In 1997, 51
percent of U.S. companies used the World Wide Web to advertise jobs
and recruit employees, according to the American Management Association.
In 1998, this figure was more than 70 percent. Obviously, businesses
are catching on to online recruiting as a viable method of finding
talent. But is it worth it for your company?
In many cases,
and if done correctly, yes. For one, you can't beat the price. With
30-day job postings ranging from free to $300, online advertising
is significantly cheaper than traditional newspaper ads or headhunters.
Also, it's quick and easy -- the majority of sites allow you to
post and edit job postings in real time, although a few still require
that you submit the postings via fax or e-mail. Finally, that's
where job hunters are going. Only a few years ago the majority of
online job hunters were technical folks, but these days it encompasses
a much broader audience, from administrative assistants to marketing
managers to controllers.
But just because
Web recruiting is easy and cheap, that doesn't mean it's effective.
Before advertising, it's worth doing a little bit of planning, lest
you end up paying for a posting that doesn't generate a single response
or be inundated with resumes of unqualified candidates.
With more than
5,000 online job sites, choosing the ones to use is your greatest
challenge. Large all-around sites such as Monster.com and CareerPath.com,
which features listings collected from metropolitan newspapers across
the U.S., attract the biggest audience. But while you'll get tremendous
reach from these sites, bigger isn't always better. It can be equally
effective to post on job boards that are targeted to server a particular
industry or location. All job boards should be willing to provide
you with demographic data on their users as well as the job categories
that they excel in, so you can get an idea of the kind of candidates
the site will deliver to you.
When choosing
among sites, poke around on them as if you were a job hunter. The
best sites let you quickly search for and produce a relatively short
list of available positions. Is the navigation fairly intuitive
and simple, or do you find yourself becoming easily frustrated?
If you become frustrated, chances are others will, too. You'll also
want a site that features a number of listings for the position
you'd like to fill -- job seekers will naturally tend to visit a
site that has the opportunities they want more often.
Also check out
what additional features are available to you as a recruiter. The
niftiest ones let you search a database of online resumes posted
by job seekers. These databases allow you to search by criteria
such as location, education, age, and key words. While some job
boards delete resumes that haven't been refreshed after 45 days,
others post resumes for up to a year or indefinitely.
Too busy to
search for candidates? At least one site offers an "agent"
that informs you of new resumes that meet your predetermined criteria.
Other features
are available as well. Some sites allow you to monitor statistics
on postings (e.g. number of hits and resume submissions). Or, if
being deluged by responses is a concern, then consider a site that
requires applicants to fill out a screening questionnaire that then
ranks and filters responses.
