HRINTERACTIVE

For all the hype and  Hoopla about the Internet, what after all is this e-Recruiting? Simply stated, it is leveraging the Web’s unique properties to achieve your hiring goals.

With the advent of the World Wide Web, there has been a paradigm shift in the ways companies recruit the world over. According to IDC Research, 96% of all companies will use the Internet for their recruitment needs. Forrester Research Institute also estimates , expenditure on Internet-based recruiting will be $ 7 billion. In the U.S., some companies claim 40% of new hires are from the Internet and 77% of Internet users who are seeking a change, use the Net to do so. As e-Recruiting has come up a long way India, but hardly any statistics are available. However even the most casual observer will concur that it is spreading very very fast. 

The Internet is an unique powerful communication medium and, as such, the most powerful recruiting tool available today. Online recruiting comes at an opportune time when new sourcing methods are desperately needed. Let’s examine in detail the significant advantages of Internet Recruiting.

Candidates who frequent the Net are generally of better quality. Those who use the Internet as a job hunting tool tend to be better educated and more computer literate than non-users. 

Cost-per-hire is significantly lower. There are three cost elements a] Direct cost b] Indirect cost  c] Manpower cost.

    Compared to traditional recruiting methods such as newspaper Ads, or career fairs, the cost of advertising on the Net is significantly lower; in fact usually a fraction of the print Ad cost. 

   You save a lot on indirect costs such as courier, phone calls, [specially,long distance calls] and stationery. In most cases, the Internet can effectively substitute costly traditional communication media.

    Savings on Manpower cost of your staff too is significant. Laborious, time-consuming opening of envelopes, manual sorting of resumes, filing, these are all done away with the advent of electronic resumes. 

Telescoping Recruiting Lead Time

Enlarged Candidate Pool

Phenomenal Geographical Reach  

The Web knows no geographical boundaries. The entire globe is your audience. The Internet is specially useful if you are sourcing overseas talent and that too from multiple countries. For a position based  in Malaysia, a candidate was sourced from Saudi Arabia and recruited in less than 2 weeks.

An Unique Communication Medium.

  The expansive nature of the Internet facilitates addressing lengthy communications to the target audience. Really good candidates invariably have a whole lot of questions about the prospective employer, KRAs, portfolio, career prospects, etc. Elaborate information difficult to pack in a print Ad but so easy to upload on the Net.

    Recruiting through the Net enhances a company’s image and gives it a ‘professional’ touch.

 The interactive capability of the Internet facilitates instantaneous two-way communication and  engages a job seeker through the provision of relevant ‘links’. 

 It’s a very convenient 24 x 7 medium that can be used anytime, anywhere. Also adds to efficiency. 

   Enables employees and jobseekers to be more specific about their needs.

Streamlines Hiring Process  

Resumes can be formatted to be received in a standard format. Resume summaries as per the desired fields can be arranged and printed in minutes. Applicant tracking is simple and more efficient.  

To understand the true potential of the Internet and what it has already achieved, we will need to turn our gaze to the land which gave birth to the WWW, the U.S. Developments in the U.S. lend a useful perspective to the evolution of e-Recruiting in India. There are over 500 job-sites in the U.S. Niche-industry sites, national sites, regional sites, and domain sites. By 2002, these are expected to grow to 1,200. The country’s top site (as of December 2000) listed around 5 lakh jobs, housed some 6.5 million resumes and registered 11 million jobseekers  - astronomical figures indeed. Certain sites are multi-posting sites capable of broadcasting a single job post to over 700 sites simultaneously. Yet others are infomediary sites that occupy a different space.  

As per a recent research conducted by a U.S. based company, i

 Multi-language capabilities to accommodate the increasingly diverse and global workforce.  Online interview scheduling.  Ex-employee alumni programs posted on the corporate Website.  Feedback to jobseekers on the status of their application and candidacy throughout the recruiting process.  New interactive multimedia assessment methods including game/role-playing formats. Real-time recruiting functionality extended into wireless devices by Application Service Providers (ASPs).  “CRM (Customer Relationship Management) style” one-to-one recruiting through personalised messaging and communications.  New metrics, analytics and benchmarking tools for management to measure success and align corporate recruiting results with corporate business strategy.

er a recent research conducted by a U.S. based company, i

Multi-language capabilities to accommodate the increasingly diverse and global workforce.  Online interview scheduling.  Ex-employee alumni programs posted on the corporate Website.  Feedback to jobseekers on the status of their application and candidacy throughout the recruiting process.  New interactive multimedia assessment methods including game/role-playing formats. Real-time recruiting functionality extended into wireless devices by Application Service Providers (ASPs).  “CRM (Customer Relationship Management) style” one-to-one recruiting through personalised messaging and communications.  New metrics, analytics and benchmarking tools for management to measure success and align corporate recruiting results with corporate business strategy.

FUTURE TRENDS IN e-RECRUITING