The Internet is
transforming corporate recruiting. In the US, Monster.com alone hosts 18 million
résumés (13 percent of the U.S. labour force),and on any given day, several
million people are busily combing its site.And Monster.com is not alone; there
are now thousands of websites offering job listings both there and here in
Nigeria.
Some 90 percent
of companies now recruit online—and for very hard-headed reasons. Online
recruiting lets firms target many qualified candidates for a job, screen them in
seconds, and contact the best ones immediately. It is only one-twentieth the
cost of vacancy ads in dailies!
The Web allows
managers to reach larger numbers of potential candidates, and in venues that
weren't available in the past. It also allows companies to pinpoint their
recruiting efforts and to set themselves apart from competitors through creative
electronic tactics.
But companies
that use the Internet solely as an extension of paper-based recruiting practices
fail to exploit the power of the new medium. Here are some current facts—and
some cautions too:
1. HR managers
always try to broaden the pool of candidates. In a drum-tight labour
market,companies use the Internet to reach both “active” and“passive”
candidates.Active candidates are those who post their résumés on online job
boards. Passive candidates—qualified workers happily employed elsewhere—make up
a larger and more appealing pool.
To reach passive
candidates, one or more HR personnel are dedicated to visiting and searching
through the websites frequented by prime candidates. For example, if a company
needs Java programmers, it considers the probable age and preferences of
potential candidates i.e. Mostly between twenty-two and twenty-nine years old,
they surf the Web heavily and are likely to visit several sites for information
on Java e.g. javaworld.com, Java Developer’s
Journal (www.javadevelopersjournal.com/java), gamelan.com etc.
These same
people might check lindaikeji.blogspot.com for the latest gossip and news, otekbits.com
for technology reviews, notjustok.com for music downloads and purchases, ESPN.com
for sports, and CNN.com for news. Every one of these URLs accepts banner
advertisements—banners that could be used to recruit candidates who hadn't given
much thought to leaving their current jobs.
2. HR managers focus
on the best sources. One lesson they are learning as they pursue online
recruiting is that simply posting job openings on their company’s website or on
big commercial boards such as jobberman.com, naijahotjobs.com, or jobsinnigeria.com,
is unlikely to yield the right candidates quickly—or at all. The reason is that their
message is likely to be lost in the crowd.One way to boost the odds of success
is to target smaller sites. So job seekers should do the same too.
3. HR managers set
their firms apart. When talent is in short supply, an employer must adapt
marketing logic to its recruiting effort. In effect, it must approach qualified
potential recruits as “customers.”And the first step in marketing is
differentiation.
Employers are
coming up with clever uses of the Internet to differentiate themselves from
competitors. Some companies add a link to credible job sites on their websites. Others
sport résumé builders on their sites. Fidelity Bank Plc, for example, offers a
fill-in-the-blank résumé form on its site that encourages applicants to file on
the spot rather than go through the more complicated process of writing,
printing, and mailing a traditional résumé and cover letter. Some other
companies post forms that allow them to specify the information they want from
job seekers by inserting,for example, a field for “technical, manufacturing, or
computer-based skills.”
In conclusion, In
terms of quality of recruits, remember that online recruiting is a broadly cast
net. Unlike job postings in targeted publications,online postings are available
to all, regardless of qualifications.Thus, a posting on one of the mega job
sites might yield little more than a pile of résumés that will take HR managers
hours and hours to screen.This reality underscores the fact that the best
source of good people (for HR managers) is often referrals from their current
employees.
In sorting
applicants, HR managers know that online recruiting can produce a huge number of
résumés. The challenge is to sort through these quickly without tossing out the
choice candidates. Here is one quick solution they have come up with:
- Screening
applicants electronically with simple online questions,such as,“Are you willing
to relocate?” or “When could you start work?” Questions like these can screen
out the obvious mismatches.
- Precious
Ohaegbulam (@prsh9 / precious_ohaegbulam@yahoo.com)
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