Practice Exchange

Ilene Gast, Associate Editor

This column highlights innovative public sector programs at the Federal, state, and local level. If you are conducting a project that would interest the ACN readers, or if you know someone who is, please let me hear from you. I can be reached by phone at (202) 305-0590, by fax at (202) 305-3664, or electronic mail at ifgast@aol.com.

Better Job Hotline Services

by Dolly Boals and Neil Davidson

The City of Portland has successfully launched an improved job hotline service. One goal of this project was to improve our service to our customers. We wanted to provide more complete recruitment information, thereby enabling applicants to make better decisions about whether to apply for a given job opening. A second goal was to reduce City advertising costs substantially. The new service met both goals fully.

Before we changed the system, the hotline presented a single, lengthy message covering all the positions for which we were recruiting that week. Because individual recruitments changed from week to week, we had to "re-cut" the entire message each week. To be able to include all current recruitments in our hotline message, we had to be brief--we could include only the salary, a one sentence description of the position, and the closing date. Even so, the our hotline message often lasted 6 to 8 minutes. Callers often hung up in frustration. They also frequently called to complain about the length time they had spent listening to irrelevant information.

Our new system incorporates an Enhanced Call Processing (ECP) feature. This feature enables callers to use the touch tone pad of their telephone to select the information they want to hear. Ideally, before calling the hotline, a caller would read the weekly classified block ad that we place in the local newspaper. For each recruitment, the newspaper ad provides a 3-digit reference number, the job title, the salary and the closing date. When prompted to do so, the caller could enter the reference number corresponding to a specific position. Our new service provides a detailed message which includes job title, salary, major duties, important minimum qualifications, and closing date. If the caller did not get the reference number from our ad, or if the caller wishes to hear a list of all open recruitments, he or she can branch to hear such a listing. The caller can also elect to provide a name and address to which a job application can be mailed.

The new system has had many positive effects:

We are able to provide all pertinent information about our openings because we are no longer under such severe time limitations. As a result, people can be more selective about the positions for which they apply.
We have improved service to our customers. Complaints from prospective applicants about the length of time a spent on the system have subsided. Callers spend only 1 or 2 minutes on the phone, as compared to between 6 and 8 minutes under the old system.
We are saving staff time. We no longer have to re-record information for recruitments that continue from the previous week.
We have greatly reduced the newspaper portion of our advertising costs.

All these benefits were derived without incurring out-of-pocket expenses. We were able to take advantage of technology that was already part of the City of Portland's telephone communications system. Our only cost, which was surprising minimal, was the time required by our Human Resources staff and our Telecommunications to make the change.

Our selection philosophy is that candidate self-screening based on assimilated knowledge of job duties and qualifications is a very important part of our selection arsenal. The change to our hotline system is consistent with and enhances this philosophy. If you would like to try our job hotline service, we encourage you to call (503) 823-4573. If you would like a copy of the call "flow diagram" and a sample of a weekly newspaper block ad, please call Dolly Boals at (503) 823-4169.