How HR Professionals Can Use Online Recruiting to Support More Effectively Recruitment Activities - Essay Example

e-Recruiting December 2, e-Recruiting Introduction Developments in technology have transformed social and professional interactions. One of the major changes, especially in professional scopes is transition from reliance on the traditional mass media to internet based communication media such as email and the social media. Human resource activities such as recruitment of potential employees and communication are achieved at lower cost and greater efficiency. Human resource professionals can utilize e-recruiting in effective ways, mitigate unintended consequences of e-recruiting, meet employees psychological utility needs, and ensure recruitment of quality people, aspects that this paper focus on. Suggest how HR professionals can use online recruiting to support more effectively recruitment activities while reducing organizational costs Several measures exist in which human resource professionals can use online recruiting to support recruitment effectively and at lower costs. One of such measures is by completing the recruitment exercise faster. Online recruitment is faster as information can reach target people instantly to facilitate faster response. This helps human resource department to meet its urgent human resource needs such as overcoming the challenge of abrupt and significant employee turnover. Shortening the recruitment period also saves money in case of use of recruitment consultants and saves time and associated cost that an organization’s personnel would use in recruiting over a longer period. Human resource professionals can also use online recruitment to eliminate intermediaries such as recruitment firms. Personal interest in an organization, which internal human resource professionals have, is likely to improve diligence and limit the recruitment process to an organization’s financial potentials by eliminating additional human resource cost of recruitment. Reliance on computerized approaches also improves validity and reliability of the recruitment process to ensure effectiveness and reduce possible future costs in repeating recruitment processes (Leung, Nkhoma, and John, 2013). Other ways in which human resource professionals can utilize online recruitment to support recruitment and reduce associated cost are widening target number of applicants, expanding target geographical regions at no extra cost, and reducing administrative procedures that challenge recruitment processes. Expanded target population increases the probability of obtaining best personnel and there is the benefit of no extra cost in the expansion. Administrative processes in recruitment exercises such as meetings and travels are also costly in terms of allowances and lost time that could be used in other activities (Leung, Nkhoma, and John, 2013). Recommend four strategies to mitigate the unintended consequences associated with e-recruiting One of the unintended consequences of online recruitment is restricting applicants based on convenience. A significant percentage of people access the internet from the mobile phones but the phones may not be convenient for making applications. One of the greatest challenges that applications through mobile phones face is difficulty in typing long responses and designing convenient online application forms is a necessary strategy for mitigating the risk of locking out potential candidates. Requiring short responses of asking closed questions mitigates the restrictive risk by allowing all mobile phone users to apply for jobs in an organization (Tolan, 2013). Another unintended consequence of online recruitment is receipt of numerous applications, some which may not meet an organization’s needs. Effectiveness of online recruitment in reaching potential employees and ease of response by the target facilitates the responses. Consequently, only a few applicants may meet desired qualities and an organization faces the risk of missing these applicants. Ensuring that job descriptions are clearly spelt and that required skills and attributes are conspicuous and clear helps in mitigating this risk and ensuring that relevant people apply for a job. Selection from this population increases chances of obtaining desired candidates (Tolan, 2013). Application of visuals in online recruitment is another strategy to mitigating challenges that face online recruitment. With multiple online recruitment exercises from other organizations, monotony is possible, leading to low response rates. Potential employees, especially those with desired qualities who may be engaged in other activities, may also be too busy to identify recruitment prompt unless it is outstanding. Use of visuals such as interview photos and videos or visuals on the organization’s work environment and the subject job helps to attract these classes of potential employees and therefore increases an organization’s chances of recruiting and employing qualified personnel (Tolan, 2013). Online media is also radical and lack of knowledge on contemporary trend may threaten recruitment. Training human resource personnel on the contemporary nature of online media and interpretation of collected information from the media can however mitigate the risk (BITS, 2011). Propose one approach in which online recruitment can help ensure the employees psychological contracts are fulfilled Using the recruitment process to communicate an organization’s intended obligations and to identify potential employees’ expectations is one of the ways of ensuring that employees’ psychological contracts are fulfilled. The stage is a social process and influences expectations from the recruiting organization and the potential employees (Susana, 2011). Incorporating a research on employees’ psychological needs and including the organization’s intended obligations in application documents can help in achieving this. An advertisement can include a message on the organization’s value for psychological contract and online application forms should include questions on potential employees’ expectations from the organization. The generated information on expectations can then be used to define the organization’s obligations to meet employees’ needs. In addition, an applicant’s expectations can be used in the hiring process to determine the applicant’s ability to work under the organization’s environment and the organization’s ability to meet the applicant’s needs. Applicants with expectations that are extremely high can then be eliminated. In either way, the online recruitment process shall have informed the organization’s decision to ensure that psychological contract of hired employees is met. Suggest three strategies you would use to attract high-quality candidates and members of diverse groups using an e-Recruitment approach Sequentially mixed approach strategy in which an online recruitment initiative is reinforced by a paper-based initiative is one of the proposed strategies for recruiting desired quality and diverse populations (Pit, Vo, and Pyakurel, 2014). Other strategies are development of initial contacts with target groups and use of locals in recruitment and motivate response rates (Johnson, Powell-Young, Torres, and Spruill, 2011). Take a stand on whether or not the attributes of a Website (attractiveness, quality, and ease of use) would affect your motivation to apply for a job at that company. Justify your position with specific examples from two business Websites that you are familiar with Attributes of a website would affect my motivation to apply for a job and attractiveness and ease of use are the most significant attributes. An attractive websites captures attention to its content and helps in identification of placed job openings on the website. These may also be placed in attractive scopes to motivate application. in addition, ease of using a website also helps in operating it, such as in looking for placed job openings and making applications. The quality of a website mediates these two factors. The website for United Nations Development Programme that has attractive color and pictures and that has navigation links to other pages such as jobs’ page is an example of a website that has motivated me into job application. The website for the United States Agency for International Development also has these features and this has motivated me to complete an online job application on the site. Propose four security controls you would put into place to prevent unauthorized access to data and unauthorized disclosure of data when using e-Recruiting systems Online recruitment implies electronic communication and storage of data that can then be analyzed for decision-making. Conflict of interest may however threaten safety and security of data. An applicant, operating from inside or outside an organization’s data system, may seek to influence data to favor chances of being hired. “Unsuccessful logon attempts,” “separation of duty,” “information flow enforcement,” and “access control policy and procedures” are therefore necessary controls for human resource departments in order to safeguard data that has been collected from recruitment exercise (National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2013, p. F-7- F21). The United States government has approved these controls and this means their effectiveness and reliability in ensuring data safety. Unsuccessful log on attempts blocks an access point if wrong password is used beyond allowable attempts and therefore restricts access from unauthorized people. Separation of duct however ensures accountability by restricting responsibility to few people. Enforcing information flow measures and developing policy and procedures for data access also helps in monitoring threats to data safety and security. References BITS. (2011). Social media risks and its mitigations. BITS. Retrieved from: http://www.bits.org/publications/security/BITSSocialMediaJun2011.pdf. Johnson, V., Powell-Young, Y., Torres, E., and Spruill, I. (2011). A systematic review of strategies that increase the recruitment and retention of African American adults in genetic and genomic studies. ABNF Journal, 22(4), 84-89. Leung, N., Nkhoma, M., and John, B. (2013). Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on IS Management and Evaluation: ICINE 2013. Reading, UK: Academic Conferences Limited. National Institute of Standards and Technology. (2013). Security privacy controls for federal information systems and organizations. The U.S. Department of Commerce. Retrieved from: http://www.disa.mil/Services/DoD-Cloud-Broker/~/media/Files/DISA/Services/Cloud-Broker/NIST-SP80053-SecurityandPrivacyControls.pdf. Pit, S., Vo, T., and Pyakurel, S. (2014). The effectiveness of recruitment strategies on general practitioner’s survey response rates- A systematic review. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 14(1), 1-24. Susana, J. (2011). Human resource management in the digital economy: Creating synergy between competency models and information. Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Tolan, J. (2013). How to overcome your 3 biggest recruiting challenges. HR Specialist, 11(4), 7. Read More