The recruitment process is a critical component of the practice of human resource management. It encompasses the process of ensuring that as many qualified people are attracted to the job being offered, they are adequately screened and that the best qualified candidates are selected.
Developing a productive and competent must always start with a recruitment process which guarantees that the best job seekers are considered for appointment even before the other processes of human resource development can kick off. Ensuring the right people are hired has great benefits to the company as it not only improves productivity but it also reduces on the cost of training as well as the recurrence of costly errors committed by employees.
Therefore a good recruitment process should guarantee the hiring of quality staff. This paper discusses the application of information technology in the recruitment process. It explains how e-recruitment has developed over time and the general views concerning the process in terms of how well it suites the recruitment process for companies.
As mentioned above, e-recruitment involves the use of information technology in the recruitment process. The modern day advent of information technology has offered many solutions to a myriad of problems facing organizations across the globe. Before the start of application of information technology in the recruitment process, firms had to go through an elaborate and often lengthy and inefficient process in trying to recruit members of staff who best suit the positions.
Advertisements had to be placed mainly in the print media to attract suitable applicants who would have to either post their applications or hand deliver them to the company’s offices. At the recruitment offices, the staff would have to manually scrutinize the candidates before contacting them for interviews and finally posting (Beardwell, Holden & Claydon, 2004, p45).
E-recruitment has come in to offer a different and more efficient platform on which the recruitment process can be done. The process has developed from the very basic form to the more sophisticated and intelligent systems applied in the big corporations today. In the initial stages of application of e-recruitment, companies mainly used their own websites to advertise for vacant positions as opposed to rushing to the print media.
Job sites and other social websites were also developing fast and offered a wider audience as opposed to restraining to the company websites. These platforms were either used to filter the candidates eligible for the positions or were used as additional alternatives to the traditional job advertisements done on the print media (Searle, 2003, p32).
As internet usage spread, applications could now be sent to the employers through the email rather than hand delivery or postage. The employers could now deal with applications in a more systematic manner. As this development took root in the e-recruitment process, it became apparent that some of the information required by the employers was not being effectively communicated by the employee.
This prompted the need to develop the concept of online completion of application forms. This platform offered unique advantages to companies as they would identify the presence of some critical skills among applicants before inviting them for interviews. These greatly improved the process.
Afterwards, the big companies were able to develop specialized recruitment platforms with the ability to receive and organize applications from different sources and present them in standardized formats to the relevant recruitment officers. Later, the big companies were able to develop interactive platforms within websites where the applicants would first be subjected to some preliminary testing process as a requirement for qualification to further vetting.
Here, the applicant may be subjected to a timed aptitude or psychometric test whose results are used to determine whether the candidate should continue to meet the recruiters or not. This development further enhanced the recruitment process by further cutting down on the time as well as demand for a high number of recruiters.
In the recent past, the online recruitment process has gone a notch higher especially in big corporations based in the developed countries and whose recruitment is mainly done internationally. They have gone to as far as employing the Web 3D to conduct interviews remotely. The recruitment team is able to interact in a virtual environment and conduct credible interviews involving jobseekers who may be thousands of miles away (E-recruitment, 2010, par 4).
It is clear that the developments in e-recruitment have introduced a lot of advantages to the employer as well as the employees. The lead-times in the process of recruitment have been significantly reduced and so has the cost of conducting the recruitment process both for the employer as well as the job seeker.
A process which used to take at least a week and a large number of recruitment officers can now take a day or two and still remain credible and effective. In addition, e-recruitment enables the company handle a much larger pool of job applicants hence increasing chances of hiring the right people. It also introduces more credibility by reducing bias in the recruitment process (Taylor, 2005, p17).
However, different authorities have different views concerning the e-recruitment process. The first argument is that recent developments in e-recruitment process significantly reduce contact between the jobseeker and the employer a fact likely to lead to flawed misconceptions about the suitability of the job seeker to fill in the position.
This view is supported by the fact that jobseekers will always want to put the best picture of them so as to be seen as the favorite candidates for the job. The possibility that they are not honest is very high hence a personal interaction becomes more important. Others are of the view that the process often introduces limits to the applicants eligible mainly due to the fact that they have to be in a position to use the technology (E-recruitment, 2010, par13).
Despite these views, the process of e-recruitment has introduced numerous advantages to the recruitment process and saved costs. Companies are hiring less recruitment teams but at the same time hiring better workers due to the developments in e-recruitment. However, it should be noted that e-recruitment should be applied only in cases where it is fully applicable.
The target group of jobseekers is the most important factor in considering whether to apply the system or not. If the target group is technology savvy, then the process can successfully be applied. If not, then the traditional methods should be applied.
It is clear though that e-recruitment offers immense benefits to the entire recruitment process from attracting a wide number of applicants, reducing the processing of applications or the lead times, improving credibility to the process and improving chances of hiring the most qualified jobseekers.
Reference List
Beardwell, I. Holden L & Claydon, T.2004.Human Resource Management, A Contemporary Approach. 4th Ed. Prentice Hall.
E-recruitment, 2010. Cipd. Web.
E-recruitment, 2010. Improvement and development Agency. Web.
Searle, R. 2003. Selection & Recruitment, A Critical Text Open University/Palgrave.
Taylor, S., 2005. People Resourcing 3rd Ed. Cipd.