A computerized hiring search; resume banks help small companies lacking personnel departments find job candidates and save time and money

Nation's Business, Feb, 1994 by Janine S. Pouliot

When Robert Maresco needed an additional copywriter for his eight-person advertising firm, he didn't have time to advertise the opening and then sift through dozens of resumes. Instead, he contacted a resume data-base service and found a suitable candidate painlessly.

"I just gave the parameters of the job to the resume bank, and the next day we got suggestions for candidates," says Mareseo, president and founder of Hudson Valley Advertising Associates, in Nyack, N.Y. 'WVhat at one time took days now takes only minutes."

Since they began in the mid-'80s, r6sum6 banks have helped save time and money for companies like Maresco's that are too small to maintain a personnel department.

At the moment, it is difficult to determine how many resume banks there are. There is no national organization that tracks their growth or provides the selfmonitoring that is typical of other service industries.

Important tools of resume banks are optical scanners that read and store resumes, as well as accompanying software that retrieves the resumes according to job description.

When a company calls with an opening, resume banks quickly supply a brief description of people who appear to be appropriate for the job. The client firm may then request a complete resume on the candidates it wants to pursuei The interested employer is responsible for contacting the candidates and making final hiring decisions.

Job-related phrases like "cost accounting" and "cash-flow analysis" are used to conduct searches, replacing old resume standbys such as "coordinated" and "headed up."

To faciltate the matching process, many resume banks ask people to fill out detailed forms. Companies using the service are given pointers on providing precise job-skill descriptions.

"Based on what one client gave us, we came up with 33 possible names," says Alan Wimer, managing director and founder of Career Database, in Provincetown, Mass. "We helped them narrow the criteria to arrive at three probable candidates."

Fees for the service vary, depending on the size of the client company and frequency of its use of the resume bank. SkillSearch Corp., in Nashville, Tenn., for example, charges first-time users $375. SkillSearch recruits candidates for its national resume bank through direct-mail solicitations to members of university alumni associations.

Regular users of the SkillSearch resume bank are assigned a service representative who assists in preparing each search, according to Tonya Hobbs, director of university relations.

"Every opening comes through us before going anyplace else," she says. "We work with the client company. It's as easy as using a headhunter."

Because professional recruiters often receive a fee as high as 50 percent of a candidate's first-year salary, resume data bases can Save small to midsize companies thousands of dollars per job placement.

Not all resume banks charge businesses a fee. For example, the National Resume Bank, in St. Petersburg, Fla., lets companies use its data base for free but charges job applicants a one-time $40 fee, says Frank Fox, executive director. Companies use a computer modem to gain access to more than 3,000 resumes in the data base.

In many cases, individuals who submit resumes to data bases hold jobs and may not be actively seeking to relocate. Yet an improved salary and a more challenging position may woo them away from their current employers.

Resume data-base services typically list candidates for a full range of positions. The National Resume Bank, for example, includes clerical workers, plant managers, and executives. SkillSearch positions itself against headhunters who handle clients in the broad salary range of $30,000 to $250,000.

Some candidates listed in a resume bank are looking for part-time or occasional employment. Maresco says he has been able to locate several free-lancers for his advertising agency by using such a data base. "I get talent from all over the Northeast," he says. "With fax machines and overnight mall, you don't need to have people right in your own back yard."

Where To Staff

To find a resume bank, look for advertisements in the employment section of a big-city newspaper or in the Yellow Pages. In addition, university placement offices often have information on resume banks that recruit recent graduates.

When choosing a resume data base, be sure to inquire about the company's history and scope of operations. How long has it been in business? How many job candidates does it list? What is the range of the candidates: local, regional, or national? How are candidates recruited? (Some data-base firm's use newspaper ads to solicit resumes. Others may approach college placement offices for recent graduates.) Ask for references from companies that have used the data bank.

Finding a resume bank that suits your needs is the first step in using this type of employee recruiting successfully.