Project

• Overview / Forward

Competition began in earnest in the 1980’s. Women were rapidly expanding the roles they could expect to be hired into. The rise in analog fax machines allowed a new way to transmit resumes to companies but most company research was still done via phone books and the library. Recruiting was cumbersome in part because personnel professionals tracked and stored paper resumes. 

That said, this decade brought the promise of many new technologies. Although ‘personal computers’ were first introduced in the 1970’s through dozens of businesses like Compaq, Sperry, Radio Shack, etc. it was IBM’s PC entry in 1982 that was a watershed moment making personal computers available to the masses. At the same time, rudimentary modems became available and made it feasible to send a document from one computer to another. 

A basket of Human Resources technology applications included precursors to the modern applicant tracking systems. By the end of the decade, If a recruiter had a computer they could now search for applicants from a relational database of resumes that were scanned, faxed, or had even begun to be emailed into their system.

• 1981 – Launch of the personal home computer by IBM.1
• 1983 – Launch of the Radio Shack Model 100.2
• 1982 – ResTrac (ATS) founded.3
• 1983 – College internships rise sharply.4
• 1983 – The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X introduced (mobile phone).5
• 1983 – Aerotek founded.6
• 1983 – Microsoft Word was launched.7
• 1984 – Dell Computers launched as PC’s Limited.8
• 1986 – Fax machines go digital.9
• 1987 – PeopleSoft founded (launches in 1989).10
• 1987 – Kenexa founded; originally an insurance industry executive recruitment service.11
• 1988 – Resumix founded.12
• 1989 – The World Wide Web was created by British scientist Tim Berners-Lee.13
• 1989 – Growth of dial up Computer Bulletin Board Systems (BBS).14
• 1989 – Whistleblower Protection Act.15
• 1989 – The number of fax machines in the US grew from 300,000 (in 1983) to 4,000,000 in 1989.16

References

1. IBM in 1981 dominated the commercial computer industry. In 1980 IBM awarded a contract to Bill Gates at Microsoft in November 1980 to provide a version of the CP/M OS to be used in the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC). IBM’s PC signaled the beginning of fierce competition for the ‘home’ computer industry. This was a critical milestone for recruiting as it allowed job seekers, in part, to produce and print resumes on demand. Eventually IBM realized their value was not in the mfg. Personal Computers and they sold the division to Lenovo in China in 2005.
   IBM Archives: The birth of the IBM PC
2. The Radio Shack Model 100 was arguably the first laptop and transformed newspaper journalists’ ability to send their articles to their respective employers on deadline. It was also the last operating system coded by Bill Gates
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100
3. Restrac pioneered first-generation ATS software. Eventually it morphed to Webhire and then was acquired by Kinexa and finally IBM acquired Kinexa #fullcircle
   Enterprise Recruiting: What is it all about? – ERE
4. “The number of universities offering programs that let students split their time between interning and classwork increased from 200 in 1970 to 1,000 in 1983
   Intern History: How Internships Replaced Entry-Level Jobs | Time
5. In 1983, Motorola’s DynaTAC 8000X was the first commercially available handheld mobile phone. By the 1990’s  cellular networks appeared. In 2007 the first iPhone appeared. Today, smartphones are ubiquitous and dominate candidate communication.
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone
6. Aerotek eventually became Allegis Group in 2001. The firm is one of the largest Staffing industry 3rd party staffing and consulting organizations worth more than 12 billion by 2016.
   Our History: 35+ Years of Staffing & Recruitment
7. Microsoft Word was the better tool to write, print and store resumes.
   History of Microsoft Word – Wikipedia
8. Michael Dell created Dell Computers while a student at the University of Texas at Austin. In his first full year assembling computers in his dorm he grossed $50,000+ a month.
   How Michael Dell turned $1,000 into billions, starting from his dorm
9. “A major breakthrough in the development of the modern facsimile (FAX) system was the result of digital technology, where the analog signal from scanners was digitized and then compressed, resulting in the ability to transmit high rates of data across standard phone lines. The first digital fax machine was the Dacom Rapidfax first sold in late 1960s, which incorporated digital data compression technology developed by Lockheed for transmission of images from satellites.” In 1986, digital FAX machines exploded commercially. Recruitment advertising agencies had dozens to communicate text ads on deadline to newspapers and candidates with access would fax their resumes to employers.
   Fax
10. Peoplesoft, for those who like to put together descriptions filled with important sounding words, was the ‘first fully-integrated, client-server human resource management system’. The beginning of the conversation over whether enterprise wide solutions were better than collecting and connecting best of breed solutions. Talent Acquisition professionals have consistently resisted the former when give the choice.
    PeopleSoft
11. Through rapid growth and numerous acquisitions Kinexa became a leader in ATS and Talent Acquisition Software services selling to IBM in 2012.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenexa
12. Resumix was a pioneer in recruitment automation and the first that allowed recruiters to search for qualified resumes from a database based on keywords.
    http://www.viviente.com/resumix/website/company.html
13. Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist on leave from MIT and working at CERN, a large, Swiss-based multinational nuclear research organization was frustrated that hundreds of scientists armed with their own personal computers had competing operating systems and struggled daily to share content with one another. Tim’s solution, the World Wide Web (WWW), was born in 1989 and offered to the public for free in 1993. Job Boards and Career Sites were instantly a ‘thing’.
    The birth of the Web
14. Bulletin Board Systems known as BBSs and Online Service Providers were a precursor to Internet JobBoards and chat rooms. Usage rose through the late 80’s and early 90’s and by 1994 according to one estimate there were 60,000 BBSs serving 17 million users in the United States alone. As the internet developed, three major commercial ‘online service providers’, using the Internet as their ‘computer’ morphed from BBSs to for-pay robust Internet services. The three largest were Compuserve, Prodigy and AOL. Tens of millions of ‘discs’ – floppy and otherwise, were mailed to homes to entice home computer enthusiasts to join the online services. As direct access to the internet improved in the mid 90’s, interest in BBSs and Online Services quickly diminished.
    Bulletin board systemAmerica Online”. With AOL
15. A federal agency violates the Whistleblower Protection Act if agency authorities take (or threaten to take) retaliatory personnel action against any employee or applicant because of disclosure of information by that employee or applicant.
    Whistleblower Protection Act
16. While the invention of Fax had a long history stretching back to the 1800s it became a practical business tool by the 1970s and exploded when ISDN digital standards allowing 64k speeds were adopted in 1986. Newspapers and recruitment advertising agencies needing to communicate rapidly with their employers on deadline about job openings adopted them for transmission of help-wanted ad content. Before 1990 a single page took 6 minutes to transmit.
    Fax