Method and system for filling vacancies

Abstract

This invention concerns filling vacancies. It may be applied to finding replacements during staff shortages, or to filling entire rosters. It may also be used to fill casually occurring service needs, such as the need-for a child minding placement. The invention involves entering availability details into a candidate data store, and entering vacancy details into a vacancy data store. Automatic cross-matching of each vacancy to availability details create a list of available candidates for each vacancy. Automatically ordering the list for each vacancy ranks the candidates according to predetermined criteria. The vacancies are then filled with the top ranking available candidate. This may be performed automatically or involve the transmission of invitations and acceptances. The invitations may be automatically dispatched, and the responses may automatically update the data. It may be layered to integrate the filling of a vacancy with the provision of a service for a related period of time. For instance, integrating the filling of a teaching or nursing staff vacancy with the provision of child minding services for the same period.

1 . A method for filling vacancy periods having a defined start and end comprising the steps of: 
 entering availability details into a candidate data store;    entering vacancy details into a vacancy data store;    automatically cross-matching each vacancy to availability details using a computer to create a list of available candidates for each vacancy;    automatically ordering the list for each vacancy using a computer to rank the candidates according to predetermined criteria;    filling each vacancy in turn with the top ranking available candidate.    
     
     
         2 . A method according to  claim 1 , where the filling of each vacancy is automatic.  
     
     
         3 . A method according to  claim 1 , comprising the further step of communicating an invitation to the top ranked candidate in respect of each vacancy and filling that vacancy, by updating the candidate and vacancy data stores, if a positive response is received within a predetermined time 
 otherwise, if a negative response is received, or no response is received within the predetermined time, then communicating another invitation to the next ranked candidate, as above, until the vacancy is filled.    
     
     
         4 . A method according to any preceding claim, where the candidates are casual employees, permanent staff and contract workers, and information about the working commitments of the permanent staff currently employed by an employer are entered into a data store so that vacancy information is entered into the vacancy data store by nominating the absent permanent staff person's name and automatically providing all their work commitment information.  
     
     
         5 . A method according to  claim 4 , where the casual staff requirement is automatically rationalized by analyzing the work commitments of all the absent permanent staff over a given period of time.  
     
     
         6 . A method according to  claim 1 , comprising the further step, where a vacancy cannot be matched to an availability, or no suitable available candidates are found, of splitting the vacancy into smaller sub-vacancies and cross-matching each sub-vacancy to availability details to create a list of available candidates for each sub-vacancy, then ranking.  
     
     
         7 . A method according to any preceding claim, where the predetermined criteria are defined by the employer.  
     
     
         8 . A method according to  claim 7 , where the criteria include experience and performance.  
     
     
         9 . A method according to  claim 8 , where the criteria include a ‘seek-first’ criterion that gives a top ranking to candidates identified by that employer.  
     
     
         10 . A method according to  claim 8  or  9 , where the criteria include ranking adjustments for a candidate available to fill successive vacancies, whether for the same or a different position, over several days in a given period of time.  
     
     
         11 . A method according to any preceding claim, where templates of the invitations are pre stored and the appropriate vacancy and candidate information automatically inserted upon generation of the invitations.  
     
     
         12 . A method according to any preceding claim, where the communicating of the messages is done automatically using any suitable communications medium.  
     
     
         13 . A method according to any preceding claim, where the first ranked candidate is automatically preliminarily booked and considered unavailable for the dates and hours included in an invitation during the time that the invitation remains open to that candidate, or until they transmit a response.  
     
     
         14 . A method according to any one of  claims 1  to  12 , where multiple conflicting invitations are sent to a candidate, and once the candidate accepts one of them, a rejection is automatically recorded for the others.  
     
     
         15 . A method according to any preceding claim, where the candidate data store stores one or more of the following types of information: instances of inaccurate information provided by a candidate, instances where a candidate declines an invitation, instances where a candidate fails to appear for an accepted invitation, and this information is used to affect that candidate's ranking.  
     
     
         16 . A method according to any preceding claim, where the candidate data store stores details of invitations accepted by a candidate and comments on their performance.  
     
     
         17 . A method according to any preceding claim, where the cross matching of availability utilizes electronic diaries, calendars or rosters of employers, employees and candidates, and these are automatically updated via the candidate and vacancy data stores to keep them synchronized.  
     
     
         18 . A method according to any preceding claim, where a second implementation of the method is layered over a first implementation to provide support services to candidates accepting a vacancy.  
     
     
         19 . A method according to  claim 18 , where the first implementation is used to recruit casual staff, and the second implementation is used to find child-minding for the candidates to enable them to accept invitations.