Online e-recruiting expands job seekers’ prospects of finding work and saves companies money in the advertisement and selection process for top candidates.
Budget cuts are not only affecting the anxious college professionals and teachers in the education sector, worker shortages in government and the private sector are growing as well due to budgetary cutbacks. Worker shortages are becoming more prevalent with the retirement of the baby boomers, and increased labor disputes.
There is a great need for innovative approaches to recruiting and retaining new workers in state governments. This problem is compounded by the fact that recruitment is often a slow and cumbersome process for organizations and candidates alike.
Researchers Soonhee and O’Connor shed some light on the trends of e-recruiting in their 2009 article, “Assessing Electronic Recruitment Implementation in State Governments: Issues and Challenges,” published in Public Personnel Management in 2009. The following sums up some of their main points they shared in their findings.
Online E-recruitment Trends
E-recruitment of workers has become a popular way to reduce costs while attracting qualified candidates. E-recruitment is defined as the recruitment and selection of qualified candidates through internet search engines. This process is usually initiated from a company’s website or homepage.
The most obvious benefit to e-recruiting is in the cost saving benefits, and organizations are now adopting more flexible HR systems. Using e-recruitment software in search of top candidates helps companies with the following:
•Improving a corporation’s image and profile.
•Reducing recruitment costs.
•Reducing administrative burdens.
•Employing better tools for the recruitment team.
Advertising open positions on the internet also facilitates the recruitment of local, national, and international job candidates.
E-Recruitment Challenges
Some challenges that employers face with e-recruitment is in the quantity and quality of candidates using web-based tools. Organizations have reported getting a larger number of applications from unqualified candidates.
Furthermore, recruiting through the internet has also raised concerns about the privacy of candidates, and how secure their information is. Accuracy, verifiability, and accountability of an applicant’s data are also major concerns for managers whose organizations are using e-recruiting systems.
Moving Forward with Online Recruiting
The technological age has definitely impacted the way organizations recruit and hire qualified candidates. E-recruitment is fast becoming the wave of the future.
Despite the way that technology has shaped the way workers obtain employment, budgetary cutbacks in all sectors of the job market requires employers to reconsider their staffing needs, and workers to improve their job skills.
Sadly, job seekers who are not technologically savvy may have a hard time finding jobs due to the inability to apply for available jobs online.
Credit: Donna Kehl
