Design And Implementation Of A Distributed Recruitment Management System

CHAPTER 2
2.1    Preamble
LITERATURE REVIEW
 This Chapter discusses the theoretical background of recruitment with emphasis on data mining, Knowledge Discovery in databases, data mining techniques, Discussions centred on decision support systems in conjunction with distributed systems and the different architecture tiers are also touched. In conclusion a review of related works is evaluated.
2.2    Theoretical Background of Recruitment
№wadays, when talking about the different methods to find a job, no one would ignore the Internet. It is amazing how the Internet has taken over the world in less than 20 years. But what system were companies using to recruit before that? How would they let people know about their job opportunities?
In the collections of the British Museum, there is a decree signed by Julius Caesar in 55 B.C., promising a reward of 300 sesterti (about 4 gold coins). They had the first known recruiters and faced many of the same challenges we have today (eremedia.com Raghav Singh 2008).
The birth of the modern recruitment systems, however, did not take place until the 1940’s as a result of WWII. Employment agencies began to advertise for workers who were not obligated to military service in an effort to fill the void left in the workplace left by those who were called to duty. When the war ended there was an influx of workers returning from the army, many with skills that could be applied to the technology field. Specialised Recruitment agencies became popular as a response to the growing workforce. These agencies worked in service of those seeking employment until the strong economy of the 1970s when there was a period of relative prosperity and growth large corporations then began outsourcing their hiring efforts to recruiting companies (“History of Recruitment”, 2010). recruiterslounge.com,  Until the late 1990's, the best way to hire people that were not affiliated to the “hirer” in any way was to post an announcement in the newspapers. Almost all the newspapers had a job section, which recruitment agencies had to pay for to make use of
When the Internet exploded, this methodology was ported to the web. Some of them still exist today, monster.com, created in 1999, is probably the best example of how the business has grown since then. In 2012, the company generated over a billion US dollars turnover (Earliest recruitment systems https://www.monster.com).
With further improvement in internet technologies complete information systems called recruitment management systems have been developed which manage the entire recruitment life cycle from the advertisement phase which calls for applications for positions in an organization to the conduction of aptitude tests right down to the distribution of employment letters.
2.3    Information Systems
Before we can give a comprehensive definition of an information system we have to understand what a system means. A system is an interrelated set of business procedures (or components) used within one business unit, working together for some purpose (Valacich et al 2012). Information on the other hand can be viewed as a type of input to an organism or system (Dusenbury et al 1992) while from the stance of information theory; information is taken as an ordered sequence of symbols from an alphabet (Wicker, 2003).
From this we can infer that there can be no single definition for an information system but rather an information system can be defined from various perspectives. We define an information system relating to its function, structure and technically. From a functional perspective; an information system is a medium implemented with the aid of technology for the purpose of storing, and distributing information as well as for inference making. From a structural perspective; an information system is a collection of people, processes, data, models, technology and formalized language, forming a structure for some organizational function. An information system can be defined technically as a set of interrelated components that retrieve, process, store, and distribute information to support decision making and control in an organization. In addition to supporting decision making, coordination, and control, information systems may also help workers analyse problems, understand complex subjects, and make new products (Information System Lecture, 2011/2012).
A computer-based information system (CBIS) is an information system that uses computer technology to perform some or all of its required tasks. Such systems include as little as a personal computer and software. Or several thousand computers of various sizes with hundreds of other devices, communication networks and databases. In most cases an information system includes people (Information System Lecture, 2011/2012).
2.3.1    Types of Information Systems systems are unique to specific organizations, many of these information systems still belong to a broader range of Information systems we discuss some of these broad range of information systems below: