Organizations use a variety of recruitment sources to attract applicants like direct applications, employee referrals, newspaper advertising, employment agencies, and executive search firms. Recruiting the right person to the right position is of crucial importance to the performance of every company. At the same time recruitments are expensive, difficult and time-consuming. Web based recruitment tools can be used to publish job postings, administrate applications, including spontaneous applications, and build up a CV Database.
This recruitment strategy includes identification of the right channels with a campaign that effectively summarizes the job requirements, company and community. A simple job posting in a publication or online career center is no longer enough — the employer also needs to market itself as a place the candidate would want to work and its community as a place the candidate would want to live. Companies often adopt online systems because they believe e-recruitment is more likely than traditional recruitment sources to uncover individuals with unique talents and skills. The logic here is that online recruiting systems permit firms to cast a wide net across a broad labor market and, therefore, may be more likely to reach high quality applicants than other sources.
Now job applicants are using online systems to search for jobs and gather information employment opportunities in organizations. Furthermore, e-recruiting may be particularly effective as we are searching for personnel assistant proficient with computer systems. Also, online systems can be used to attract passive job seekers who are currently employed, but are secretly searching for new and better employment opportunities. There has been increased volume of online applications because individuals often spend more time searching for jobs online as the process is simpler and faster than traditional systems. However, increasing the volume of applicants may also lead to increase in administrative burden in an organization and increase overall transaction costs over time.
Furthermore, some analysts have argued that e-recruitment through online systems allow employers to tailor their recruitment to specific labor markets through the use of specialized websites and job boards that target applicants with distinctive skills and backgrounds. Some candidates may be more receptive to e-recruitment and more likely to use the system than others. This is because candidates need to have an access to computers and have the skills needed to use the technology. As a result, online recruiting systems generally attract candidates who are well educated, have the ability to navigate the internet and are searching for relatively high level jobs. E-recruitment attracts individuals with higher achievement, drive, and persistence levels than traditional recruitment sources.
Effectiveness of E-Recruitment
Organizations use online recruitment systems for multiple purposes, including attracting candidates, communicating benefits about the organization, and assessing applicants’ knowledge, skills, abilities and other personality requirements. Some companies now use software to scan applicants CVs for keywords and provide them immediate feedback whether they are qualified for the job. Other organizations use online aptitude tests, personality inventories or simulations to assess candidates’ critical thinking and decisions making skills. Many firms conduct online interviews or allow candidates to submit video clips as part of their application process.
The e-recruitment system allows a large number of applicants to be screened quickly and efficiently. The growing use of these systems justify that the online assessment techniques may be much more objective and, therefore, less biased by non job related factors like age, race, gender, etc.
E-recruitment systems also allow companies to provide applicants with unique information about their company and give them a more realistic idea of what it is like to work for that organization. Some organizations allow candidates to observe the firm’s activities through virtual systems, and others use highly creative means of providing applicants with realistic job previews. Applicants can collect more realistic information from the websites rather than traditional sources because websites allow flexibility in gathering data that were relevant to them. They choose jobs and organizations that fit with their personal values, beliefs and attitudes. As a result, many organizations emphasize information about their strategic goals and culture so that applicants can make informed decisions about whether they will be satisfied with the organization. Another potential benefit of e-recruitment systems is that websites can easily be used to communicate vacancy characteristics like pay, benefits, perquisites, and advantages of working with the company.
Advantages and Disadvantages of E-Recruitment
E-recruitment is the process of using online software to attract people seeking employment and streamlining applicant qualified for the job objective. It is does not target a specific group of people, as that would consider being discriminating, however E-recruitment is likely to attract a younger generation as they are more aware of technology advancement, and up to date with social media and can easily adapt to new changes. Unlike the older generation, they are likely to do things the traditional way and most likely not to keep up with social medial but can still adapt to some aspect of technology advancement just not on the same level as the younger generation. Social medial is one of the ways on how E-recruiting generate information used when it comes to recruiting. when applying for jobs online candidate are often asked what social media do they use quite frequent, hiring manager uses this to promote their jobs and create awareness for their companies too, information are generated from social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.
E-Recruitment is process that has run more efficiently and effectively with dedicated online services and software systems, to reduce administrative and financial cost. E-recruitment covers more than just posting job ads online. It covers the complete hiring process, from drafting the job requirements to selecting the right applicant. The following are the advantage and disadvantage of using E-recruiting:
Advantages of E-Recruitment
- Wider reach: online recruiting reaches more and a larger target audience from a wide geographical background, candidates can be apply for jobs advertised from any part of the world with online recruiting. It also depends on what channel is being used to advertise the jobs. If it is through an agency it is like to limit the range of attraction because agencies have their own network, which may not be aware to everyone, but with the use of different advertising resources, such as Facebook, Indeed and LinkedIn, it would increase the chance of reaching out to a bigger audience globally and nationally.
- Low Cost: cost for online recruiting is much cheaper as compared to the physical recruitment process. Recruiting is regarded one most expensive process for businesses, it involves the actual cost of hiring a candidate and orientation. This is considered an investment and if an employee was to leave the organization before making the costs paid off in recruiting process, it is recorded as financial loss and the organization would have to go through all that process again. Online recruiting reduce cost and increase employee retention, which in return is a better investment. Online recruiting is cost effective, it minimize the labor cost involve in the process.
- Efficiency: online recruiting limits time wasting by selecting the right people that’s fit and matches the job requirement, this is done by matching applicants CV to the job profile
- Communications: E-recruitment allows direct communications for both employer and jobs seekers, which is much easier, and convenience rather than send application trough the post and waiting forever for reply.
Disadvantages of E-Recruitment
- Technical issues: with online recruiting it is possible information can be lost online meaning employers may miss out on candidates that may be qualified for the job
- Technology: as effective as technology may be not everyone is a fan of it; some candidates may prefer dealing face-to-face where they can get a straightforward answer and there’s always the possibility that application system may operate slowly submission process and people can easily lose patience.
- Security: it is hard to tell what website is real as there’s a lot of fake profile out there which can be misleading and personal information can end up been in the wrong hands, with the security of an online application.