"Our system was conceived by a student who saw a problem in the recruiting process and found a solution for it," Longboy says. "eRecruiting.com was designed and tested for over two years in conjunction with career counselors from several institutions, which makes it a system that really was designed by the very industry that uses it."

In addition, Crimson Solutions' web site boasts that no hardware is required to run the system, initial training and 24-hour support is provided to all subscribers, and a login and a special address are given to each registered student to ensure security. eRecruiting.com also publishes placement statistics and student surveys as a service to its students, it says.

Longboy estimates that the number of students in the database hovers around 40,000, and Chao says there were "1 to 1.5 million hits to our web page" last year.

Right now, Harvard's OCS takes advantage only of eRecruiting.com's research capabilities.

Judy E. Murray, OCS Recruiting Director, says, "It opens up the ability to research twenty-four hours a day, allowing students to work beyond the office hours for OCS. They can research these companies at midnight, on the weekends. All the information is there and what the companies want. It is a tremendous benefit to students."

However, Longboy says there's still room for improvement.

Although the current focus of the two-year-old company, whose 10-person staff consists mainly of Harvard alumni, is "the career services offices at undergraduate schools," Longboy says, "We plan to include more business schools as well as law schools. In the future, we expect our system to be the number-one system used by colleges, universities, employers and students in the entire job recruiting process."

Chao, Crimson Solutions' founder and CEO, says, "We want to grow and serve a variety of different colleges, a diverse group. Right now, we are talking to colleges in the Midwest and West. In five years, we want to be a nationwide presence.