Comprehensive employment recruiting communications system with translation facility

• US 7,873,533 B2
• Filed: 03/30/2007
• Issued: 01/18/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/21/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Accolo
• Original Assignee: Accolo
• Inventors: Taylor, Seth, Younger, John
• Primary Examiner(s): Jeanty; Romain
• Application Number:
  US11/694,849
• Publication Number:
  US 20070233547A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,390 Days
• Field of Search: 705/8, 705/9
• US Class Current: 705/7.14
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/47 Machine-assisted translation, e.g. using translation memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063112 Skill-based matching of a person or a group to a task

Abstract

An employment recruiting communications system selectively employs language translation to support multi-cultural communications.

Claims

1. A method of managing employment recruiting communications comprising computer-implemented operations of:

receiving from recruiting personnel computer-readable communications including a recruitment plan in a natural language, the recruitment plan comprising at least;

a description of a given job;

under first prescribed conditions, conducting computer-readable communications to initiate and obtain natural language translation by a human translator of some or all of the recruitment plan including;

the description of the given job, keywords only, everything in the recruitment plan;

launching a job search comprising;

making the recruitment plan including any translation available to candidates by posting some or all of the recruitment plan upon one or more Internet web sites, identifying people including;

people likely to be a candidate for the described job and reside within a threshold proximity of a prescribed job site, people likely to know said people likely to be a candidate, retrieving and completing one or more pre-stored templates to form personalized computer-readable solicitations directed at the identified people and reflecting language appropriate to the identified people, transmitting the completed solicitations to the identified people;

after launching the job search, operating a central communications server to observe a predetermined workflow for collection, evaluation, forwarding, generation, and notification as to communications arising from the job search and occurring among some or all of the following;

applicants, job candidates, the identified people, hiring authorities, recruiting personnel, referral sources;

further operating the central communications server to perform operations including, under second predetermined conditions, obtaining natural language translation of items of the communications arising from the job search, the items comprising any of;

recruitment plan, identified people, and complete solicitations, the obtaining of natural language translation comprising one or more of the following;

performing automated natural language translation by applying a stored natural language translation database to said items, initiating and obtaining natural language translation by a human translator of said items.

2. The method of claim 1, where said obtained natural language translations and said completed templates demonstrate language appropriate to targeted audience members, where language includes one or more of:

a written system used to communicate and including a set of symbols and a set of rules or grammar governing the manipulation of the symbols, localization features including one or more of dialect, local culture, local style.

3. The method of claim 1, where the localization features include localization of terms including one or more of text, numbers, currency, dates, times, address formats, postal codes, telephone number formats.

4. The method of claim 1, where:

the operations further comprise;

transmitting computer-readable notification of recruitment plan availability to a designated approver, and making the recruitment plan including any natural language translation available to the designated approver;

the operation of launching the job search is conducted responsive to approval by the designated approver.

5. The method of claim 1, where the first predetermined conditions include one of:

upon receipt of approval by a designated person;

automatically if a prescribed geographical job search area includes regions whose population is not fluent in the first natural language.

6. The method of claim 1, where:

the recruitment plan further includes an applicant screening questionnaire specific to the given job;

the second predetermined conditions include;

automatically as to applicant responses to the screening questionnaire and applicant-submitted resumes residing in a language other than a preferred language of the recruiting personnel.

7. The method of claim 1, where the operation of operating a central communications server to observe a predetermined workflow for collection, evaluation, forwarding, generation, and notification as to communications arising from the job search includes, under prescribed circumstances, retrieving, completing, and transmitting one or more pre-stored templates to form personalized computer-readable solicitations reflecting language appropriate to intended recipients.

8. The method of claim 7,

further comprising providing a source template set including various templates written in a given language and conveying various messages, and providing at least one additional template set written in a different language than the given language, the additional template set including templates conveying said various messages and serving as counterparts to the templates of the source template set;

where each of the templates includes blanks whose content is determined by a predetermined mapping to case information;

where each of said operations of retrieving and completing one or more pre-stored templates comprises;

identifying language appropriate to an intended recipient;

selecting from the template set written in the identified language a template conveying a desired message;

utilizing the predetermined mapping to identify items of stored case information to complete blanks of the selected template;

if the stored case information resides in a different language than the identified language, applying a computer-readable natural language translation database to obtain natural language translation of the identified items of stored case information;

utilizing identified items of stored case information, including any obtained natural language translation, to complete the selected template.

9. The method of claim 1, the operations further comprising:

repeating the operation of launching of the job search while iteratively expanding the threshold proximity;

where in each repeated launch of the job search, the operations of making the recruitment plan available and retrieving and completing pre-stored templates are conducted utilizing all languages appropriate to the expanded proximity.

10. The method of claim 1, where:

the operation of making the recruitment plan available to candidates includes posting some or all of the recruitment plan upon one or more Internet web sites in at least the first natural language;

the operation of launching the job search further includes, pending completion of the natural language translation of the recruitment plan, limiting the transmission of solicitations to those of the identified people known or likely to be fluent in the first natural language, and those of the identified people not known or likely to be fluent in the first natural language but having pre-registered a desire to receive job listings in the first natural language.

11. The method of claim 1, the operation of launching the job search comprising:

for each identified person having pre-registered a desire to receive job listings in a given language, only transmitting the solicitation to said person upon receipt from the human translator of natural language translation into the given language and posting of the recruitment plan including the natural language translation into the given language.

12. The method of claim 1, the method of launching the job search comprising:

for each identified person whose language preference is unknown, only transmitting the solicitation to said person if said person resides in a region whose population is fluent in any of the following;

the first natural language, a language for which natural language translation of the recruitment plan has been obtained.

13. A process for managing employment recruiting with automated natural language translation, the process comprising operations of:

providing pre-prepared first natural language web sites containing job postings and application information and providing counterpart web sites containing pre-prepared natural language translations of the first natural language web sites in one or more predetermined languages different than the first natural language;

responsive to a communications server receiving users'"'"' computer-readable communications submitted by completing forms upon the web sites, the communications server performing computer-implemented operations comprising;

determining if natural language translation of the computer-readable communications is required by predetermined rules, and if so, effecting the translating by performing at least one of;

computer-implemented operations of applying a natural language translation database to the computer-readable communications, obtaining natural language translation of the computer-readable communications by a human translator;

consulting a predetermined workflow and contacts list to identify one or more recipients appropriate to circumstances of the completed form, and then performing one or more of the following;

generating an e-mail message containing the received computer-readable communications including any required natural language translation and sending the generated e-mail to the identified recipients, notifying the identified recipients of receipt of the computer-readable communications and making the computer-readable communications including any required natural language translation available on demand at one or more of the web sites;

responsive to users'"'"' completion of prescribed tasks via the web sites, the communications server performing computer-implemented operations comprising;

referencing a predetermined workflow and contacts list to identify the following;

one or more addressees as appropriate to the completed task, one or more pre-stored communications templates containing a message appropriate to the completed task and utilizing a language appropriate to the identified addressees;

retrieving and filling-out the identified templates to form personalized electronic communications directed at the identified addressees;

performing one of the following;

generating e-mail messages containing the personalized electronic communications and sending the generated e-mail messages to the identified addressees, notifying the identified addressees of availability of the personalized electronic communications and making the personalized electronic communications available to the identified addressees on demand at one or more of the web sites.

14. A computer-implemented employment recruiting management process implementing a predetermined multi-stage employment recruiting framework, the process comprising computer-implemented operations of:

initiating a job search including conducting Internet posting of information including at least a job description and selecting and filling-in and transmitting template-based computer-readable solicitations directed at pre-selected candidates and referral sources; and

causing a communications server to serve as a communications hub to act in accordance with predetermined workflow to receive, forward, and generate subsequent communications arising from the job search and involving job applicants, referral sources, and recruiting personnel;

where each of the operations of initiating the job search and said communications server serving as the communications hub further comprises determining if predetermined criteria call for natural language translation to facilitate communications among participants of different languages, and if so, automatically negotiating natural language translation; and

where the negotiation of natural language translation includes computer-implemented operations of;

under first conditions, performing natural language translation by applying a computer-readable natural language translation dictionary, under second conditions, obtaining natural language translation by a human translator.

15. A computer readable medium storing a program to perform operations comprising:

receiving from recruiting personnel computer-readable communications including a recruitment plan in a first natural language, the recruitment plan comprising at least;

a description of a given job;

under first prescribed conditions, conducting computer-readable communications to initiate and obtain natural language translation by a human translator of some or all of the recruitment plan including;

the description of the given job, keywords only, everything in the recruitment plan;

launching a job search comprising;

making the recruitment plan including any natural language translation available to candidates by posting some or all of the recruitment plan upon one or more Internet web sites, identifying people including;

people likely to be a candidate for the described job and reside within a threshold proximity of a prescribed job site, people likely to know said people likely to be a candidate, retrieving and completing one or more pre-stored templates to form personalized computer-readable solicitations directed at the identified people and reflecting language appropriate to the identified people, transmitting the completed solicitations to the identified people;

after launching the job search, operating a central communications server to observe a predetermined workflow for collection, evaluation, forwarding, generation, and notification as to communications arising from the job search and occurring among some or all of the following;

applicants, job candidates, the identified people, hiring authorities, recruiting personnel, referral sources;

further operating the central communications server to perform operations including, under second predetermined conditions, obtaining natural language translation of items of the communications arising from the job search, the items comprising any of;

recruitment plan, identified people, and complete solicitations, the obtaining of natural language translation comprising one or more of the following;

performing automated natural language translation by applying a stored natural language translation database to said items, initiating and obtaining natural language translation by a human translator of said items.

16. A computer readable medium storing a program to perform computer-implemented operations to implement a predetermined multi-stage employment recruiting framework, the operations comprising:

initiating a job search including conducting Internet posting of information including at least a job description and selecting and filling-in and transmitting template-based computer-readable solicitations directed at pre-selected candidates and referral sources; and

causing a communications server to serve as a communications hub to act in accordance with predetermined workflow in receiving, forwarding, and generating subsequent communications arising from the job search and involving job applicants, referral sources, and recruiting personnel;

where each of the operations of initiating the job search and said communications server serving as the communications hub further comprises determining if predetermined criteria call for natural language translation to facilitate communications among participants of different languages, and if so, automatically negotiating natural language translation; and

where the negotiation of natural language translation includes computer-implemented operations of;

under first conditions, performing natural language translation by applying a computer-readable natural language translation dictionary, under second conditions, obtaining natural language translation by a human translator.

17. A computer-driven apparatus of managing employment recruiting communications comprising:

a computer-readable natural language translation database;

case information containing computer-readable data specifying information about the following aspects of a job search;

job applicants, candidates, referral sources, recruiting personnel, events in progression of the job search, and preferences of at least some of participants in the job search;

a first set of pre-stored computer-readable templates residing in a prescribed language, each template including blanks whose content is determined by a predetermined mapping to case information, said templates when completed forming personalized computer-readable solicitations set forth in the prescribed language;

one or more further sets of computer-readable templates, where templates in each further set correspond to template counterparts in the first set, each further set templates pertaining to a different language;

a computer-readable workflow setting forth a predetermined multi-stage employment recruiting framework;

a communications server programmed to perform operations comprising;

receiving from recruiting personnel computer-readable communications including a recruitment plan in a first natural language, the recruitment plan comprising at least;

a description of a given job;

under first prescribed conditions, conducting computer-readable communications to initiate and obtain natural language translation by a human translator of some or all of the recruitment plan including;

the description of the given job, keywords only, everything in the recruitment plan;

launching a job search comprising;

making the recruitment plan including any natural language translation available to candidates by posting some or all of the recruitment plan upon one or more Internet web sites, referencing the case information to identify people including;

people likely to be a candidate for the described job and reside within a threshold proximity of a prescribed job site, people likely to know said people likely to be a candidate, retrieving and completing one or more of the templates to form personalized computer-readable solicitations directed at the identified people and reflecting language appropriate to the identified people, transmitting the completed solicitations to the identified people;

after launching the job search, observing the workflow for collection, evaluation, forwarding, generation, and notification as to communications arising from the job search and occurring among some or all of the following;

applicants, job candidates, the identified people, hiring authorities, recruiting personnel, referral sources;

the operation of observing the workflow further including, under second predetermined conditions, obtaining natural language translation of said items of the communications arising from the job search, the items comprising any of;

recruitment plan, identified people, and complete solicitations, the obtaining of natural language translation comprising one or more of the following;

performing automated natural language translation by applying the natural language translation database to said items, initiating and obtaining natural language translation by a human translator of said items.

18. A computer-driven employment recruiting communications system, comprising:

case information containing computer-readable data specifying information about the following aspects of a job search;

job applicants, candidates, referral sources, recruiting personnel, events in progression of the job search, and preferences of at least some of participants in the job search;

a first set of pre-stored computer-readable templates residing in a prescribed language, each template including blanks whose content is determined by a predetermined mapping to case information, said templates when completed forming personalized computer-readable solicitations set forth in the prescribed language;

one or more further sets of computer-readable templates, where templates in each further set correspond to template counterparts in the first set, each further set templates pertaining to a different language;

a computer-readable natural language translation dictionary;

a computer-readable workflow setting forth a predetermined multi-stage employment recruiting framework;

a digital data processing engine programmed to perform operations to manage a predetermined multi-stage employment recruiting framework by observing the predetermined workflows as indexed by case information, said operations including;

initiating a job search including conducting Internet posting of information including at least a job description and also selecting, filling-in, and transmitting appropriate ones of the templates to pre-selected candidates and referral sources; and

causing a communications server to serve as a communications hub to receive, forward, and generate subsequent communications arising from the job search and involving job applicants, referral sources, and recruiting personnel, the operation of serving as a communications hub acting in accordance with the workflow as indexed by the case information;

where each of the operations of initiating the job search and said communications server serving as the communications hub further comprises determining if predetermined criteria call for natural language translation to facilitate communications among participants of different languages, and if so, automatically negotiating natural language translation; and

where the negotiation of natural language translation includes computer-implemented operations of;

under first conditions, performing translation by applying the natural language translation dictionary, under second conditions, obtaining translation by a human translator.

19. A computer-driven employment recruiting communications system, comprising:

first means for storing case information comprising computer-readable data specifying information about the following aspects of a job search;

job applicants, candidates, referral sources, recruiting personnel, events in progression of the job search, and preferences of at least some of participants in the job search;

a first set of pre-stored computer-readable templates residing in a prescribed language, each template including blanks whose content is determined by a predetermined mapping to case information, said templates when completed forming personalized computer-readable solicitations set forth in the prescribed language;

one or more further sets of computer-readable templates, where templates in each further set correspond to template counterparts in the first set, each further set templates pertaining to a different language;

second means for storing a computer-readable natural language translation dictionary;

third means for storing predetermined computer-readable workflows setting forth a predetermined multi-stage employment recruiting framework;

fourth means for managing a predetermined multi-stage employment recruiting framework by observing the predetermined workflows as indexed by the case information in order to perform operations comprising;

initiating a job search including conducting Internet posting of information including at least a job description and also selecting, filling-in, and transmitting appropriate ones of the templates to pre-selected candidates and referral sources; and

causing a communications server to serve as a communications hub to receive, forward, and generate subsequent communications arising from the job search and involving job applicants, referral sources, and recruiting personnel, the operation of serving as a communications hub acting in accordance with the workflow as indexed by the case information;

where each of the operations of initiating the job search and said communications server serving as the communications hub further comprises determining if predetermined criteria call for natural language translation to facilitate communications among participants of different languages, and if so, automatically negotiating natural language translation; and

where the negotiation of natural language translation includes computer-implemented operations of;

under first conditions, performing natural language translation by applying the natural language translation dictionary, under second conditions, obtaining natural language translation by a human translator.

20. A computer-implemented employment recruiting management system programmed to implement a predetermined multi-stage employment recruiting framework by performing computer-implemented operations comprising:

initiating a job search including conducting Internet posting of information including at least a job description and selecting and filling-in and transmitting template-based computer-readable solicitations directed at pre-selected candidates and referral sources; and

causing a communications server to serve as a communications hub to act in accordance with predetermined workflow to receive, forward, and generate subsequent communications arising from the job search and involving job applicants, referral sources, and recruiting personnel;

where each of the operations of initiating the job search and said communications server serving as the communications hub further comprises determining if predetermined criteria call for natural language translation to facilitate communications among participants of different languages, and if so, automatically negotiating natural language translation; and

where the negotiation of natural language translation includes computer-implemented operations of;

under first conditions, performing natural language translation by applying a computer-readable natural language translation dictionary, under second conditions, obtaining natural language translation by a human translator.