Evaluating Web Recruiting
Newsletter

Lately many people in our industry are talking about recruiting on the Web. In comparison to print media, Web recruiting appears to be more cost effective and efficient; however, what is missing from Web recruiting is personal scrutiny, the absence of which may be extremely costly. Personal interaction is key in evaluating professional poise, communication, technical and presentation skills. One can have a productive e-mail dialog and never discover if the candidate lacks people, social, or communication skills. In-person interviews, on the other hand, develop and foster long-term relationships and generate quality referrals. Although the Web is conveniently accessible and lets one cast a wider net, it may be more successfully used as a complimentary resource to interpersonal interaction for recruiting.

The Web does provide many advantages including reduced cost-per-hire, efficient turnaround time, and vast quantities of information. A recently conducted survey by the Employment Management Association (EMA) calculating cost-per-hire estimated that traditional advertising cost-per-hire was significantly more costly compared to the Web. However, these advantages do not take into consideration the cost of sifting through countless resumes or the cost of retraining for a poor employer/employee fit. Vast quantities of information may be good; however, relevant, focused information is better. Many of the "hits" produced from a search engine searching on words such as "employment" or "career" are overlaps, potential employees located in distant states, or mildly relevant but less useful information regarding employment issues. The viable question to the employer still remains "Will it help find our company the ideal candidate?"

According to the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), the Web is starting to make traditional print media nervous, but not extinct. While recruitment advertising was down last year according to Kevin McCourt of NAA, some of those lost advertising dollars were not going to the Net, but instead to job fairs, direct mail, and niche publications. Charles Diederich, Director/Recruitment Advertising at NAA, sees the pie as not being divided with the Net, but, rather, the pie itself getting larger.

There are still some things that print media does better than the Web including fostering local sales relationships and promoting a sense of community. In addition, a print resume has advantages over an electronic resume. Most electronic resumes do not afford the job seeker the opportunity to express his uniqueness with distinct fonts, presentation styles, or quality paper. It focuses only on his skill set. Important characteristics such as personality, poise or professional polish cannot be determined from a text field on-line. They can, however, more likely be determined from a print resume.

Rather than substituting web recruiting as the main vehicle for new hires, successful firms combine networking in person via professional associations, recruiters, volunteering, and social events in addition to the Web to find the best employees. Keep in mind that recruiters have access to candidates not available by other less personal channels such as print media or the Web. Quality candidates that would not respond to routine advertisements seek out recruiters because of their reputation, ability to search continually, and offer of confidentiality. With interpersonal interaction and communication, recruiters are successfully providing forums for information exchange, giving job and business leads, mentoring, and training benefiting both candidates and clients. Web recruiting has opened many new avenues for employees and employers to conduct job searches. However, the most effective Web recruiting comes as a result of combining the Web with various interpersonal resources.