In an effort to enhance the university's diverse representation within nonacademic staff, the Office of Human Resources (OHR) has been working for the past year on a new initiative to increase recruitment and applicant tracking. The Applicant Tracking System and Strategic Outreach Initiative aids the university community in connecting with and creating "pipelines" of talent from underrepresented populations. These resources are available to any Cornell hiring manager, and they focus on proactive communication and collaborative approaches to enhancing representation at Cornell. All resources are at no cost to hiring or human resource managers.

Through the Cornell job site http://www.ohr.cornell.edu/jobs, OHR has implemented system enhancements to improve the effectiveness of the online applicant tracking system. OHR can partner with hiring managers to search an in-house resume database of more than 46,000 applicants who have been reached via recruitment outreach, career fairs, networking and recruitment advertising.

The opportunities posted to the Jobs at Cornell site are also posted to Diversity Inc.'s Career Portal. OHR can also partner with hiring managers to run reports that reflect the representation of the applicant pools during the search process. This feature is designed to aid HR and hiring managers in exhausting all good-faith efforts in enhancing the representation within applicant pools before moving forward in a search.

In an effort to reach out to a broader population, as of October 2005 all opportunities posted to the Jobs at Cornell site will automatically be posted to The New York Times Job Market Web site, http://www.jobmarket.newyorktimes.com. With over 350,000 unique job seekers visiting the site each month and more than 170,000 resumes featured on the site, this partnership is anticipated to greatly enhance representation within applicant, interview and hiring pools.

Cornell continues to create partnerships with underrepresented communities at the university. The Cornell Recruitment Partnership (CRP) is an outreach initiative established to promote career opportunities at Cornell through strategic, inclusive and communication-focused partnerships between Cornell and local, regional and national organizations that assist underrepresented individuals in securing employment. This includes a listserv that is available to university hiring managers to share employment opportunities with member organizations.

Weekly Cornell employment information sessions are continuously held at the Recruitment and Employment Center, Tompkins Workforce New York and Cortland Works. Participation in local, regional and national events also have enhanced the representation of underrepresented individuals at the university. In 2005 OHR sponsored participation in events sponsored by The Greater Ithaca Activities Center, National Urban League, Finger Lakes Independence Center, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.

In the past few years, the systems that have been established have increased not only Cornell visibility in underrepresented communities, but also success in recruitment. For additional information or assistance, contact the Recruitment and Employment Center at (607) 254-8370 or e-mail employment_svcs@cornell.edu.

Constance Thompson is the manager for recruitment and diversity recruitment within the Office of Human Resources. Thompson is primarily responsible for partnering with the Cornell University Human Resources community in enhancing the representation of underrepresented populations within nonacademic staff.