Advantage and Disadvantages of E-Recruiting - Research Paper Example

Advantage and Disadvantages of e-recruiting Introduction The increase in the use of internet and globalization has resulted to increase in online recruitment of employees by most of the companies. This offers the companies benefit because they can evaluate the most current applicant’s information and try to match it with the companies’ requirements (Plessi & Frederick, 2012, p. 2279). The use of online recruitment process provides a wide field for employers and jobseekers to achieve their goals. This study examines the benefits and challenges of using online recruitment methods to employees and employers or recruiting agencies. The study involved employees and human resources personnel in various categories of companies in order to establish the experiences of employees and employers with this process (Schmesser, et.al, 2011, p. 26). In the study, forty-five companies were sampled randomly and in each business the human resource personnel were required to respond to the question and five employees were issued with questionnaires randomly to respond to a similar question. The question was open-ended in order to give the respondents an opportunity to discuss in details personal opinion about online hiring of workers and possibly suggest the necessary actions for improving the online hiring process. The objectives of this investigation were to examine the benefits and challenges of online hiring process, identify the weaknesses of online recruitment process and examine the areas that need improvement in order to increase efficiency of online recruitment process. Although online recruitment of workers is becoming the most common method in the modern society, it is not necessarily very accurate because it has other drawbacks that prohibit the jobseekers and employers to achieve their goals. Literature review Online recruitment is a process in which companies choose their prospective candidate via internet to fill job vacancies in the business. The candidate posts their curriculum Vitae and cover letter electronically to the company’s or recruiter’s website (Kapse, et.al, 2012, p.2269). The recruiter will retrieve the applicants CVs and screen them using special software in order to select those who qualify for the job advertised. The online advertisements for the jobs can reach all the jobseekers irrespective of their locality. This gives the companies an opportunity to reach as many potential employees as possible thus creating potential for the employers to get the best candidates for the advertised position (Schmeser, 2013, p. 35). Furthermore, the advertisement posted online is available to all people all the time thus making it possible for the applicants to apply for the jobs during free time. Unlike the traditional method of recruitment where job applicants used to send their CVs through the mail services and then wait for the feedback, in the modern day’s job applicants do not have to go through that tedious and time consuming process (Burkholder, et.al, 2004, p. 38). Candidates must update their CVs frequently in order to match them with the skills the recruiter is looking for. This has made the entire process very convenient since the job applicants only need to have access to the computer internet from where they can easily retrieve their CVs and other credentials saved online and then apply for the jobs (Schmeisser, et.al, 2013, 38). Applying for the jobs online takes a very short time irrespective of the distance between the employer and the applicants. This gives the applicants certainty that their applications have been received by the recruiter because in case of failure of delivery the applicant will get immediate notice of failure. Online recruiter is at an advantage when using online recruitment process because the advertisements are widely distributed at no additional cost (Kapse, et.al, 2012, p. 2256). Once the advertisement is posted on the website all candidates have the opportunity to access that advertisement across the globe. According to Mencken and Winfield (1998) as cited in Kapse et al. (2012, p. 2297), “the companies and employees focus on superiority of the services offered through a recruitment process.” The advancement in technology and increase on internet coverage across the globe is reshaping the recruiting process to the benefit of jobseekers and recruiters. The human resource employees make use of software to screen the applications and select the most qualified candidates within a very short time (Burkholder, et.al, 2004, p. 43). Even though not every potential applicant has access to the internet, those who willing to search for jobs online can still do so through the computers in the cyber-cafes. This is efficient than the traditional method whereby the recruiters had to read through all the applications and sort out the best candidates for an interview (Schmeisser, et.al. 2011, p. 34). In fact, the use of online recruitment has reduced recruiters the burden of maintaining bulky files containing applicants’ details. In most cases, the printed or handwritten documents can be misplaced and in such a situation the recruiter may miss the opportunity to hire the best candidates for the job if the misplaced CV belonged to the most qualified applicant (Rothwell, 2011, p. 62). Furthermore, the use of online recruitment allows the companies to maintain the records of all applicants for future use when another opportunity for hiring more workers arises. For example, “the Nike Company uses active recruiter to choose a candidate and keep the records of all applicants for future recruitments’ processes” (Bondarouk, et.al, 2011. P. 47). According to Matthews (2006) as cited in Kapse et al. (2012, p. 2341), through online recruitment businesses are able to fill the vacancies faster compared to traditional recruitment methods. This is because the advertisers can send post the job vacancy and receive applications for the same job the same day. Through use of special recruitment software, the human resource personnel can select the most qualified candidate for the work within the same day (Macdonald 2013, p. 6). The recruiter may contact the successful candidate for an interview and within a very short duration the company will be able to get the worker. This is unlike the traditional method whereby advertisement and applications took very long time to reach the intended recipient thus causing unnecessary delay in the recruitment process (Plessis & Frederick, 2012, p. 2354). The use of online recruitment allows the company to save the cost of hiring workers whenever an opportunity arises. This is because “the company is able to maintain the database of the applicants, and they may refer to that database whenever they want to add more workers in the future.” For example, Nike Company has “database of over eight thousand five hundred candidates” (Aswathappa, 2005. P 147). In order to ensure the details of the employees are up to date, Nike sends the applicants a message after every six months requesting them to update their details appropriately. E-recruitment is cost effective method of hiring employees. The cost of recruiting workers online is very low compared to the cost of using the traditional methods. The conventional method of recruiting workers involves massive advertisement in the newspaper, magazines and other media (Schmesser, et.al, 2013, p. 49). The cost of advertisement in the media is very high while the employers can get qualified workers online at a very low cost. Similarly, the job applicants incur many expenses in sending the mails to the employers, printing many documents such as CVs and other academic testimonials and so forth. The cost of mailing is extremely high especially if the applicants are in remote areas and have to travel to towns where they can get post office or other delivery agents (Mathis & Jackson, 2010, p. 193). However, the use of online recruitment process is efficient because even those in rural areas can access the internet conveniently from personal computers or from cyber cafes, therefore, reducing the cost involved in posting the mail to the company. The use of e-recruitment provides employers with a pool of talented applicants from where the company can get workers whenever there is a need to hire workers (Krimphove, et.al, p. 215). When job seekers post their details to the recruitment agencies or to the hiring companies, those details are stored in the data bank from where the employer can review later and select the most qualified applicants in future. This has increased convenience to employers and the employees because the employers do not have to engage in “expensive and time-consuming advertisements for jobs in the future especially when they want to hire a small number of employees” (Aswathappa, 2005, p. 151). On the other hand, the jobseekers are likely to be hired to work from the several applications they posted to the business long time ago. The use of internet has no limit on who can access the information sent online. This is a great benefit to the human resource personnel when they are carrying out recruitment exercise because potential candidates both in far and near places can gain access to the advertisements for the job vacancies, therefore, offering the employer an opportunity to get the most qualified workers from across the geographical boundaries (Soonhee & Jennifer, 2009, p. 848). The employer is able to choose workers according from the preferred region, therefore, offering the hiring personnel a chance to satisfy the company’s requirements. The use of e-recruitment is quite faster than other recruitment methods. This is because, in e-recruitment, the employer can screen the potential of the applicants automatically at the time the applicant is uploading his or her details, therefore, there is no need to waste more time in the future to sort out the applications in order to pick the best candidates (Mathis & Jackson, 2010, p. 201). For example, in the case of Nike company the hiring personnel stated that the use of online recruitment process reduced the period of hiring workers from the previously sixty-two days to forty-two days. The use of e-recruitment has eased the bulk of papers occupying the office space. This is because the applications are retained online from where the employers can access them whenever they want (Plessis & Frederick, 2012, p. 2386). In addition, the recruiting employees can easily access the applicant details conveniently using their mobile phones or laptops even when they are away from the office. Therefore, it is evident that the use of e-recruitment as increased the accessibility of the applicant’s information, therefore, reducing the workload for the hiring personnel. The online recruitment process is convenient for jobseekers and the employers because of the ease of accessibility of required information (Aswathappa, 2005, p. 152). This has eliminated the struggle for maintaining job applicants’ records and the records of the employees in files that could be easily misplaced, therefore, resulting to loss of data for future reference. E-recruitment requires a consistent format of sending the applications. The applicants are not given any opportunity to show their prowess or unique talents apart from what is required in the application format (Bondarouk & Ruël, 2010, p. 39). Therefore, employers may not be able to select the best candidates who possess unique talents because those employers do have any other means of identifying candidates with those talents. The use of online recruitment of employees may limit the company’s possibility to reach the most qualified workers (Bondarouk & Ruel, 2011, p. 162). This is because there is no guarantee that the most qualified workers will get the advertisements sent through the internet. Furthermore, not all potential employees have access to the internet, therefore, such people may never have the opportunity to demonstrate their potential t o perform the advertised jobs. The online application of jobs attracts many applicants than any other methods due to low cost of use and wide area of coverage. In addition, some applicants may ignore small and not very economically stable organizations while large organizations have potential to attract several applicants (Macdonald, 2013, p. 8). Due to large bulk of applications sent to the potential employers, the recruiting personnel may not have enough time to screen through all those applications. This may limit the probability of hiring the best applicants for the specified job (Rothwell, 2011, p. 67). Therefore, the hiring personnel should be very cautious when designing the questionnaire for the applicants to feel so that those who possess the required skills may qualify for the to apply for job The e-recruitment may attract unqualified applicants while leaving out the most qualified workers. “The recruiting personnel is supposed to screen all the job applicants thoroughly in order to get the best candidate for the job” (Soonhee & Jennifer, 2009, p. 867). This may require specific software for screening the applications in order to identify the applicants who match the required skills. This may result to additional cost because the company has to purchase effective software that can be able to screen the workers effectively. However, no everybody who has knowhow or the required software components for conducting an effective screening of applications (Rothwell, 2010, p. 73). Therefore, the use of e-recruitment may limit the employers’ potential to carry out effective online recruitment of workers. This method aimed to capture the feelings of the job applicants and recruiters about online hiring method. Through a discussion involving the challenges and benefits of using online recruitment methods to “both job applicants and the employers and recruiting agents,” it is possible to determine the most effective method of recruitment of workers (Macdonald, 2013, p. 7). Also, it is possible to identify areas that require improvement in order to streamline the recruitment process. Finally, the online recruitment process is prone to manipulations by unauthorized persons who may have access to the organizations computer systems. In most cases, the hiring personnel are the only person who has authority to maintain the records of the employees and new job applicants in the organizations (Mathis & Jackson, 2010, p. 208). Although they secure the records by applying security measures, it is risky for only one person to be in access of the organizations records because in case that person is not available it may result to serious consequences to the entire organization (Johns & Leatherbarrow, 2005, p. 149). However, sharing of such details with another person in the organization is risky because that other and person may delete from the system the name of the candidate selected for a certain job and replace him or her with another person irrespective of qualification (Armstrong, 2006, p. 444). Methodology The research involved the use of an open-ended question seeking to gather details on the advantages and disadvantages of online recruitment. The study involved the human resource personnel from various organizations; small, medium and large institutions, and employees in the same organizations. The questionnaires were distributed to forty five organizations, fifteen from each category. In each organization, a total of four six questionnaires was posted through email. In each of the company, the human resource personnel was required to fill one of the questionnaires and the other five questionnaires were to be filled by the employees in different age bracket and ranks. The respondents were given similar open-ended questions to give them a chance to discuss their feeling about the e-recruitment. The respondents were given a duration of one week to give the feedback. The questionnaires required the respondents to specify what they liked o disliked about the online recruitment. In this case, the respondents were requested to discuss their experiences with online recruitment process and include the challenges they may have faced or suggestions on what they would like to be changed in this approach. There was no special consideration given to the organization since all the organizations were selected based on the size. The aim was to target different organization in different industry irrespective of their functions. Therefore, the target organizations included the recruiting agencies. Result and analysis From the total of two hundred and seventy respondents, forty-five were human resource personnel while the rest two hundred twenty five respondents were employees. The result of the study results is presented in the graph below. Source: Authors’ composition The respondents were categorized as recruiters and employees. Recruiters included the human resource personnel in the recruitment agencies and companies. The companies that disclosed they use an agent for recruitment of workers were not included in the study. From the result of the study, forty of the forty five recruiters preferred online recruitment to other methods of hiring workers. On the other hand, two hundred and five of the two hundred and twenty five employees’ two hundred and five employees said they prefer online recruitment to traditional methods. Only five of the recruiters and twenty of the employees were opposed to the online recruitment process. The respondents views of online recruitment were very positive since majority of the respondents believed that the online recruitment process is the best compared to other methods. Recruiter believed that the online recruitment methods are the best because if it is convenient, fast, reliable and economical. The companies that have special software for screening applicants believe that the online recruitment is very simple and convenient because it provides the employers to achieve their goals without much struggle. The jobseekers always access the details of the job advertisement online and can upload their CVs and other testimonials fast enough such that the duration allowed by the management to complete the recruitment process is enough for the hiring personnel to complete process on time. Also, since applicants are directed on what information they should provide to the recruiter, the applicants may avoid giving irrelevant details by sticking to what the employer has requested for. In fact as well this favors the applicants because they can evaluate the possibility for being hired or not getting the job. On the other hand, employees were very positive about the use of online recruitment process. From the employees who responded to the questionnaires, convenience of online applications for jobs, reduced expenses of accessing online job advertisements and sending applications, and the ability for the employees to evaluate the potential for getting the job were the core benefits they associated with online recruitment. However, in some regions the potential applicants lack access to the internet; therefore, they may not get the advertisement immediately. This is unlike the use of newspapers and magazines for advertisement where the applicants may be able to access the information even a few days after the job was advertised. Although the advertisements may be accessible online for some time, the fact that there are numerous websites for different companies makes it hard for the applicants to get the advertisements as soon as they are released. Source: Author’s composition From the above diagram, 245 respondents preferred online recruitment process to the traditional method while 25 respondents disliked online recruitment process. The use of online recruitment is an excellent method through which company can reach the most qualified workers. The companies are able to get most qualified workers and maintain competitiveness in the labor market and save time for other things. On the other hand, employees prefer online recruitment for the convenience and reliability. However, those opposed to online hiring of workers fear that such advertisements may expose the company to legal consequences especially if the applicants establish an element of discrimination (Safdar, 2012, p.447). The element of discrimination may occur during screening of the applications, and such issues may plunge the organization into legal consequences. Sometimes the applicants are required to subscribe to the websites offering alerts for jobs so that they can be able to receive the advertisements as soon as they are placed by the employers (Schmeisser, et.al, 2013, p. 38). The applicants should subscribe to several websites offering alerts for jobs so that they can be able to get advertisements for different companies whenever they are posted to those websites. The employees expressed their concern on the issue of fraudulent job advertisements without any clear process of discerning genuine employers from scam. Probably this was the main reason why some people disliked online applications for jobs. Some job applicants tend to ignore the less known organizations, and this may cause such institutions to decline in performance as a result of competition from bigger organizations (Armstrong, 2006, p. 453). This is because different companies are competing for the same workers, and once different organizations use online methods most applicants ignore the ads from the companies that are well and prefer to work for the large and well known organizations (Johns & Leatherbarrow, 2005, p. 148). Therefore, through online advertisements the small companies are exposed to intense competition from well established companies, and this may cause such companies to lose competitive employees (Safdar, 2012, p. 454). Small companies prefer using traditional methods besides the online methods in order to be able to target particular workers by persuading them to joining their workforce. From the result of the study, it can be established that the use of online recruitment does not offer the jobseekers and recruiter hundred percent guarantee for quality of jobs or workers they need (Johns & Leatherbarrow, 2005, p. 150). However, the ability to get quality job or workers depends on personal enthusiasm and tools for screening the best from what is on offer. For example, the employees should be vigilant in looking for information from various organizations and should carry out adequate research in order to get clear information about the companies they wish to join as workers. On the other hand, organizations should engage the best approach that suits their situation in order to get the best workforce (Bondarouk & Ruël, 2011, p. 166). Direct contact may be a good supplement for online recruitment because it will enable the employees to head hunt the best workers to take available positions. Employers should not rely on the cost reduction during online recruitment, but they should evaluate other factors such as potential for getting competent workforce. Some organizations used recruitment agencies hence they did not much experience in recruitment of workers. Also, some respondents were unwilling to give their feedback as they considered it answering the questionnaire a waste of time (Schmeisser, et.al. 2011, p. 34). Furthermore, some respondent did not want to discuss how they got their jobs and probably they did not provide accurate information. Since the question was open-ended, the respondents gave varying information that was not easy to standardized using a specific process. Therefore, the interpretation was subjective and depended on the personal of the researcher. Recommendations and conclusion The use of online recruitment process offers organizations and jobseekers high benefits than any other hiring methods. The workers are able to get cheap access to various job advertisements and allow them evaluate the best companies they would like to work for. In addition, online recruitment favors all potential candidates because the jobseekers can be able to access the internet irrespective of their location. Furthermore, the applications sent to the organizations are maintained by most of the companies and the applicants are likely to get jobs in the future if the hiring personnel decide to revisit the previous applications instead of placing fresh ads. On the other hand, employers are able to save cost of hiring workers and increasing potential for hiring quality workers through online recruitment process. The online recruitment process has challenge to employers and jobseekers. The organizations may not be able to get the kind of workforce they needed due to stiff rivalry from other companies while employees may not be able to get the advertisements at the right time if they have no access to the internet. The companies should apply whatever method or combination of methods in order to get the target candidates. In addition, companies should examine their ads and other recruitment procedures to establish any issue that may raise legal issues on the organizations. 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Schmeisser, W., Krimphove, D. & Popp R. (2013). International Human Resource Management and International Labour Law. Oldenbourg Verlag. 34-67. Read More