Student Job Allocation Service
(SJAS)
Table of Contents
Student Job Allocation Service (SJAS)! 2
BUSINESS IDEA
2
CREATING DESIGN
3
ERD
3
Main Business Process
6
BIS ETHICAL ISSUES
8
CRITICAL REFLECTION
9
Limitations And Future Developments
9
Reflection In The Context of INFS 1000
10
BIBLIOGRAPHY
11

BUSINESS IDEA
It is widely acknowledged that undertaking work experience in the accounting industry whilst studying gives students a “leading edge” above their peers, thus improving their employability. Student Job Allocation Services (“SJAS”) does this by matching accounting students from universities around Sydney who have a credit average with well-respected firms for relevant work experience on a part-time basis.
The students receive a scholarship which covers university fees and does not interfere with international students’ visa restrictions. Upon graduation, the employer will offer them a full-time contract.
SJAS has a competitive advantage in the marketplace by focusing on service differentiation for a niche market, catering for accounting students only. Our main rivals include; newspaper and internet classifieds, UNSW/UTS Co-op Scholarships and Sydney Talent. Unlike these services, SJAS only selects high achieving students from accounting majors, rather than straight from high school or any student applying for a job. Employers will prefer the SJAS program as the student stays with the company for at least one year rather than rotating to a number of different firms. This encourages an increase in training for the students and complements the firms’ graduate recruitment as SJAS participants have a high academic standard and extensive, relevant work experience.
This program adds value to the students’ degree as it complements their studies with work experience and enhances their employability. It achieves a major aim of the universities, increasing the number of graduates finding full-time work. Additionally,
SJAS is providing a valuable service to participating firms by pre-screening students.
For all these benefits, SJAS charges a modest finder’s fee of 20% of what the firm is paying the student.
CREATING DESIGN
a) ERD
The ERD Business modelling process helps to describe the business process for SJAS.
SJAS is based upon the interplay of specific entities within the business process. The four main entities are the SJAS interviewer, the student, the job and finally the company that hires the student in the end. These entities work together to form the basis of our business process.
There is a many to many relationship between the interviewer and the student. One interviewer can interview many students and each student can attend many interviews.
This relationship involves an associative entity. The associative entity involves a M:1,
M:1 relationship rather than describing it as many to many. The associative entity connects primary keys of the interviewer ID and the Student ID. The composite primary key for the Interviewer is simply their name.
The student needs to provide heavy detail in order to make the business process simple. This includes student ID, name, visa type, academic year, address, degree, academic result and Curriculum Vitae (CV). These details enable the interviewer to be prepared with questions already relating to the student which allows the interview to be completed quickly and effectively.
During the interview, the interviewer should record his/her ID and the student ID and the interview date and time. They are all primary keys to the entity Interview. Then the interviewer can give suggestions. After the Interview, interviewers collect feedback. This will become the basis of the interviewer’s recommendations to specific companies. There is a one to many relationship between student and company. A student can be employed by only one company, and a company can employ many students. The student should send all his/her details to the company. Whilst there is no specific relationship between the interviewer and the company the interviewer does recommend the student to a company, this does not however involved the transition of data. The student when they meet the company will provide specific details about themselves which comes under the bracket of student ID. Through this the company should know all the student details. The company entity includes keys of company ID, name and location to the students. To the company, company ID is the primary key and Student ID is the foreign key.
The relationship between company and job is one to many. A company can offer many jobs while a job can only be offered by a company. Each job has a Job ID as its primary key. The job entity has other information such as name, title, requirement, and employment agreement.
The ERD breaks down the business process which helps manager and directors to focus on specific parts of the employment process.
b) Main Business Process
The business process model employed to describe the SJAS, depicts the flow of information between activities within the business. The model allows for various organisations to understand the process that SJAS goes through to allocate students to well-suited accounting internships and jobs.
The model considers the possibility that students may have good grades but are not suitable for any jobs being offered by participating companies, this determines and end point where these students leave the job allocation process or are placed back into interviewing situations. The model specifies that when the business interviews students in order to place them into positions within their client companies they simultaneously look at their resume. This allows for the business to gauge the student’s personality type in conjunction with their majors. This helps the business to place students in jobs that they will be successful at. This aspect of the business process is crucial as the success of student company matches adds to the businesses reputation and contributes to growth. Once the student proves to be appropriate for any job the business informs the company that they have filled the position for them, and the company makes the final decision on whether to hire the student or not. If yes, then the student is sent job details.
This process is highly efficient and highlights the importance of business process modeling for firms. The model has all the characteristics of a well-designed process it is complete, minimal, well-structured and embedded as this process interacts with other processes within the business structure. The outcome of these characteristics is increased value for the clients at a lower cost for the business.
This BPMN describes a single department function for the business however it will not lead to islands of automation were some processes are isolated from others rather than being interactive with others. The BPMN describes the flow of data throughout the business process for SJAS.
BIS ETHICAL ISSUES
After collecting the university students’ details, SJAS should consider the BIS ethical issues which could arise from the business and negatively impact stakeholders such as the students, hiring companies, interviewers and directors of SJAS.
The major ethical issues facing the business are concerned with where information is stored regarding individual students, who it is accessible to, how it is accessed and finally how information remains accurate. The underlying business ethical issues for these concerns are information privacy, accuracy and accessibility.
SJAS should only keep student’s names, contact details and academic results in the database. SJAS will use passwords or other internet security options in order to secure the students information on the databases. In addition, SJAS should discuss with the students what information they can keep. The SJAS director and the interviewer should be the people who are in control of students’ information. Most communication of private information would occur at the interview and be recorded into the database using security measures by the interviewer himself. On a two-year basis SJAS will double check students’ contact details and academic results are correct using the university contact. The transition of personal information between the student and the company would occur when the student is recommended to the company by the interviewer. This step would involve the handover of personal and private data.
CRITICAL REFLECTION
a) Limitations And Future Developments
There limitations in this business report exist largely because this is the first year SJAS is in operation. It is best to commence business operations on a small scale first and then expand if the idea proves successful.
The first limitation is that SJAS does not cater for those students who are studying degrees or majors other than accounting but would still like to pursue a career in accounting. Firms such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Ernst & Young and
Deloitte often hire students who have studied law, engineering and sciences because they value their analytical, research and problem solving skills. Whilst it is necessary to have completed an accounting major in order to receive the Chartered Accountant or
CPA qualification, bridging courses can be arranged and completed before the study of the qualification commences. Additionally, those who wish to specialise in tax accounting can do a Masters of Taxation Law which does not require any prerequisite degrees or majors. Once SJAS’ formula has proved successful and if students from other degrees show enough interest in the program, SJAS can always expand the pool of talent from which it draws upon. A major limitation of SJAS is the heavy dependence on people continuing to want to enter the accounting industry. Perhaps as well as expanding the degrees SJAS chooses the students from, the program could expand into other industries such as finance, law, engineering, journalism and scientific research. Once again, this sort of expansion would only be feasible if the current program proved successful.
Likewise, the minimum academic mark of a credit average may result in rejection of students who may be well suited to the jobs available but are just below the academic requirement. SJAS could possibly work on developing an appeals system when students can justify why they would be suitable for the program despite their lower marks. This is especially important as some firms do not see university marks as the
“be all and end all” for what constitutes a good worker.

b) Reflection In The Context of INFS 1000
This business report has proved to be a valuable learning experience. Nearly all
INFS1000 topics have been covered in a meaningful and analytical way.
Firstly, in the development of the business idea, it was important to devise what constituted useful information and ensure that the database contained complete, accurate, relevant and sufficient information. This proved particularly important when developing SJAS’ ERD as including superfluous data would waste the company’s money (not an ideal situation when it is a start-up enterprise). It was also useful to reflect on Porter’s competitive strategies to determine where SJAS would be situated in the current market and how SJAS would best going about making a profit.
The most pertinent point that was discovered through developing this business report was that information systems need to be developed specifically for an organisation with competitive advantage and strategy as the driving force. By researching SJAS’ competitors such as Sydney Uni Talent, UNSW/UTS Co-op Programs and online classifieds, it enabled us to develop an information system that could “lock in customers and suppliers” and therefore achieve a competitive advantage over the rest of the market.
Finally, the examination of the potential ethical issues that could result from SJAS’ operations emphasised the need to ensure greater security around access, storage and dissemination of students’ and participating companies’ information.
Developing this business report has been challenging yet rewarding. Linking the theory of digital business innovation to a tangible example has further emphasised our knowledge of the subject and highlighted the fact that business information systems increases the competitive advantage of a business exponentially.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Australian Government, 2010, Student Visa Conditions, accessed: 19 April 2010, http://www.immi.gov.au/students/visa-conditions-students.htm Australian Government, 2010, Working While Studying, accessed: 19 April 2010, http://www.immi.gov.au/students/students/working_while_studying/ Craigslist, 2010, Factsheet, accessed: 19 April 2010, http://www.craigslist.org/about/ factsheet Deloitte, 2010 recruitment and promotional materials
Ernst & Young, 2010 recruitment and promotional materials
KPMG, 2010 recruitment and promotional materials
Kroenke, D.M., Bunker, D., Wilson, D., Experiencing MIS, 2010, Pearson Australia.
National Council for Work Experience, 2010, The Increasing Importance of Work Experience
! for Students, accessed: 19 April 2010,
! http://www.work-experience.org/ncwe.rd/
! news_importance_of_work_experience.jsp
PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2010 recruitment and promotional materials
UNSW Co-op Program, 2010 recruitment and promotional materials
UTS Co-op Program, 2010 recruitment and promotional materials