The Key to Online Recruitment
Fortune
By Dody Tsiantar
March 17, 2008
Anyone looking for a job in Palm Beach County this month can attend a job fair without leaving home; a suit and tie are not required. Fuzzy pajamas and fluffy slippers do just fine. At this fair and dozens of others like it around the country job seekers browse through an array of virtual booths and exhibits, distribute their resumes to
dozens of companies, and even apply for job opportunities on the spot, simply by clicking away on their laptops.
"The 24-hour access makes it much easier for those job seekers who attend classes or have daytime jobs," says
Kathryn Schmidt of the Workforce Alliance, the host of Palm Beach's online job fest. The Internet has
revolutionized how people find jobs and how companies fill them. Paper applications, classified ads, even
conventional job fairs are becoming an anomaly in a recruiter's toolbox, replaced by electronic job boards, social
networking sites like Linkedin, and blogs.
These days, prospective employees might be wooed via text messages, screened through online surveys, and interviewed using videoconferencing technology. "It's no longer enough to post a job and wait for resumes," says Susan Heathfield, a consultant and editor of Aboutcom's human resources site. "The newest recruiting tools are online." Websites, such as Monster.com, Careerbuilder.com, and Jobster.com, among others, lead the brigade of virtual recruiters. These sites give employers instant access to thousands of resumes, and their sophisticated search engines help them zero in on the most suitable prospects. Some sites, like JobFox.com, even act as electronic matchmakers pairing candidates to appropriate jobs. And such sites are increasingly offering bell-and-whistle features like instant messaging to cut to the chase faster.
But for every online posting, employers can count on receiving resumes from dozens, sometimes hundreds, of
unqualified job applicants. Sifting through the thicket of inquiries to find the most promising candidates can be
time-consuming and costly.
To combat this problem, many companies have started using customized online questionnaires that can pinpoint, within seconds, the applicants with the behavioral traits they want in their employees. "This allows for an almost instantaneous assessment to help narrow the pool of qualified candidates," says Aron Ain, CEO of Kronos, in Chelmsford, Mass. The end result: better employees and cost savings over the long haul. Kronos client Craig Heide, senior director of human resources and recruiting for Caribou Coffee, figures that Kronos's product helped his 475-store chain reduce turnover by 10% to 15%.
Another drawback to online job boards: they mostly attract people who are actively looking for work a group. That the Department of Labor says comprises only 16% oft he workforce. And active job seekers, say recruiters, aren't always the best candidates in the employment pool. "Everyone thought that online job sites were the silver bullet," argues Stephen A. Lowisz, president and CEO of Qualigence, a recruitment research firm in Livonia, Mass. "You've only scratched the surface when you're going after the 16% that are actively looking."
Qualigence's solution: sophisticated research and detective work, which provides clients, like Whirlpool and Cisco Systems, with a targeted list of qualified candidates, including many who are not necessarily looking for work. Another approach: Joseph Caruso of the National Retail Federation nests job postings, classified ads of sorts, in the organization's daily email newsletter sent to 20,000 members, most in mid- to senior-level positions.
"We have all those eyeballs that recruiters are dying to find," he boasts.
In the new virtual world of recruiting, even old-fashioned methods, albeit with a modern twist, still work.
–Dody Tsiantar
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