State Universities Retirement System of Illinois (SURS) Request for Proposals
Information Technology Recruiting for Contract to Hire Candidates
January 26, 2013 2 Table of Contents
I. RFP Summary Statement
II. Background Information
III. Scope of Services
IV. Qualifications
V. RFP Specifications
VI. Selection Process
3 State Universities Retirement System of Illinois (SURS) Request for Proposals January 26, 2013
Information Technology Recruiting for Contract to Hire Candidates
I. RFP Summary Statement
The State Universities Retirement System of Illinois (SURS) is soliciting proposals to provide Information Technology Recruiting and Consulting Resources on a contract for hire basis. A firm submitting a proposal is referred to as “responder”.
II. Background Information
Agency Background
SURS is the administrator of a cost-sharing, multiple employer public employee retirement system. SURS membership includes employees of the public universities, community colleges and other affiliated organizations. As of June 30, 2011, SURS membership totaled more than 213,000 active, inactive and retired participants. SURS maintains both a defined benefit and defined contribution plan.
SURS’ Annual Financial Report as of June 30, 2012 is available for download at www.surs.org.
Current Information Technology Infrastructure
SURS maintains a legacy custom application for pension administration on the IBM iSeries platform. The pension application has been enhanced with web facing applications for the members, employers and reciprocal retirement systems.
SURS recently replaced its electronic imaging system migrating to IBM Filenet 5.1 and IBM Case Manager.
SURS seeks to change the information technology path from the current iSeries infrastructure for the business application to an architecture which supports a more self-service vision and keeps IT current for the foreseeable future.
III.Scope of Services
The purpose of this Request for Proposals is to solicit proposals from one or more qualified firms to provide recruiting services to identify and place candidates within SURS technical resources who can be hired as SURS employees after a specified contracting period.
SURS desires to contract with an established vendor providing a high level of expertise in a wide variety of IT applications, systems and services. The proposer must demonstrate that it has the management and operational experience, financial resources, and personnel necessary to successfully perform the services specified in this RFP and any resulting contract.
4 IV. Duration of Contract
The initial contract will begin March 15, 2013 and end June 30, 2015 (approximately 27 months). After the initial contract period, any renewal of the contract must have beginning and ending dates within or coinciding with the SURS fiscal year (July 1-June 30). The contract should have annual renewable options of a 12-month contract for a maximum total contract terms of ten (10) years.
SURS reserves the sole right to renew agreements for any or all of the option periods specified, based upon its continuing needs and favorable market conditions.
V. SURS Goals for minorities, females and person with disabilities
SURS has established goals of 25% of its contracts to be awarded to minority, female and disabled businesses. SURS encourages diversity by having minority, female and disabled business enterprises compete for, and participate in, SURS contracts.
Information about your firm’s ownership status should be included in your submission.
SURS also has established goals of 20% of the employees being minority or disabled. SURS is very interested in receiving candidates for positions to assist in meeting these established goals.
VI. RFP Specifications
A. Schedule
The following schedule may be changed if necessary. If the schedule changes, affected responders will be notified by mail. In no event will the dates listed below be changed to earlier dates.
RFP issuance on: 01/25/2013 Proposals due: 02/22/2013 Preliminary decision announced: 03/01/2013 Contract negotiation begins: 03/01/2013 Contract effective date: 03/15/2013
5 B. Contract for Hire
The goal of this RFP and resulting contract with a(n) IT recruiting firm(s) is to extend our own recruiting capabilities to a group of candidates beyond our normal sphere of operation. SURS ultimately is looking to hire the job candidate(s) found by IT recruiting firm(s) as permanent employee(s). SURS plans to convert the candidates after a period the candidate is on contract. The RFP response should contain a table of periods for the conversion fee to be eliminated. Example: Tenure Suggested Fee (% of annual salary) 0-30 days 20% 31-60 days 15% 61-90 days 10% 91+ days 0%
Appendix I documents the various positions which may need to be recruited for during the engagement. SURS reserves the right to add new positions as needed.
C. Proposal Submission
In order to be considered for selection, proposals must be received via e-mail in Adobe Acrobat, Word, or Excel formats by Ms. Brenda Dunn at [email protected] no later than 4:30 p.m., on the due date listed above. Please reference the “2013 IT Recruiting RFP” in your proposal. An e-mail confirmation will be sent confirming receipt of the proposal.
Proposals will be confidential during the selection process. Upon completion of the selection process, all responses, including that of the firm selected, will be a matter of public information and will be open to public inspection, in accordance with the State of Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
D. Rights Reserved
This RFP does not obligate SURS to complete the RFP process. SURS reserves the right without prejudice to reject any or all proposals submitted.
SURS also reserves the right to remove one or more of the services from consideration for this contract should the evaluation show that it is in SURS’ best interest to do so. SURS may, at its discretion, issue a separate contract for any service or groups of services included in this RFP. SURS may also negotiate additional provisions to the contract awarded under this RFP.
SURS reserves the right to amend any segment of the RFP prior to the announcement of a selected firm. In case of such amendment, all respondents will be afforded the opportunity to revise their proposals to accommodate the RFP amendment.
There is no express or implied obligation for SURS to reimburse for any expenses incurred in preparing proposals in response to this RFP.
6 All materials submitted in response to this RFP will become the property of SURS. Materials received will be considered public information and will be open to public inspection, in accordance with the State of Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
E. Specific Proposal Contents
Any firm responding to this RFP must submit its proposal via e-mail in one electronic document. A specific outline must be followed in order to facilitate SURS’ review and evaluation of the responses received. A response to this RFP must include the following sections in the order listed:
1. Transmittal Letter 2. Expressed Understanding of the Services Required 3. Qualifications and Abilities to Meet the Required Services 4. Detailed Fee Schedule and Cost Projection
VII. Selection Process
The selection process under this RFP will be as follows:
A. Non-Qualifying Proposals
An Evaluation Team will evaluate each Proposal to determine if it was submitted in accordance with the requirements set forth in this RFP, including whether the Proposal meets all of the applicable minimum qualifications. Any non-qualifying proposals will be rejected at this time and the proposing firms so notified.
B. Selection of Finalists
The Proposals will be evaluated by an Evaluation Team that consists of the Director of Human Resources, Directors of Application Development and Operations and the Technical Support Manager.
C. Selection Criteria 1. Competitive pricing 2. Previous demonstrated experience in providing recruiting and consulting services 3. Scope of services to be provided 4. References 5. Diversity 6. Other criteria as determined by the selection committee
7 APPENDIX I
The following are brief position requirements for the types of technical positions which IT recruiter would need to place candidates.
STORAGE ADMINISTRATOR
5 years practical experience as NetApp Administrator using current versions of ONTAP 5 years practical experience as Netbackup Administrator supporting VMware, Windows, Linux Operating Systems 2 years' experience with Netapp products in a virtualized environment 2 years' experience with Dedupe, Thin Provision, Snapmanager for Exchange and Operations Manager 2 years' experience configuring NDMP (Direct and Remote NDMP) 2 years' experience performing Backups/Restores (including NDMP, SQL, Snapshots). 2 years' experience configuring Tivoli Key Lifecycle Manager In-depth knowledge of Data Deduplication. Strong knowledge of VMWare In-depth knowledge of iScsi, NFS and CIFS Fair knowledge of scripting SAN experience (specifically an IBM 2498) a plus
APPLICATION DEVELOPER
Minimum of 3 years experience in developing application systems with various programming languages and development tools Investigate and support business application processing Perform analysis of business applications Design solutions in response to requirements or business issues Fulfill project management responsibilities for assigned projects Develop, adapt, and convert program logic in an integrated environment to meet business, user and technical requirements Develop test plans and promote applications Perform quality assurance reviews of project deliverables Organizational interaction and project reporting responsibilities Consult with SURS management, personnel, and other developers concerning the requirements, analysis, programming and implementation of application systems Schedule, prepare agendas, and participate in meetings
8 APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT TECHNICAL ASSOCIATE
Minimum of 5 years experience in developing application systems with various programming languages and development tools Investigate and support business application processing Perform analysis of business applications Design solutions in response to requirements or business issues Fulfill project management responsibilities for assigned projects Develop, adapt, and convert program logic in an integrated environment to meet business, user and technical requirements Develop test plans and promote applications Perform quality assurance reviews of project deliverables Organizational interaction and project reporting responsibilities Consult with SURS management, personnel, and other developers concerning the requirements, analysis, programming and implementation of application systems Schedule, prepare agendas, and participate in meetings Instruct, train, and advise other team members in techniques and subject-matter principles and/or practices Research software, programming languages, packaged applications, etc. Develop proof of concepts using new software, tools or programming methods for evaluation. Develop initial production applications using new software or methods. Provides technical expertise for the department Lead meetings with users to define business requirements, issues with current system, future needs, and the impact changes will have Develop templates and documentation for production use of new methods and tools.
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