How Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Is Being Integrated with Office 365 to Aid in Recruiting

What happens when you combine  Microsoft Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online? 

You then have a tool that can be extended to tasks well beyond the marketing and sales functionality generally associated with Dynamics CRM .

In a demonstration at Microsoft's Convergence 2011, representatives of Microsoft and Tribridge LLC, a Microsoft partner, showed how the two applications could be used to automate key functions associated with employee recruiting and hiring.

Microsoft Office 365 represents "the next generation of cloud productivity" and is currently in beta, according to Fred Studer, a Microsoft marketing manager, who led the session.

In a demonstration, Tribridge representative Taylor Howard and Microsoft's director of U.S. Cloud Services and Office 365 Maggie Chan Jones took a hypothetical job application filled out on Facebook and showed how data coule be monitored via Dynamics CRM Online. The recruiting firm could use Microsoft Azure to distribute information about the job, and Lync could be used to carry out chats with potential job applicants. 

In terms of Dynamics CRM functionality, someone who applies for a job becomes the equivalent of a sales lead, and as they move through the evaluation process as candidates, are scored much as sales leads are.

Once an offer is made to an applicant, various components of Office 365 are used to write up an offer letter and create accompanying documents, Howard said. Those documents are easily accessible as new jobs are offered and new candidtates move through the job application process. 

The integration is aided by Microsoft Azure, "which is the glue that works with Facebook," said Jones.