Maximize ROI by Extending Portals Internally!

In my role here at The Portal Connector, I have great conversations with Partners and Customers everyday, and one of the topics that often comes up is, "How can we maximize the potential of The Portal Connector?"

One of the great things about portals is the countless functions they can be used for.

Many people think of the most obvious Portal Solutions, such as Customer Support or Case Management, but generally people forget about their own internal engagements, such as vacation scheduling, resume and interview management, or some other form of employee portal.

Let's look at Resume and Interview Management as an example.

In this type of example, you aren't interacting with what would be known as a traditional "customer" so that is why I view it as an internal portal used by HR, or management for hiring staff.

Normally when a job is posted, there are several steps required before someone eventually is hired:

Applicants submit their resume and cover letter as attachments via an email.
The successful applicants are contacted to setup an initial phone interview.
- This can be several emails or phone calls to nail down a date and time that works for BOTH the candidate and the interviewer(s).
After a round of initial interviews are complete, a second interview may be needed to be conducted for a few of the successful candidates.
- This again can end up being several contact points to book in a date and time slot convenient for everyone.

Now we look at this same scenario, but all managed through a Self-Service Web Portal:

An applicant clicks a button similar to the one shown below.
From here, they are able to register, create a profile with a username and secure password along with entering in relevant contact details and upload their resume in the format(s) that you as the employer have chosen. You could also have applicants answer a series of questions using picklists, and lookups perhaps.
Internally, you can choose to be notified when a new applicant comes through, and review the resumes and applications, all in Dynamics CRM/365. Now that the successful candidates have been chosen internally, they can now be informed to login to the portal again, and choose an interview date and time slot based on what is available from a drop down menu that is all managed in CRM/D365. Each date that is chosen now becomes unavailable for the next candidate etc. This eliminates any back and forth complicated communication attempting to book interviews.
We can even take it a step further and add a permissions role to the successful interviewees, so they can potentially now see a series of documents relating to the job they have applied for, to maybe prepare for the next stage.