Soon the Internet will be as much a part of the recruiter’s toolkit as the help-wanted section of the newspaper.
Here are some of the ingredients that foretell a boom in online recruiting:
•the number of job-seekers using job boards is increasing exponentially;
•companies such as monster.ca and workopolis.com are becoming household names, running expensive television and radio campaigns (Monster launched its second ad campaign during the Olympics);
•the two hottest pools of job candidates — IT professionals and young people — are often more comfortable using the Internet than traditional media;
•there are more job boards popping up every day (Canadian HR Reporter’s recent Guide to Recruitment and Staffing lists 80 of them), including industry-specific niche boards;
•companies are incorporating job boards into their Web sites; and
•software companies are already developing technology that most HR people are not yet ready for — but will have to be one day soon.
•the number of job-seekers using job boards is increasing exponentially;
•companies such as monster.ca and workopolis.com are becoming household names, running expensive television and radio campaigns (Monster launched its second ad campaign during the Olympics);
•the two hottest pools of job candidates — IT professionals and young people — are often more comfortable using the Internet than traditional media;
•there are more job boards popping up every day (Canadian HR Reporter’s recent Guide to Recruitment and Staffing lists 80 of them), including industry-specific niche boards;
•companies are incorporating job boards into their Web sites; and
•software companies are already developing technology that most HR people are not yet ready for — but will have to be one day soon.
The boom in online recruiting has spawned a whole new raft of Internet tools for recruiting.
Flipping is a new technique being used by some online recruiters to search other companies’ Web sites for talent for their own firm. It’s often been done by phone; now it can be performed by conducting an advanced search using a Web browser.
Flipping is also known as X-raying, or peeling back a Web site to find company directories and resumes to contact their employees. HR practitioners can ensure their company Web site isn’t “flipped” by putting all employee-specific information behind the site’s firewall, in other words password-protecting the names, phone numbers, addresses and resumes of employees.
Whether or not flipping is an ethical practice can be debated, but it’s not illegal (that is, it’s not hacking) when the information isn’t behind the firm’s firewall.
A tutorial on flipping is available at www.riseway.com (click on FlipItDeeDooDah! — Demystifying the hype.) The author of the tutorial cautions would-be flippers to respect corporate firewalls: “Don’t try to break into a company’s Web site — it’s simply wrong,” says Barbara Ling.
Reach out through the computer and touch someone
New technology, developed by NetPCS (www.netpcs.com) and implemented by recruiting software firm e-cruiter.com allows the recruiter to “see” who’s on his site and what jobs the person is looking at.
New technology, developed by NetPCS (www.netpcs.com) and implemented by recruiting software firm e-cruiter.com allows the recruiter to “see” who’s on his site and what jobs the person is looking at.
Here’s how it works: As people enter the jobs section of a corporate Web site, they fill out a profile which may include their resume. As they browse jobs, the recruiter can actually send them a message on-screen, introducing himself and asking about the candidate’s needs.
What the job seeker sees is a small chat window with the recruiter’s photo and a friendly “Hi, Bill!” The seeker is given the ability to chat back. At some point, the two may agree to exchange phone numbers, and the hiring process is kicked up a notch.
Incidentally, if the recruiter happens to be away from his computer when the perfect candidate surfs onto his site, the software can send a message to the recruiter’s cell phone: “Do you want to send a message to the candidate?”
This may sound a bit like big brother. For that reason the job seeker is given the option to surf “invisibly” so the recruiter can’t watch or contact him.
This kind of technology could be important for recruiters trying to lure high-tech candidates.
“Once they throw their hat in the ring they’re snapped up in a week,” says e-cruiter.com’s chief operations officer Rob Richards. “If you’re not in their face that first hour when they’re looking at your company, you’ve probably lost them.
“For most companies that are in high-growth mode, these recruiters will die and go to heaven for this type of technology.”
For the candidate, he says, “the applicant gets something new and cool.”
The technology is scheduled for release in early 2001. To reach out and touch this new technology visit www.netpcs.com and click on Careers. Fill out a request for a “console” (the software tool which holds candidates’ profiles) and get ready to chat with a representative.
White Rose Home and Garden Centres hires a lot of students, especially those enrolled in college horticulture programs. The best way to reach them, says Cheryl Sproul, director of human resources, is through the Internet.
“That element of the population is more attuned to the Internet,” she says. “Industrial trends would suggest it’s a much more effective method for targetting specific people than the newspaper. The newspaper’s still a shotgun approach.”
Cost is also a factor. Internet ads stay up longer and can cost a lot less than newspaper ads, she says. “There aren’t the same restrictions as the print medium — line sizes. Your only restriction is how much you can put in (the Internet job posting) without boring the reader.”
White Rose doesn’t do a lot of recruiting on the Internet — only about 20 per cent of its total recruiting — but that will increase quickly, she says. The company spends between $2,000 and $3,000 on Internet advertising, because it’s relatively inexpensive and because some newspapers include an Internet ad free when you buy a print ad.
“One ad in the Toronto Star could easily cost me $4,500 and we could advertise for the whole year using these different Web sites for under $3,000.”
The use of the Internet for recruiting will also increase at Fidelity Investments, according to the company’s HR director Maureen Carey.
“We consider it a weapon in the war for IT talent, as opposed to a tool,” she says. The firm does 75 per cent of its recruiting on the Net, through Fidelity’s corporate site, general job boards including Workopolis and associations’ job boards.
“Our site’s traffic has been growing at 50 per cent, month to month,” says Mark Laurie, who operates a student job board called JobPostings.net. “It’s insane. We’ve never seen anything like this before. I think eventually it will flatten out but (not for awhile).”
The company went from zero visitors to its current 50,000 a month in less than a year. And, they say, the average visitor stays on the site for approximately eight minutes.
The boom in online recruiting is such a foregone conclusion that it’s no longer even worth discussing, according to Mark Venning, president for Canada for the International Association of Career Management Professionals (IACMP).
“It’s everywhere, it’s pervasive. It’s arrived,” he says.
But, he adds, that’s not to say there still aren’t issues to be resolved and questions to be answered: “how are these tools going to be effective for people?
Who is accessing and using this stuff? How do you know a good (job board) from a bad one? How uniquely is the Canadian content being developed versus a North American slant or an American slant? Is it being used at lower levels of jobs versus higher levels of jobs?
“If everything’s done online, are we just gathering names or are we working this and tying it to a business initiative?”
He said companies should make jobs accessible on the corporate intranet so that when employees go shopping for a new position, they may find an internal spot that fits their criteria. That’s an example of helping the company achieve its retention goals, he says.
Aside from flipping and seeing job seekers there are a number of other innovative ways recruiters can surf for new employees.
Sophisticated job boards
Every recruiter likely knows all about job boards. (If they don’t, they should do some surfing — quick.) But job boards have become much more sophisticated both for seekers and recruiters.
Every recruiter likely knows all about job boards. (If they don’t, they should do some surfing — quick.) But job boards have become much more sophisticated both for seekers and recruiters.
Job boards such as Monster.ca offer recruiters who subscribe, advanced tools for searching its extensive resume databank, for pre-screening applicants, tracking candidates through the recruitment cycle, rating candidates according to how well they match job criteria and alert systems to let recruiters know when someone new has logged on who matches the criteria in the posting.
Monster offers a “career centre” which includes information and advice about three specific industries: health care, HR and high-tech. It also offers advice on networking, management, business etiquette and relocation.
Workopolis draws on its partners The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star to provide articles on a broad range of industries including HR, science, law, technology, marketing and finance.
Of course, there are other major Canadian job sites with similar information. Subscription plans and costs vary widely depending on the features required and the number of postings a firm makes each month.
Niche sites
Sites for students have been around for awhile (any longer than a year in cyberspace is “awhile”), but more job boards are being developed for specific industries or job categories. There are sites for Canadians only, for executives, for high-tech workers, for HR professionals, environmental workers, geography enthusiasts (or, as they are called, “spatial data professionals”), engineers, aerospace professionals, sales people, agriculturalists and even one for people who want to work at a resort.
Sites for students have been around for awhile (any longer than a year in cyberspace is “awhile”), but more job boards are being developed for specific industries or job categories. There are sites for Canadians only, for executives, for high-tech workers, for HR professionals, environmental workers, geography enthusiasts (or, as they are called, “spatial data professionals”), engineers, aerospace professionals, sales people, agriculturalists and even one for people who want to work at a resort.
Job board metacrawlers
Most job boards have search engines to allow the candidate to search for a job by industry, job title or geographic location. A metacrawler searches more than one job board. For instance, Canada’s www.actualjobs.com searches 378 sites, and more than 24,000 jobs. A good U.S. metacrawler is www.careerbuilder.com, which searches 25 career sites and accesses more than three million jobs.
Most job boards have search engines to allow the candidate to search for a job by industry, job title or geographic location. A metacrawler searches more than one job board. For instance, Canada’s www.actualjobs.com searches 378 sites, and more than 24,000 jobs. A good U.S. metacrawler is www.careerbuilder.com, which searches 25 career sites and accesses more than three million jobs.
Virtual job fairs
A virtual job fair is a collection of companies, grouped according to industry. It’s a great way to find a job because all of a company’s information — products, services, history, mission, values — is available in one place. The job seeker clicks from company to company. For a good (albeit very American) example, visit www.careerpath.com. Click on the “JobRushAmerica” box on the right-hand side.
A virtual job fair is a collection of companies, grouped according to industry. It’s a great way to find a job because all of a company’s information — products, services, history, mission, values — is available in one place. The job seeker clicks from company to company. For a good (albeit very American) example, visit www.careerpath.com. Click on the “JobRushAmerica” box on the right-hand side.
Job board on corporate Web site
Relatively new technology lets companies add a feature to their Web site to allow candidates to submit their resumes without going through a third-party job board. Candidates fill in a profile form which is compared with the currently posted jobs. When there’s a match, the recruiter is given the candidate’s information so she can contact him. For a good example of this technology, visit www.4adream.com, a financing firm. Click on “Apply Online” and be prepared to give them some information in order to proceed to the next step.
Relatively new technology lets companies add a feature to their Web site to allow candidates to submit their resumes without going through a third-party job board. Candidates fill in a profile form which is compared with the currently posted jobs. When there’s a match, the recruiter is given the candidate’s information so she can contact him. For a good example of this technology, visit www.4adream.com, a financing firm. Click on “Apply Online” and be prepared to give them some information in order to proceed to the next step.
The URLs for 80 job boards are listed in Canadian HR Reporter’s September 25 Guide to Recruitment and Staffing. The list will also be available in the HR Guide 2001, which will be distributed free in the December 4 issue of Canadian HR Reporter.
