Workopolis Major Accomplishments
- Overall Design Strategy
- In the initial phase of Workopolis' growth, we had strong vision and strategic direction. This caused me to implement extreme scalability and flexibility into the software.
- Entry-level customers would come to simply advertise jobs, where others would choose to add-on various tools and functionality to enhance their ability to recruit candidates.
- Mid-level customers would purchase the ability to advertise as many jobs as they needed, and also had the option to turn on or turn off a number of different available Applicant Tracking System services.
- The High-end customers would not only purchase the ATS services, but also enter into a site-hosting agreement whereby Workopolis would "power" their corporate careers website (this product became known as CorporateWorks).
- I modeled the software so that the available services were independent from the Brand or Product Descriptions, so that future changes to the Product Offering would not require changes to the core software. (In January 2004, a major Product Offering change was made to address competitive pressures, and the entire project did not require changes to the software, rather Customer Service Reps simply enabled different services for customers).
- This "service delivery" system was built on the same code-base and platform as the Content Management System (CMS) that had the flexibility to manage n-number of unique sites for a number of different business needs. The software currently powers over 400 unique web sites.
- My efforts were recognized as I was personally nominated at the Canadian New Media Awards as Producer of the Year in 2002. Workopolis was also a winner in 2001 for Most Promising New Company of the Year.
- Creation of CorporateWorks
- The CorporateWorks product was strategically built. We knew that as customers purchased more and more products, and these services became embedded into their HR business practices, customers would become increasingly more valuable. I created and modeled a new ASP line of business, which grew from nothing to a $1.3 million business in less than a year, servicing more customers than any competitor. The product quickly attracted a number of large corporate implementations, including Bell Canada, the Bank of Canada, CSIS (yes, if you want to be a Canadian spy, you apply using the tools I built), and a number of other large and diverse Canadian companies.
- This product was built on the same technology that powered the main Workopolis.com site, and was in fact an extension and enhancement of the base product. The introduction of this new product only required one additional web producer to build and maintain the hosted websites. This meant that the cost overhead was profoundly small and made the product profitable very quickly.
- Internationalization / Localization
- To be a global company, you must act locally. To address the seemingly simple business need to "make Workopolis French", I modeled and created an major extension to the base software so that sites could be created and implemented an any language (not only French). Further category segmentations were added for greater flexibility. The end result meant that niche sites could be created quickly and easily. A site for English Healthcare jobs was created in less than a week. Another site, for French Technology jobs was created in just over a week. Neither required modifications to the core code, rather templates and configuration changes were needed.
- With increasingly more complicated technology, Workopolis was still able to remain extremely nimble and responsive to competitive pressures and demands.
- Campus WorkLink integration
- After a company acquisition, I lead the team to integrate the CampusWorklink.com business into our single and unified technology platform. Again, this software was built as an extension of the base software. Campus Recruiting became about $1M in revenue. The transition and conversion of the data and the business took about 4 months to complete.
- Recruitment Screening Modules
- Many companies using the site were increasingly faced with huge numbers of applicants (they were victims of our own success). To address this need, I created three unique and powerful add-on modules to further analyze and screen applicants into more manageable and meaningful lists.
- Question & Answer Module: This was a questionnaire builder, where employers could attach custom questions to their job postings. A suite of analytics was included in the module, so that employers could query and filter based on the answers given. Employers found this module to be extremely effective, and consumer feedback was very positive.
- Psychometrics Module: You can measure a candidate's skills, but what about how they'll fit within your corporate culture? This module was created with a complex algorithm to evaluate candidates' personality traits resulting in a profile that assesses their temperament and motivation. Employers could select one of over 600 profiles from the library; the module would then rank candidates against the benchmark profile.
- Competency Module: This module ranks the applicants against employer requirements. Employers could determine what is needed in a candidate and the software would automatically show applicants a list of pre-interview questions for their completion. It could be as simple as a few essential questions; or employers could choose from an extensive library of 1200 questions developed by experts, comprising 600+ job profiles. Employers could also customize questions. The software then ranks the responses received according to requirements, giving the employer a "top sorted" listing of applicants.
- Database Upgrade to Oracle 9i
- Upgrading database software is not trivial. Months of planning and analysis were done prior to the implementation.
- This deployment was launched without a single major interruption in service, and my efforts were recognized by Oracle, and we were declared an Oracle Centre of Excellence and Innovation, and profiled on their website (http://www.oracle.com/customers/profiles/PROFILE1824.HTML)
- Hardware & Infrastructure Redesign
- To ensure that the company provides around-the-clock uptime to users, I engineered a solid and success-proven supporting infrastructure. Equipment is highly available, secure and load balanced to ensure that response times are consistently short. The software is built on industry proven hardware and software. The databases run on the Oracle Database Management System on Sun Enterprise servers. The data storage device is a Hewlett-Packard XP512 storage area network (SAN). Multiple web servers are implemented on multiple, redundant Sun Enterprise servers with the load distributed using F5's BIG/IP load balancers. These devices also provide high availability by automatically sensing server failures and switching over to back-up units.
- In the Fall/Winter of 2003, I engineered and implemented a major enhancement to the system giving it extra capacity and extra fault-tolerance. This Million-dollar project was completed in about 4 months, on time and under budget. The architecture in place now, leaves the company in a stable growth position for years to come.
- The company currently has 100% uptime. The system was designed to allow for upgrades and code releases that never require the site to be inaccessible.
- Tracking of the sites responsiveness shows that the site was at least twice as fast as the nearest competitor.