduces online approvals to the process of creating job requisitions and offers. If anyone in the process is unable or unwilling to use this product, processes will stop. This is a common occurrence at upper levels of management, so you should have a plan for dealing with it, either through change management or with technical intervention. One approach is to roll out PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Manager Desktop to small groups of managers at a time so that sufficient support can be provided to them until they are comfortable with the product.


Figure 5: The Post Requisitions to Internet page.

Approvers are set up on the Create Job Requisitions page, following, when a job requisition is created.


Figure 6: The Create Job Requisition page.

Because PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Manager Desktop (along with PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit) enables you to record interview evaluations online (on the Interview Evaluations page, following), you can:

• Consider from a legal standpoint which kinds of comments are allowed and which are not.

• Prepare training on how to record interviews online in addition to whatever training is offered for using PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Manager Desktop.


Interviewers record their interview results on the Interview Evaluations page, following:

Figure 7: The Interview Evaluations page.

PEOPLESOFT ENTERPRISE RESUME PROCESSING PeopleSoft Enterprise Resume Processing accepts resumes in a variety of formats (such as mail, e-mail, fax, PDF, text, and Microsoft Word files), extracts applicant information, and enters this information into the PeopleSoft Enterprise HRMS database, vastly improving your productivity and effectiveness. You can implement it simultaneously with PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce or anytime after PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruit Workforce is implemented. (See the following figure and additional details on PeopleSoft Enterprise Customer Connection.)


You can use PeopleSoft Enterprise Resume Processing in several ways:

• Resumes can be batched and processed in large volumes, as you might do immediately after a job fair or large public recruiting event.

• Hard copy resumes, received via U.S. mail and from walk-in applicants, may be scanned and accumulated in an input directory for daily, or more frequent, processing.

• You can use PeopleSoft Enterprise Resume Processing to populate fields in the PeopleSoft Enterprise eRecruit Apply for Job transaction by using the applicant’s resume as the source of data. This feature greatly enhances the user’s experience by eliminating the need to enter data already found on the resume.

Technical preparation is essential before implementing PeopleSoft Enterprise Resume Processing. In addition to the delivered PeopleBooks and the software installation guide itself, we provide customers with a specialized publication written by our PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions development team, called the Resume Processing Handbook. It contains comprehensive installation and troubleshooting information. You can find this document on PeopleSoft Enterprise Customer Connection.

PeopleSoft Enterprise Customer Connection is your source for a variety of information about PeopleSoft Enterprise

strategies, products, events, and documentation. Stop by to learn about

partnerships, training, and user groups in your area and industry.

Figure 8 shows a schematic of how the process generally works.

Figure 8: The Resume Processing schematic.

Although PeopleSoft Enterprise Resume Processing does not depend on any particular OCR technology, you will get the best OCR processing results if the resume is in Word, PDF, or HTML format, all of which maintain the formatting of the original resume.

You can set up PeopleSoft Enterprise Resume Processing with various confidence levels. The confidence-level configuration is a threshold mechanism used to direct


the output of a resume into the applicant data tables, or into a queue for further processing. The confidence levels are Very High, High, Medium, and Low. Selecting a low confidence level or threshold allows a greater number of resumes to be extracted into the applicant data tables. Conversely, a higher setting redirects resumes to a queue, thereby controlling to some degree the rate of success for extraction into the database. The quality and format of the resume determine in large part how the data will be processed by the application.

In addition to setup and configuration, you must manage the use of the tool. For example, you will likely receive resumes at all your locations. Determine whether you want to scan them in locally or bundle them up and send them to a central location for scanning. Consider the time delays in the second solution versus the need to set up scanning facilities in each location to support the first solution. If scanning is part of an existing or planned process, resumes would likely go to one address.

Any person or group of people who has permissions to the pages can manage the system process. You will likely use the Process Scheduler to schedule PeopleSoft Enterprise Resume Processing to run daily. Depending on the volume of resumes you process and the confidence level you set, you may need to assign the task of managing the resume queue to one person or group or relegate it to your whole recruiting team to manage on a rotating basis. This suggestion also applies to management of duplicate applicants that may result from the use of PeopleSoft Enterprise Resume Processing.

If your company handles large volumes of hard-copy resumes and has neither the

technical capability nor resources to handle them, you may choose to work with

one of our partners, which offer several different options for managing your

resumes and converting them into a ready format. For a list of PeopleSoft Enterprise

Certified Partners that can help you with managing large volumes of resumes, see

PeopleSoft Enterprise Customer Connection, Partners.

A FEW FINAL TIPS The following points are best practices that we have developed based on experiences supporting our clients:

• Plan your configuration thoroughly, testing your theories in a fit-gap or development environment. But you should place the full complement of configuration values in the environment that will go live. Table values such as those required to support PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions (Requisition Templates, Resume Templates, ERP rules, and so on) are not typically moved with a script. You will avoid duplicate data entry by taking this approach, and you’ll incur virtually no risk because other modules don’t use the tables involved.

• Grant enterprise access to your power users. Segregating applicant and requisition data is not typically in the company’s best interest because it tends to inhibit the normal recruiting process.

• PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions products are based on best recruiting practices, so minimize the customizations to the delivered software. You’ll minimize fit-gap time, design efforts, custom coding, and integration testing and you’ll facilitate education through the use of delivered documentation. You’ll also minimize the effort and expense of upgrades.


• Make every effort not to change the sequence of recruitment steps as delivered.

• Use the least restrictive settings in the requisition preliminary screening process to gain the fullest advantage of the automated process. Restrict as appropriate to reduce your list of viable candidates as you move to final screening. Take advantage of the two modes. Use the ”mandatory” flag only when a requirement is absolutely mandatory and cannot be compromised.

• Use workflow sparingly at the outset of the project, and then add it as needed. Be especially careful in your electronic communications with applicants.

• Use the delivered Employee Referral Program to facilitate this aspect of the recruiting process. It is a robust part of the application that requires no extra license fees.

• Consider using RecruitUSA as a means by which you can easily and seamlessly posts jobs to the internet rather than creating your own links to other sites.

• Retain searches as often as possible for repeated openings.

• If you provide computer kiosks to applicants or employees, do everything you can to ensure the confidentiality of their data. Set time-out parameters for 15 seconds, for example. To ensure that a person can’t inadvertently pull up someone else’s data, make sure that the browser does not retain cookies from the previous person’s transaction.

CONCLUSION Companies often implement Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions after they have completed their implementation of PeopleSoft Enterprise Workforce Administration and the other products that support their day-to-day human resources and payroll processes. It is easy to fall into the mindset that PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions add only a small amount of functionality and therefore does not require the planning and diligence that is required by the initial implementation. From the information provided in this white paper, you can see that, on the contrary, your PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions implementation requires as much, if not more, planning and scheduling. Due to the various audiences for the product—recruiters, managers, employees, and applicants—the potential number and variety of partners involved, and the additional technologies deployed, the implementation of PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions is actually somewhat more complex. With proper attention to these variables and consideration of these variables in your project plan, you can be confident of a successful implementation.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kati Robison has been with PeopleSoft for several years, serving as an HCM consultant to a variety of large companies. She is currently a principle consultant. She has more than 20 years of experience in the development and management of HRMS applications and was a PeopleSoft HCM customer during her tenure with two different Fortune 500 companies.


APPENDIX A: PEOPLESOFT ENTERPRISE RECRUITING SOLUTIONS COURSES

Class #

Description Delivery Method

Length

2100 Maximizing Your HR Recruiting Investment 8.3/8.8 Live Webcast 6 Hours

243 Recruit Workforce 8.01 Instructor Led 1 Day

243 Recruit Workforce 8.01 Live Webcast 7 Hours

243 Recruit Workforce 8.01 Recorded Webcast

4 Hours

1591 Recruit Workforce/eRecruit 8.3 Enhancements

Seminar on Demand

1 Hour

1385 Recruiting Solutions 8.8 Instructor Led 2 Days

1385 Recruiting Solutions 8.8 Live Webcast 2 Days

1385 Recruiting Solutions 8.8 Recorded Webcast

7.5 Hours

1704 Using Global HRMS Recruit Workforce 8.01

Skills on Demand

1.5 Hours

2133 Using eRecruit 8.8 Seminars on Demand

1.25 Hours

2132 Using eRecruit Manager Desktop 8.8 Seminars on Demand

1.5 Hours

2064 Using HR Recruit Workforce 8.8 Skills on Demand

1.5 Hours

1153 eRecruit/eRecruit Manager Desktop 8.01 Live Webcast 2.5 Hours

1153 eRecruit/eRecruit Manager Desktop 8.01 Recorded Webcast

2 Hours

1612 eRecruit/eRecruit Manager Desktop for End Users 8.01

Seminars on Demand

1 Hour


APPENDIX B: PEOPLESOFT ENTERPRISE RECRUITING SOLUTIONS DELIVERED REPORTS

Report Number, Title Report Description

APP001 Adverse Impact

Provides information on recruitment and hiring practices; compares hiring decisions for white males to ethnic minorities and females. This report includes only those individuals for whom the applicable job actions were recorded during the date range you specify on the Adverse Impact page.

APP002 Job Group Movement Analysis

Provides racial and gender demographic data regarding your hiring process. (SQR)

APP003 Requisition Status

For each job requisition, lists job information, requisition status, recruiter, number of applicants, and expenses information.

APP004 Requisition Posting

Extracts job posting data from the database and formats it for merging into Microsoft Word documents. (SQR, Word for Windows)

APP005 Candidate Listing

Combines job requisition information with a list of candidates being interviewed for the position. It groups requisitions by department ID. (SQR) For each candidate interviewed, the report displays the following: employee ID, name, status in the interview process (active, inactive, hired, withdrawn), last interview step completed, and any offers made.

APP006 Requisition Cost Analysis

Provides a breakdown of expense types and amounts for each job requisition. (SQR) For each job requisition, the report lists the requisition number, job code, position number, status, title of the position offered, and the recruiter’s name. The last two columns contain a breakdown of each type of expense incurred and its monetary amount, including a total by requisition number. A department summary includes an expense total for all requisitions and each expense category and calculates a department-average cost-per-hire amount.

APP007 Recruitment Letters

Generates the recruitment letters for applicants whom you have tagged with a letter code. (SQR, Word for Windows)

APP011 Applicant Sum. by Requisition

For each job requisition, lists the number of applicants and percentage of total applicants who applied, sorted by source type and specific source. (SQR)

APP012 Applicant Sum. by Source

Lists the number of applicants and percentage of total applicants sorted by source type and specific source (regardless of requisition). (SQR)

APP013 Works Council Posting

Germany-specific report lists all open job requisitions that are monitored by a specific Works Council. (SQR)

FGHR032 (USF) Full Vacancy Announcement

Generates a hard copy of the full vacancy announcement. This report must be run after you have created the USA Jobs Feed. (SQR)

FGREC820 (USF) Evaluation of Candidates

Produces three Evaluation of Candidate reports sorted by applicant ID, name, and score. (Crystal)

FGREC821 (USF) Certificate of Eligibles

Generates a Certificate of Eligibles report. (Crystal)

PER034 Internal Resume

Produces a summary of job history information for an employee. (SQR)

PER711 Standard Letter Table

Lists the codes in your Standard Letter table.


APPENDIX C: RECRUITMENT AREA STATUSES AND RELATIONSHIPS

Area Status Description Area Affected Applicant Affected New Status Applied

1-Job Requisition 090 090-Reopened 3-Position Applied

For Not Applicable Reverts to previous status/reason

1-Job Requisition 100 100-Hold 3-Position Applied

For Not Applicable Hold

1-Job Requisition 110 110-

Filled/Closed 3-Position Applied For Not Applicable Reject

1-Job Requisition 120 120-Canceled 3-Position Applied

For Not Applicable Reject

2-Applicant 030 030-Inactive 3-Position Applied For Not Applicable Withdrawn

3-Position Applied For 020 020-Applied 1-Job Requisition Not Applicable Applied

3-Position Applied For 030 030-Preliminary

Screen 1-Job Requisition Not Applicable Preliminary Screen

3-Position Applied For 040 040-Final

Screen 1-Job Requisition Not Applicable Final Screen

3-Position Applied For 050 050-Route 1-Job Requisition Not Applicable Route

3-Position Applied For 060 060-Interview 1-Job Requisition Not Applicable Interview

3-Position Applied For 070 070-Offer 1-Job Requisition Not Applicable Offer

3-Position Applied For 070 070-Offer 3-Position Applied

For

Other Applicants/ Current Requisitions

Hold

3-Position Applied For 080 080-Ready to

Hire 1-Job Requisition Not Applicable Ready to Hire

3-Position Applied For 090 090-Hired 1-Job Requisition Not Applicable Filled/Closed

3-Position Applied For 090 090-Hired 2-Applicant Not Applicable Hired

3-Position Applied For 090 090-Hired 3-Position Applied

For Current Applicant/ Other Requisitions

Reject

3-Position Applied For 090 090-Hired 3-Position Applied

For Other Applicants/ Current Requisition

Reject

4-Route 010 010-Route 3-Position Applied For

Current Applicant/ Current Requisition

Route

4-Route 020 020-Invite for Interview

3-Position Applied For


Route

4-Route 100 100-Hold 3-Position Applied For


Hold

4-Route 100 110-Reject 3-Position Applied For


Reject

4-Route 100 120-Withdrawn 3-Position Applied For


Withdrawn

5-Interview 010 010-Schedule Interview



Interview

5-Interview 020 020-Make Offer 3-Position Applied For


Interview

5-Interview 030 030-Interview Further



Interview

5-Interview 100 100-Hold 3-Position Applied For


Hold

5-Interview 110 110-Reject 3-Position Applied For


Reject

5-Interview 120 120-Withdrawn 3-Position Applied For


Withdrawn


PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting Solutions: Implementation Tips and Techniques February 2004 Oracle Corporation World Headquarters 500 Oracle Parkway Redwood Shores, CA 94065 U.S.A. Worldwide Inquiries: Phone: +1.650.506.7000 Fax: +1.650.506.7200 oracle.com Copyright © 2004, 2005, Oracle. All rights reserved. This document is provided for information purposes only and the contents hereof are subject to change without notice. This document is not warranted to be error-free, nor subject to any other warranties or conditions, whether expressed orally or implied in law, including implied warranties and conditions of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. We specifically disclaim any liability with respect to this document and no contractual obligations are formed either directly or indirectly by this document. This document may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose, without our prior written permission. Oracle, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, and Retek are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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