UpDate - Vol. 13, No. 24, Page 8
March 18, 1994
TechTalk
Document imaging a reality at Career Planning and Placement Office

     From paper to screen, and back again! The Career Planning and
Placement Office has implemented an exciting new technology that allows
students to submit a copy of their resumes to be scanned and stored on-line
for reference by office staff, prospective employers and corporate
recruiters. "This new system helps us make better matches between employers
and students," according to coordinator Lynn Jacobson.
     Seniors and alumni registered with Career Planning and Placement
submit a copy of their resume, which is scanned, placed on-line and
reviewed by a staff member. Several index fields are entered: name,
graduation date, major, minor, degree, college and GPA. The software used
also produces full-text indexes for each resume. This allows for searching
by a variety of criteria, and accurate, direct selection of material by the
viewer, Jacobson explained. For example, "Computer science major with COBOL
experience and a GPA over 3.0."
     "We can now give more information about each student to prospective
employers than we could with the paper form we used to use, " Jacobson said.
     When a recruiter contacts Career Planning and Placement looking for
students with particular qualifications or skills, the staff can search the
database using those criteria and print the resulting resumes. There is
also a time-saving option that allows selected resumes to be automatically
faxed to the recruiter. The software provides a bitmap image of the actual
resume, not an ASCII character equivalent, so the resume is presented to
the recruiter in the exact form and font as the student submitted it.
     "This way, students can present themselves in their own way," Jacobson
added.
     Resumes are stored on a hard drive and back-up tape until the end of
the fiscal year, at which time they will be removed. The process will start
again in September. The entire system, which cost less than $5,000,
currently contains over 1,000 resumes, Jacobson said.
     Document image technology is not limited to use with resumes, but can
be used to store and manage nearly any type of paper document.
     If you think this low-cost, easy-to-implement technology would be
useful in your department, contact Joy Lynam, Management Information
Services, telephone 831-3736, e-mail to Joy.Lynam@mvs.udel.edu.
                                                  -Ruth Heckert