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Articles - Publication Date 10.16.2000
Log On For Recruits
The Internet revolutionizes how companies find qualified applicants, and how job seekers search for new opportunities.
By Pat Curry
Late one Thursday afternoon a hiring manager hands a human-resources staffer a job description scribbled on a napkin. The HR person puzzles it out, puts it into readable English, and calls a newspaper's classified advertising department to make the deadline for Sunday's employment section. The ad runs and the HR department waits for résumés to arrive in the mail or by fax. No phone calls, please.
Two years ago that was standard operating procedure for most companies looking for new employees. Today, as quickly as you can say, "Drag, click, paste, send," the job description from the rumpled napkin is posted on the Internet where its key words are searched by thousands of job seekers. The HR person comes to work the next morning with several résumés waiting for review in his or her e-mail. At minimal or no cost the ad runs not just one day in one newspaper but weeks or months online, and it can draw responses from a huge pool of potential employees.
Internet-based hiring sites have exploded and now number in the thousands. Companies have almost limitless choices for placing their ads and can attract a significant number of qualified candidates. It's cheaper, faster, and more targeted than print-based advertising. Yet online recruiting does not signal the end of attending college career days and job fairs or paying referral fees for good hires, or the replacement of face-to-face interviews with conversations in chat rooms.
Rosanne Gilbert, who works in human resources at Wall Industries Inc., an Exeter, N. H., manufacturer of power converters and supplies, advertises for employees on the company's Web site, on the Web site Monster.com, and in local papers. She also has an in-house referral program and works with employment agencies.
"I look at it as another way to get good employees," she says. "With the way the market is now, you need to use every avenue available."
Even the No. 1 recruiting tool -- referrals -- is offered online at www.refer.com. Through this service companies find and reward people for recommending friends and colleagues who are looking for new jobs.
Paul Pottinger, COO of jobs.com, says that manufacturers are seeking managers online, but they need additional resources to connect with the candidates needed for day-to-day plant operations. "They are mission-critical jobs, but they're not management or professional," he says. "There is real pain getting those people identified and on board."
Some candidates for those positions -- and entry-level spots -- are gaining access to Internet recruiting sites through kiosks in shopping centers and state educational centers, and at public libraries. They use the Web to research their options, and almost always check out a company's Web site before they interview.
"We believe the keys to the kingdom lie at your doorstep," says Mark Mehler, coauthor of CareerXRoads (2000, MMC Group), a guide to online job, résumé, and career management sites. "If you don't have a Web site, if you don't have a jobs button, kiss your recruiting goodbye."
Tom Harmon, director of strategic staffing at Lancaster, Pa.-based Armstrong Holdings Inc., couldn't agree more.
"College kids love to go to the Web," says Harmon, who leads HR for salaried positions at the global manufacturer of floor coverings, installation products, acoustical ceilings, and grid systems. "Don't send them paper. You might as well throw it out the window."
Armstrong started its online recruiting efforts, Harmon says, because that's where the candidates were. Colleges that used to tack job openings on bulletin boards began asking him to post on their Web sites.
"Once you start doing that," Harmon says, "you get a lot more résumé. . . . Through the halfway point of this year, we've already hired 20 people [from résumé generated online] and we'll probably double that."
The most
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