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JOBS Interview Request System
Donald E. Barth
15-Feb-84
JOBS, the interview request system described in this manual, was
developed at the Yale School of Management for the automatic allocation
of open job interviews to students in the Master's Degree Program in
Public and Private Management (MPPM). This manual describes the
administrative procedures needed to prepare for and to process the
requests for job interviews. Appendices to this manual contain the
instructions for the computer program which is used by the school staff
to enter the recruiting schedules and for the computer program which is
used by the students to request the interviews.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
----- -- --------
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Interview Allocation Process . . . . . . . . 1
The Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
The Computer Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
The Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Preparation for Student Use . . . . . . . . . . 10
Processing a Set of Requests . . . . . . . . . . 12
Evaluation of Allocation of Interviews and Times . . . 17
What Takes Place During Processing . . . . . . . . 19
Maximum Sizes of the Cases Handled by the Programs . . 22
Descriptions of the Files . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Contents of the Account Validation File . . . . . 23
Contents of the Password File . . . . . . . . 28
Contents of the Current Stage file . . . . . . . 29
Contents of the Starting Time Profile File . . . . 33
Contents of the Firm Schedule File . . . . . . . 35
Contents of the Interview Request File . . . . . 39
Using the RSMPSW Program to Assign Passwords . . . . 45
Machine Dependence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Differences Between DECsystem10 and DECsystem20 Versions 50
Appendix A: Instructions for Using the JOBS Program . . 53
Appendix B: Instructions for Using the JOBADM Program . 57
Appendix C: Files Included in this Package . . . . . 67
Appendix D: Examples of the Listing Files . . . . . 73
INTRODUCTION
------------
JOBS is an interview request system which can be used at a school to
allocate job interviews among the students and to assign times for these
interviews. Various bidding schemes can be used to allocate interviews
with firms for which there is excess demand. The system includes a
program which the school staff uses to enter the recruiting schedules, a
program which the students use to request interviews with particular
firms and to assign priorities to these requests, and a series of
programs which allocate the interviews and which produce printed
schedules for the recruiters and for the students.
All of the firms which are interviewing and the numbers of interviews
which they will hold must be known before the students can run the
program. This means that the students must use the program several
times during the interview season. In practice, allocating the
interviews for a month at a time seems to work well. If there is
sufficient lead time, and if some firms are still undersubscribed after
the students make their initial requests for the coming month, then the
students can be allowed to bid again for the remaining interviews and
for interviews with additional firms added to the pool in the meantime.
The interview request system handles only open interviews, those for
which the school specifies which students will be interviewed. The
system does not handle closed interviews, those to which the firms
invite the students, since the firms usually furnish the lists of these
students to the school with too little lead time for the use of an
automated system.
The interview request system was developed on a DECsystem20 computer
and, in various versions, has been used during 2 interview seasons. The
system is written entirely in FORTRAN and, excluding the comment lines,
consists of 9000 FORTRAN statements. A version for the DECsystem10
computer is included.
THE INTERVIEW ALLOCATION PROCESS
--- --------- ---------- -------
The interview season is divided into several sections, called rounds.
The students can only request interviews with firms which are holding
interviews during the current round. Several academic classes of
students can use the program at different times or concurrently and each
class can be entering requests for a different round. The school
calendar must allow enough time before the start of each round for all
of the students in the class to use the computer to make their requests,
for these requests to be processed, and for the lists of successful
students to be sent to the firms. The length of each round is
determined only by how far into the future it is known which firms will
be interviewing and how many interviews they will be holding and when.
All of the students in a class who want to request interviews for the
current round must have finished using the program before interviews can
be allocated to any of them. However, until the deadline for completing
their requests has been reached, the students can each run the program
2 JOBS Interview Request System
as many times as desired to enter or change their requests. Typically,
the students would have to complete their requests at least 2 weeks
before the start of the round and each round would consist of
approximately a month.
If there is enough lead time before the start of the round, then the
students can be allowed to run the program again to make additional
requests after their initial requests have been processed. Firms can be
added to the list or can be cancelled from the list, but the list should
essentially remain unchanged. Each of the times that the students in a
particular class are allowed to run the program to request interviews
with the same set of firms is called a stage of the same round. There
can be as many stages as desired in each round. The positions on the
lists of the students who requested interviews during the previous
stages of the current round remain fixed. The new requests are only for
interviews with the undersubscribed firms or for positions on the
waiting lists for fully subscribed firms. The students can, however,
cancel requests which they made in earlier stages and this would release
the interviews so that someone else could get them.
The system does not contain any information for rounds other than the
current round for each class. The description of the schedules for the
recruiters and the requests for interviews made by the students are
stored in an account which is separate from those which are used by the
administrator and by the students. The account which is used for
storing the schedules and requests is also used for storing the files
which validate accounts to run the programs and which establish the
passwords which are used by the students to gain access to the program.
The member of the placement office staff who acts as the administrator
uses the JOBADM program to establish which firms are holding interviews
and when these interviews will be held. All of the scheduling
information for the firms which will be interviewing students in a
particular class is held in a separate file. The administrator has
control over how many interviews any one student can request during each
stage, during each round and during the entire interview season. The
type of bidding which will be used for the allocation of over subscribed
firms is set before the start of the season by the computer services
staff at the direction of the administrator, but the administrator can,
before any new stage begins, change the limitations on the number of
high priority requests which can be made or the total amount which can
be bid.
For each firm, the administrator specifies the name of the firm, its
department name and its address. The type of position being filled is
not specified, but this could be entered instead of the department name
or address if desired. The administrator specifies the length of the
interviews and the total number of schedules which will be held. All of
the interviews which are held by a particular firm must be of the same
length. A profile of the times during the day when interviews of this
length start must already have been established. If the firm is only
interviewing on a single day, then the number of schedules will equal
the number of recruiters. If the firm is interviewing on several days,
then the number of schedules is the sum of the number of recruiters each
day. The administrator specifies the date when each schedule will be
The Interview Allocation Process 3
held. If there is more than 1 profile of starting times for interviews
of the selected length, then the administrator must select the profile
for each schedule. Finally, the administrator selects the time of the
first and final interviews for each schedule, and which, if any,
interviews in each schedule will not be held.
There is a profile of starting times for interviews which are 30 minutes
long, another for interviews which are 45 minutes long, and a third for
interviews which are 60 minutes long. If it is really desired to use a
new set of starting times for interviews of some particular length, then
the administrator can have the computer services staff establish a new
profile of starting times. This is easily done and only requires adding
a new line to the file which defines these profiles. The new profile
can be for interviews of the same length as one of the original
profiles, or can be for a different length. If the new profile is for
interviews of the same length as an existing profile, then the
administrator will have to select between these whenever a newly entered
firm is holding interviews of that length. The program which allocates
interviews makes sure that the students have time to get from one
interview to another, so it is not necessary for the profiles to include
any more time between successive interviews than is required by the
recruiters.
If the students have their own individual accounts, and if these can be
related in some way to their classes, then they can run the program from
these individual accounts. Otherwise, a common account will have to be
established for each class. If common accounts are used, then it is
suggested that the computer services staff assign a password to each
student which can be used to gain access to the program. It is also
possible to have each student select a password which will be used to
gain access to that student's requests, but this scheme is subject to
possible abuse in that a single student could enter several sets of
requests and thus have an unfair advantage over other students in the
class.
The students run a program named JOBS to request interviews. The JOBS
program tells the student the dates when the firm is interviewing and
how many interviews will be held. If the firm is interviewing on
several days, then the student can select on which day he or she would
prefer to have the interview be held. The student also selects which of
the possible starting times during the day he or she most prefers. If
the student selects more than 1 time, then the second is assumed to be
desired less than the first, the third less than the second, and so on.
It is not necessary that the student select either a date or times. If
both a date and times are selected, then the times apply only to that
date. If an interview cannot be scheduled on that date, or if no times
were selected, then all times on the date when the interview is actually
scheduled will be equally likely. If the student is running the JOBS
program in the second or a subsequent stage, then the program will
report the status of each request made by the student in earlier stages
including the date and time when each interview is scheduled or the
position on the waiting list.
4 JOBS Interview Request System
Once all of the students have finished making their requests for the
stage of the round, the member of the computer services staff who is
managing the running of the program closes the JOBS program to further
use by students in the class. The firm schedule file produced by the
JOBADM program is copied to a separate account where the requests will
be processed. The interview request files are appended together and the
resulting composite file is moved to the same account. Several programs
are then run which process the requests. The following steps are
performed during the allocation of the interviews.
1. For each firm, all of the requests which have the highest priority
(are most wanted) or which have the highest bid are placed onto the
end of the list of students who have requested interviews with that
firm in the previous stages. Then all of the requests which have
the next highest priority or bid are placed onto the end of the
list, and so on. Each group of requests which have the same
priority or bid are arranged in random order.
2. Interviews are allocated to the students, starting with the students
who were placed on the list first. If more students requested
interviews with the firm than the firm is willing to interview, then
the students who were placed onto the list last will be placed onto
the waiting list. The students at the top of the waiting list might
get interviews if the firm decides to conduct more interviews or if
some of the students who were allocated interviews decide to cancel
their interviews instead.
3. Among the students who have been allocated interviews, actual dates
and times for these interviews are assigned first for the students
who specified the times of day when they would prefer to have the
interviews be held. The remaining interview times are assigned to
the students who did not specify any preferred times or who
specified preferred times which had already been assigned to someone
else.
4. Schedules are printed which can be given to each student and to each
recruiter.
5. The final version of the composite interview request file is split
into separate files which are written into the original central
storage account. These individual interview request files reflect
the action taken on each request.
6. The final version of the firm schedule file is copied into the
central storage account. This version of the firm schedule file
contains the number of students who requested interviews with each
firm.
7. After verifying that the results appear to be correct, the member of
the computer services staff who is managing the running of the
program opens the JOBS program to the students so that they can
review their results, or advances the stage number so that they can
make requests for interviews with any firms which are still
undersubscribed.
The Programs 5
THE PROGRAMS
--- --------
The interactive programs listed below are the only ones which are used
by anyone other than the computer services staff member who is managing
the running of the job interview request system. As far as the students
and placement office staff are concerned, these form the entire system.
JOBS The program which the students use to make their requests for
job interviews.
JOBADM The program used by the staff of the placement office to enter
the schedules of the firms which are conducting interviews.
Once the students have made all of their interview requests, the
following programs are run by the computer services staff member in the
order listed to allocate the actual job interviews. The first 2
programs in the list perform similar functions and only 1 of these
should be used.
JOBSLO A small but slow version of the first stage of the processing.
This program sorts the interview requests for each firm by
priority and randomizes the order of the requests which have the
same priority. The entire interview request file is read and
rewritten for each firm which is to be processed so the requests
for all students for all firms do not have to be stored in
random access memory at the same time. The JOBBIG program can
be used instead of the JOBSLO program if relatively large
programs can be run.
JOBBIG A fast but large version of the first stage of the processing.
This program sorts the interview requests for each firm by
priority and randomizes the order of the requests which have the
same priority. The entire interview request file is read and
rewritten only once. All of the requests for all students for
all firms are stored in random access memory so the arrays in
the program must be large.
JOBTIM The second stage of the processing. This program assigns actual
times for the requests. This program also produces the listings
of the interview schedule for each recruiter. JOBTIM and JOBSCH
do not have to be run if for some reason actual times are not
being assigned yet.
JOBSCH A program which is run after JOBTIM to produce the listings of
the interview schedules for each student.
JOBPUT The final stage of the processing. This program splits the
composite interview request file into the individual interview
request files and writes them back into the central storage
account.
6 JOBS Interview Request System
The following programs are used by the computer services staff member
but are not needed during the regular processing of the requests.
JOBGRF A program used to check what proportion of the requests for
interviews were filled, and what proportion of the requests for
specific times were filled.
JOBMOD A program used to modify individual interview request files in
the central storage account. This program should be used with
care, since if used incorrectly it could destroy the ranking
already established in a previous stage. The program can
perform the following operations.
1 = Place request for firm on closed schedule
2 = Place request on open schedule, not requested by firm
3 = Place request on open schedule, requested by firm
4 = Reject request, firm does not want to talk to student
5 = Delete request from file
6 = Change firm in request, put on open list of new firm
7 = Restore high priority vote or bid immediately
8 = Restore high priority vote or bid next round
9 = Unsubmit requests if student typed SUBMIT in JOBS program
10 = Block further requests but process requests already made
11 = Block further requests and ignore requests already made
JOBSRT A program used to sort the list of student numbers and names
which was produced by the JOBSLO or JOBBIG program. This list
is used to locate the individual students in the listings
produced by the JOBSCH program. This program is a slightly
modified version of a program which was developed for the
student resume system.
JOBTST A program which can be used to change the type of priorities
used in the test case which is supplied with the interview
request system.
RSMPSW A program which merges passwords selected from any text file and
a list of student names into an annotated password file.
THE COMPUTER ACCOUNTS
--- -------- --------
The following types of accounts must be established in order to use the
interview request system.
1. The central storage account in which the requests for interviews
made by all of the students in all of the classes are stored. The
requests made by students in different classes are kept separate by
the use of the class numbers as part of the names of the files. The
requests made by the students in different classes cannot be stored
in separate accounts.
The Computer Accounts 7
2. The account to be used by the staff of the placement office. The
JOBADM program is run from this account to enter the recruiting
schedules for the firms which are going to be conducting interviews.
If 1 person is responsible for entering the schedules for all of the
classes, then a single account should be used. If several people
are entering the schedules and if each is responsible for a separate
class, then each should use a separate account and each of these
accounts should be validated for use by the administrator for only 1
class. Instructions for validating accounts for use by the
administrator are given later in this manual.
3. The account to be used by the member of the computer services staff
who is managing the running of interview request system. The files
will be moved into this account for processing. This account does
not have to be specially validated in any of the files in the
central storage account.
4. The account from which all of the students in a particular class can
run the JOBS program. There should be 1 of these shared accounts
for each class. Alternatively, if the students have their own
individual accounts, then they can run the program from their
separate accounts.
THE FILES
--- -----
The following files must be prepared by the member of the computer
services staff who is managing the running of the interview request
system before the students are allowed to use the JOBS program. These
files should all be in the central storage account into which the JOBS
program will write the files containing the interview requests which are
made by the students.
ACOUNT.JOB specifies which accounts can be used for which classes.
This file is prepared using the system text editor.
CURENT.JOB specifies the current round and stage for each class, the
type of bidding scheme, and whether the JOBS program is open
for use by the students. This file is prepared using the
system text editor.
FRMXXX.JOB where XXX is the 3 digit class number. This file identifies
the firms, and specifies when the firm will be conducting
interviews. It is written by the JOBADM program. An
updated version is created when the requests have been
processed, but this must be copied back manually into the
central storage account.
PSWXXX.JOB where XXX is the 3 digit class number. This file specifies
the passwords and the numbers which can be used to identify
the students if all of the students in a class run the JOBS
program from the same account. This file can be prepared
either using the system text editor or using the RSMPSW
program which is described later in this manual.
8 JOBS Interview Request System
TIMES.JOB specifies the starting times of the interviews of each
possible length. This file is prepared using the system
text editor.
The following files are produced when the JOBS program is run by the
students. These files do not have to be prepared in advance by the
computer services staff.
JOBS.DOC (if the student is not using a password)
or
YYYYYY.DOC (if the student is using a password)
contains a list of the interviews requested by the student.
YYYYYY is based upon the password or the account being used
or is a number assigned to the student. If this number is
less than 100000, then extra zeros are inserted at the left
to obtain 6 digits. These files are written into the
account being used by the students when the students select
the PAPER command in the JOBS program.
YYYYYY.XXX where YYYYYY is the 6 digit number identifying the student
and XXX is the 3 digit class number. Each of these files
contains the interview requests made by a single student.
These files are written by the JOBS program into the central
storage account. After the requests have been processed,
these files also specify the rankings of the requests, and
the times when the interviews have been scheduled. Whether
or not the students get particular interviews depends upon
the rankings stored in these files versus the numbers of
interviews available stored in the firm schedule file.
The following data and listing files are used or generated during the
processing of the requests. The names of these files are selected by
the member of the computer services staff who is managing the running of
the interview request system.
The firm schedule file. This is written into the central
storage account by the JOBADM program. It is rewritten in
the processing account by the JOBSLO or JOBBIG program and
by the JOBTIM program.
The composite interview request file. This is constructed
using an APPEND command. It is rewritten in the processing
account by the JOBSLO or JOBBIG program and by the JOBTIM
program.
The list of student numbers and names. This is written by
the JOBSLO or JOBBIG program. This file can be sorted into
alphabetical order based upon the student names using the
JOBSRT program. This is essentially a listing file. It is
not needed for processing.
The list of students requesting each firm. The students are
arranged by whether they have gotten interviews, and by
their order on the waiting list if they have not. This
listing file is written by the JOBSLO or JOBBIG program.
The Files 9
The list of students scheduled for each recruiter. This
listing file is written by the JOBTIM program.
The list of interviews gotten by each student. This listing
file is written by the JOBSCH program.
The files which are read and written during the processing of the
requests can be given any names desired. However, use of regularly
constructed names will make them easier to identify. A scheme which has
been found to work well is to assign a basic name such as R1S284 to the
files for round 1, stage 2, class of 84, and to use a regular pattern of
numbers for the 3 letter file name suffixes. The various programs which
are necessary for the processing prompt using these numbers. The file
name R1S284.001 could be used for the initial firm schedule file,
R1S284.002 for the initial composite interview request file, and
R1S284.003 for the file containing the profiles of starting times. Each
of the requests for the name of a new output file would then be answered
with the same base name but with the suffix .004 for the file logically
next in the series, then .005, and so on. The file names which result
when these conventions are used are listed below.
R1S284.001 is the initial firm schedule file
R1S284.002 is the initial composite interview request file
R1S284.003 is the file which defines the profiles of starting times
R1S284.004 is the listing of students requesting each firm
R1S284.005 is the final firm schedule file
R1S284.006 is the intermediate interview request file
R1S284.007 is the list of student numbers and passwords
R1S284.008 is the final interview request file
R1S284.009 is the listing of all recruiter schedules
R1S284.010 is the listing of all student schedules
R1S284.011 is the list of student numbers and passwords sorted by name
After the processing of the requests has been completed, the final
versions of the firm schedule file and the interview request files must
be moved back into the central storage account. These files must once
again have the following names which are expected by the JOBADM and JOBS
programs.
FRMXXX.JOB The final version of the firm schedule file produced during
the processing of the requests is copied back into the
central storage account by issuing a COPY command.
YYYYYY.XXX The final versions of the individual interview request files
in the composite file produced during the processing of the
requests are written back to the central storage account by
the JOBPUT program.
10 JOBS Interview Request System
PREPARATION FOR STUDENT USE
----------- --- ------- ---
Preparation for the use of the interview request system on a DECsystem20
computer is described below.
1. Build the central storage account in which the interview requests
will be stored. This account should have the following
characteristics:
A. Disk storage allocation of about 2 pages per student. Each of
the interview request files requires just 1 page, but there has
to be room for a modest set of deleted former versions which
have not yet been expunged. There should also be enough disk
allocation for a duplicate set of interview request files for
any class. This is necessary since the JOBPUT program produces
a new copy of each interview request file each time that the
requests have been processed.
B. Default file protection of 776400. This prevents other
accounts from using the directory commands to find out what
files are in the account. The files can be overwritten by new
versions.
C. Directory protection of 774400. This allows accounts in the
proper user group to write new files into the central storage
account.
D. Directory groups the same as the user group of the accounts
which the students will use to run the JOBS program and the
same as the user group of the account which the administrator
will use to run the JOBADM program. If this cannot be done,
then make sure that the right 2 digits of the various
protection codes are all the same as the middle 2 digits
instead of 00.
E. The central storage account must contain the following files
which are to be read from the accounts used by the students,
but these files should not be able to be rewritten from these
accounts. These files should have 775200 protection.
ACOUNT.JOB required to validate accounts
CURENT.JOB defines current round and stage for each class
PSWXXX.JOB optional passwords for class XXX
TIMES.JOB starting times for interviews of each possible
length
The contents of these files are described elsewhere in this
manual.
Preparation for Student Use 11
F. The following file should be stored in an account which is a
parent of the central storage account.
JOBS.CTL The file which controls the batch job which
expunges the central account, and which then
submits itself to be run again later.
2. Insert the name of the account where the interview request files
will be stored into the DATA statement which defines the NUMDIR
character string in the BLOCK DATA routine. This character string
must contain exactly 40 characters. Fill out the right end of the
string beyond the end of the name with spaces. Do not include the
less than and greater than signs in the name.
3. If the central storage account already exists, delete the interview
request files from the previous year. These are the files having
names of the form YYYYYY.XXX where YYYYYY is the 6 digit student
number and XXX is the 3 digit class number. If this is not done,
then a student who only entered requests in stage 1 of round 1 in
the previous year would attempt to add to the old decisions in the
current interview season rather than starting fresh. Also, the
running totals of bids and of the numbers of interviews requested
might continue those from the previous year unless the old files
are deleted.
4. If the central storage account already exists, delete the firm
schedule files from the previous year. These are the files having
names of the form FRMXXX.JOB where XXX is the 3 digit class number.
5. In the file named CURENT.JOB which defines the current round and
stage for each class, set the current round and stage for each
class to 1. Add new lines for any new class numbers which will be
in use this year and remove those that are no longer active. It is
suggested that each class be identified to the program by the right
2 digits of the year of its graduation. See the description of the
contents of the current stage file for further information.
6. Validate an account or accounts to act as the administrator by
inserting their account names into the ACOUNT.JOB file.
Instructions for validating these accounts are given elsewhere in
this manual.
7. If this is the first year that these particular students have run
the JOBS program, validate their accounts by inserting a line
describing their accounts into the ACOUNT.JOB file.
8. If the students are all to use a single account to run the JOBS
program, set up this account. It should be in the same user group
as the directory group of the central storage account. Insert this
account name into the ACOUNT.JOB file and indicate that the
students must use passwords to run the JOBS program. It is
recommended that passwords be assigned to them, rather than letting
them select their own.
12 JOBS Interview Request System
9. If the passwords are to be assigned to the students, rather than
selected by the students, then construct a file named PSWXXX.JOB,
where XXX is the class number, in the central storage account.
This should have 775200 protection. This file can be constructed
using the RSMPSW program, or by hand using a text editor. The
contents of this file and the use of the RSMPSW program are
described elsewhere in this manual.
10. Replace the account named in the JOBS.CTL file by the current name
of the central storage account. Either in the central storage
account, or preferably from an account higher in the directory
tree, submit the JOBS.CTL to run a batch job. This expunges the
central storage account, and resubmits itself to run again later.
The time until the next run of the batch job must be short enough
that the central storage account will not run out of disk space
until then. A half hour interval is suggested.
11. Compile, load and save the JOBS program and the JOBADM program.
Rename or copy the resulting .EXE files into the system library
account. If the central storage account is unchanged, then the
versions of these files from the previous year can still be used.
12. If the students will be running the JOBS program from a single
account and if the students are selecting their own passwords, then
some students will probably type the login password when the JOBS
program itself asks for a password. The only problem with this
would be that if 2 or more students select the same password, then
they will destroy each other's requests. To protect against this,
log into the shared account, run the JOBS program using the login
password and then exit without having made any decisions. Do not
make any requests using this password. After you have exited from
the JOBS program, use the JOBMOD program to block further requests
and to ignore any requests already made by this fictitious student.
This will change the value of ISUBMT, the first number in the
second line of the resulting file, to 4. This causes the students
selecting this password inside the program to be told that the
password is not meant to be used at that point, and they will be
asked to select another password.
PROCESSING A SET OF REQUESTS
---------- - --- -- --------
The procedures described below are performed to allocate the interviews
once the time period allowed for the submission of interview requests
has expired.
1. Log into the account which will be used for processing the
interview requests, and connect to the central storage account
where the requests are stored.
2. Type the file named FRMXXX.JOB where XXX represents the 3 digit
class number. If the left number in the first line in this file
has the value 2 indicating that the JOBADM program has not been
run, then either use the text editor to change this number to 1 or
Processing a Set of Requests 13
log into an account which is validated to run the JOBADM program
and then use the JOBADM program to read and write a new version of
this file. If you have logged into another area to run the JOBADM
program, then log back into the account from which the requests
will be processed and again connect to the central storage account.
3. Change the fifth number to -1 in the line for the class in the
CURENT.JOB file in the central storage account. This prevents
anyone else in the class from running the JOBS program and prevents
the administrator from running the JOBADM program. If they are
already running the programs, however, this does not force them to
exit since this information is only read when the programs are
started.
4. Check that none of the students are still running the JOBS program.
If they are, try to get them to complete their selections and exit
from the program.
5. Check that the administrator is not running the JOBADM program. If
the administrator is still running the JOBADM program, try to get
him or her to finish and exit from the program.
6. Wait until all of the students in the class have finished running
the JOBS program and until the administrator has finished running
the JOBADM program.
7. While still connected to the central storage account, copy the firm
schedule file FRMXXX.JOB into the processing account. The original
version of this file should remain in the central storage account.
The copy of this file in the processing account can be given any
name which is convenient. Since it is likely that there will be
several versions of these files in the processing account, it is
suggested that the files in the processing account be given names
which incorporate the round number, the stage number and the class
number. For round 1, stage 2, class of '84, the copy of the firm
schedule file might be named R1S284.001.
8. While still connected to the central storage account, append
together all of the interview request files for the class which is
to be processed. It is suggested that the composite file should be
given a name similar to R1S284.002 to reflect the current round,
stage and class.
On the DECsystem10 computer, the command which would be issued to
append together the files for round 1, stage 2 for the class of '84
would be
COPY R1S284.002=*.084
On the DECsystem20 computer, the commands which would be issued to
append together the files would instead be
DELETE R1S284.002
APPEND *.084 R1S284.002
14 JOBS Interview Request System
On the DECsystem20 computer, it is necessary to make sure that the
new file does not already exist since, if it did exist when the
APPEND command was issued, then the contents of the interview
request files would merely be appended to whatever already happened
to be in the file. It should also be noted that the positions of
the source and destination files are reversed between the 2
computers, and that a COPY command cannot be used on the
DECsystem20 computer to append files together.
9. While still connected to the central storage account, copy or
rename the composite file into the processing account.
10. While still connected to the central storage account, copy the time
profile file TIMES.JOB into the processing account. The original
version of this file should remain in the central storage account.
It is suggested that the file should be given a name similar to
R1S284.003 to reflect the current round, stage and class.
11. Connect to the processing account. Run either the JOBBIG program
or the JOBSLO program to place the students on the ranked lists for
the firms which they have requested. If bidding scheme 1 is being
used, in which the failure of a request boosts the priority of all
lower priority requests made by the same student, then the JOBBIG
program must be used. Otherwise, either can be used
interchangeably. The JOBBIG program only has to read and write the
data files once since it stores all of the requests made by every
student for every firm in arrays. The JOBBIG program is fast, but
large. The JOBSLO program only stores in its internal arrays the
information for the firm which is presently being processed. Since
any student can request any firm, the JOBSLO program must read and
then write the entire student request file for each firm. The
JOBSLO program is small, but it takes a long time to process all of
the requests since it has to read and copy all of the interview
requests in order to process a single firm.
Both the JOBBIG program and the JOBSLO program will ask for the
kernel for the random number generator. This number is used to
select what sequence of pseudo-random numbers is used to randomize
the order of the requests for a particular firm which all have the
same priority or bid. A value such as 1000 or 2000 or the current
year is appropriate for the kernel. Use of the same kernel if the
program has to be run again with the same data allows these
programs to duplicate the same results. Of course, if so much as 1
request is added or deleted or given a different priority between
the runs, then the results will be different even if the same
kernel is used. The kernel which was used is reported on the first
page of the listing of the students requesting interviews with each
firm.
A negative kernel should not be used. Any kernel which is -1 or
less causes the value 0.5 to be used each time that a random number
in the range 0.0 to 1.0 is needed. This would produce a
predictable shuffling of the requests for a particular firm which
all have the same priority or bid, but does not randomize their
order. Such a negative kernel could be used when preparing test
Processing a Set of Requests 15
cases to verify the working of the interview request system when it
is being moved to another computer or when the operating system is
being changed, since the resulting order is not dependent upon the
particular random number generator employed.
The JOBSLO program will also ask for the number of the first and
last firms to be processed, but, unless there is some problem, -1
can be typed to allow all of the firms to be processed. The JOBBIG
program always processes all firms.
Shown below are the times which were required for the sequence of
programs which are run in turn to process a typical set of 1008
total interview requests which were made by 108 students. These
times are for a lightly loaded DECsystem2060. The sizes of the
programs are also indicated.
JOBBIG JOBSLO JOBTIM JOBSCH JOBPUT
Computation time 30 sec 16 min 14 min 18 sec 15 sec
Elapsed time 108 sec 32 min 29 min 36 sec 30 sec
Total array space 70600 15422 42750 21641 115
The long times required by the JOBSLO and JOBTIM programs are due
to these programs reading and writing the entire composite
interview request file for each firm which is processed. The
JOBSLO program also reads and writes the entire firm schedule file
for each firm, and the JOBTIM program reads the firm schedule file
from the start through the entry for the next firm being processed,
but the firm schedule file is much shorter than the composite
interview request file and requires much less time to be read or
written.
The sizes of these programs depend upon the maximum number of
firms, available interviews, interview schedules, students and
total requests which these programs are configured to handle.
These limits are described elsewhere in this manual. The size of
the JOBBIG program is largely proportional to the maximum number of
requests which can be made by all students for interviews with all
firms, this being set to 5000 in the supplied version. The size of
the JOBTIM program is essentially proportional to the maximum
number of students who can get interviews with a single firm, this
being set to 350 in the supplied version.
12. If the students are to be allowed to request undersubscribed firms,
but actual time assignments are to be made later, but not now, then
proceed to the running of the JOBPUT program. After the students
have finished making further requests, the interview request files
must be collected together again and either the JOBBIG or JOBSLO
program must be run again.
13. If the time assignments are to be made now, then run the JOBTIM
program. The JOBTIM program is slow, since it, like the JOBSLO
program, makes one pass through the data for each firm. The JOBTIM
program will ask for the minimum number of minutes to allow between
interviews for each student. The scheduling algorithm works quite
16 JOBS Interview Request System
well with a break between interviews of 30 minutes and this should
allow the students ample time to get from one interview to the
next. The longer the interval allowed, the more likely it is that
the interviews for which a particular student already has been
assigned times will start to interfere with the assignment of times
for the rest of the interviews for the same student on the same
days. The JOBTIM program will also ask for the number of the first
and last firms to be processed, but, unless there is some problem,
-1 can be typed to allow all of the firms to be processed.
14. If the JOBTIM program has been run to make the time assignments,
then run the JOBSCH program to produce the schedules which will be
given to the students.
15. Run the JOBPUT program to write new copies of the individual
interview request files back into the central storage account.
16. Copy the final version of the firm schedule file produced by the
JOBBIG or JOBSLO program back into the central storage account
where it must have a name of the form FRMXXX.JOB where XXX
represents the 3 digit class number.
17. Set the fifth number to 1 in the line for the class in the
CURENT.JOB file in the central storage account. This allows the
students to use the JOBS program to review the actions which were
taken for their requests but does not allow them to make any new
requests yet. This also allows the administrator to run the JOBADM
program again.
18. If some students forgot to request interviews before the deadline,
but they are to be allowed to request interviews after the running
of the JOBPUT program, then set the fifth number to 2 in the line
for the class in the CURENT.JOB file in the central storage
account. Do not change the stage number. This allows students who
have not run the JOBS program yet during the current stage to do
so, but those who did run the program before the requests were
processed will only be able to get reports. When the late students
have finished, process the requests again. The requests which were
made before the first processing will not be changed. The new
requests will merely be added to the bottoms of the lists and will
only be allocated interviews in firms which were undersubscribed.
19. If all of the students are allowed to bid for undersubscribed firms
in the current round, increment the third number by 1 and change
the fifth number to 2 in the line for the class in the CURENT.JOB
file in the central storage account. This advances the stage
number and allows the students to use the JOBS program to request
additional interviews. Run the JOBADM program and exit from it to
merge the new stage number into the firm schedule file.
20. If a new round is to be started, rather than a new stage, increase
the second number by 1, set the third number to 1, and set the
fifth number to 0 in the line for the class in the CURENT.JOB file
in the central storage account. This allows the administrator to
enter a new set of firms for the first stage of the next round and
Processing a Set of Requests 17
locks the students out. Finally, when the students are to be
allowed to request interviews for the firms in the new round, set
the fifth number to 2 in the line for the class in the CURENT.JOB
file in the central storage account.
EVALUATION OF ALLOCATION OF INTERVIEWS AND TIMES
---------- -- ---------- -- ---------- --- -----
The JOBGRF program can be run after either of the ranking programs
JOBBIG or JOBSLO have been run to check what proportion of the students
have gotten most of the interviews which they requested, or after the
time assignment program JOBTIM has been run to check what proportion of
the students got the times which they requested.
The performance of the interview allocation process is indicated by a
chart which is similar to that shown below.
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
G 5 0 0 0 0 0 34 0
o 4 0 0 0 0 3 33 0
t 3 0 0 0 0 2 19 0
t 2 0 0 3 2 0 10 0
e 1 0 2 0 1 0 0 0
n 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5
Requested
In this chart, the horizontal axis indicates the number of interviews
requested in the current round, and the vertical axis indicates the
number actually gotten. The values in the chart are the numbers of
students asking for the number indicated by the column and actually
getting the number indicated by the line. For example, 10 students
requested 5 interviews but only got 2, and 19 students requested 5
interviews but only got 3.
The unnumbered right column would indicate the students who requested
more interviews than can be represented by the numbered columns, and the
unnumbered top line would indicate the students who got more interviews
than can be represented by the numbered lines. The chart will
automatically expand to represent up to 20 interviews requests, so the
unnumbered column and line would only be used if the students can
request more than 20 interviews in a single round. It is, however, only
the smaller numbered columns and lines which are important.
The JOBGRF program should be run after the JOBBIG or JOBSLO program has
been run to check that no students have been completely shut out of
getting any interviews. If students who requested a reasonable number
of interviews are shown as having gotten only 0 or 1 interview, then the
ranking program should probably be run again with a different kernel for
the random number generator to see if a better allocation of interviews
can be obtained.
18 JOBS Interview Request System
The JOBGRF program can also be run after the JOBTIM program has assigned
times for the interviews, but this is really only useful for verifying
the operation of the JOBTIM program if it is changed. The assignments
are summarized by a chart similar to that shown below.
Summary of students getting time preferences
Did not ask for either date or time
Got
None
13
Asked for date but not for time
Got Got
None Date
4 0
Asked for time but not for date
Got Got ...
None 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
49 220 46 18 12 5 3 0 1
Asked for both times and date
Got Got Got ...
None Date 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
6 0 23 1 5 1 1 1 0 1
The upper left number in the chart is the number of interviews for which
the students did not indicate any preference for date or time. This
number appears under the caption "Got None" since, of course, the date
and time which were actually assigned could not match a date or a time
which was requested by the student. The remaining captions do not just
restate the obvious.
The numbers which appear below the series of numbers 1, 2, 3 and so on
indicate the number of interviews which were able to be scheduled at the
most preferred time specified by the student, at the second most
preferred time, at the third most preferred time, and so on.
What Takes Place During Processing 19
WHAT TAKES PLACE DURING PROCESSING
---- ----- ----- ------ ----------
ALLOCATION OF INTERVIEWS
The interviews are allocated to the students by either the JOBBIG or
JOBSLO programs. The interview requests are sorted by the following
criteria in turn.
1. By firm being requested.
2. By whether the request has been processed in a previous stage.
If previously processed, then lowest rank comes first.
If new request, then this comes after those previously processed.
3. By the priority which the student assigned to this request.
If requests are ranked 1 to N then low numbers come first.
If requests are given high or low priority, then high comes first.
If requests are bid in an auction, then high bid comes first.
The order of the new requests having the same values for the priority or
bid is then randomized. It is known how many interviews will actually
be held by each firm, so the students who happen to fall within this
distance from the start of the list get interviews, and the remaining
students appear on the waiting list.
The JOBSLO program only has available the requests for 1 firm at any 1
time. As each firm is processed, the JOBSLO program reads the entire
file containing the requests made by all of the students, gathers those
for the current firm, allocates the interviews, then reads the file
again and writes an updated copy of the requests made by each student
into a new version of the file. The interview request file is thus read
twice and written once for each firm, and the firm schedule file is read
once and written once for each firm. Since the JOBSLO program processes
each firm in turn, it cannot attempt to adjust a student's chances for
the lesser wanted requests based upon what happens for the more wanted
requests.
The JOBBIG program has available all requests for all firms at once.
The JOBBIG program reads and writes the composite interview request file
only once and reads and writes the firm schedule file only once. The
JOBBIG program allocates the interview requests in the same order as
that used by the JOBSLO program unless it is attempting to increase the
chances of a particular student getting lesser wanted requests when
those which the student more wanted cannot be assigned. In the latter
case, the JOBBIG program allocates all the most wanted requests across
all firms first, then the second most wanted requests across all firms,
and so on. If a particular student misses out on a request, then the
JOBBIG program can adjust the lesser wanted requests to be processed
earlier than would have been the case otherwise. This adjustment can
only be done if the students assigned values to the requests ranging
from 1 for the most wanted to N for the least wanted where N is the
maximum number of requests which can be made by 1 student. This
adjustment is performed by subtracting 0.6 from values which the student
assigned to the remaining requests. Thus if a student misses out on the
second most wanted request, then the third most wanted request made by
that student becomes a 2.4 instead, the fourth most wanted request
20 JOBS Interview Request System
becomes a 3.4 and so on. The request which was third most wanted but
which is now assigned a 2.4 will be processed before the third most
wanted requests made by students who have so far gotten their requests.
If the same student then misses out on the third most wanted request
which has become a 2.4, then the fourth most wanted request made by that
same student becomes a 2.8 (i.e., 4.0-0.6-0.6), and so on.
ASSIGNMENT OF TIMES FOR THE INTERVIEWS
Interview times are assigned by the JOBTIM program. The JOBTIM program
reads the interview request file once for each firm which is processed.
A list sorted by rank is kept which identifies each student who gets an
interview with the present firm. As the information for a student is
read, the times and dates of all interviews which could block a request
for the present firm by that student are placed into the first unused
location on the list or at the top of the list since it will not be
known whether the student requested the current firm until the end of
the requests made by the student is reached. The information for
possible blocking interviews with other firms is discarded if the
student does not request the current firm, or is moved into the correct
spot if the student does request the current firm.
The date and time assignments are then made in the following steps.
1. A matrix is prepared which has 1 line for each recruiter and 1
column for each possible interview held by that recruiter. A value
in the matrix is zero if it corresponds to an interview which can be
held, -1 if it is in a schedule which is not necessary due to too
few students having requested interviews with the firm, and -2 if it
is in the line for a recruiter but corresponds to an interview which
is not being held due to its being too early, too late or skipped.
2. In the first pass, the numbers of all students who have been
previously assigned interview times are inserted into the matrix.
If an interview which was previously assigned is no longer being
held, then the recruiter number for the student previously assigned
that time is set to -1 so that a new time can be assigned in the
next steps.
3. In the second pass, all students who have requested specific times
are given these times if possible. If they also requested a
specific date, then only interviews being held on that date are
considered. Starting with the first student in the ranked list, an
attempt is made to give each student the most desired time trying
each recruiter schedule in turn. For those who could not get their
most desired time, then an attempt is made to give them the second
most desired time. This process continues until all of the
requested times have been tried. In each case, the student is given
the requested time if it is still available and if it does not
overlap with an interview previously assigned to the same student.
An interview is reserved for a student by placing the student number
into the matrix and by inserting the recruiter number, date and time
into the appropriate arrays.
What Takes Place During Processing 21
4. In the third pass, students who requested a specific date but no
times, or who specified a list of times on a specific date but who
were blocked from getting any of the times which they requested are
assigned interviews which are still available on the requested dates
which are not blocked by interviews previously assigned to the
students.
5. In the fourth pass, all students who have not yet been assigned
interviews, either because they did not specify either a date or
times, or who were blocked from getting their requested date or
times, are assigned the remaining interviews if they are not blocked
from getting them.
6. In the fifth and final pass, students who were assigned interview
times are shifted to the still open times to make room for those who
could not be assigned interview times. For each student who could
not be assigned an interview time, each of the times which are not
blocked by other interviews previously assigned to that student are
tried in turn. The only positions which are considered are those
which are occupied by students for whom an open position is not
blocked by other interviews previously assigned to the student being
moved into the open position. If several times could be made
available in this manner, then the student who is moved to make room
is the student for whom the open position is highest on that
student's list of preferred times.
22 JOBS Interview Request System
MAXIMUM SIZES OF THE CASES HANDLED BY THE PROGRAMS
------- ----- -- --- ----- ------- -- --- --------
The variables which store the sizes of the arrays used in the interview
request system have the same names in all programs. Unique but logical
values have been chosen for each of these variables to make
identification of the arrays to which they apply easier. In the table
listed below, the appropriate limits are shown only under the programs
which are limited in the respect described.
JOBADM JOBS JOBBIG JOBSLO JOBTIM JOBSCH JOBPUT
LMTFRM = firms interviewing during round
200 200
LMTINT = blocks of contiguous interviews for 1 firm (schedules+breaks)
150 150
LMTLIN = schedules for 1 firm
130
LMTMJR = requests by all students for all firms in round
5000
LMTONE = requests by all students for 1 firm in round
400
LMTPRF = time preferences for single request
13 13 13 13 13
LMTRCT = blocks of contiguous interviews all firms (schedules+breaks)
1000 1000 1000
LMTREQ = firms any 1 student can talk to on same days as are being
used for interviews by 1 firm requested by that student
20
LMTSCH = students one recruiter can speak to in 1 day.
16 16* 16
LMTSIN = requests made by single student in round
100
LMTSLT = profiles of possible starting times of interviews
50 50 50
LMTSTD = students in class who have made requests in round
500
LMTTIM = all starting times in all profiles of starting times
500 500 500
LMTTLK = 1 more than students which single firm can interview
350
* no array size in JOBS program actually depends upon LMTSCH
Descriptions of the Files 23
DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FILES
------------ -- --- -----
The following sections of this manual describe each of the types of data
files which are stored in the central storage account. The computer
services staff member who is managing the use of the interview request
system must be familiar with the contents of the account validation
file, the current stage file and the file which specifies the profiles
of starting times since these files are maintained using a text editor.
Descriptions are also included for the firm schedule file and the
interview request files since the contents of these files must be
referred to if the results of the allocation process must be sight
verified. Instructions are also given for the use of the RSMPSW program
which is used to generate the initial versions of the password files.
CONTENTS OF THE ACCOUNT VALIDATION FILE
-------- -- --- ------- ---------- ----
The JOBS and JOBADM programs can only be run from accounts which are
specified in a file named ACOUNT.JOB in the central storage account.
The items in this file are changed using a text editor. The account
validation file contains 1 line for each account, or for each group of
accounts, from which the programs can be run. Lines are read from the
account validation file until a line is found which exactly specifies
the account from which the program is being run or which specifies a
group of accounts of which the current account is a member. The
subsequent lines in the account validation file are ignored even if they
also specify the current account. It is thus possible to treat a few
members of a group of accounts differently than the rest of the members
of the group by inserting lines which specify the accounts to be treated
specially before the line which specifies the rest of the group of
accounts.
A typical account validation file is shown below.
-1 84 85 2 A.A.PLACEMENT !ADMINISTRATOR
85 2 0 2 A.JOBS.85 !CLASS OF 1985
84 2 0 2 A.JOBS.84 !CLASS OF 1984
-1 1 99 2 A.P.BARTH !PROGRAMMER RUNNING AS ADMINISTRATOR
=
The general form of an entry in the ACOUNT.JOB file is
NUMBER1 NUMBER2 NUMBER3 NUMBER4 <ACCOUNT.NAME>
or
NUMBER1 NUMBER2 NUMBER3 NUMBER4 [PROJECT NUMBER,PROGRAMMER NUMBER]
where
NUMBER1 = -1, enables administrative functions
= 0 through 999, places account into class having this value
= 1000 or greater, prevents use of the JOBS program
24 JOBS Interview Request System
NUMBER2 = for administrator, is lowest class which can be processed
= 0 for students, indicates each student has own account
= 1 for students, indicates all students use same account and
select their own passwords
= 2 for students, indicates all students use same account and
supply both numbers and passwords assigned to them
NUMBER3 = for administrator, is highest class which can be processed
= for students, ignored
NUMBER4 = 0, any terminal which does not fit one of the following
classifications
= 1, video terminal which scrolls
= 2, video terminal which scrolls and on which form feeds clear
the screen
Anything which appears to the right of an exclamation point is treated
as a comment and is ignored. The end of the file is marked by a line
which starts with an equal sign. The line which starts with an equal
sign and all lines which follow the line which starts with an equal sign
are ignored. It is not necessary however that the end of the file be
marked by a line which starts with an equal sign.
The numbers which can appear on each line are described in more detail
below.
NUMBER1 = specifies the class number which will be assigned to the
accounts matching the specification on the current line.
NUMBER1 can also be used to grant administrator privileges to
the account.
= -1, the account can be used by the administrator. NUMBER2 and
NUMBER3 are taken as the lowest and highest class numbers for
which firm schedules can be entered using the JOBADM program.
For example, if the file contained the lines
-1 999 999 2 <F.STAFF> !COMPUTER SERVICES STAFF
-1 1 4 2 <S.STAFF> !COMPUTER SERVICES STAFF
then the account <F.STAFF> could enter the schedules for firms
interviewing students in class 999 and the account <S.STAFF>
could enter the firm schedules for classes 1 through 4.
= 0 through 999, allows the account to be used to run the JOBS
program to request interviews. The administrative program
cannot be run. NUMBER1 is taken to be the class number. The
JOBS program works identically for all classes. The class
number appears in the name of the file in which the interview
requests are stored so that the interview requests for the
various classes can be kept separate.
= 1000 or greater, prevents running of the programs from this
account. The programs also cannot be run from accounts which
do not match any of the accounts specified in the file.
Contents of the Account Validation File 25
However, putting in a line with NUMBER1=1000 can be used to
block use of the programs by a subset of a group of accounts
validated by a later line.
For example, if the file contained the lines
1000 0 0 2 <S.O.SMITH>
2 0 0 2 <S.O.*>
then accounts such as <S.O.JONES> and <S.O.JOHNSON> which are
validated by the second line would be able to run the JOBS
program, and would be taken to be in class 2, but the account
<S.O.SMITH> would not be able to run the program.
NUMBER2 = if NUMBER1 is -1 so that the administrator can run the JOBADM
program from this account, then NUMBER2 specifies the lowest
class number for which the firm schedules can be entered.
= if NUMBER1 is in the range 0 through 999, then NUMBER2
specifies whether each student will use a separate account or
whether the students will run the JOBS program from a shared
account. If the students run the program from a shared
account, then NUMBER2 also specifies whether they use
passwords which are assigned to them or will choose their own
passwords.
All of the accounts which are used by the students in the same
class must have identical values for NUMBER2. The reason for
this is that the names of the interview request files are
based only on the value of NUMBER1 and a second number which
represents either the password, the student or the account.
The program protects against ambiguity in the conversion of
the password to a number, and the account numbers are unique,
but there is no protection against the password being
converted to a number which happens to identify another
student or another account.
For example, a student running from a shared account might
choose the single letter Z as a password which would be
converted to the number 26. If some of the students in the
same class were allowed to run the program from individual
accounts without stating passwords, then a student running the
program later from such an individual account for which the
account number also happened to be 26 would gain access to the
interview requests started by the first student. This
ambiguity could be avoided very easily by just having the
students who are using individual accounts also use passwords
to gain access to the JOBS program.
= 0, and if NUMBER1 is in the range 0 through 999, then it is
expected that each student has a separate account. There can
only be 1 interview request file associated with each of these
accounts. The student will not be asked to supply a password
to identify which interview request file belongs to the
student.
26 JOBS Interview Request System
= 1, and if NUMBER1 is in the range 0 through 999, then several
students can use the same account. The student can access any
interview request file for the current class for which the
password is known. To create a new interview request file,
the student merely enters a password which is not already in
use. It is not necessary that a interview request file which
is to be modified have been created from the same account,
only that it have been created using a password chosen by the
student from an account having the same class number. There
might, for example, be 5 accounts any of which could be used
by any of the students at any time, but all of these accounts
would need to have the same value of NUMBER2.
= 2, similar to NUMBER2=1, except that the student must supply
both a number and a password which the computer services staff
has assigned to the student. This number and password
combination must appear together on a line in a file named
PSWXXX.JOB, where XXX is the class number, in the central
storage account. The contents of this file are described
elsewhere in this manual.
NUMBER3 = if NUMBER1 is -1 so that the administrator can run the JOBADM
program from this account, then NUMBER3 specifies the highest
class number for which the firm schedules can be entered.
= if NUMBER1 is in the range 0 through 999, then NUMBER3 is
ignored.
NUMBER4 = specifies the type of terminal which will be used by most of
the students using this account. This specifies the general
type of display, not the particular brand or model of
terminal. If some students use a different type of terminal,
then these students will have to specify the type of terminal
which they are using each time that they run the JOBS program.
The terminal type can be changed either when the JOBS program
asks if the student's name is correct or any time that the
program asks the "WHAT NEXT?" question.
= 0, the terminal produces paper output or does not match any of
the other terminal types supported by the JOBS program.
= 1, the terminal is a video terminal which scrolls the lines
currently being displayed upwards to display the new lines at
the bottom and to discard the oldest lines at the top. The
terminal cannot clear the screen when a form feed character is
issued. The screen can display 24 lines of 80 columns each.
The JOBS program will scroll short dialogs but will stop
whenever the screen fills and wait for the student to press
the RETURN key when displaying the list of firms, the list of
interviews which have been requested, or lengthy help
messages. The program will scroll the next page of text onto
the screen after the student presses the RETURN key.
Contents of the Account Validation File 27
= 2, same as NUMBER4=1 except that the screen can be cleared by
issuing a form feed character. The JOBS program will scroll
short dialogs, but will clear the screen before displaying the
list of firms, the list of interviews which have been
requested, or lengthy help messages. Whenever the screen
fills when these lists or long help messages are being
displayed, the program will stop and wait for the student to
press the RETURN key before clearing the screen again and then
displaying the next page of text.
The accounts which can be used to run the programs are specified by name
on the DECsystem20. Accounts are arranged in a tree structure with
periods separating the list of nodes. The account names which appear to
the right of the numbers in the account validation file should be
preceded by a less than sign and followed by a greater than sign
although any sequence of printing characters which does not start with a
left square bracket is also taken to be an account name. There must not
be any blanks either between the leading less than sign and the name of
the account or within the name of the account. The alphabetic letters A
through Z in the account names can appear in either upper or lower case.
An asterisk can be included at the right end of the account name if any
sequence of nodes is to be allowed starting at that point. A period can
appear between the names of the nodes to the left and the asterisk but
is not required. In order to be matched, the name of the account being
used must include a node at the location of the asterisk. An account
name consisting only of nodes to the left of the location of the
asterisk will not be matched.
For example,
1 0 0 0 <*> !allows any account
1 0 0 0 <S.O> !allows <S.O> but not <S.O.SMITH> or <S.O.JONES>
1 0 0 0 <S.O.*> !allows <S.O.SMITH> and <S.O.JONES> but not <S.O>
1 0 0 0 <S.O*> !same as the above
1 0 0 0 <S.O.SMITH> !allows <S.O.SMITH> but not <S.O> or <S.O.JONES>
The accounts which can be used to run the program are specified by
numbers on the DECsystem10. Each purpose for which the computer can be
used is assigned a project number and these project numbers are paired
with a programmer number which identifies a particular person who is
allowed to use the computer. The project and programmer numbers are
octal numbers, and never include either of the decimal digits 8 or 9.
Accounts are specified in the account validation file by a left square
bracket, followed by the project number, a comma, the programmer number
and a right square bracket. Spaces can appear on either side of the
numbers and can replace the separating comma. A question mark can
appear anywhere in either number where any digit is to be allowed. An
asterisk can appear instead of a number if any number is to be allowed.
A comma can separate the asterisk from the other number but is not
necessary.
28 JOBS Interview Request System
For example,
1 0 0 0 [201,3556] !allows programmer 3556 to use project 201
1 0 0 0 [*,3556] !allows programmer 3556 to use any project
1 0 0 0 [*3556] !same as the above
1 0 0 0 [201,*] !allows any programmer to use project 201
1 0 0 0 [?01,*] !allows any programmer to use project 1 or 101
!or 201 or 301 or 401 or 501 or 601 or 701
1 0 0 0 [?01*] !same as the above
CONTENTS OF THE PASSWORD FILE
-------- -- --- -------- ----
The students must supply both a number and a password to gain access to
the JOBS program if they are running the program from an account for
which, in the line for that account in the account validation file, the
second number has the value 2. These numbers and passwords must be
assigned by the computer services staff. The numbers and passwords are
stored in files having names similar to PSWXXX.JOB where XXX is the 3
digit class number. There must be 1 of these files in the central
storage account for each class which is using assigned passwords to gain
access to the JOBS program. The password files can be constructed using
a text editor, or can be generated automatically by the RSMPSW program
described elsewhere in this manual.
It should be noted that, although the interview request system and the
student resume system use different central areas and different names
for their password files, the formats of the password files accepted by
these systems are identical. If both of these systems are in use at the
school, then the same set of passwords and numbers should probably be
used to gain access to both systems.
Each line in the password file starts with a number followed by 1 or
more spaces and then by a password to be associated with this number.
The space between the number and password is required. An exclamation
mark followed by a comment or by the student's name can appear to the
right of the password. The file can be terminated by a line which
starts with or contains only an equal sign, although such a line is not
necessary. Any lines following the line which starts with the equal
sign will not be read and will be ignored.
The number at the start of the line must be in the range 0 through
999999 and must be composed only of the digits 0 through 9. There must
not be any duplication of the numbers within a particular class since
these numbers are used in the construction of the names of the files in
which the requests made by the students are stored. It is recommended
that there also should not be any duplication of the passwords within a
class, but such duplication of the passwords will not cause the JOBS
program any difficulty.
Contents of the Password File 29
The password can consist of 1 or more words. Spaces between the words
merely mark word boundaries. It does not matter if just 1 or if several
spaces appear between the words. The password can contain up to 20
characters, counting the separations between words as 1 character each.
The passwords can be constructed from any printing characters other than
the exclamation point. The capital and lower case forms of the
alphabetic letters A through Z are considered to be equivalent.
The student can type both the number and the password together on the
same line when the JOBS program asks for these, or can type just the
number in which case the program will ask again for the password. If
both the number and password are typed together on the same line, then a
space or spaces can separate the number and the first character of the
password, but the separating spaces are not required unless the password
itself starts with one of the digits 0 through 9. If the password
consists of more than a single word, then the student must type at least
1 space between pairs of words, and at least 1 space must appear between
the words in the password file, but the exact number of spaces is
ignored. It does not matter if the student types the alphabetic letters
A through Z in the password as capitals or as small letters.
A typical password file is shown below.
2164 sticks and stones!John Doe
3729 STORM !JANE SMITH
1000 mighty
12 789 !DICK JONES
=
CONTENTS OF THE CURRENT STAGE FILE
-------- -- --- ------- ----- ----
The file named CURENT.JOB in the central storage account defines the
current round and stage, the type of bidding priority scheme being used
by each class, and whether the JOBS program is open or closed. The
items in this file are changed using a text editor. This file is read
by both the JOBADM program and the JOBS program. It is not used when
the requests are processed.
The following is a typical CURENT.JOB file
84 1 1 11 1 !GRADUATING CLASS
85 1 1 11 2 !FIRST YEAR CLASS
3 1 2 1 2 !TEST CLASS
=
The file can be terminated by a line which starts with an equal sign.
Any lines which appear after the line which starts with an equal sign
are ignored.
Each line in the CURENT.JOB file has the form
NUMBER1 NUMBER2 NUMBER3 NUMBER4 NUMBER5 !COMMENT
30 JOBS Interview Request System
where
NUMBER1 = Class
NUMBER2 = Round
NUMBER3 = Stage within the round
NUMBER4 = Priority type
1 ranked requests. If request fails, boost lower priority
2 ranked requests. No boosting of lower priority requests
11 high/low priority bids. Total of high bids fixed during season
12 high/low priority bids. Total of high bids fixed during round
13 high/low priority bids. Total of high bids fixed for each stage
21 auction. Total of all bids fixed for entire season
22 auction. Total of all bids fixed for single round
23 auction. Total of all bids fixed for each stage
NUMBER5 = Whether JOBS and JOBADM programs can be used
-1 neither the JOBS nor the JOBADM programs can be used
0 JOBS program cannot be used
1 JOBS program can be run only to obtain reports
2 JOBS program can be run to request interviews
The contents of the CURENT.JOB file are described in more detail below.
NUMBER1 = the class number. This must be in the range 0 through 999.
The class number is determined by matching the account used to
run the JOBS program with the line validating this account in
the account validation file, then the first line starting with
this class number in the current stage file is used to set the
current round and stage.
NUMBER2 = the round number. The first round is number 1, the second 2,
etc. During each round, the students can sign up for
interviews with a particular batch of firms. There can be 1
or more stages in each round. If there is more than 1 stage
in the round, then the ranking of the requests made during the
second stage starts after the ranking already assigned to the
requests made in the first stage. Firms can be added from one
stage to the next in the same round, but the list of firms
should remain largely the same. At the start of the following
round, the entire list of firms is cancelled and a new list is
begun.
NUMBER3 = the stage within the round. The first stage of a round is
number 1, the second 2, etc. There are usually only 1 or 2
stages to each round. If there are 2 stages, then the
students can sign up in the second stage for any firms which
are not fully subscribed, or can ask for their names to be
added to the waiting list. See the description of NUMBER2.
NUMBER4 = indicates how interviews are allocated when there is excess
demand, i.e., when more students request interviews than the
firm can handle. Each student uses the priority scheme
selected by NUMBER4 to indicate which of the requested
interviews are considered to be the most important to the
student. NUMBER4 selects whether the interview requests are
Contents of the Current Stage File 31
ranked, whether a few are assigned a higher priority, or
whether the interviews are auctioned using pretend money. For
the latter 2 schemes, NUMBER4 also selects the time frame
across which the bids are totalled.
= 1 or 2, requests are ranked by the student.
The request for each interview must be assigned a different
value. These values range from 1 through and including the
number of interview requests allowed. A priority value of 1
is the most likely to be honored. Larger values are less
likely to be honored.
= 1, all 1 priority requests are assigned first, then all 2
priority, and so on. When an interview cannot be granted, all
of the student's lower priority requests are given higher
priority than those made by other students whose requests were
granted. Requests made using this scheme must be processed by
the JOBBIG program.
In practice, the priority values which are stored in the
student's file are 10 times those selected by the student. If
the student can make 6 requests, then the values which are
stored for these to indicate the priorities selected by the
student are 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60. If the student does
not get a particular request, then all those having higher
values are reduced by 6. If the student does not get the
first choice (value 10), then the second choice priority 20
becomes a 14, the third choice priority 30 becomes a 24, etc.
The modified second choice priority of 14 would then be
processed before anyone else's unmodified second choice
priority of 20. If the student does not get the second choice
either, then the third choice priority which was originally 30
becomes 18, the 40 becomes 28, etc.
= 2, all 1 priority requests are assigned first, then all 2
priority requests, and so on. There is no adjustment of the
lower priority requests when an interview cannot be granted.
Requests made using this scheme can be processed by either the
JOBSLO or the JOBBIG program.
= 11, 12 or 13, requests are assigned high or low priorities.
Each student is allowed to indicate that some requests are to
be given higher priority than requests made by other students
without this priority. The maximum number of these high
priority requests which can be made by each student during a
particular period is specified in the firm schedule file and
is set when the administrator runs the JOBADM program. There
are only 2 classes of priorities. These are called priority A
for the high priority or most desired requests and priority B
for the low priority or lesser desired requests. Once the
requests have been processed, the high priority bids which
have been used are lost regardless of whether the student gets
the interviews. High priority bids for interviews which
32 JOBS Interview Request System
cannot be allocated are not returned to the students.
= 11, the total number of high priority bids placed throughout
the interview season cannot exceed the maximum.
= 12, the total number of high priority bids in all stages of a
single round cannot exceed the maximum. All bids are restored
for the following round.
= 13, the total number of high priority bids in a single stage
cannot exceed the maximum. All bids are restored for the
following stage of the same or the next round.
= 21 or 22 or 23, the interviews are auctioned.
Each student is allowed to make bids for interviews. The
maximum amount of any one bid, and the maximum sum of the bids
which the student can make during a particular time period,
are stored in the firm schedule file and are set when the the
administrator runs the JOBADM program. The administrator can
select any maximum amount up to 9,999,999. Once the requests
have been processed, the amount bid is lost regardless of
whether the student gets the interviews. Bids for interviews
which cannot be allocated are not returned to the students.
This scheme can be similar to a cash auction if the maximum
amounts allowed are large, or can be a multi-tiered priority
scheme if the amounts allowed are small. For example, if the
total amount bid is set to 10 and the maximum amount which can
be bid for any firm is 2, then the students in reality can
make high (2), moderate (1) and low (0) priority requests, but
the number of high priority requests made reduces the number
of moderate priority requests which can be made.
= 21, the sum of the bids placed throughout the interview season
cannot exceed the maximum.
= 22, the sum of the bids in all stages of a single round cannot
exceed the maximum. All bids are restored for the following
round.
= 23, the sum of the bids in a single stage cannot exceed the
maximum. All bids are restored for the following stage of the
same or the next round.
NUMBER5 = specifies whether the JOBS program and JOBADM program can be
run.
= -1, neither the JOBS program nor the JOBADM program can be
run. This probably indicates that the deadline for submission
has passed, and the requests are being processed.
= 0 or 1 or 2, the JOBADM program can be run.
Contents of the Current Stage File 33
= 0, the JOBS program cannot be run.
= 1, the JOBS program can be used only to obtain a report of
which interview requests were successful. This might be used
if the requests have all been processed, but requests are not
yet being accepted for the following stage.
= 2, the students can use the JOBS program to request
interviews. However, if the students have already made
requests in the current stage and these requests have been
processed, then the students can only get reports of the
results unless the stage or round number is advanced. Setting
NUMBER5 to 2, but not advancing the stage or round number,
might be used to let students who forget to enter their
requests use the JOBS program while effectively locking out
the other students.
CONTENTS OF THE STARTING TIME PROFILE FILE
-------- -- --- -------- ---- ------- ----
The file named TIMES.JOB in the central storage account specifies the
profiles of starting times for the interviews of each of the possible
lengths. The items in this file are changed using a text editor. Each
line in the file specifies the times which are in a particular profile.
Each line can be at most 80 characters wide. Anything appearing to the
right of an exclamation point in the line is ignored. The file can be
terminated by a line starting with an equal sign, although this is not
necessary. Any lines appearing after the line staring with the equal
sign are ignored.
The contents of each line in the profile file have the form
NUMBER1 NUMBER2 TIME 1 through TIME N !Comment
where
NUMBER1 = is the length of each interview in minutes. There can be more
than one profile for interviews of a particular length, but
NUMBER2 must be different for each of these. If NUMBER1 and
NUMBER2 have the same values as those appearing in a previous
line, then the times specified in the current line are
appended to the profile started by the previous line having
the same values of NUMBER1 and NUMBER2. This allows a profile
to contain more interviews than can be specified by a single
line of 80 characters.
NUMBER2 = is a number which uniquely identifies each of the profiles for
interviews having the same length. If there is more than a
single profile for interviews of a particular length, then
NUMBER2 must be different for each of these. It is not
necessary that the lines in the TIMES.JOB file be sorted
either based upon NUMBER1 or upon NUMBER2. NUMBER2 does not
have to be unique among the profiles for interviews of
different lengths. For example, NUMBER2 might have the value
34 JOBS Interview Request System
0 for a profile of starting times for half hour interviews and
might also have the value 0 for a profile of starting times
for full hour interviews.
TIME 1 through TIME N = are the starting times for the interviews.
Consecutive times in this list can be separated by either
spaces or commas. Each time can be expressed either in the 12
hour system, or in the 24 hour system. If an interview starts
at midnight or noon, then the 24 hour system should be used to
prevent ambiguity. It should be noted that 12am is
interpreted as midnight at the start of the day, 12m as noon
and 12pm as midnight at the end of the day. The abbreviation
am stands for ante meridiem or before noon and pm stands for
post meridiem or after noon, and, of course, noon itself is
neither. If an interview does start at or near midnight, then
the conflict checking in the JOBTIM program will not be able
to protect against overlapping interviews in the adjoining
day.
Each time in the list is expressed as the hour, followed
immediately by a colon and the minutes. The starting times
for interviews held in the morning, if expressed in the 12
hour system, can be followed by the abbreviation AM, but this
is not necessary except for times between midnight and 1am.
If the starting times of interviews held in the afternoon are
expressed in the 12 hour system, then each of these times must
be followed by the abbreviation PM. Spaces can appear between
the numbers and the abbreviations AM, M or PM, but are not
required. A period can appear immediately after each of the
letters in the abbreviations AM, M or PM but is not necessary,
and the letters can be either capitals or lower case. If an
interview starts on the hour, then the minutes need not be
expressed. For example, an interview starting at noon could
be represented as 12m, 12:00m, 12m., 12:00m., 12 or 12:00. An
interview starting at 2 in the afternoon could be represented
as 2pm, 2:00pm, 2p.m., 2:00p.m., 14 or 14:00.
Each profile of interview starting times does not need to be
sorted into order of increasing times, but the file will be
easier to maintain if the lists are sorted in this manner.
Regardless of whether the times in each profile are sorted in
the file, they will be sorted by the programs using them, and
any duplicate times will be discarded. Each profile can
contain up to 16 starting times. This means that a single
recruiter can interview no more than 16 students in a single
day.
Contents of the Starting Time Profile File 35
The contents of a typical profile file are shown below.
30 0 9:00 9:30 10:00 10:30 11:00 12:45 13:15
45 0 8:45 9:30 10:15 11:00 13:00 13:45 14:30 15:15 16:00
60 1 9:30 10:30 13:30 14:30 15:30 16:30
30 0 13:45 14:30 15:00 15:30 16:00 16:30 !rest of 30 minute profile
60 0 9:00 10:00 11:00 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00
60 2 8:45 9:45 10:45 12:45 13:45 14:45 15:45
=
CONTENTS OF THE FIRM SCHEDULE FILE
-------- -- --- ---- -------- ----
The file named FRMXXX.JOB, where XXX is the class number, in the central
storage account specifies which firms are interviewing, when they are
interviewing, and how many interviews they will hold. This file is
first written by the JOBADM program. The file is changed to reflect the
number of interviews which have been allocated each time that the
interview requests are processed. This file should not exist before the
first round is started. Only the information contained in the first 2
records in this file is retained from one round to the next.
The first 2 records in the file describe the current round and stage.
These initial 2 records are followed by the records which describe each
firm. The description of each firm consists of 4 records, the first 3
contain the name of the firm, department and address, respectively, and
the fourth record contains numeric information about the firm. If the
firm is conducting interviews, then an additional line describing each
contiguous group of interviews in each schedule appears after the
description of the firm.
The variables in each type of record are listed below. The names shown
here are the same as those which are used in the various program.
at the start of the file:
IAUTHR,ICLASS,IMOVE,IPASS,IVERSN,NUMWHO
KNTINC,MAXNUM,MANNER,MAXSTG,MAXRND,MAXALL,MAXBID,MAXPAY
for each firm:
LTRINC
LTRDPT
LTRADR
NUMBER,LENGTH,KNTOPN,INTRVW,IUSDUP,INCLSD,JNCLSD
for each contiguous block of interviews for the firm:
JDATE,JFIRST,JFINAL,JSCHDL
The contents of each of these types of records are described below.
36 JOBS Interview Request System
First record in file
IAUTHR,ICLASS,IMOVE,IPASS,IVERSN,NUMWHO
IAUTHR = identifies which program last wrote this file.
= 1, the firm schedule file was last written by the JOBADM
program.
= 2, the firm schedule file was last written by the JOBSLO
or JOBBIG program during the processing of the requests.
ICLASS = the class number.
IMOVE = the current round number. The first round is number 1.
IPASS = the current stage within the current round. The first
stage of each round is number 1.
IVERSN = the number of times this file has been rewritten by the
administrator program or processed by the assignment
programs.
NUMWHO = the number identifying the account which last wrote this
file.
Second record in file
KNTINC,MAXNUM,MANNER,MAXSTG,MAXRND,MAXALL,MAXBID,MAXPAY
KNTINC = the total number of firms specified by this file.
MAXNUM = the number identifying the final firm in this file.
MANNER = the number which identifies the type of bidding scheme
which the students will use to obtain the most desired
interviews. See the description of the current stage
file.
MAXSTG = the maximum number of interviews which a student can
request in this stage of this round.
MAXRND = the maximum number of interviews which a student can
request in all stages of this round.
MAXALL = the maximum number of interviews which a student can
request during the entire interview season.
MAXBID = the maximum amount which each student can bid for an
interview with a single firm if the interviews are being
auctioned.
MAXPAY = the maximum total amount which each student can bid for
all highly desired interviews during the time period
Contents of the Firm Schedule File 37
specified by MANNER.
First 3 records for each firm
LTRINC,LTRDPT,LTRADR (in consecutive records)
LTRINC = the firm name.
LTRDPT = the department name.
LTRADR = the address.
Fourth record for each firm
NUMBER,LENGTH,KNTOPN,INTRVW,IUSDUP,INCLSD,JNCLSD
NUMBER = the firm number.
LENGTH = the length of each interview.
KNTOPN = the total number of open interviews which this firm will
hold.
IUSDUP = the total number of students who have requested interviews
with this firm.
INCLSD = the total number of students who requested interviews with
this firm but who have been moved off the open schedule to
the closed schedule. The interviews that these people
might have used are therefore available to others. INCLSD
does not include those students who might have been
invited to closed interviews but for some reason are still
being scheduled on the open list. The total number of
interviews which have been assigned is thus
KNTOPN-IUSDUP+INCLSD. If this number is negative, then
its absolute value is the length of the waiting list.
JNCLSD = the total number of students who requested interviews with
this firm and who are above the cut-off line but who have
been moved off the open schedule to the closed schedule.
To determine whether a particular student is on the
waiting list, it is necessary to compare the position of
the person on the list with KNTOPN+JNCLSD.
Record for each contiguous block of interviews for each firm
JDATE,JFIRST,JFINAL,JSCHDL
JDATE = -1, these interviews are an extension of the previous
schedule. Those between the previous schedule and the
current schedule will not be held.
38 JOBS Interview Request System
= if positive, these interviews start a new schedule. The
value of JDATE is the Smithsonian date when the interviews
in this schedule will be held. The Smithsonian date is
the number of days since 18 November 1858 taking that base
date as day 1.
JFIRST = -1, this schedule has been cancelled. JFINAL will also be
-1. JDATE will still contain the Smithsonian date for the
interviews which were previously in this schedule.
= 0 or greater, the time in minutes from midnight when the
first interview will be held.
JFINAL = -1, this schedule has been cancelled. JFIRST will also be
-1. JDATE will still contain the Smithsonian date for the
interviews which were previously in this schedule.
= 0 or greater, the time in minutes from midnight when the
final interview will be held.
JSCHDL = the number which identifies the profile of starting times
from among all of the profiles for interviews of the same
length. This matches the second number in the
corresponding line in the file which specifies the
profiles of the starting times.
A short firm file specifying 2 firms is listed below.
1 4 1 1 3 255
2 2 21 10 15 20 5 30
Yellow Pencil Manufacturers
Marketing
NY
1 30 31 5 0 0 0
45734 600 990 0
45734 540 630 0
-1 795 870 0
-1 930 990 0
45735 540 900 0
Roaring Rocket Engines Inc.
Production
CA
2 60 12 5 0 0 0
45732 -1 -1 1
45732 -1 -1 1
45732 -1 -1 1
45732 570 990 1
45732 570 990 1
Contents of the Firm Schedule File 39
The listing file which would be produced by the JOBADM program based
upon the above firm schedule file is shown below. The lines in this
listing have been shortened slightly to fit into this manual.
Interviewer Schedules for Class 4, Round 1, Stage 1
5-Jan-84 14:25
Students bid for interviews in an auction.
Total amount bid during entire season is fixed.
Each student can request 10 interviews in this stage of this round
Each student can request 15 interviews in all stages of this round
Each student can request 20 interviews during entire interview season
Each student can bid up to 5 for a single firm
Each student can bid a total of 30 during entire season
Number: 1
Name: Yellow Pencil Manufacturers
Division: Marketing
Location: NY
Length: 30 minutes
Schedules: 3
Total: 31 interviews
Schedule 1: 11 Interviews Sat 4-Feb-84 10:00am to 4:30pm (Profile 0)
Schedule 2: 10 Interviews Sat 4-Feb-84 9:00am to 4:30pm (Profile 0)
skip 11:00am to 12:45pm
skip 3:00pm
Schedule 3: 10 Interviews Sun 5-Feb-84 9:00am to 3:00pm (Profile 0)
Number: 2
Name: Roaring Rocket Engines Inc.
Division: Production
Location: CA
Length: 60 minutes
Schedules: 5
Total: 12 interviews
1 to 3:3* 0 Cancelled Thu 2-Feb-84 (Profile 1)
4 to 5:2* 6 Interviews Thu 2-Feb-84 9:30am to 4:30pm (Profile 1)
CONTENTS OF THE INTERVIEW REQUEST FILE
-------- -- --- --------- ------- ----
The files with names similar to YYYYYY.XXX, where YYYYYY is a number
identifying a particular student and XXX is the class number, in the
central storage account specify which interviews have been requested by
each student. These files are first written by the JOBS program. All
of the files for the class are collected together into a single file
before the requests are processed. These files are changed when the
requests are processed to reflect the positions of the requests on the
lists for the various firms and the times at which the interviews are
scheduled. The composite interview request file is split into
individual interview request files which are written back into the
central storage account by the JOBPUT program after the processing has
40 JOBS Interview Request System
been completed.
The first 4 records in the interview request file identify the current
round and stage, the number of requests and bids made in previous
rounds, the account being used and the name of the student. This
general information is then followed by either 1 or 2 records for each
of the requests made by the student during the current round. The first
of these 2 records is always present and describes the request. The
second record contains the times at which the student would prefer to
have the interview be held and is present only if the student has
specified 1 or more such times.
The file is always terminated by a record which contains a single minus
sign.
The variables in each type of record are listed below. The names shown
here are the same as those which are used in the various programs.
at the start of the file:
IAUTHR,ICLASS,IMOVE,IPASS,IVERSN,NUMWHO,LTRPSW
ISUBMT,IUSED,KNTSIN,LOCKUP,MANNER,KNTALL,IGVBAK
LTRWHO
LTRNAM
for each firm:
NUMVOT,KNDVOT,KNTPRF,IDATE,KLOSED,IRANK,JRANK,KLOCK,MTIME,
MDATE,MRECRT,ISOURC (continuation of the above record)
if times are requested for the firm:
IPREFR
at the end of the file:
-
The contents of each of these types of records are described below.
First record in file
IAUTHR,ICLASS,IMOVE,IPASS,IVERSN,NUMWHO,LTRPSW
IAUTHR = identifies which program last wrote this file.
= 11, the file is an individual interview request file
written by the JOBS program.
= 12, the file is a composite interview request file in
which the requests have been sorted by priority and in
which the order of requests having the same priority have
been randomized.
= 13, the file is a composite interview request file in
which times have been assigned by the JOBTIM program.
= 14, the file is an individual interview request file which
the JOBPUT program has extracted from the composite
interview request file.
Contents of the Interview Request File 41
= 15, the file is an individual interview request file which
has been modified by the JOBMOD program.
ICLASS = the class number.
IMOVE = the round during which these requests were made. The
first round is number 1.
IPASS = the stage during which these requests were made. The
first stage of each round is number 1.
IVERSN = the version number of the file containing these requests.
This is incremented by 1 each time a new copy of the file
is written by the JOBS program.
NUMWHO = the number by which this program identifies this student
from all others in the same class.
LTRPSW = the password used by the student to gain access to the
program. If the student does not have to use a password,
then this will be blank. The alphabetic letters A through
Z in this password will always be capitals or upper case
regardless of whether the student typed the password using
capitals or lower case letters.
Second record in file
ISUBMT,IUSED,KNTSIN,LOCKUP,MANNER,KNTALL,IGVBAK
ISUBMT = 0, the student has not submitted the final version of
these requests yet.
= 1, the student typed the word SUBMIT in response the "WHAT
NEXT?" question to submit the final version of these
requests. The student will not be able to modify this set
of requests until the next round or the next stage of this
round. It is not necessary that a student submit the
requests. They are acted upon regardless of whether they
have been submitted.
= 2, this set of requests has been processed. The student
is prevented from doing anything other than just getting a
report until the round or the stage number has been
advanced.
= 3, further access by the JOBS program to this set of
requests is blocked, both in the current stage and in
subsequent stages and rounds. Any requests already made,
however, will be treated like those made by any other
student.
= 4, further access by the JOBS program to this set of
requests is blocked, both in the current stage and in
subsequent stages and rounds. Any requests already made
42 JOBS Interview Request System
will be ignored when the requests are processed and any
interviews already allocated in the previous stage of the
current round will be reassigned to other students. This
effectively cancels these requests. This would be used
mainly to block a particular password, such as that used
to log into a jointly used account, from being used as the
password to gain access to the JOBS program.
IUSED = the number of high priority requests or auction bids which
have been placed so far by the student during the time
period in which these are limited. If a new allocation is
made every stage, then IUSED is zeroed every stage, etc.
KNTSIN = the number of requests which the student has placed so far
this round.
LOCKUP = the number of requests which the student placed in the
earlier stages of the current round. Requests made in
earlier stages are kept in the list if they are cancelled.
Requests made during the current stage are removed from
the list if they are cancelled.
MANNER = identifies the type of bidding scheme used. See the
description of the current stage file.
KNTALL = the number of requests which the student made in earlier
rounds.
IGVBAK = the number of high priority requests or the amount of
auction bids to be returned to the student at the start of
the next round if the total number of high priority
requests or the total bidding allocation is limited for
the entire season. This adjustment to the bidding
allocation is made using the JOBMOD program at the
direction of the administrator. The JOBMOD program can
also be used to decrease the value of IUSED in order to
restore the use of the high priority requests or auction
bids immediately.
Third record in file
LTRWHO = the name of the account which was used by the student to
enter these requests.
Fourth record in file
LTRNAM = the name of the student.
Contents of the Interview Request File 43
First record for each interview request
NUMVOT,KNDVOT,KNTPRF,IDATE,KLOSED,IRANK,JRANK,KLOCK,MTIME,
MDATE,MRECRT,ISOURC
NUMVOT = the identification code of the firm.
KNDVOT = priority assigned by the student to this request.
= if the students rank their requests, then KNDVOT is 10 for
most wanted interview, and 10 larger for each lesser
wanted interview.
= if the students assign high or low priorities to each
request, then KNDVOT is 1 for high priority requests and 2
for low priority requests.
= if the students bid in an auction for interviews, then
KNDVOT is the amount of the bid placed upon this request.
KNTPRF = the number of preferred times which were specified by the
student. If KNTPRF is not zero, then an additional record
will follow specifying these times.
IDATE = the date when this student would prefer to have this
interview be held.
= 0, either the student was asked to specify a date but did
not choose to do so, or else the student was not asked to
specify a date since the interviews are only being held on
a single date.
KLOSED = 0, if this interview is a open interview requested by the
student.
= 1, if the student has been moved to the closed list. The
interview is not being automatically scheduled. Instead,
the student will have to sign up by hand at the placement
office.
= 2, if the request was cancelled by the firm. This request
must be kept in the list since otherwise the student might
cancel the request and then make it once more.
= 3, if the request was cancelled by the student. Although
the student can cancel requests made in the previous
stages in the current round, these requests must be kept
in the list.
IRANK = the position of this request in the list of all requests
made for this firm. This ranking is assigned by either
the JOBBIG or JOBSLO program when the requests are
processed.
44 JOBS Interview Request System
= 0, this request has not yet been processed.
= greater than 0, is the position of this request on the
list. The lowest numbers get interviews, and the rest are
on the waiting list.
JRANK = the number of students in the ranked list above and
including the current student who are actually eligible
for open interviews. JRANK excludes those for whom KLOSED
is not zero. The students who are excluded are those who
have been moved to the closed list, who have cancelled an
interview after the allocation process, or who have been
rejected by the firm. JRANK minus KNTOPN (in the firm
schedule file) is thus the position of this request on the
waiting list.
KLOCK = the length of the interview if this request was
successful.
= 0, no interview has been scheduled for this request.
MTIME = time at which the interview is scheduled.
MDATE = date when the interview is scheduled.
MRECRT = schedule number if the interview is scheduled.
= -1, an interview was scheduled in a previous stage of the
current round, but the schedule containing this interview
was cancelled.
= 0, no interview has been scheduled.
= if KLOCK is not zero, but MRECRT is zero, then the student
should get an interview if a human can resolve some
scheduling conflict which the time assignment program
JOBTIM could not resolve.
ISOURC = 0, an interview with this firm was requested by the
student only.
= 1, both the student and the firm requested that the
student have an interview with this firm.
= 2, the firm requested that the student have an interview,
but the student did not request such an interview.
Second record for each interview request if times are requested
IPREFR = a list containing KNTPRF times which the student selected.
These times are stored as the number of minutes since
midnight. The first time in the list is the most
preferred. The final time is the least preferred.
Contents of the Interview Request File 45
The final record contains only a single minus sign.
USING THE RSMPSW PROGRAM TO ASSIGN PASSWORDS
----- --- ------ ------- -- ------ ---------
The students can be required to use a number and a password assigned to
them by the computer services staff to identify themselves to the JOBS
program. This feature is enabled by setting NUMBER2 to have the value 2
in the entry in the ACOUNT.JOB file for the account or accounts being
used by the students. The instructions for validating accounts should
be consulted for additional information.
The numbers and the passwords by which the students identify themselves
to the JOBS program must be specified by a file named PSWXXX.JOB, where
XXX is the class number. There must be one of these files in the
central storage account for each class for which passwords are being
assigned. Each line in this file contains a number followed by the
associated password. An exclamation point followed by a comment can
appear to the right of the password. The comment might consist of the
name of the student to aid a visual search of the file, but the comment
is ignored by the password checker in the JOBS program. The file can be
terminated by a line starting with an equal sign and containing nothing
else.
Although the password file could be constructed by hand, selection of
hundreds of such passwords soon becomes a mental word association
exercise. Provided that a file which contains a list of the student
names and any arbitrary text file containing at least several pages of
text are available, the RSMPSW program can be used to select words at
random from the text file and assign these as passwords to the students.
Each line in the resulting file contains a number, a password, an
exclamation point and the student's name.
The RSMPSW program also produces a second file which can be used to
insert the student's name, number and password into a form letter
telling the student how to gain access to the JOBS program. This file
contains 2 lines for each student. The student's name is on the first
line and the number and password are on the second line. This file is
meant to be processed, along with a file which describes the basic form
letter, by the FROFF word processor. An example of the file which
describes the basic form letter is shown below.
46 JOBS Interview Request System
.open splice.loop;To:
.splice 1.skip
You will use the following number and password to identify
yourself when you run the JOBS program.
.skip.indent 5.splice 1.skip
This password was chosen at random from a list of common
short words. You can type the number and the password on
the same line, or you can type the number on the first line,
and the password on the next line.
.skip
If you have any difficulties with the program, please
contact the computer services staff.
.reset.end loop
The .OPEN SPLICE and .LOOP commands at the start of the file and the
.RESET and .END LOOP commands at the end merely prepare for and
terminate each form letter respectively. The .SPLICE 1 commands each
insert the contents of the next line from the second file produced by
the RSMPSW program at that point into the letter.
The file of student names which is processed by the RSMPSW program must
contain only 1 name per line. The maximum length of a single name is 40
characters, counting each of the separations between the words as 1
character each. The names are copied into the resulting files in the
order in which they appear in the original file. It is suggested that
these names should have been sorted in alphabetical order before they
are processed by the RSMPSW program so that a visual search can be used
to locate the entry belonging to a particular student.
The RSMPSW program can extract passwords from any text file which
contains enough words so that the same password does not have to be
assigned to many students. The RSMPSW program would operate correctly
even if this file only contained a single word, but the resulting
duplication of passwords wouldn't really be acceptable. However, it
doesn't matter if a few of the students have the same password, since it
is only the number which must be unique. The lines in the file can each
contain up to 80 characters. Only words containing from 4 to 8 letters
each are used as passwords. The passwords can also be based upon the
file named RSMPSW.DAT which is supplied with this package. The
RSMPSW.DAT file contains 5000 different words 4 to 8 letters in length
sorted by the frequency of the appearance of these words in a variety of
text files which originally contained over 7.5 million words.
The RSMPSW program is able to skip over any number of initial words in
the file from which the passwords are being extracted. The RSMPSW
program stores 250 words read from the file in a hopper. The passwords
are selected from this hopper at random and are then discarded from the
hopper. If only a fraction of the words in the file are being used as
passwords, then the words which are to be discarded without having been
used are also selected at random from the hopper. When the hopper is
empty, the next group of words read from the file are placed into the
hopper. Once all of the words in the original file have been processed,
the hopper is filled with words from the start of the original file
again. Duplicates are discarded each time the hopper is filled, but a
password assigned in 1 filling of the hopper might have appeared in a
Using the RSMPSW Program to Assign Passwords 47
previous filling of the hopper.
The RSMPSW program asks the following questions.
FILE CONTAINING LIST OF STUDENT NAMES?
FILE CONTAINING LIST OF PASSWORDS?
OUTPUT FILE FOR PASSWORD CHECKER?
OUTPUT FILE FOR WORD PROCESSOR?
These questions merely establish the names of the various files. On the
DECsystem10 and DECsystem20 computers, these file names must consist of
1 to 6 letters or digits, a period which must be typed, and an optional
1 to 3 letters or digits.
KERNEL FOR RANDOM NUMBERS?
Either zero or a positive integer should be typed in response to this
question. The number is used to select the sequence of numbers which
are returned by the random number generator.
DISCARD HOW MANY INITIAL PASSWORDS?
Discarding the initial passwords is really useful only if a single large
file containing many possible passwords is being used repeatedly. The
number typed here would then be the number of passwords processed the
last time that passwords were selected from the file. If a different
file is being used, or if a different sampling interval selected by the
next question is being used, or if the file was scanned more than once
the last time, then 0 should be typed here.
ON AVERAGE, USE 1 PASSWORD OUT OF HOW MANY?
If the same large file containing many possible passwords is being used
repeatedly, and if the contents of this file might be known by the
students, then a portion of the possible passwords can be rejected to
make guessing the passwords based upon the known contents of the
original file more difficult. If either 0 or 1 is typed here, then all
of the passwords in the file will be used until enough have been
obtained. If a number greater than 1 is typed here, then this is the
number of possible passwords which are discarded each time 1 is used.
If 10 is typed here, then only 1 out of 10 possible passwords is used.
NUMBER TO ASSIGN TO FIRST STUDENT?
INCREMENT EACH STUDENT NUMBER HOW MUCH?
The answers to these questions are used to obtain the numbers which are
assigned to the students. If the initial number is 10 and the increment
is 5, then the students would be assigned the numbers 10, 15, 20, 25,
etc. It is suggested that the increment should be greater than 1 so
that there are gaps for the manual insertion of additional students into
the list.
48 JOBS Interview Request System
MACHINE DEPENDENCE
------- ----------
The students who use the interview request system have no way of knowing
the language in which it is written. All of the logic in the programs
in the interview request system is written in FORTRAN. Together, the
programs contain 9000 FORTRAN statements. Most of this code is
completely machine independent. However, a few of the things which the
programs do must be performed differently on different computers. In so
far as possible, these machine dependent aspects of the programs have
been isolated into routines which perform no other functions.
1. The BLOCK DATA routine specifies the locations of the central
storage account. This is specified by octal project and programmer
numbers in the DECsystem10 version and by the account name in a
character string in the DECsystem20 version.
2. The JOBHLP routine which issues the help messages has been built
assuming that the JOBS program will be run from video terminals
which can display 24 lines on the screen. The .PAGE LENGTH command
in the rough form of these messages specifies a value which is 2
lines less than the maximum number of lines which can be shown on
the screen, so that there is room at the bottom for the "PRESS
RETURN TO CONTINUE" message. The .PAGE LENGTH command will have to
be changed correspondingly if the program is run from terminals
which cannot show a full 24 lines on the screen, and the FORMAT
program will have to be run again to produce a new version of the
JOBHLP routine. The JOBHLP routine does not have to be rebuilt if
the program is being run from a hardcopy terminal instead.
3. The GETLIN routine which reads in a line from the terminal discards
control characters on the DECsystem10 and DECsystem20 computers.
Any character read by a multiple of an A1 format which has a value
between 0 (integer zero, not '0') and ' ' (the space character) is
discarded. The 2 statements which perform these tests will have to
be removed for use on any other computer.
4. The OPEN statements in the RSMOPN and LCLOPN routines and the CLOSE
statements in the RSMCLS and LCLCLS routines will have to be
changed for use on other computers. The RSMPSW program also
contains simple OPEN and CLOSE statements.
5. A few simple assembly language routines are used to control the
manner in which the computer system manages the typing of
characters onto the terminal, to identify the account being used to
run the program, to expunge deleted files and to exit gracefully
without the usual time usage messages. The following is a complete
list of these assembly language routines.
EXPUNG expunges deleted file from the account in which it is run on
the DECsystem20 computer. This is necessary during processing of
the requests to prevent the accumulation of former versions of the
updated files. The former versions of files are always expunged on
the DECsystem10 computer, so the version of this routine for the
DECsystem10 computer returns directly to the calling program.
Machine Dependence 49
JOBINF returns information about the account from which the program
is being run. The information which is returned includes the name
of the account, the corresponding project number which on the
DECsystem20 always has the value 4, and the corresponding
programmer number. The DECsystem10 version of this routine is
called PPNU which stands for Project Programmer NUmber.
LEAVE exits from the program without the time statistics produced
by the FORTRAN STOP statement.
TTYSET sets the characteristics of the controlling terminal. The
most important of these is the turning off of the pausing after a
certain number of lines have been displayed on the screen. The
JOBS program does its own parcelling out of lines to the screen.
6. The RSMWIP routine clears the screen of a video terminal by typing
a form feed. This may have to be done differently on other
computer systems.
7. The NEWDAT routine returns the current date as the numeric month,
day and year. These are obtained by decoding a double precision
word containing the date in a form similar to '10-Oct-83'. Since
FORTRAN has no standardized date routine, this also will have to be
done differently on other computer systems.
8. The DAVERB routine which is used to identify words typed by the
user contains an array of the lower case alphabetic letters 'A'
through 'Z' sorted in numerical order. On the DECsystem10 and
DECsystem20, this order also happens to be the same as the
alphabetic sort. If the numeric values of 'a' through 'z' sort in
some other order, then the array containing the lower case
characters will have to be changed, and the array containing the
upper case characters will have to be changed to remain parallel to
the new ordering.
9. The JOBSRT program sorts the student names assuming that the
numerical sort of the upper case letters 'A' through 'Z' is the
same as the alphabetic sort of these same characters. The sorting
procedure will have to be changed if this is not the case.
10. The RSMWHO routine calls the JOBINF routine to obtain the name of
the current account and the programmer number of this account. The
RSMWHO routine then converts these into a form which can be used by
the rest of the program. This conversion is machine dependent.
11. The DAHEFT and DAVERB routines are general routines which interpret
a line of text read from the terminal. These routines all treat a
horizontal tabulation or tab character as equivalent to a space.
In order to identify the tab character, a variable named ITAB is
defined as the octal value "045004020100 in each of these routines.
This definition will have to be changed on other computers, either
to the actual numeric value of 'tab' or 1Htab, or else to 'space'
or 1Hspace, where the words tab and space are meant to represent
the nonprinting characters tab and space respectively.
50 JOBS Interview Request System
12. The RSMPSW program contains code for accepting file names from the
user, and OPEN and CLOSE statements. This FORTRAN code is simple,
but will have to be changed for use on other computers.
13. The JOBBIG, JOBSLO and RSMPSW programs contain calls to the SETRAN
routine which initializes the RAN random number function. The
corresponding routine on other systems may have a different name
and may require different calling arguments.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN DECSYSTEM10 AND DECSYSTEM20 VERSIONS
----------- ------- ----------- --- ----------- --------
The job interview request system was developed on a DECsystem20
computer. The programs have been modified for the DECsystem10. These
computers have basically the same hardware. Only the operating systems
are different. The main differences between the versions for the 2
computers result from the differences in the account structures.
The following is a list of the differences between the DECsystem10 and
the DECsystem20 versions.
1. In the BLOCK DATA routine in the DECsystem10 version, the account
in which files are stored is specified by project and programmer
numbers. This account is specified by an integer array dimensioned
at 3. The project number is in the first location, the programmer
number is in the second location and a zero is in the third
location. In the DECsystem20 version, the location of this account
is specified by name in a character string which is dimensioned for
40 characters.
2. In the RSMOPN routine in the DECsystem10 version, the OPEN
statements which open the files which are to be written into the
central storage account specify a protection code of octal 100.
This allows subsequent versions of the same files to replace the
current versions. In the DECsystem20 version, the default file
protection for the account into which the files are being written
can be set so as to allow overwriting by subsequent versions so it
is not necessary that the OPEN statements specify the protection
codes.
3. In the RSMWHO routine in the DECsystem10 version, the name of the
account is assumed to just be the octal project and programmer
numbers converted so that these can be written with a 40A1 format.
The unique number which is returned for the account is actually the
programmer number so that the programmer can access the same
interview requests from any project for which the programmer has an
account if passwords are not being used to gain access to the JOBS
program. In the DECsystem20 version, the actual account names are
used. All accounts have the same project number. The programmer
number is unique to the particular account so only the account
which was used to make the interview requests can be used to modify
them if passwords are not being used.
Differences Between DECsystem10 and DECsystem20 Versions 51
4. In the assembly language routines in the DECsystem10 version, UUO's
are used. The routine which sets terminal characteristics is just
a dummy entry point. In the DECsystem20 version, JSYS's are used
instead of UUO's. UUO's and JSYS's are the names given to the
monitor calls for the 2 operating systems.
When setting up the accounts on the DECsystem10, the user file
directories or UFD's of the account into which files are to be written
from other accounts should be given a protection code of 777. The
procedure for this would be to log into the account, and then to run the
PIP program to rename the UFD for each disk structure. For example, the
following dialog could be used to change the protection of the account
on the DSKB: structure.
R PIP
/R<777>=DSKB:[123,456].UFD
^C
It must be noted that the UFD for a structure will disappear when the
job is logged off unless there is at least one file in the UFD on that
structure. Therefore, a dummy file, perhaps named A. to force it to be
first in the sorted directory, should be created on each structure.
The batch control file which is used on the DECsystem20 expunges the
central storage account. The expunging is necessary since the students
could be blocked from running the program by old versions of the
requests if the disk quota were to be exceeded. Files are always
expunged immediately on the DECsystem10, so the batch job is not
necessary.
The RSMCHK routine which determines whether the account being used is
allowed to run these programs is able to handle either the DECsystem10
account numbers or the DECsystem20 account names. The contents of the
entries in the ACOUNT.JOB file control which type of account
specification is matched. If the file contains numbers enclosed between
square brackets, then the DECsystem10 account numbers are matched. If
the file contains account names enclosed between less than and greater
than signs, then the DECsystem20 account names are matched.
APPENDIX A
INSTRUCTIONS FOR USING THE JOBS PROGRAM
------------ --- ----- --- ---- -------
You will be using a program named JOBS on the DECsystem20 computer to
indicate your preferences for job interviews with any of the firms which
are conducting open interviews in the near future. This program will
allow you to request interviews with particular firms, to indicate how
serious you are about the request, to indicate the times at which you
would prefer to have the interviews be held, and to modify or cancel any
request which you have made.
You can run the JOBS program several times. Each time that you exit
from the program, the program will save the list of interviews which you
have requested so far. You can then run the program later to change
your requests. The next time that you run the program, the program will
start with the list of interviews that you have just requested. It is
not necessary that you run the program more than once during a single
round of the interview season, since you can make all of your selections
at the same time if you prefer.
Before you run the program, you must first log into the computer account
named A.B.C for which XYZZYX is the password. Please do not use this
account for anything other than requesting job interviews. You cannot
use your own individual account to request job interviews. After you
have successfully logged in, you can start the JOBS program merely by
typing its name. Up to this point, the dialog would look something like
the following:
@A.B.C
Password: XYZZYX (the password will be invisible)
@JOBS
The program will respond by asking you to specify a number and another
password. This combination of number and password identifies you to the
program, and prevents anyone else from gaining access to your requests.
A sheet of paper telling you this number and password will be placed in
your mailbox shortly before you are scheduled to first use the program.
This number and password have no relationship to the name of the account
A.B.C from which you are running the program nor to the XYZZYX password
which you used to gain access to this account.
HOW TO CONTROL THE PROGRAM
--- -- ------- --- -------
The program will always tell you what it expects that you will type.
You must press the RETURN key after having typed in the answer. You
should press the ? key and then the RETURN key if you do not understand
a question and want further instructions. If you see that you have made
a mistake and have not yet pressed the RETURN key, press the key marked
on various terminals as DEL, DELETE or RUBOUT as many times as are
necessary to back up past the character in error, then type the correct
54 JOBS Interview Request System
character and the rest of the line. DO NOT use the keys marked with
arrows to correct anything.
In general, the cases of the alphabetic letters, whether they are
capitals or small letters, do not matter. The only place where the
cases of the letters are preserved is when you specify your name. Most
of the words which the program accepts can be abbreviated by discarding
the rightmost letters as long as you type enough letters to distinguish
the response from all others which would be valid.
SPECIFYING YOUR NAME
---------- ---- ----
If this is the first time that you have run the program, then the first
thing that the program will ask you to type will be your name. You
should type your name exactly as you want it to appear on the lists
which are given to the recruiters. Use the SHIFT key to get capital
letters where you expect them. Press the RETURN key after you have
finished typing in your name. Pressing the RETURN key, here as
elsewhere, indicates to the program that you are done typing this line.
The program will type your name back to you and ask if this is how you
want your name to appear. Make sure that it is right. If it is not
correct, then type NO and press the RETURN key. If your name is
correct, then type YES and press the return key.
THE "WHAT NEXT?" QUESTION
--- ---- ---- --------
After you have specified your name, or, if you are running the program
the second time, after you have verified that the spelling of your name
as you specified it before is correct, then you will be asked
WHAT NEXT?
You will be asked this question again each time that the program has
completed processing your previous command. You should respond by
typing one of the following words:
CANCEL to cancel a request for an interview.
EXIT to save what you have done and exit. You can continue later.
LIST to list the firm names together with their codes.
NAME to check or change how your name is shown to recruiters.
PAPER to obtain a file describing your requests.
PRIORITY to change the priority or bid you set with the REQUEST option.
REPORT to see the interview requests you have made so far.
REQUEST to request an interview with a particular firm.
SAVE to save what you have done, then continue to run the program.
TIME to change date or times you selected with the REQUEST option.
The CANCEL, PRIORITY, REQUEST and TIME commands require that you
identify the firm, and the particular division if the firm has several
divisions which are recruiting. Each firm, or each division if several
Appendix A: Instructions for Using the JOBS Program 55
divisions are recruiting, is identified by a single number. If you do
not know the number, you can type the word LIST in response to the "WHAT
NEXT?" question to view the list of firms. The number which is required
appears at the upper left corner of the description of the firm. If you
do not type a number to the right of the word CANCEL, PRIORITY, REQUEST
or TIME on the same line, then you will be asked to type the number on
the next line. Since you might type the wrong number, the name of the
firm and division corresponding to the number will be shown to you and
you will be asked to type YES to verify that this is the firm you want.
The commands are described in more detail below.
CANCEL followed by a firm number to cancel a request for an interview
with the firm. If this request was made in a previous stage,
then you will not receive back the high priority or auction bid
you placed upon this request.
EXIT to save the requests which you have made so far and then exit
from this program. You can run this program later to change
your requests. The PAPER command likewise saves your requests
and then exits, but also produces a file describing your
requests which you can print on the line printer.
LIST to list the numbers identifying the firms on the terminal.
These numbers are needed for the CANCEL, PRIORITY, REQUEST and
TIME commands.
NAME to check how your name will be shown to the recruiters, and to
change it if it is not correct. You should type your name
using both capital letters and small letters. If you use all
capital letters or all small letters, then the first letter in
each part of your name will be capitalized and the rest will be
small letters.
PAPER to obtain a file describing your requests which you can then
print on the line printer. The descriptions will be the same
as are produced by the REPORT command. The program will save
your current requests, tell you the name of the file containing
the descriptions of your requests, and then exit. The name of
the file will consist of the number which you used to gain
access to the program, with leading zeros to get 6 digits, and
with .DOC following the number. If the program tells you that
the name of the file is 012345.DOC, then after the program
exits you would type
PRINT 012345.DOC
to obtain a paper copy of your requests. Leading zeros, if
shown to you in the name of the file, must be typed.
PRIORITY followed by a firm number to change the priority which you have
assigned to your request for an interview with the firm. If
you have given this request high priority, then it can be
changed to low priority, and vice versa. You can assign a high
priority to a limited number of requests. If you assign a high
priority to a request, then that request will be honored before
a low priority request for an interview with that firm made by
56 JOBS Interview Request System
anyone else in the current stage of the current round.
REPORT to display to you on the terminal the firms with which you have
requested interviews so far. You can issue the PAPER command
instead to produce a file describing your requests which you
can then print on the line printer. The PAPER command also
saves your requests and then exits from the program.
REQUEST followed by a firm number to request an interview with that
firm. You will be asked to specify the priority and the time
of day when you would prefer to have your interview with the
firm be held. Please note that you are not required to specify
times, and that whether you specify times will not influence
whether you are given an interview.
SAVE to save the requests which you have made so far. If the
computer were to stop after this, then these would be the
requests which would be in effect when you run this program the
next time or when your requests are processed. The SAVE
command does not remove you from the program. You can continue
to modify your requests now.
TIME followed by a firm number to change the date on which or the
times at which you would prefer to have your interview with the
firm be held. You will be asked to specify the date when you
would most prefer to have the interview be held only if the
firm is holding interviews on more than 1 date. You will then
be asked to specify the time at which you would most prefer to
have the interview be held. You can then specify additional
times in decreasing order of preference. It is not necessary
that the times be specified on separate lines. They can
instead be specified in decreasing order of preference from
left to right on the same line separated by commas or spaces.
If you have specified a date, then the times you specify will
only apply on that date. Please note that you are not required
to specify a date or times, and that whether you specify a date
or times will not influence whether you are given an interview.
You would type 10:30 to select an interview at 10:30 in the
morning. You would type 3 to select an interview at 3 in the
afternoon. The suffixes am and pm are not necessary, but can
be included either attached to the numbers or separated from
the numbers by spaces. After you have specified as many times
as you want, merely press the RETURN key an extra time to get
back to the "WHAT NEXT?" question.
If you have used the EXIT command or the PAPER command to save your
requests and to exit from the JOBS program, and if you are done using
the computer for now, then please be sure to terminate your use of the
computer by typing
LOGOUT
in response to the at sign.
APPENDIX B
INSTRUCTIONS FOR USING THE JOBADM PROGRAM
------------ --- ----- --- ------ -------
The students use a program named JOBS to request interviews with firms
which will be interviewing in the near future. However, before the
students are able to request interviews with these firms, the staff of
the placement office must enter into the computer information about
which firms will be interviewing, how many interviews each firm will be
conducting, and when these interviews will be held. The program which
the staff of the placement office uses to enter this information into
the computer is named JOBADM.
The computer services staff will provide and maintain the programs and
accounts necessary for the students to be able to use the computer to
request job interviews, and will perform the behind the scenes
operations necessary to allocate interviews and to assign times for
them. In these instructions, "the administrator" will be taken to mean
the member or members of the staff of the placement office who will be
entering the firm schedules into the computer, and "the programmer" will
be taken to mean the member or members of the computer services staff
who will be working with the administrator.
During the use of the interview request system, the programmer will
provide the services which are listed below.
1. Establishing the account which will be used by the administrator
and validating this account to run the JOBADM program.
2. Making sure that the students can use the JOBS program. This may
involve establishing accounts for them to use, letting them know
what passwords are needed to access these accounts and to run the
JOBS program, and validating these accounts to run the JOBS
program.
3. Establishing the account in which the files produced by the
administrator and those produced by the students will be stored.
4. Checking the programs, loading them onto the computer, and creating
the data files needed by these programs.
5. Coordinating the use of the JOBADM program by the administrator and
the use of the JOBS program by the students. This requires setting
the proper round and stage numbers before the administrator uses
the JOBADM program, and later, during processing, closing the
JOBADM program to the administrator and the JOBS program to the
students so that files are not accidentally overwritten.
6. Processing the requests made by the students. This can only be
done after the deadline for all students to complete making their
requests. This deadline is established by the administrator.
58 JOBS Interview Request System
7. After the processing has been completed, preparing printed
schedules for each recruiter, for each student, and lists of the
students who requested each firm. These schedules and lists are
given to the administrator. It is the responsibility of the
administrator to distribute the schedules to the recruiters and to
the students as appropriate.
8. At the request of the administrator, returning to selected students
bidding allocations or the ability to make additional high priority
requests.
9. At the request of the administrator, removing students from the
open schedules if they have been given closed schedule interviews
or if their requests are rejected by the firms.
10. Correcting errors in the programs when problems arise. Any new
computer system will include errors, but as the programs are used
from year to year, these should arise less and less often.
11. Adding features to the program as these become necessary for the
operation of the placement office. This is generally time
consuming and the programmer should be given several months notice
when changes are needed.
Before the administrator can enter interviews for the first round, the
administrator must supply the programmer with the following pieces of
information.
1. The schedule of when the students will be allowed to use the
computer to make their requests for job interviews.
2. The times of the day at which interviews will start. If interviews
can be of different lengths, then there must be at least 1 profile
of starting times for interviews of each of these lengths. For
example, half hour length interviews might start at 9, 9:30, 10 and
so on with the final interview starting at 4:30. Hour length
interviews might start at 9, 10, 11 and so on with the final
interview starting at 4.
3. The type of bidding scheme which will be used to allocate
interviews with highly sought after firms.
Different types of bidding schemes can be used for different classes of
students, but the same bidding scheme must be used throughout the entire
interview season for any particular class. The types of bidding schemes
which are available are described below.
1. Each student ranks requests from 1 to N where 1 is the most
desired, 2 would be slightly less desired, and N is both the least
desired and the maximum number of requests which can be made. All
of the priority 1 requests will be allocated interviews before any
of the priority 2 requests, and so on. The failure to get a more
desired interview increases the chances of that student getting the
interviews which are less desired by that student.
Appendix B: Instructions for Using the JOBADM Program 59
2. Same as the above, except that the failure to get any interview
does not change the chances of that student getting other
interviews.
3. Each student can specify that some requests are to be given higher
priority than those made by the other students without this
priority. The administrator will use the JOBADM program to specify
the maximum number of high priority requests which each student can
make during the entire interview season.
4. Same as the above, except that the administrator specifies the
maximum number of high priority requests which each student can
make during each round.
5. Same as the above, except that the administrator specifies the
maximum number of high priority requests which each student can
make during each stage of each round.
6. Each student can place a bid upon each request. The amount bid,
however, is not returned to the student if a request cannot be
filled. The administrator will use the JOBADM program to specify
the maximum amount which each student can bid for a single
interview and the maximum total of all bids placed by each student
during the entire interview season.
This scheme can be similar to a cash auction if the maximum amounts
allowed are large, or can be a multi-tiered priority scheme if the
amounts allowed are small. For example, if the total amount bid is
set to 10 and the maximum amount which can be bid for any firm is
2, then the students in reality can make high (2), moderate (1) and
low (0) priority requests, but the number of high priority requests
made reduces the number of moderate priority requests which can be
made.
7. Same as the above, except that the administrator specifies the
maximum total of all bids placed by each student during each round.
8. Same as the above, except that the administrator specifies the
maximum total of all bids placed by each student during each stage
of each round.
The administrator runs the JOBADM program by logging into the
administrator account, and then typing
JOBADM
The program will respond by identifying itself. If the account from
which the administrator is running the program can be used to enter the
schedules for more than just 1 class, then the program will ask for the
administrator to identify the class. The question will be similar to
that shown below. The range of allowed class numbers will be displayed
enclosed within parentheses.
Set recruiter schedule for which class ( 84 thru 86)?
60 JOBS Interview Request System
The program will then describe the type of bidding which is allowed. If
this is the first time that the JOBADM program has been used this year
for the class which the administrator has selected, then the
administrator will be asked to specify the total number of interviews
and the total number of high priority requests or the maximum total
bidding allocation. If the JOBADM program has already been run this
year for this class, then the administrator will be shown the values
which were last specified for these limits and will be asked to verify
that these numbers are correct. If the administrator indicates that
these numbers are not correct, then the administrator will be asked to
specify each number in turn. If the previous value is correct for any
particular item, then the administrator can just press the RETURN key
when the program asks for the new value. The administrator will be
asked to specify the following items.
Number of interviews each student can request during entire season
Number of interviews each student can request during this round
Number of interviews each student can request during this stage
if students make high or low priority requests:
Number of high priority requests which each student can make
during stage, round or year, whichever scheme was selected
if students bid for interviews in an auction:
Maximum amount each student can bid for a single interview
and
Total amount each student can bid during stage, round or year
After the administrator has been shown the values which are listed
above, and has confirmed that these values are correct, the
administrator will be asked the following question.
WHAT NEXT?
The program will ask this question again each time that the program has
finished whatever the administrator last instructed that it do. The
administrator can press the question mark key and then the RETURN key to
obtain instructions when the program asks this question or any other
question. The administrator should respond to the WHAT NEXT? question
by typing one of the following commands.
ENTER to enter the schedule for another firm.
EXIT to save the schedules entered so far and exit. The
administrator can run the program again later to enter
additional schedules and modify existing schedules.
LIST to list on the terminal the numbers identifying the firms.
MODIFY and a firm number to modify the schedule for that firm.
PRINT to produce a disk file containing all of the scheduling
information for every firm.
SAVE to save the schedules entered so far. The administrator can
continue to enter additional schedules and modify existing
schedules.
SHOW and a firm number to display on the terminal all of the the
scheduling information for that firm.
Appendix B: Instructions for Using the JOBADM Program 61
The MODIFY and SHOW commands require that the administrator identify the
firm, and the particular division if the firm has several divisions
which are recruiting. Each firm, or each division if several divisions
are recruiting, is identified by a single number. If the administrator
does not know the number, then the word LIST can be typed in response to
the "WHAT NEXT?" question to display the list of firms. The number
which is required appears at the upper left corner of the description of
the firm. If the administrator does not type a number to the right of
the word MODIFY or SHOW on the same line, then the program will ask for
the number on the next line.
The commands which can be typed in response to the "WHAT NEXT?" question
are described in more detail below.
ENTER to enter the schedules for a new firm. The number which the
program will assign to the new firm will be the next number
which has not yet been used. In transferring from one round to
the next, the firm numbers are not reused but continue to
increase so there is no ambiguity about which firm corresponds
to a particular number. The administrator can cancel the entry
of the new firm and get back to the "WHAT NEXT?" question by
merely pressing the RETURN key when asked for the firm name, or
by typing 0 (zero) when asked for the number of schedules.
The entry of a new firm is described in detail later in these
instructions.
EXIT to save the schedules entered so far and then to exit. The
administrator can run the program again later to enter
additional schedules or to modify schedules already entered.
The changes to the schedules do not become known to the students
until and unless the administrator issues the EXIT, PRINT or
SAVE commands. The schedules can continue to be updated until
the deadline by which all of the students must have submitted
their requests. The administrator and the students must exit
from the programs before processing can begin. If the students
are to be allowed a second chance or stage in which to request
undersubscribed firms, then, after processing has been
completed, the administrator can resume entering new firms and
modifying firms already entered as additional information
becomes known.
LIST to type a short summary for each firm on the terminal. These
summaries include the code number for the firm at the upper left
corner. An example of one of these summaries is shown below.
Code: 40, Open slots: 26, Date: 2-Feb-84
Vampire Exterminators, Stake Driver, Transylvania
MODIFY and a firm number to modify the schedules for that firm. The
administrator will be shown the general information for the firm
and will be asked if this is correct. If the administrator
confirms that the general information is correct, then the
administrator will be asked for the number of any schedule which
is to be modified. When modifying the information about the
62 JOBS Interview Request System
firm or about the schedules, it is not necessary to retype the
values which are already correct. Just pressing the RETURN key
will retain the former value which is always shown enclosed in
parentheses in the request for the new value. The description
of the entry of a new firm later in these instructions contains
additional information about the items which can be changed by
using the MODIFY command.
If the length of the interviews is changed, then the profile
numbers and starting and ending times of each of the schedules
will have to be specified again. If the number of schedules is
increased, then the information for each of the new schedules
will also have to be entered.
PRINT to produce a disk file containing the same information as is
given by the SHOW command for all firms. This file can be typed
on a hard copy terminal or printed on the line printer.
SAVE to save the schedules entered so far. The administrator can
continue to enter additional schedules and to modify existing
schedules.
SHOW and a firm number to display all of the scheduling information
for that firm on the terminal. An example of such a report is
shown below.
Number: 40
Name: Vampire Exterminators
Division: Stake Driver
Location: Transylvania
Length: 30 minutes
Schedules: 2
Total: 26 interviews
1 to 2: 2*13 Interviews 2-Feb-84 9:00am to 4:15pm (Profile 1)
The bottom line in the example indicates that schedules 1 and 2
are identical, and that each contains 13 interviews being held
on February 2, 1984 with the first interviews starting at 9am
and the final interviews starting at 4:15pm. The starting times
of the interviews between these times are the times which are
defined by profile 1 for 30 minute interviews. The 2* before
the number 13 indicates that there are 2 identical schedules
being described in the bottom line.
ENTRY OF A NEW FIRM OR MODIFICATION OF AN EXISTING FIRM
----- -- - --- ---- -- ------------ -- -- -------- ----
When the administrator is entering a new firm, the program will first
ask the administrator to specify general information about the firm, and
then will ask the administrator to specify the schedule for each
recruiter on each day. After the administrator has entered the general
information and again after the administrator has entered each schedule,
the information which the administrator has just entered will be
displayed on the terminal and the program will ask for confirmation that
Appendix B: Instructions for Using the JOBADM Program 63
this information is correct. If any item in the information is wrong,
then the administrator will be asked to specify each item again, but the
administrator can just press the RETURN key to retain any value which is
correct and to advance to the next item.
If the administrator is modifying the information for a firm which was
entered previously, then the program will display the general
information for the firm and ask for confirmation that this general
information is correct. After the administrator has confirmed that the
general information is correct, then the program will ask for the number
of any schedule which is not correct. If all of the schedules are
correct, or when the administrator has completed changing the schedules,
then just the RETURN key can be pressed to display all of the
information for this firm. The program will ask for confirmation that
all of this information is correct. If it is not, then the program will
again display the general information for the firm and ask for
confirmation that this general information is correct, and so on.
The general information for each firm which the administrator will be
asked to specify includes the following items.
The firm name
The division name
A short address
The length of each interview
The number of schedules of interviews
The firm name must be specified, but the division name and the address
are not required. If the administrator does not want to enter a
division name or an address, then just the RETURN key can be pressed
without anything else having been typed. When modifying the general
information for the firm, a single asterisk can be typed in response to
the request for the division name or address to discard the previous
division name or address.
The length of the interviews must be one of those for which one or more
profiles of possible starting times has been made known to the program.
These profiles are easily changed but this should be done by the
programmer. The administrator can press the question mark key to obtain
a list of the possible lengths.
The number of schedules is equal to the number of recruiter days. If a
firm is sending 3 recruiters and they all are conducting interviews on 2
days, then the number of schedules would be 6. If 0 (zero) is typed in
response to the request for the number of recruiters, and if a new firm
is being entered, then the schedule for the new firm will be cancelled
and the firm number will be available for use by the next ENTER command.
If the information for a firm is being modified, and a smaller number of
schedules is typed than was originally specified, then the schedules
being abandoned are retained but are marked as being cancelled.
64 JOBS Interview Request System
The program will ask for the following information for each schedule.
The profile if there are several for interviews of this length
The date the interviews will be held
The starting time of the first interview
The starting time of the final interview
The starting time of any interviews which will not be held
If more than one profile of starting times is available, then the
program will ask which of these profiles is to be used. The
administrator can press the question mark key for a list of the starting
times represented by each profile. For the first schedule, the question
will include enclosed in parentheses the number of the first profile of
the proper length in the file which defines these profiles and this will
be the profile which will be selected if the administrator just presses
the RETURN key in response to the question. For the second and
subsequent schedules, the number which will be displayed enclosed in
parentheses and which will be used if the administrator just presses the
RETURN key will be the profile number chosen for the previous schedule.
The profile which is selected by the administrator will determine which
starting times are available. If the profile selected by the
administrator has interviews starting on the hour at 9, 10, 11, 1, 2, 3
and 4, then the first interview would normally be held at 9, but if the
particular recruiter is known to be arriving late, then the first
interview might be held at 10 or 11 or later. With this profile, the
final interview would normally be held at 4, but if the particular
recruiter is known be be leaving early, then the final interview might
be held at 3 or 2 or earlier. If a particular recruiter has other
commitments which conflict with interviews around the noon break, then
the interviews at 11 or at 1 or both might not be held.
The date when the interviews are to be held can be expressed in any
conventional notation. All of the following forms are accepted.
12 February 84
12Feb84
February 12, 84
2/12/84
12/FEB/84
12-FEB-84
When entering the information for the second and following schedules for
a new firm, the question about the date will include enclosed in
parentheses the date of the previous schedule and this will be the date
which will be selected if the administrator just presses the RETURN key
in response to the question.
The starting times of the first interview, of the final interview, and
of any interviews between these which are not to be held, can be
expressed in either the 12 hour system or the 24 hour system. If the 12
hour system is used, then the starting times of the interviews can be
followed by either am or pm as appropriate, but the following am or pm
is not necessary. If an interview starts on the hour, then the minutes
need not be included either. For example, if an interview starts at 2
in the afternoon, then its starting time could be specified in the 12
Appendix B: Instructions for Using the JOBADM Program 65
hour system as 2, 2:00, 2 pm, 2:00 pm, 2 p.m. or 2:00 p.m. or in the 24
hour system as 14 or 14:00. If an interview starts at noon, then its
starting time would be specified as 12, 12:00, 12 m, 12:00 m, 12 m. or
12:00 m., since noon is neither am nor pm.
When entering the information for a new firm, the questions about the
starting times for the first interview and for the final interview will
include enclosed in parentheses the first possible interview time and
the final possible interview time respectively. The times displayed in
parentheses will be the times which will be selected if the
administrator just presses the RETURN key in response to these
questions.
If several interviews are not to be held, then the starting times of
these interviews can either be specified on separate lines, or together
on a single line separated either by commas or spaces or both. If an
interview has been specified as being skipped but it is later decided
that this interview will be held instead, then its starting time can be
specified again as a skipped interview and this duplication will remove
it from the list of skipped interviews. If the starting time of the
first interview is indicated as being skipped, then the first interview
will start at the next available later starting time which is not being
skipped. If the starting time of the final interview is indicated as
being skipped, then the final interview will start at the next available
earlier starting time which is not being skipped. If all of the
interviews between and including the first and final interviews are
indicated as being skipped, then the schedule will be abandoned, but
will be retained and will be marked as cancelled. The administrator can
press the question mark key for a list of the possible starting times
and of those which have been indicated as being skipped. The
administrator must press the RETURN key an extra time when all of the
skipped interviews have been specified.
APPENDIX C
FILES INCLUDED IN THIS PACKAGE
----- -------- -- ---- -------
The distributed version of the interview request system contains the
following program and text files. Versions of the programs are included
for use on both the DECsystem10 computer and the DECsystem20 computer.
ADMHLP.FOR The FORTRAN source code which produces the help messages
which can be typed by the JOBADM program. This file is
produced by using the FORMAT program to process the
unformatted version of the messages in the ADMHLP.RNO file.
ADMHLP.RNO The unformatted version of the help messages which can be
typed by the JOBADM program. This file must be processed by
the FORMAT program to produce the FORTRAN source code which
can be loaded with the JOBADM program.
BLKD10.FOR The BLOCK DATA routine which must be loaded with the various
programs which read from or write to the central storage
account on the DECsystem10.
BLKD20.FOR The BLOCK DATA routine which must be loaded with the various
programs which read from or write to the central storage
account on the DECsystem20.
FORMAT.FOR The version of the FORMAT program which is needed to convert
the unformatted versions of the help messages in the
JOBHLP.RNO and ADMHLP.RNO files into FORTRAN source code.
JOBADM.FOR The interactive program which is used by the staff of the
placement office to enter the firm schedules.
JOBBIG.FOR The fast but large version of the first program in the
series of programs which process the requests. The JOBBIG
program must be used if the students rank their requests and
the failure of any request is to increase the probability of
getting the remaining interviews which are less wanted.
Otherwise, the JOBSLO program can be used instead.
JOBGRF.FOR A program which can be used to examine the proportion of the
students making various numbers of requests who actually get
interviews, and the proportion of the students who specify
time preferences who actually get interviews at these times.
JOBHLP.FOR The FORTRAN source code which produces the help messages
which can be typed by the JOBS program. This file is
produced by using the FORMAT program to process the
unformatted version of the messages in the JOBHLP.RNO file.
JOBHLP.RNO The unformatted version of the help messages which can be
typed by the JOBS program. This file must be processed by
the FORMAT program to produce the FORTRAN source code which
68 JOBS Interview Request System
can be loaded with the JOBS program.
JOBMOD.FOR The program which is used by the computer services staff to
change the state of interview requests made by particular
students.
JOBPSW.RNO A file which can be processed by the FROFF word processor,
together with one of the files produced by the RSMPSW
program, to produce form letters which can be given to the
students telling them what their passwords will be. The
description in this file of the account to be used will have
to be changed.
JOBPUT.FOR The program which splits up the composite interview request
file after processing has been completed and puts the
individual files back into the central storage account.
JOBS.CTL The batch control file for the DECsystem20 computer. The
batch job isn't necessary on the DECsystem10 computer.
JOBS.DOC This instruction manual. This is produced by using the
FROFF word processor to process the unformatted version of
the manual in the JOBS.RNO file.
JOBS.FOR The interactive program which is used by the students to
make their requests for job interviews.
JOBS.RNO The unformatted version of this instruction manual. This is
meant to be processed by the FROFF word processor.
JOBSCH.FOR The third program in the series of programs which process
the requests. This program produces the printed schedules
which are given to the students.
JOBSLO.FOR The small but slow version of the first program in the
series of programs which process the requests. The JOBBIG
program can be used instead of the JOBSLO program.
JOBSRT.FOR The program which can be used to sort the list of students
produced by the JOBBIG or JOBSLO program into the
alphabetical order of the students' last names.
JOBTIM.FOR The second program in the series of programs which process
the requests. This program assigns times for the interviews
and produces the printed schedules which are given to the
recruiters.
JOBTST.FOR A program which can be used to change the priorities of the
requests in the test file R2S199.002 to different values
chosen at random, or to change the scheme used for assigning
these priorities as well.
LIBALL.FOR Routines which are needed by more than just one of the
programs in this package, but which are relatively
independent of the particular computer being used.
Appendix C: Files Included in this Package 69
LIBD10.FOR Versions of routines which are specific for the DECsystem10
computer.
LIBD20.FOR Versions of routines which are specific for the DECsystem20
computer.
MACD10.MAC Assembly language routines for the DECsystem10 computer.
MACD20.MAC Assembly language routines for the DECsystem20 computer.
RSMPSW.DAT A file containing 5000 possible passwords which can be
assigned to the students using the RSMPSW program.
RSMPSW.FOR The program which can be used to assign passwords selected
from any arbitrary text file. This program was developed
for the student resume system which uses the same password
checking subroutines as the interview request system. The
RSMPSW program consists only of a main program and does not
use any subroutines. It contains simple OPEN and CLOSE
statements which will have to be changed for use on other
computer systems.
The following files can be used to test the programs in this package.
The account numbers or account name of the central storage account must
also be inserted into the BLOCK DATA routine before the programs can be
tested.
ACOUNT.JOB An example of the account validation file. This version
allows all accounts to be used for the demonstration class
999. This file contains 1 line which validates all accounts
for use by the administrator and 1 line which validates all
accounts for use by the students. Whichever line comes
first determines how the accounts can be used. Of course,
the lines which do this must be replaced before the JOBS
program is actually used by real students.
CURENT.JOB An example of the file which specifies the current round and
stage for each class. This version sets the round to 2 and
the stage to 1 for the demonstration class 999.
PSW999.JOB An example of a password file. This version is for the
demonstration class 999 and corresponds to the passwords
embedded in the R2S199.002 composite interview request file.
The number for the first student is 1 and the password is
TEST 1, for the second student the number is 2 and the
password is TEST 2, and so on.
R2S199.001 An example of the file which specifies the schedules for
several fictitious firms which are interviewing the students
in the demonstration class 999. This file should be renamed
FRM999.JOB when it is copied into the central storage
account.
70 JOBS Interview Request System
R2S199.002 An example of the composite file which contains the
interview requests made by several fictitious students in
the demonstration class 999. The JOBTST program can be used
to change the type of priority bidding specified within this
file and in the R2S199.001 file. The JOBPUT program can be
used to split the composite file into several separate
interview request files in the central storage account.
Each of these separate interview request files should have a
name similar to YYYYYY.999 where YYYYYY is the 6 digit
student number. Alternatively, a text editor can be used to
split up the composite file.
R2S199.003 An example of the file which specifies the profiles of the
starting times for interviews in each of the possible
schedules. This version specifies several profiles each 30
minutes long, several each 45 minutes long and several 60
minutes long. This file should be renamed TIMES.JOB when it
is copied into the central storage account.
R2S199.004 through R2S199.010
Files resulting from the processing of the files R2S199.001,
R2S199.002 and R2S199.003 which can be compared with the
results obtained on any computer to verify the working of
the processing programs in the interview request system. To
produce new versions of these files which can then be
compared with the original files which are included with the
interview request system, the value -1 must be specified
when the JOBBIG or JOBSLO programs ask for the kernel for
the random number generator. A negative kernel causes the
processing to be performed without randomizing the order of
the requests for a particular firm which have the same
priority or bid. A 30 minute minimum interval between
interviews should be selected in the JOBTIM program.
R2S299.000 through R2S299.010
The data and listing files for a second stage based upon the
first stage of the same round which is described in the
various R2S199 files. These files test the reduction,
modification and adding of schedules by the firms, and the
cancelling and making of requests by the students in a
second stage. The changes between stage 1 and stage 2 are
described in the R2S299.000 file.
The following command files are included for loading the programs in the
interview request system on both the DECsystem10 and DECsystem20
computers. The versions of these command files for the DECsystem10 and
DECsystem20 are identical except that the letters "D10" in the one have
been replaced by "D20" in the other.
ADMD10.CMD Command file for loading the JOBADM program on the
DECsystem10 computer.
ADMD20.CMD Same for the DECsystem20 computer.
Appendix C: Files Included in this Package 71
BIGD10.CMD Command file for loading the JOBBIG program on the
DECsystem10 computer.
BIGD20.CMD Same for the DECsystem20 computer.
GRFD10.CMD Command file for loading the JOBGRF program on the
DECsystem10 computer.
GRFD20.CMD Same for the DECsystem20 computer.
JOBD10.CMD Command file for loading the JOBS program on the DECsystem10
computer.
JOBD20.CMD Same for the DECsystem20 computer.
MODD10.CMD Command file for loading the JOBMOD program on the
DECsystem10 computer.
MODD20.CMD Same for the DECsystem20 computer.
PUTD10.CMD Command file for loading the JOBPUT program on the
DECsystem10 computer.
PUTD20.CMD Same for the DECsystem20 computer.
SCHD10.CMD Command file for loading the JOBSCH program on the
DECsystem10 computer.
SCHD20.CMD Same for the DECsystem20 computer.
SLOD10.CMD Command file for loading the JOBSLO program on the
DECsystem10 computer.
SLOD20.CMD Same for the DECsystem20 computer.
SRTD10.CMD Command file for loading the JOBSRT program on the
DECsystem10 computer.
SRTD20.CMD Same for the DECsystem20 computer.
TIMD10.CMD Command file for loading the JOBTIM program on the
DECsystem10 computer.
TIMD20.CMD Same for the DECsystem20 computer.
TSTD10.CMD Command file for loading the JOBTST program on the
DECsystem10 computer.
TSTD20.CMD Same for the DECsystem20 computer.
There is no command file for loading the RSMPSW program since the RSMPSW
program does not use any subroutines.
APPENDIX D
EXAMPLES OF THE LISTING FILES
-------- -- --- ------- -----
Examples of the listings which are produced during the processing of the
requests are shown in this section. The JOBBIG and JOBSLO programs
produce a listing of all of the students who have requested interviews
with each firm, and a listing of all of the student names, passwords and
identifying numbers. The JOBSRT program can be used to sort the listing
of student names, passwords and identifying numbers into alphabetically
increasing order based upon the student names. The JOBTIM program
produces a listing for each recruiter of what students that recruiter
will be talking to at what times during each day. The JOBSCH program
produces a listing for each student of the dates and times when that
student will be talking to the various firms.
Examples of the listings of student names, numbers and passwords are
shown on the next 2 pages. The first page shows an example of the
listing of the names, numbers and passwords of the students which can be
written either by the JOBBIG program or by the JOBSLO program. The
students appear in this listing in the order in which their requests
appear in the composite interview request file.
The second page shows an example of the listing of the names, numbers
and passwords of the students sorted alphabetically according to the
names of the students. The JOBSRT program produced this listing by
sorting the file shown on the first page which was produced by either
the JOBBIG or JOBSLO program and which contains this same information
for the students in the order in which their requests appear in the
composite interview request file.
74 JOBS Interview Request System
Class 999, Round 2, Stage 1 (printed 28-Jan-84 18:20)
2 Robert Smith TEST 2
3 William Johnson TEST 3
4 Jane Kim TEST 4
5 Richard Brown TEST 5
7 Nancy Jones TEST 7
8 Edward Anderson TEST 8
9 Thomas Williams TEST 9
10 Charles Cohen TEST 10
11 Peter Harris TEST 11
12 Ann Wilson TEST 12
13 George Moore TEST 13
14 Joseph White TEST 14
15 Susan Kelly TEST 15
16 Mark King TEST 16
17 Mary Evans TEST 17
18 Martha Jackson TEST 18
19 Daniel Sullivan TEST 19
20 Frank Lewis TEST 20
Appendix D: Examples of the Listing Files 75
Class 999, Round 2, Stage 1 (printed 28-Jan-84 18:20)
8 EDWARD ANDERSON TEST 8
5 RICHARD BROWN TEST 5
10 CHARLES COHEN TEST 10
17 MARY EVANS TEST 17
11 PETER HARRIS TEST 11
18 MARTHA JACKSON TEST 18
3 WILLIAM JOHNSON TEST 3
7 NANCY JONES TEST 7
15 SUSAN KELLY TEST 15
4 JANE KIM TEST 4
16 MARK KING TEST 16
20 FRANK LEWIS TEST 20
13 GEORGE MOORE TEST 13
2 ROBERT SMITH TEST 2
19 DANIEL SULLIVAN TEST 19
14 JOSEPH WHITE TEST 14
9 THOMAS WILLIAMS TEST 9
12 ANN WILSON TEST 12
76 JOBS Interview Request System
Examples of the listings of the students requesting particular firms are
shown on the next pages. In the first set of 2 examples, the students
ranked their requests from 1 through N where N is the number of requests
which are allowed in each round. The value of this ranking is shown in
the second column with 1 digit to the right of the decimal point. If a
type 1 priority assignment scheme were being used, then the fractional
portion of each ranking value would represent the adjustment made to the
higher valued (less wanted) requests for each request which the student
making that request did not get.
In the second set of 2 examples, the students could indicate that up to
a certain number of their requests were to have higher priority than
those made by other students without similar high priorities. The
letter A appearing in the second column indicates that the student
placed a high priority on the request. The letter B indicates that the
student did not place a high priority on the request.
In the third set of 2 examples, the students could bid for interviews in
an auction. The amount bid is shown in the second column.
The ruled line on each page indicates the division of the list between
those getting interviews and those on the waiting list. The first
person below the line would be the first to be offered an interview if
anyone cancels above the line. Blank lines appear above the ruled line
if the firm's interviews are undersubscribed.
Appendix D: Examples of the Listing Files 77
Code: 28 Firm: Castle Remodeling
Date: 1-Feb-84 Dept: Color Coordination
Adrs: Germany
1 1.0 Susan Kelly
2 2.0 Thomas Williams
3 2.0 William Johnson
4 2.0 Joseph White
5 3.0 Martha Jackson
6 4.0 Ann Wilson
7 6.0 Nancy Jones
8 7.0 Daniel Sullivan
9 8.0 Robert Smith
10 8.0 Richard Brown
11 9.0 Peter Harris
12 10.0 Mary Evans
13 10.0 George Moore
---------------
10.0 Frank Lewis
* by name indicates student was invited to closed schedule
- by name indicates student was invited, but is shown on open schedule
Class 999, Round 2, Stage 1 (printed 28-Jan-84 18:20)
78 JOBS Interview Request System
Code: 35 Firm: Fast Buck Surplus
Date: 6-Feb-84 Dept: Purchasing
to: 7-Feb-84 Adrs:
1 1.0 Mark King
2 2.0 Nancy Jones
3 4.0 Richard Brown
4 5.0 Frank Lewis
5 5.0 Joseph White
6 7.0 George Moore
7 7.0 Jane Kim
8 7.0 Robert Smith
9 8.0 William Johnson
10 9.0 Peter Harris
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
---------------
* by name indicates student was invited to closed schedule
- by name indicates student was invited, but is shown on open schedule
Class 999, Round 2, Stage 1 (printed 28-Jan-84 18:20)
Appendix D: Examples of the Listing Files 79
Code: 28 Firm: Castle Remodeling
Date: 1-Feb-84 Dept: Color Coordination
Adrs: Germany
1 A Susan Kelly
2 A Thomas Williams
3 A William Johnson
4 A Joseph White
5 A Martha Jackson
6 A Ann Wilson
7 B Nancy Jones
8 B Daniel Sullivan
9 B Robert Smith
10 B Richard Brown
11 B Peter Harris
12 B Mary Evans
13 B George Moore
---------------
B Frank Lewis
* by name indicates student was invited to closed schedule
- by name indicates student was invited, but is shown on open schedule
Class 999, Round 2, Stage 1 (printed 28-Jan-84 18:20)
80 JOBS Interview Request System
Code: 35 Firm: Fast Buck Surplus
Date: 6-Feb-84 Dept: Purchasing
to: 7-Feb-84 Adrs:
1 A Mark King
2 A Nancy Jones
3 B Richard Brown
4 B Frank Lewis
5 B Joseph White
6 B George Moore
7 B Jane Kim
8 B Robert Smith
9 B William Johnson
10 B Peter Harris
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
---------------
* by name indicates student was invited to closed schedule
- by name indicates student was invited, but is shown on open schedule
Class 999, Round 2, Stage 1 (printed 28-Jan-84 18:20)
Appendix D: Examples of the Listing Files 81
Code: 28 Firm: Castle Remodeling
Date: 1-Feb-84 Dept: Color Coordination
Adrs: Germany
1 2000 Susan Kelly
2 1000 Thomas Williams
3 1000 William Johnson
4 1000 Joseph White
5 800 Martha Jackson
6 300 Ann Wilson
7 200 Nancy Jones
8 100 Daniel Sullivan
9 100 Robert Smith
10 100 Richard Brown
11 80 Peter Harris
12 80 Mary Evans
13 80 George Moore
---------------
70 Frank Lewis
* by name indicates student was invited to closed schedule
- by name indicates student was invited, but is shown on open schedule
Class 999, Round 2, Stage 1 (printed 28-Jan-84 18:20)
82 JOBS Interview Request System
Code: 35 Firm: Fast Buck Surplus
Date: 6-Feb-84 Dept: Purchasing
to: 7-Feb-84 Adrs:
1 2000 Mark King
2 1000 Nancy Jones
3 300 Richard Brown
4 300 Frank Lewis
5 200 Joseph White
6 200 George Moore
7 100 Jane Kim
8 100 Robert Smith
9 100 William Johnson
10 70 Peter Harris
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
---------------
* by name indicates student was invited to closed schedule
- by name indicates student was invited, but is shown on open schedule
Class 999, Round 2, Stage 1 (printed 28-Jan-84 18:20)
Appendix D: Examples of the Listing Files 83
The listings on the next 4 pages were produced by the JOBTIM program and
show the schedules for the recruiters for each of 2 firms. The
interviews for the first firm were completely subscribed, so no blank
lines appear in the schedules. Although the second firm is willing to
speak to enough students to fill 2 schedules, the second schedule was
not necessary. When fewer than the offered number of schedules are
needed, no students are assigned to the excess schedules so that these
excess schedules can be cancelled easily.
84 JOBS Interview Request System
Code: 28 Firm: Castle Remodeling
Date: 1-Feb-84 Dept: Color Coordination
Adrs: Germany
Open schedule 1 of 2
9:00 am Joseph White
10:00 am Ann Wilson
11:00 am William Johnson
1:00 pm Susan Kelly
2:00 pm Peter Harris
3:00 pm Thomas Williams
4:00 pm Mary Evans
Class 999, Round 2, Stage 1 (printed 27-Jan-84 22:27)
Appendix D: Examples of the Listing Files 85
Code: 28 Firm: Castle Remodeling
Date: 1-Feb-84 Dept: Color Coordination
Adrs: Germany
Open schedule 2 of 2
9:00 am Nancy Jones
10:00 am George Moore
11:00 am Martha Jackson
1:00 pm Robert Smith
2:00 pm Richard Brown
3:00 pm Daniel Sullivan
Class 999, Round 2, Stage 1 (printed 27-Jan-84 22:27)
86 JOBS Interview Request System
Code: 35 Firm: Fast Buck Surplus
Date: 6-Feb-84 Dept: Purchasing
Adrs:
Open schedule 1 of 2
9:00 am Robert Smith
9:30 am Mark King
10:00 am Richard Brown
10:30 am Jane Kim
11:00 am Nancy Jones
12:45 pm Frank Lewis
1:15 pm George Moore
1:45 pm William Johnson
2:15 pm Joseph White
2:45 pm Peter Harris
3:15 pm . . . . . . .
3:45 pm . . . . . . .
4:15 pm . . . . . . .
Class 999, Round 2, Stage 1 (printed 27-Jan-84 22:27)
Appendix D: Examples of the Listing Files 87
Code: 35 Firm: Fast Buck Surplus
Date: 7-Feb-84 Dept: Purchasing
Adrs:
Open schedule 2 of 2
9:15 am . . . . . . .
9:45 am . . . . . . .
10:15 am . . . . . . .
10:45 am . . . . . . .
1:00 pm . . . . . . .
1:30 pm . . . . . . .
2:00 pm . . . . . . .
2:30 pm . . . . . . .
3:00 pm . . . . . . .
3:30 pm . . . . . . .
4:00 pm . . . . . . .
Class 999, Round 2, Stage 1 (printed 27-Jan-84 22:27)
88 JOBS Interview Request System
The listings on the next 2 pages were produced by the JOBSCH program and
show the individual schedules for 2 students. Even when the student has
several schedules on the same day, the JOBTIM program which assigns
times for the interviews leaves enough time for the student to get from
1 interview to the next. If, because of an irresolvable scheduling
conflict, a time cannot be assigned for an interview, then the listing
would instruct the student to contact the staff of the placement office
to schedule that particular interview. In practice, such conflicts are
extremely unlikely, however.
Appendix D: Examples of the Listing Files 89
Name: Richard Brown
Open interview schedule
31 Thumscrews Collection Agency, Enforcement, NYC
Wed 1-Feb-84 9:00 am to 10:00 am Schedule: 1
32 Pauper Bank and Trust, Loans, Boston
Wed 1-Feb-84 10:30 am to 11:00 am Schedule: 1
28 Castle Remodeling, Color Coordination, Germany
Wed 1-Feb-84 2:00 pm to 2:30 pm Schedule: 2
25 U-Wreck-Em Rent-A-Car, Fender Smoothing
Wed 1-Feb-84 3:00 pm to 3:30 pm Schedule: 2
36 Smugglers Imports, Bribery
Fri 3-Feb-84 9:15 am to 9:45 am Schedule: 1
35 Fast Buck Surplus, Purchasing
Mon 6-Feb-84 10:00 am to 10:30 am Schedule: 1
30 Honest Don's Used Cars, Sales
Mon 6-Feb-84 2:00 pm to 2:30 pm Schedule: 1
24 Sticky Floor Theaters, Popcorn sales, Hartford
Mon 6-Feb-84 3:30 pm to 4:00 pm Schedule: 1
Class 999, Round 2, Stage 1 (printed 27-Jan-84 22:29)
90 JOBS Interview Request System
Name: George Moore
Open interview schedule
28 Castle Remodeling, Color Coordination, Germany
Wed 1-Feb-84 10:00 am to 10:30 am Schedule: 2
32 Pauper Bank and Trust, Loans, Boston
Wed 1-Feb-84 11:00 am to 11:30 am Schedule: 1
25 U-Wreck-Em Rent-A-Car, Fender Smoothing
Wed 1-Feb-84 2:00 pm to 2:30 pm Schedule: 2
38 Monophonic HiFi, Advertising
Fri 3-Feb-84 10:00 am to 10:30 am Schedule: 1
37 Rat Race Jogging Apparel, Product Testing
Fri 3-Feb-84 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm Schedule: 2
30 Honest Don's Used Cars, Sales
Mon 6-Feb-84 9:00 am to 9:30 am Schedule: 1
26 Yellow Brick Pavers, Midwest
Mon 6-Feb-84 10:15 am to 10:45 am Schedule: 1
35 Fast Buck Surplus, Purchasing
Mon 6-Feb-84 1:15 pm to 1:45 pm Schedule: 1
24 Sticky Floor Theaters, Popcorn sales, Hartford
Mon 6-Feb-84 3:00 pm to 3:30 pm Schedule: 1
Class 999, Round 2, Stage 1 (printed 27-Jan-84 22:29)