Processing New Applications

Summary

The actions taken at this stage are:

1. Determine whether this is a duplicate application -- the CAT displays a list of potential matches by checking the name of the applicant against similar ones already stored.
2. Determine the most appropriate job for this candidate -- the CAT supplies an initial setting based on the mail address to which the CV was sent. This value may be changed by the CV entry handler.
3. Determine whether to reject this CV immediately or continue processing this application.
4. Optionally rename attachments for the application -- CAT assumes the main email is the covering letter and the first MS Word attachment is the CV.
5. Optionally extract details from the CV and enter into the database -- for example, the applicant's postal address may be extracted for use in a subsequent mail merge.
6. Optionally modify the CV, covering letter etc. to remove sensitive information such as salary details.

Detail

The CAT receives CVs for applicants via email. CAT requires that the received email contains an attachment which is a Microsoft Word file. This is assumed to be the CV and it is stored within the database. Also, the top-level email is taken to be a covering letter and is also stored. If there are any other attachments, these are stored but are given generic names such as attachment #3 etc.

CAT supports a set of mail addresses -- one for each type of job on offer. For example, if the mail domain for CAT is cat.mycompany.com then the following addresses could be used:

CAT then assigns a 'best-fit' job to an incoming CV based on the recipient mail address. This best-fit job can be changed once the application is assessed, but it provides a useful first attempt at filtering the incoming CVs.

The best-fit job is used to assign the CV to the correct handler. For example, CAT can be configured so that Sally handles all sales applications, Finbar all finance, while Adam, Adrienne and Adnan handle all administrative CVs.

When a handler connects to CAT to process new applications, he/she is presented with the list of applications for which they are responsible. In this way, CAT partitions the workload on a configurable basis.

At this 'new' stage, the CAT checks whether the CV appears to be a duplicate. For instance, if an application from Ann Hill has already been received, then receipt of a CV for Anne Hill will result in a duplicate warning since the names are close enough to be worth checking. The CAT only warns about potential duplicates -- it leaves the decision about whether it truly is a duplicate to the human handler.

Once a CV has been received, a handler can then choose to enter certain basic details about the candidate and record this in the database. The CV is then passed on to be assessed.