TRS CONSULTANTS, INC. SELECTS SMARTSEARCH ONLINE FROM APS

OCEANSIDE, CA, Apr. 30, 1999 - TRS Consultants, Inc. has selected and implemented SmartSearch Online from Advanced Personnel Systems, Inc. (APS). The state-of-the-art Web-based system is providing TRS Consultants with instant Internet access to the companyšs resume database. Doug Coull, APS president, made the announcement.

SmartSearch Online interacts with APS' SmartSearch database, a job-driven, scanning-based, staffing management system. It features a 'user-friendly' interface and the system can be learned in minutes.

TRS Consultants is an engineering and construction management company located in San Ramon, CA, about 25 miles east of San Francisco. The privately held company, established in 1988, has 100 employees and provides turnkey engineering services, including airport and bridge design, and transportation engineering. According to Sheri Lauritsen, Human Resources Manager, TRS Consultants was using a general database system that only kept track of contracts.

"We have 4,000 resumes on file and before SmartSearch Online was implemented, three people would code resumes according to the engineering discipline and project, a number would be generated and the resume would be filed in a drawer,˛ she said. "It was a very tedious process and I knew we had to do something to make the process more productive."

Lauritsen added that prior to SmartSearch Online, the company had to manually prepare resumes for specific jobs. Now Lauritsen simply copies and pastes into a formatted TRS Consultants' resume.

"We tend to get resumes in bunches," she said. "Now we don't worry about processing them SmartSearch Online inputs everything automatically. I can put resumes into specific job folders, insert customized notes on a candidate, formulate a customized search plan that automatically e-mails resumes meeting certain criteria, and can run key word searches to find qualified people for a specific type of job."

Lauritsen said the system's 'Automatch' feature is especially helpful it flags resumes that are appropriate for open jobs and automatically finds them once the job parameters are defined.

"The Automatch feature is saving us about four hours a day in resume processing time multiply that by a month and add to that the hourly costs associated with this task and the cost savings are significant thousands of dollars in the first month of operation!" she said.

APS' Doug Coull indicated that SmartSearch Online would prove cost-efficient for TRS Consultants.

"The traditional solution for organizations wishing to automate processing resumes, generating response letters, and searching for and selecting candidates is to purchase and install a candidate tracking and management system. However, implementing an in-house system is time consuming and expensive," he said. "In addition to the up-front expense of the new hardware and software, and the time to implement in-house systems typically three to nine months, organizations have to hire additional employees to manage and administer their new system." "Contrast this with SmartSearch Online TRS Consultants did not have to purchase or install any hardware or software," Coull said. "And they were up and fully functional within days of making their decision."

APS, established in 1985, is located in Oceanside, CA, about 30 miles north of San Diego. The firm pioneered scanning-based staffing management and has since become a nationwide industry leader in introducing optical scanning technology for resume retrieval, report generation and application tracking. In 1990, APS created SmartSearch, a jobs-driven, scanning-based staffing management system used by companies nationwide.

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