How OptimalResume's online career tools are used in private-sector institutions.

1. Case Study
OptimalResume.com
at For-Profit Career
Colleges
December 21, 2010

2. Introduction
Over the last five years, OptimalResume.com has emerged as a leading provider of on-
demand software services to the for-profit college industry. This case study examines
how more than sixty for-profit career colleges now use a variety of on-demand career
services provided by OptimalResume.com.
It is our belief that for-profit clients extract more value from OptimalResume.com than
other institutions. We see evidence for this across a number of data points, including
higher account growth, superior user engagement, and more.
Consider that the average user at a for-profit career college spends 30.3 minutes logged
in to their OptimalResume.com account, and returns on average 4.5 times each year.
Therefore, OptimalResume.com provides the average user at a for-profit career college
with more than 2 hours of online career assistance each year.
With more than 188,000 active users at for-profit career colleges, OptimalResume.com
delivers nearly 400,000 hours of virtual career assistance to the for-profit college
industry on an aggregate basis each year.
In this case study, we explore why OptimalResume.com has become a leading provider
to the for-profit college industry and seek to answer the following questions:
1) Which for profit-career colleges use OptimalResume.com?
2) Which modules do for-profit career colleges use?
3) Do for-profit career colleges spend more time customizing their domains?
4) How do for-profit career college validate users?
5) What kind of account growth do we see at for-profit clients?
6) What is user engagement like at for-profit career colleges?
7) Do for-profit career colleges provide asynchronous resume review services?
Since taking on its first for-profit client in 2005, OptimalResume.com has maintained a
98.4% retention ratio with for-profit career colleges. This fact alone establishes the
tremendous value that OptimalResume.com delivers to for-profit clients.
All data contained in this case study refers to our on-demand software services that are
used by current for-profit customers. However, we do expect a significant percentage of
for-profit clients to migrate to the Career Services API when it becomes available.
We hope this case study will prove useful to University of Phoenix and further
partnership discussions with OptimalResume.com.
1. Which for-profit career colleges use OptimalResume.com?
At the corporate level, more than twenty for-profit corporations currently use
OptimalResume.com to provide online career services, including but not limited to:
Alta Colleges
American Career College, Inc.
Antonelli College Corporate

3. Career Education Corporation (CEC)
Corinthian Colleges
EDMC Education Management Corporation
EDMC Online Education Management Corporation
Education Corporation of America
Intellitec College
ITT-Tech
Lincoln Educational Services
TCS Education
Many of these for-profit clients manage a number of specialized domains to meet the
specific needs of their institution.
For example, Career Education Corporation (CEC) manages twelve niche domains:
American InterContinental University Online
Briarcliffe College
Brooks Institute
Brown College
Career Education
Collins College
Colorado Technical University
Harrington College
International Academy of Art and Design
Le Cordon Bleu Schools of North America
Missouri College
Sanford Brown
On each of these specialized domains, domain content has been customized to meet
the needs of a particular audience.
For example:
Sanford Brown has been customized for healthcare students (Appendix A).
Le Cordon Bleu has been customized for culinary students (Appendix B).
Harrington College has been customized for interior design students (Appendix
C).
International Academy of Art and Design has been customized for design
students. (Appendix D).
Typically, these customizations include 1) domain appearance, 2) instructions, 2)
document styles, 3) document samples, 4) section examples, 5) interview question
samples, and more.
Lincoln Educational Services manages eighteen unique domains with more of a
geographic distribution of services:

4. Lincoln Technical Institute East Windsor
Euphoria Institute
Lincoln College of New England
Lincoln College of Technology
Lincoln College Online
Lincoln Educational Services Connecticut
Lincoln Educational Services - Indianapolis
Lincoln Technical Institute
Lincoln Technical Institute Connecticut
Lincoln Technical Institute Florida
Lincoln Technical Institute - Maryland and Pennsylvania
Lincoln Technical Institute Massachusetts
Lincoln Technical Institute - New Jersey
Lincoln New Jersey
Lincoln Technical Institute Northeast
Lincoln Technical Institute Pennsylvania
Lincoln Technical Institute - South
Southwestern College
Lincoln Education Services launched the first of these eighteen co-branded domains
early in 2009 (Appendix E), and it has continued to add new domains with the success of
the program. Other for-profits career colleges have taken a similar, stepwise approach to
roll out as well.
Overall, our on-demand software services have the flexibility to meet the needs of a
diverse for-profit audience. Other for-profit career clients include:
Westwood College Online
American Career College
West Coast University
Antonelli College
Antonelli College Mississippi
Everest College (Canada)
Everest College (US)
Heald College
WyoTech
Argosy University
Brown Mackie College
South University
The Art Institutes
Argosy University Online
Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online
South University Online
Golf Academy of America
Virginia College
Intellitec College - Colorado Springs
Intellitec College - Grand Junction

5. ITT-Tech (Atlanta)
Bryant & Stratton College
Chancellor University
Jones International University
Keiser University
Rasmussen College
Pacific Oaks College
Santa Barbara Graduate Institute
The Chicago School of Professional Psychology
Because we have signed confidentiality agreements with several for-profit career
colleges, not all for-profit clients are listed here. However, it is easy to see that
OptimalResume.com serves a very broad group of for-profit career colleges, from trade
programs to graduate programs and everything in between.
2. Which modules do for-profit career colleges use?
Our on-demand software services provide for-profit clients an a la carte selection of
career modules that are deployed on attractive, co-branded domain, such as
https://coloradotech.optimalresume.com/.
In the image in Appendix F, selected modules are outlined in the red box on the left.
-
Resume
Letter
Interview Preparation
Video Resume
Portfolio
Skills Assessment
Website
Job Board
In addition, tw - available:
WebCast
WebChat
For an extensive list of which for-profit career colleges subscribe to which
OptimalResume.com modules, see the chart in Appendix G. Again, all for-profit clients
are not included due to confidentiality constraints.
Overall, we see for-profit career colleges rely heavily on our on-demand software
services:
59% of for-profit career colleges license all career modules
90% of for-profit career colleges license more than 6 modules
The minimum number of modules for any for-profit career college is 4 modules

6. In terms of specific module usage, we find that all modules are relatively popular with
for-profit clients (Appendix H).
However, 100% of for-profit clients use these modules:
Resume
Website
WebCast
WebChat
Resume is our gold standard product. It not only improves overall resume quality, but
also it offers a major productivity gain for most clients:
A recent survey of 101 campus recruiters at University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill rated the quality of student resumes from the system a 4.47 on a 1-5
scale.
More than 16,000 public users voted OptimalResume.com 4th out of 600 online
job and career tools in the Department of Labor
Challenge.
Consider the following client testimonials about Resume:
The advising staff use to spend an incredible amount of time counseling
students regarding the first steps in creating an effective resume now Optimal
Resume does that work for us! And, the feedback from students and employers
alike has all been very positive. We simply could not be any happier with this
Caitlin Blasco, Bentley College
superior resumes, taking much less time to critique and correct, as compared to
resumes Marcia Harris,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Barbara Efird, Peace College
hen we meet one-on-one with the students, they have an initial draft of a
resume so our counseling sessions can begin with focusing their resume and
presentation toward specific employers rather than focusing on the nuts and bolts
of how to go about creati Ronald Hayes, Culinary Institute of
America
We find ourselves able to serve more students with greater efficiency a win-
Maureen McCartney, Westfield State University
ility with which they can create job hunting
documents and that Optimal's tools allow them to present themselves as savvy
job hunters with technological expertise. Maralyn Kinch, Montclair State
University
Website is popular because it helps users manage their personal brand online.
WebChat and WebCast facilitate communication between students and career advisors.

7. Other modules see excellent penetration with the for-profit clients audience as well:
Letter has 95% penetration
Interview Preparation has 85% penetration
Portfolio has 75% penetration
Job Board has 72% penetration
Video Resume and Skills Assessment have 69% penetration
Current for-profit clients have very positive things to say about the impact of
OptimalResume.com:
have been using Optimal Resume with Rasmussen College for
about two years and can find NOTHING wrong with it! It is a great tool for our
students to use, especially our digital design students. They are able to upload
their work into an online portfolio and give employers a chance to "get a gander"
at their work before an interview! All I can say is I love it as a teaching tool!
Sheila Stiles, Rasmussen College
resume for their introduction with a link added to their online portfolio employers
and students I have followed through the process have all given high marks to
component is exceptional, and in addition the Optimal program allows a student
to create several other components such as a video resume that I suggested
students use for their "elevator speech" which can then be added to their
Betsy Richards
Finally, 90% of for-profit career colleges participate in ResumeGPS , a unique
employer-facing program that combines resume searching and online interviewing
capabilities.
3. Do for-profit career colleges spend more time customizing their domains?
To investigate whether for-profit career colleges spend more time customizing their
domains than other institutions, we asked our client services team to review their CRM
implementation notes and rate the amount of customization effort for each domain.
They scored each domain on a scale of 1
maximum
For a complete list of all scores, please visit Appendix I.
The average score for for-profit career colleges was 6.37, compared to a global average
of 3.46, which suggests that for-profits are indeed more focused on customizing the user
experience. Though this data is subjective, it makes sense, in that for-profit career
colleges are under more pressure to see a positive return on investment from the
software.
4. How do for-profit career college validate users?

8. Each for-profit client controls user access on its domain. There are a variety of user
validation methods from which to choose:
LDAP
SSO
Unique Access Code
Email Validation
IP Validation
Partial Email Validation
Shared Access Code
Despite the large number of options available, current for-profit clients rely exclusively on
two of these validation methods: 1) Shared Access Code and 2) Email Validation
(Appendix J).
We see the following distribution on for-profit domains:
84% use a Shared Access Code
16% use Email Validation
According to our client services team, for-profit career colleges use these two methods
because 1) they are simple to implement and 2) they do not require internal IT
resources. Moreover, it is easy to add more shared codes or email extensions if needed.
Both methods work well for clients who want to launch quickly.
5. What kind of account growth do we see at for profit career centers?
As a group, for-profit career colleges see excellent account growth.
For confidentiality reasons, cannot disclose usage statistics for any specific client.
However, we can share aggregate data trends, which are very informative:
The average for-profit career college has been an OptimalResume.com client for
20.2 months (range 1 to 56 months).
The average monthly account growth rate is 46.3% (range 10% to 389%).
The average number of new accounts added each month on a given domain is
156 accounts (range 2 to 1510).
In addition, we see sustained high account growth at for-profit career colleges. Examples
include:
One for-profit career college currently has 46,250 accounts and retains a 30%
average monthly account growth rate (Appendix K)
Another for-profit career college has 18,743 accounts with a 21% average
monthly account growth rate. In fact, account growth on this domain has
increased dramatically in the last several months (Appendix L).
A newer for-profit client is currently in a high-growth phase with a 63% average
monthly account growth rate and 10,109 accounts (Appendix M).

9. Most likely, there are a number of factors that contribute to the sustained, high account
growth rates at for-profit career colleges. One factor appears to be the high level of
customization on for-profit domains. Other factors may include: 1) the degree to which
for-profit career colleges integrate OptimalResume.com in their curriculum, 2) the broad
appeal of the product line to a large audience, and 3) the motivation level of students
and alumni at for-profit colleges to find employment.
Many institutions have integrated OptimalResume.com into the classroom experience.
Consider the following examples:
love the tools and several of our academic departments have found great
Maureen McCartney, Westfield State University
our 6th quarter students in the Career Development Class. The ease and good
functionality, along with great looking resumes our students were able to
Josephine Smith,
Associate Director of Career Services from Pittsburgh Technical Institute
and I rec
in, choose a style, and send it to me for proofing - Diane
Rogowski, Jamestown Business College
ness
Administration now has all OptimalResume.com modules! I'll be integrating them
all in my Career Development I and II courses. The video component is different,
and takes branding to a whole new level. We want our students to be at that level
with an "
Toledo College of Business Administration
Our software is highly relevant for job seekers of all levels, which is essential for for-
profit clients with a diverse user base:
Resume has been an excellent tool for individuals who have never
created a resume as well as those with executive backgrounds. All modules
within Optimal Resume have been helpful to many customers in one fashion or
another, including the resume website, which can create a WOW factor when
presenting to an employer. Jo Ann Gallup, Pasco Hernando Workforce Board
field, action verbs they can use on their resume, and many different options for
- Jessica-Lee Marino,
Centenary College
We discuss user engagement at for-profit career colleges below.
6. What is user engagement like at for-profit career colleges?
For confidentiality reasons, cannot disclose login statistics for any specific client.
However, we can share aggregate data trends, which highlight how important

10. OptimalResume.com has become in the delivery of online career services at for-profit
institutions:
The average for-profit user spends 30.3 minutes logged in to their
OptimalResume.com account (range 10.46 45.78 minutes, Appendix N).
The average for-profit user returns to his or her account 4.5 times per year
(range 1.5 10.09 return visits, Appendix O).
Therefore, OptimalResume.com provides the average for-profit user with more than two
hours of online career assistance annually.
In addition, users at for-profit career colleges heavily attend our National Webinars,
which are held on a daily basis and cover a variety of career-related topics. Overall, for-
profit users account for 43% of total monthly webinar attendance, which is
disproportionately high, given that for-profit users represent only 10% of total
OptimalResume.com user base.
7. Do for-profit career colleges provide asynchronous resume review services?
Yes!
In fact, 100% of for-profit career colleges have enabled the administrative Review Center
that enables users to submit any document or interview practice for review.
Each for-profit career college has some number of career advisors that manage their
Review Center, providing asynchronous feedback to users. Some institutions provide
feedback only, while other institutions provide full document editing services.
Recent user polling data indicates that users want a rapid turn around on documents
submitted for review:
56%
43% of users need to finish their resume by the end of the day; 31% need to
finish by the end of the week
78% of users expressed strong interest in receiving a
within three hours of submission
77%
(resume editing services) within 24 hours of submission.
Surprisingly, the data shows little interest in synchronous review services.
OptimalResume.com will soon offer outsourcing of resume review services for interested
for-profit clients.
Conclusion
OptimalResume.com has emerged as a leading provider of on-demand software
services to the for-profit college industry. Our flexible, on-demand software services are
used by more than twenty for-profit corporations and sixty for-profit career colleges. The

11. tremendous value we add is evidenced by our 98.4% retention rate with for-profit clients
over the last 5 years. OptimalResume.com sticks because it works.
Our users are engaged because we provide the highest quality online career tools on
the market. Our software is highly rated by both users and site administrators alike, and
and the United States Department of Labor. There may be alternatives to
OptimalResume.com, but there are no substitutes.
The average for-profit user revisits OptimalResume.com 4.5 times per year and spends
more than 2 hours per year logged in to their OptimalResume.com account. In that brief
period of time, users work on documents and skills that are going to have a direct impact
on the outcome of their job search. We think these are two of the most important hours
Today, more than one thousand career centers trust OptimalResume.com to help their
students reach career success. For a large institution like University of Phoenix,
OptimalResume.com can deliver hundreds of thousands of hours of on-demand career
assistance to its users every year. We think the value-cost tradeoff of providing our
proven services is undeniable, and hope University of Phoenix does as well.
We hope this case study has been useful for University of Phoenix. We look for forward
to continuing our discussions and a successful future partnership together.

12. Appendix A
Appendix B

13. Appendix C
Appendix D

14. Appendix E
Appendix F

15. Appendix G
*Does not include all for-profit clients

16. Appendix H
Appendix I

17. Appendix J
Appendix K

18. Appendix L
Appendix M

19. Appendix N
Appendix O