Crimson Solutions: Let Your Fingers Do the Job Searching

By Chile Hidalgo

Special to the Gazette

Harvard's Office of Career Services (OCS) should become a hub of activity as the job-hunting season approaches. After all, the office provides students with information on full-time jobs, internships, and the interview process; hordes of seniors or summer internship seekers turn to OCS for facts. However, due to some newly acquired technology, the office has recently encountered a drop in in-person visits.

Starting last year, OCS began utilizing eRecruiting.com, an online recruiting system developed by Crimson Solutions, a company formed by recent Harvard graduates. The system allows students to search recruiting possibilities according to interests, browse company fact sheets, view the OCS' calendar, and complete most of the pre-interview steps via the Internet. Students can even format cover letters and distribute them to select companies online. So far, students have responded well to the new program: last year, the system took over a million hits.

Perhaps one of the most student-friendly aspects of OCS' upgrade is that the server allows them access 24 hours a day. Wellie Chao '98, the founder of Crimson Solutions, did not have that luxury the spring of his junior year. While sifting through the paper files listing summer internships, Chao came across Microsoft's company information sheet. "It seemed like the perfect [internship] opportunity," says Chao. Unfortunately, he realized he did not have any change to make a copy of the fact sheet. Since it was nearly closing time at OCS, Chao sprinted to the fifth floor of Eliot House, fumbled around for change, and ran back, only to find the doors locked. When he returned the next day, Chao found that someone had removed the fact-sheet, and with it his chance at working for Bill Gates.
"I knew there had to be a better way," he says.

Chao met with Judy Murray, the Recruiting Program director and Information Technology administrator, and over the course of a few meetings convinced her and other OCS administrators to allow him to produce a new system.

"He convinced us he could develop a product that worked," says Murray.

Since developing his first product, Chao and Crimson Solutions -- which owes its name to the numerous Harvard graduates who have become company officers -- have developed custom-made recruiting systems for Boston College, Boston University, Middlebury College, and Wellesley College. As Bernie Longboy, Crimson Solution's director of marketing (and a graduate of the Graduate School of Education) says, "Eat your heart out, Bill."