Public sector most likely to use online recruitment

Almost nine in 10 (88.4%) public sector employers use online recruitment to find new staff compared with just over three in four (78.5%) manufacturing and production companies, according to research published in IRS Employment Review.

Online recruitment is less popular among small organisations (those employing fewer than 250 people), where three in four (73.7%) use this method. This compares with 94.4% for the largest employers - those with 10,000 or more employees.

The results of this survey are published in the current issue (792) of IRS Employment Review

Other key findings:

Many organisations have made a strategic decision to cut recruitment costs and get better value for money, and have turned to the internet to achieve this. More than four in five (82.6%) of all recruiters in the survey have introduced or increased their use of the internet for recruitment.

In 2003 all the organisations surveyed had either increased (84.6%) or introduced (15.3%) online recruitment. In 2002, 53.3% had increased their usage and two in five (40.0%) had introduced internet use into their recruitment process.

Less than half (45.7%) of the surveyís respondents use job boards to advertise vacancies.

Four in five (81.9%) respondents use their own website to attract applicants and advertise vacancies. Public sector organisations are most likely to use their corporate website for this, with more than nine in 10 (91.4%) doing so.

IRS Employment Review managing editor, Mark Crail said:

ìThere have been a number of contradictory reports recently about the heatlh of online recruitment. This is the first study to look in detail at what a large number of UK employers are actually doing. It shows that employers are making the connection between the internet and cost-effective, efficient recruitment. They are also becoming much more internet-savvy, and using job boards in the most effective way for their particular needs. The role that the internet can play in developing and maintaining relationships with candidates has also been recognised, and the overwhelming majority of those we heard from are exploiting this to their full advantage.

ìThe internet is now a fundamental recruitment tool for most organisations, although they use it in different ways. A key lesson from our research is that employers cannot simply post a job advert online and leave it at that. They need to adopt a more sophisticated approach to target appropriate audiences and screening out unsuitable applicants.î

The full survey is published in IRS Employment Review available from customer services on 020- 8662 2000, price 30 or can be found on www.irsemploymentreview.com.