This was the overriding vision shared by speakers at the recent ëRecruiting in Cyberspace Conferenceí held in London in June by onrec.com in association with the London School of Economics.
Academics from Harvard, Princeton and the LSE joined spokespeople from major and specialist job boards and from JobCentrePlus to give their views on the future of recruiting via the Internet to over 100 delegates. The Conference was sold out.
Economic Impact ñ Better ñFaster- Cheaper
Richard Freeman, Professor Harvard University and senior research fellow at LSE, and conference Chairman, made the opening introduction pointing out that online recruitment brought benefits to the economy as a whole but that these had not yet been quantified:
Finding the right candidates and filling vacancies quicker
Better matching of applicants to the role
Improved retention of staff as right people filled the right posts
His views of recruiting via the Internet , ëbetter, faster, cheaper, were overwhelmingly shared by the forum.
The EU Accession States and the Black Death
Speakers were in no doubt as to the wisdom of the UK opening its borders to workers from the new members of the EUñ the statement by Robinson that the working population of Europe would plunge on a scale not seen since the Black Death giving a shortfall of 38 million workers in the EU in the next twenty? years - illustrated the problem. Monster UKís MD, Joe Slavin, noted that his company had been swift to achieve a presence in the Accession states through the purchase of JobPilot giving it not only 30% market share in Germany but good profile in Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
Mixed future for recruitment agencies
Direct of Generalist Job-board TotalJobs, Keith Robinson, found supporters of his view that low skill contract jobs, such as cleaning staff for events, would be filled online without a prior face-to-face meeting. In respect of highly skilled jobs the spokesman for PriceWaterhouseCoopers summed up the general feeling that interviews were a vital part of the recruitment process once candidates had gone through online basic skills screening. Peter Gold of Hire Strategies, took this further saying that soon face to face meeting would only be held once candidates has been screened and accepted an offer in principal. Agencies will, in the long run, need to specialise in niches for skilled staff. Good news for agencies was that according to one member of the panel, 60% of FTSE top 100 companies lacked credible recruitment sections to their website. The possibility of unlimited, free advertising on JobCentrePlus ñ see below- could prove a great bonus to agencies.
Future of Internet recruitment
Delegates learnt that generalist job-boardsí fortunes are related to a countyís hiring activity which in turn is a function of GDP. Where GDP exceeds 2% hiring will take off and effective job-sites will thrive.
Monster anticipates that in 10 years time its major market will be India ñ the latter currently enjoys a GDP of over 9%. Things are looking bright in Poland too with GDP around 5%.
On a domestic level with penetration of Internet access in UK homes now reaching 57% (69% in Europeís most adoptive county, Norway), on top of the healthy UK economy, Monster felt upbeat about vacancy advertising revenues, citing its only problem - the inability to recruit enough good sales people!
The speaker from Australia, Davor Miskulin MD of Resumo, predicted that CV screening will become smarter to manage the issue of high volumes of applications. The Holy Grail for job-boards lies in the generation of income from the candidate side of the business to top up cashflow in periods of low vacancy /high applicant volumes.
Further ahead still industry leaders envisaged the emergence of giant job portals which will run job advertising free for niche job-boards and employers but will charge to ëcut and diceí their massive databases of cvs and supply them to jobboards/employers.
Shock and Awe
Fell on most of the assembly when the representative from JobCentrePlus, (currently attracting a massive 9% of all job searches in the UK with NO marketing) announced the development of its online offering over the next 18 months to provide free advertising to all employers and possibly to recruitment agencies. A bank of candidate cvs would also be offered for employers to sift through. Kim Chaplain Head of Change Management at Job CentrePlus explained the Governmentís aim of providing better job opportunities for disadvantaged members of society. Leaving employment largely in the hands of the private sector means that disadvantaged jobseekers would be overlooked especially in a tight market. It was mooted that a battle in bidding for key search terms was on the horizon as the public sector giant enters the online job board arena.
Stalwarts from Efinancialcareers.com and Totaljobs assuaged worries with anecdotes of lacklustre performances by similar Government-funded sites in Europe. Delegates robustly offered the following suggestions:
the Government redirect its funding for the job board project be directed to helping disadvantaged use the Internet and technology better.
the site become a portal to direct candidates and employers to established niche sites (and agencies).
If you have any views on the current state or future of recruiting via the Internet we would be pleased to read them ñ write to editor@onrec.com. In August we will report , space permitting, on the HR, branding and marketing issues which figured in the Conference discussions.
The next ëRecruiting in Cyberspaceí Conference will a European edition take place in Brussels on the 8th October. To reserve your place please contact Wendy on 01702 382 330 or email wendy@onrec.com
Conference signals good times for recruiting via the Internet
This was the overriding vision shared by speakers at the recent ëRecruiting in Cyberspace Conferenceí held in London in June by onrec.com in association with the London School of Economics.