It is true that the competitiveness of companies in the coming years will be directly related to their ability to attract and retain talent and their ability to take advantage of new technologies in the recruitment area.
Within this process, the first step is the recruitment and selection of personnel, or what is the same, finding and selecting candidates for a specific position.
The Internet is used by many Spanish companies in their recruitment and recruitment processes due to the large number of advantages it offers over traditional procedures. Different studies say that approximately 30% of Spanish companies use the Internet to search for workers. (Sources: Infoempleo, TMP Worldwide, Navegalia and CanalCv)
This trend is constantly increasing with what the Internet is and will increasingly be one of the most important elements in recruiting and selecting personnel.
Broadly speaking, the advantages that are achieved using the Internet are summarized in:
1. Recruitment much cheaper than in traditional media: according to a study by CanalCv, Spanish companies spend an average of 125,000 pesetas to search for personnel over the Internet, compared to the 2.1 million pesetas they invest in hiring personnel through 'headhunters' and the million pesetas it invests in doing so through the insertion of advertisements in the national press. Data provided by an IRCO-IESE study is in the same line as those commented by CanalCV.
In processes at an international level, the use of the Internet further amplifies the advantages since the cost of a selection process at an international level using traditional means is much more expensive than using the Internet.
2. Reduce the costs of recruitment processes and some selection processes: the technology allows reducing costs up to 75% and 40% the time invested in performing personnel selection processes in relation to traditional methods (Source: Soluziona)
A selection process is laborious: definition of the position, planning of the media where it will appear and associated budget, reception of the candidates, creation of the database, analysis of the candidates, crossing of the profile data with that of the candidates, interviews, calls or letters to both accepted and rejected candidates, etc.
If, in addition, the selection process is carried out by a team instead of just one person, the problems multiply.
Using the Internet and a computer application through your own website or that of a site dedicated to this effect, the processes are greatly simplified since as the candidates enter their data on the website, they are organized directly in a database relational.
In addition, other elements can be used such as filter questions, candidate ranking, then, at the time of selection, this database will also allow us to immediately consult the information and extract the most interesting candidates for each position as well. like automating the response to candidates, both accepted and rejected.
Within this context, the use of filtering questions that allow us to identify the profiles of the candidates is very interesting, making the process much easier and even creating "rankings" based on the suitability of different parameters for the position.
In addition, all this information can be shared by the selection team
being able to automate the process and reducing communication costs between team members.
These tasks can be carried out by a custom-developed application or, at least partially, by the Information Systems for the Human Resources area or the corresponding module of an ERP Information System.
3. Speed of the process
Due to the speed of communications using computer networks (Internet or Intranet) and the agility of some of the processes using the Internet, the process is significantly accelerated.
All professionals in this sector know the importance of speed since on many occasions, recruitment and selection processes take longer than desired with the corresponding negative consequences both in costs and the loss of interesting candidates.
4. Possibility of offering more information to potential candidates
Due to the structure of the employment websites and even the corporate website, it is possible to offer much more information to the potential candidate about the job position and the company offering it.
Some large companies allow the candidate to get in direct contact with a person who already works in the company through their website to ask any question that is considered interesting and thus get to know them "from within".
5. Possibilities of great targeting by introducing ads on targeted websites
Due to the communication possibilities on the Internet, the ad can be advertised in the media with a highly segmented audience, thus allowing us to recruit candidates much closer to the profile we are looking for.
If, for example, we are looking for a manager, we could put an ad on a website whose theme is business management and the results will be much better than if we use a mass media with a poorly segmented audience. Likewise, if we are looking for a cook, we can do the same with a site dedicated to hospitality.
To achieve the above, there are a large number of websites dedicated to putting in contact with the applicant companies and the candidates. The operation of these websites is as follows: they have areas reserved for companies where they place their offers. These are either sent to a database of potential interested in the offer, or it is the candidates who consult it directly, the offering company receiving all the information on the potential candidates.
In addition to the general websites for job search, there are websites specialized in sectors or in specific profiles, allowing the search for highly specialized candidates, either by sector or by job position. That is, if, for example, we want to search for a commercial, there are specialized sites in the search for those positions.
Anyway, although recruiting using the Internet is a powerful tool, it also has some drawbacks:
- It is mainly useful for positions aimed at people with less than five years of experience and technicians (especially interesting related to New Technologies), being inadvisable for management positions (since other means such as headhunters are used) as well as for low profiles qualification (due to difficulties and little habit of using the Internet)
- The number of people connected to the Internet is not the totality of the population today. This will influence more or less depending on the position to be filled since more qualified jobs are easier to fill due to the profile of Internet users.
- Not all Internet users use it to look for work.
- There is still a lot of work to be done to be able to redefine the company's processes in the human resources department as well as the information systems in order to take advantage of all the opportunities that the Internet offers us.
Due to the great advantages exposed, we have seen how the use of the Internet is very interesting both for the company and for the candidate since both take advantage of the medium. The company, above all, is favored by lower costs and speed, and candidates are favored above all by the immediacy of the medium, the instantaneous adjustment to their profile and the amount of information they can access since in this way they are the who make the first preselection.
