E-Recruitment-Boon or Bane?

~Monalisa Singh

 

A computer was something on TV
From a sci fi show of note.
A window was something U hated to clean
And ram was the cousin of goat.

Cut you did with a pocket knife.
Paste you did with glue.
A web was a spider's home.
                    
                                            and a virus was the flu
                                          I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper
                                       And the memory in my head.
                                   I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash,
                                  But when it happens they wish they were dead.

                                         by: James S. Huggins' Refrigerator Door

How I wish life could be so simpler where words meant what we knew them to be. But it is “Wishful thinking” at its best and I must admit it does please me to imagine a simpler world like that. However the times have changed, and so is the business practice.

Earlier assets meant Car, a building, your machines but never your employees. So at first you do get amused when you hear this statement, "Our assets walk out of the door each evening. We have to make sure that they come back the next morning."

But apart from providing amusement, this statement by Mr Narayan Murthy speaks tons about the changing face of organizations and the importance that is accorded to Human resource nowadays. Now the Human Resource is no longer considered a business requirement; rather it has become as one of the core assets of any organization.

Having bestowed such a great importance on human capital, it becomes critical for every organization to resort to means that offer quality recruitment solutions at competitive costs. This is where the realm of e-Recruitment starts.

In finer details E-Recruitment is the process of personnel recruitment using electronic resources, in particular the internet. Recent studies have shown a steady increase in the Global 500’s adoption of E-Recruitment via corporate web sites, growing from only 29% in 1998 to 60% in 1999, then to 79% in 2000 and 88% in 2001. The four years’ trend confirmed that most of these companies considered their corporate web sites to be a vital component of the overall recruiting process  and among these leading companies:-

·         89% have a career section on their corporate web sites.

·         75% post job vacancies on the career section of their corporate web sites.

·         74% post job vacancies and accept applications via their corporate web sites.

E-Recruitment Strategy

Uses the integration and utilization of internet technology to improve efficiency and effectiveness of the recruitment process. Most companies understand this and have begun the evolution by integrating e-Recruitment Strategy into their hiring process. Companies and recruitment agents have moved much of their recruitment process online so as to improve the speed by which candidates can be matched with live vacancies. Using database technologies, and online job advertising boards and search engines, employers can now fill posts in a fraction of the time previously possible. Using an online e-Recruitment system will save the employer time as usually they can rate the e-Candidate and several persons in HR can independently review e-Candidates.

The usage of internet has been picking up over the time. The tables below give you a clear picture of how much and for what purpose the internet is used currently in India and has reached a critical mass where it is hard to overlook, resulting in job advertising boards etc. But when the usage of the internet was going through its teens, the first wave of e-recruiting innovation came as the creation of carrer sections on corporate websites. The early innovators achieved great success with the status of “employer of choice” and they mostly enjoyed the improved recruiting efficiency that came with corporate website recruitment



Growth of Internet in 2011

Source:  ’India Online 2011’

By 2002, corporate web site recruiting has reached close to complete adoption among the largest corporation. The mere possession of a corporate career website was no longer sufficient to differentiate a company from its competitors.

Leading corporations started incorporating new and innovative solutions to maintain competitive advantages, particularly in the integration of front-end career web sites with back end data management system to complete an e-Recruitment solution.

Initial Recruitment Strategy:  Any organization has three strategies based on which they recruit candidates (Lee, 2005). They are profit strategy, dynamic growth strategy and managerial strategy respectively. Profit strategy is a very standardized strategy that is adapted by renowned organizations which have mature activities. The recruitment here is known as recruitment by profile where the positions are described explicitly and in detail. The second type of strategy known as dynamic growth strategy is adapted by organization in which activities are not mature but in growing stage. The recruitment process here is not formalized. This strategy takes into consideration candidates with high experience and expertise.  The final strategies by name managerial strategy are meant for start-ups (Hall and Hall, 2003). Here there is an open recruitment process. The organization here considers young and dynamic people with competence and passion towards work.

E-Recruitment

Goals of e-recruitment:  According to this model, there are three major goals of online recruitment namely; efficiency and processes, applicant relationship management and employer branding and reputation.   The first goal of the online recruitment model is to make the recruitment process cost effective (Lepak and Snell, 1998). The second goal is to maintain better relationship with the candidates applying for the job (Parry and Tyson, 2008). The third goal of the online recruitment model is to yield a better reputation and brand image for the organization adapting the model (Martin and Hetrick, 2006).

Type of E-recruitment: E-recruitment according to this model is based on three types by name relational, transformational and operational. Operational recruitment is meant for processing applications of candidates for a short term relationship.  Relational recruitment is for long-term relationships and characterized by features like feedback and personalization of messages of candidate.  The third type by name transformational e-recruitment is based on strategic e-recruitment. It takes into consideration global talent management strategy, recognizing the difficult positions, skills and knowledge needed for these positions and then attracting and retaining individuals who fit into the required profile (Foster, 2005).

Outcomes of E-recruitment:  The three major outcomes of online recruitment are high commitment, high congruence and cost effectiveness.  The online recruitment model should reduce the cost incurred by organizations in recruiting candidates. It must create motivation, and job satisfaction for employees. Finally the recruitment process must be congruent in such a way that it results in a organization with efficient workforce.

The balance tilts more in favor of R-recruitment when we start comparing the disadvantages of conventional process with E-Recruitment. 

Disadvantages of Conventional Recruitment Process:

Albeit the HR and Companies have done huge improvements in the field of recruitment and candidate selection over time, but still the conventional recruitment process is plagued by being costly and time consuming both for employers and job seekers. Below mentioned are some common issues:-

Factors Extrinsic to Organization

·      Globalization of business leading to increase in staff mobility.

·      Multiple candidate sourcing channels due to shortage of talent.

·      Economic downturn playing a role in increased volume of applications.

Data Handling

·      Applications filed in different formats, for e.g. mail, fax, email etc.

·      Incompatible source of information leading to cumbersome filing and retrieval processes.

Time Consuming Screening

·      Manual reviewing and screening of resumes consuming a lot of time.

Data Precision

·      Job board filtering technology not providing the job related information.

·      Candidates only telling you what they want you to know.

·      Interviewing unqualified candidates wasting huge amount of time.

No Centralized Database

·      No centralized database for information storage and retrieval

·      No data mining tool to locate candidates from previous hiring.

·      Unable to share resources with fellow companies; Candidates not suitable for one subsidiary may be  ideal for another.

Team Work

·      Lack of collaboration amongst colleagues within the hiring team

Control

·      Difficulty in keeping track of hiring costs and activities.

Resulting in

·      Increased administrative workload

·      Higher hiring expenses

·      Longer hiring lead time

Advantages of E-Recruitment Process:

Centralized Platform

·      Collects candidate information in a standard format.

·      Consolidates data from multiple recruitment sources.

Streamline Workflow

·      Automates workflow from job requisition to completion of the hiring process

·      Captures and files candidate information and history for future retrieval by all users of the system.

Better Communication & Increased Productivity

·      Shares knowledge and information between hiring team members online in real time

·      Collaborations with colleagues to increase productivity.

Less Paper

·      Electronically collects and files information to reduce paper usage.

·      Reduce manual administrative workload.

Candidates Pool

·      Locates qualified candidates within a private pool of talent with precision.

·      Centralized database collects and provides candidate information for various units and locations.

Centralized Reports

·      Provides consolidated HR reports for the entire organization.

Cost & Time

·      Improves productivity and reduces hiring expenses in the long run.

Seeing the advantages of E-Recruitment, one can unambiguously say that it’s a big boon for Human Resources and I feel that organizations which are still to adopt it, do need to examine and challenge their existing processes and strategy in an effort to benchmark themselves with their peers and timely identify the barriers to attracting and recruiting the best talent in a timely, customer-friendly and resource-efficient manner.