Building your database

Starting out with a fresh, empty, database can seem like a daunting challenge, however AimStar attempts to make this as painless as possible. There are 4 major kinds of data you are going to be creating: People, Companies, Joborders, Keywords.

Displayed below are the ADD New People Screen, the ADD New Company Screen, and the ADD New Joborder Screen. Notice that the layout of all three is identical. Each contains a COPY button, in order to COPY the contents of the last (or any) record added, to save time in manual data-entry. Notice that all three contain a DETAILS button, wherein you will add unlimited comments, and unlimited keywords to the record using our Hierarchical Keyword Display system (more on this later.)

Adding people to your database can be done in two ways: manually, or automated resume importing. Some believe the latter is preferred. Some would rather save the Word resume, but manually build the person record themselves. AimStar provides for both options.

On average, a recruitment agency can expect upwards of 100 responses to a single job advertisement posted online. Although building a substantial applicant database is central to creating a successful staffing agency, it's easy to see how recruiters can find themselves inundated by resumes that need to be screened and entered into their recruitment management system. This can effectively cancel out many of the time and cost savings offered by Internet job boards.

AimStar recruitment software transforms imported resumes into fully keyworded new applicant records automatically, including name, address, employment history, skills and keywords, and qualifications. Your consultants can create, and manage many different drafts of a resume. This allows consultants to continually fine-tune a candidate's resume, highlighting appropriate strengths, qualifications and experiences before sending to different clients. The imported resume is linked to the new person on file, and you can link many kinds of documents to any person, company or joborder.

Automated resume importing eliminates the time and cost implications of manual data entry, and risk of human error, ensuring the accuracy and reliability of all your applicant files. As well as holding multiple copies of a resume, newly created applicant files can have any number of external documents assigned to them ("file-linked") such as photograph, passport, right to work visa, professional certificates and driving licence. Client company and joborder files can also have specific external documents, such as maps, directions and job descriptions, similarly file-linked.

Company records can be created in multiple places within AimStar, depending upon what you are doing.

People, Company and Joborder records have Details which further elaborate the primary record. On this form, you can enter your general comments, and your user-defined comments, and the associated keywords. Keywords are entered in the most efficient way possible, due to our Hierarchical Keyword design.

Notice that you only have to enter the lowest-level term, and AimStar always generates all the higher-level "owner" terms. In this example, by entering "M4" term, NINE keywords are added to the record automatically, which means you can later search for records that have, in this case, "M4", "M3", "M2", "M1", "MODA", "145", "370", "IBM", and/or "/HARDWARE" (highlighted in the rightmost hierarchy list). This design greatly reduces data-entry time, and errors to zero, as well as enhancing your searching methodologies. One keyword entered here, will allow you or anyone to search and find ALL CANDIDATES who have (been coded with) "IBM" and "145".

Joborders records can be created in multiple places within AimStar, depending upon what you are doing. If you are currently working with a Company record, then all the underlying Company data relevant to Joborders is pre-filled into the empty Joborder form - like, Company name, and all the Fee Schedule information, which can always be overridden by you before saving the record.

Another important point: Notice the dropdown lists in the People, Company and Joborders forms above.

• People: Status, GeographicLocation, Rent/Own, Citizenship
• Company: Status, Industry;
• Joborder: EducDegree, JobLevel, JobFunction, BusinessField.

Each of these dropdown lists and their associated choices are actually part of the Hierarchical Keyword Database, and thus can be modified by you at any time, and the number of choices increased or decreased. Also, whenever a choice is selected, it (being a Keyword) is added to the record's associated Keywords, to enable very fast indexed searching on those keywords.