E-Recruitment · the use of e-recruitment, especially by the multinational companies would ensure that the reach of the need for talents to fill in job functions would be farther.

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E-Recruitment

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Table of Contents

Introduction 3

Discussion 4

Conclusion 18

References 20

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Introduction

Human resource is one of the key pillars in an organization that is considered as

something that is vital in order to have an organic growth and strength. Employees are one of the

factors that make an organization prosper and survive in a world of highly competitive business

environment. Therefore, to be able to have and achieve the greatest efficiency on human

resource, that is tapping the talents of the people in order to have an organization with creativity

and innovation, there must be a set of guidelines that will be the core way this part of the

organization be managed and operate.

The changes in the business environment, especially through the proliferation of

globalization, make the functions of human resource management has also been evolving.

One of the functions of human resource is recruitment.

This paper will be discussion the recruitment with the focus on the E-recruitment. As the

selection process of new employees for the organization is a classic function of human resource,

its changes of efficiency has changed by utilizing the new tools available such as the internet.

Nevertheless, this paper will be discussing the important uses of the job description and

specifications. Part of recruitment is the planning of the human resource that will constitute the

size of the organization as well as the functions and job descriptions of employees. This is

important as jobs would be filled and to ensure that the human talent pool are not over loaded or

otherwise that may cause fatigue or unnecessary stress which may all contribute to the

inefficiency of the organization.

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The use of the internet is a way of improving the selection or recruitment process. With

the use of e-recruitment, especially by the multinational companies would ensure that the reach

of the need for talents to fill in job functions would be farther.

Discussion

Part of the recruitment process is the human resource planning. It is a process of

analyzing the organization’s human resource needs under a dynamic business conditions and

developing the required activities to be able to satisfy these needs. One of the activities would be

the recruitment process. This activity is considered a dynamic management process to be able to

insure that at all possible times, the organization or the department or division within the

organization would have the correct number of people. However, this number of people, it is

important that they also be characterized with the right set of skills and talents that would be

using for the right jobs. This is to ensure that they can contribute well in the most effective ways

and means. Having an effective talent pool would be able to have an organization with high

productivity and profitability.

In essence, human resource planning and recruitment is concerned with the efficient

procurement and maximum utilization of the organization’s human resource to be able to help

the organization achieve its goals and objectives. Remember, that the human resource pool of an

organization is the source of innovation and creativity that can propel it to greater heights.

Thus, human resource planning, selection and placement of its people are all elements of

the recruitment process. To be able to understand better e-recruitment, which is an improvement

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of the traditional recruitment process, we must be able to understand first the importance of

human resource planning and well as its impact to corporate planning.

At the highest level of the organization where there is the strategic long-range planning.

This activity at the top level would ensure to have the formulation of corporate philosophy. In

this sense, including the human resource planning is an important function as well as in engaging

the company in e-recruiting procedure.

To be able to have a well-scoped human resource planning, which is a prerequisite in the

e-recruitment, there must be a well-structured steps and guidelines. The human resource

management people must first be able to determine the workload of a job function that is based

on the corporate goals, philosophies and objectives. This is to ensure that the job description that

will be posted in the e-recruitment process is accurately matched to the actual job function to

have a perfect fit with the talent of the individual to the company culture and job requirements.

Further, there should be a studying well the jobs in the company to be able to write the

job description and specifications. In addition, there must be a good forecasting of manpower

needs. To have a good forecast is part of an effective planning activity in order to have the

correct determining of the number of skills of people that are required in the organization. Also,

having an excellent forecasting would mean ensuring that the organization will not be too fat that

would be causing a high level of operational expenses that will be burdened by the organization.

Also, having a good forecasting would be ensuring that the organization will not be too lean

causing the people to be too stressed and overloaded that may result to human error in operations

which may cost the organization high costs.

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Having a good human resource planning would also ensure that the size of the whole

organization is very much fit on the budget and ability of the company to absorb the expenses.

Inventory of manpower is also required in the human resource planning. The inventory of

manpower is the analysis of the present manpower complement of the organization. This is to

determine if there has enough, less or more personnel that is required. In a modern world,

especially with the sensationalized and much watched news on the economic recession of one of

the most powerful countries in the world, the United States of America, there are a lot of known

retrenchment and redundancies. This is the result of human resource planning of the organization

where the needs of the organization on the required functions and its ability to absorb human

resource costs such as benefit administration and salaries are deeply analyzed. Sadly, when the

economy is at a recession, the profit bottom line of a business organization is hit and the result of

human resource planning would mean a retrenchment. On the other hand, if there are no

recession bouts and the economy is at is normal roll of growth, an effective human resource

planning is a prerequisite for the recruitment process.

E-recruitment is very much on the rise today. One of the factors that might have

contributed to such is the proliferation of the use of the internet. In e-recruitment, there is a

database of job functions that are announced needed for filling up. This is in turn viewed by

prospective employees that are available in the internet. Thus, other manual forms and materials

such as bio-data or curriculum vitae can be submitted through the internet. Thus, the inefficiency

of having snail mail which may take weeks or the risk of loss is eliminated. The requirement for

data in the recruitment process can be submitted immediately and in real time. Thus, the time

that was initially required in a manual or traditional recruitment is shortened.

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An organization can collaborate with job recruitment databases such as Jobstreet or

JobsDB. These are the most viewed and known internet databases where jobseekers can look at.

In addition, an organization can have its own website in the internet and include there the

postings of job functions.

However efficient e-recruitment can be, the human resource department cannot discount

the need for the pre-works that are also present in the manual or traditional recruitment

procedure.

In this sense, e-recruitment can be considered as the centralization of personnel selection

and hiring. The hiring policies of the top-level management should be effectively and

consistently carried out. If this is so, then the screening and hiring process can be centralized in

the personnel department, which can be institutionalized better. However, this does not

automatically means that the personnel department alone can decide on which employee to be

hired. Selecting the right person for the right job should be a joint responsibility of the personnel

manager as well as the immediate superior. Some organizations use the Rule of Three, which

means that the screening in the recruitment process is made by the supervisor or the manager

requesting for the employee. While the personnel department is acting as the control center for

accepting application, as part of the e-recruitment process, the line supervisor or immediate

superior must be able to have the assumption of having his rightful share of the responsibility in

selecting the right person most fit for the job. This is because the recruitment process is just the

beginning of a long relationship between the immediate superior and the prospective employee.

For one, the immediate superior has the role of developing and training the employee after the

recruitment.

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A number or organizations have been employing the services of consultants. Moreover,

the recruitment process, especially with the onset of e-recruitment, can be outsourced. This can

have the organization referrer the applicants for proper screening, testing and evaluation. Since

the process of e-recruitment would be more and greatly efficient than that of manual training.

This is actually the practice of many companies especially those of multinational companies in

nature because of their requirement of a diverse work force. They are considered the forward-

looking companies in operations and the way they regard of their human resource. The

consultants or outsourced partners screen the applicants and submit the names of those who

would be able to meet the requirements and deemed to be fit. The client company would then be

making the final choice of who would be hired. This process and practice would be reducing the

tasks and processes that are about to be considered within the bounds of the organization eating

up important manpower hours.

In the recruitment process, one more function that can be outsourced is the testing

procedure where psychological clinics for testing and selection of applicants. This practice is

being proliferated and widespread among organizations who would want to have a lean process

and outsource non-core competency of the company. Industrial psychologists are trained in some

of the best schools and must be able to help and contribute their respective skills to the

organization’s betterment in terms of efficiency and efficacy in the recruitment procedure.

Below are the vital steps considered as part of the pre-work for the e-recruitment of

employees for the organization’s needs (Sison, 1994):

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1. Determining the workload. This is the first step in the process of pre-works for

recruitment process. This is to determine the business objectives of the company and

analyze the corresponding impact on the department or unit’s operational responsibilities.

Once the human resource management objectives are determined, the workload can be

determined which should be aligned to the company’s overall company objectives and

philosophies. These objectives and philosophies must be part of the corporate strategy by

the high level of the organization. This part is important and vital in the process as the

magnitude of the workload is considered as a charter between the prospective employee

and the company. Further, this would determine the organizational structure or table of

organization, the number and set of skills that the employee must possess in order to do

the job effectively. Questions can help in the determination of the workload in order to

have the right answers and data needed in this vital procedure. For instance, before

launching the requirement in an e-recruitment website, we can ask the following: what

are the overall organizational objectives; what is the nature and volume of the operational

workload input such as in the production, financial or marketing. To be able to help and

in determining the workload inputs, the organization must be able to consider important

factors such as business development, economic forecasts, change in plans and products,

new product roadmap or other business trends.

2. Study of jobs in the company. This is considered to be the analysis of all the jobs in the

company since these jobs are interrelated to each other.

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3. Forecasting human resource needs. After determining the work input of the immediate

superior of the jobs to be filled, forecasting the manpower need can be institutionalized.

Important questions that need to be answered on this respect would include the number of

specialists, professionals or executives be needed in the organization. The forecasting is

an important process to provide the indicator of how much the company would be

preparing for labor costs and if the company would be able to absorb or shoulder the

costs. A simple forecasting methodology involves the collective opinion of experts in

such. The comments and opinions of experts must be backed up by qualitative and

quantitative documents for support. These are then integrated with the organization’s

strategies.

4. Inventory of Manpower. In this process, there is an audit and assessment of the skills,

career aspirations and strengths and weaknesses of the manpower of the organization.

The variance is then studied and analyzed versus the needs of the company. This would

in turn be the requirement of the company for the recruitment procedure. The net result of

this activity would be that the organization would be able to determine that there is an

enough volume of manpower within the organization that recruitment is not deemed as

necessary or that there is an excess in the number of available manpower. A lack of

manpower would be a good justification for the recruitment to be able to address the need

for an important and vital job function to be filled.

The importance of well-organized e-recruitment program cannot be underestimated, as this is

also an activity that can mirror the quality of the organization to the outside world. This is

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actually the link of the organization to the reach and finds the manpower outside the organization

to fill in an operational or strategic need.

The main and most important goal of a good employee e-recruitment process is to acquire

people who possess the right skills, talents and competence to be able to successfully accomplish

the duties and responsibilities expected of the job needed to be filled. This is to ensure that the

talent and full potential of the employee can be tapped and trained by the company to be able for

the employee, in return, to be effective and efficient on his own role. This employee would

surely help the organization achieve its goal of growth to be able to survive and win the ever

challenging business environment.

The success of any organization whatever its size whether a multinational corporation or

a small and medium enterprise, would be highly depend on the ability and skills of its people in

its talent pool. People are therefore hired to be able to do and achieve job objectives. Since

people are using company resources such as money, materials, tools and equipment to be able to

produce products and services. Jobs are very diverse in an organization and differ and as much as

possible differ form one another. If an employee is assigned to a job that does not necessarily fit

to his own talents and skills, then the potential of the employee is then put into waste. The

company, on the other hand, would not be getting the finished job which the employee was paid

for in the first place. The e-recruitment process is therefore a major stop-gap of any future errors

in the job-employee fit.

Thus, the importance of having a company policy of attracting and hiring employees

through e-recruitment where every vacant job position must be filled is deeply recognized in an

organization that puts value to its people. The e-recruitment is an efficient gateway on having a

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farther reach to get the employees with the ability, right personality and potential to grow with

the company to be able to develop and train them to become efficient, loyal and satisfied

employees.

In fact, according to a three-year study of about 300 thousand employees across 600

companies in the United States, as conducted by Joseph E. King, poor recruitment and low

morale of employees were the root cause of a great employee problem. The study was able to

provide conclusion that increased welfare activities were always the answer to these problems

emphasizing that to be able to avoid such, it was stated:

“One answer is more scientific selection that is efficient which can be e-recruitment. The

object is to build and maintain a working force, which will be stable, productive and satisfied,

and to insure union-management relationship, which will be free from conflicts. In short, sound

recruitment practice is designed to get the right kind of employees, place them properly and

handle them effectively.”

Therefore, because of the very fast pace of the way businesses are operated today,

utilizing the internet to launch an e-recruitment program is very timely. Unlike that of the

traditional process where the announcement and communication plan of a job vacancy is through

major broadsheets, the internet is a powerful tool that can be updated once in awhile. Further,

since majority of the people are now using the internet, they do not need to wait for the dailies to

arrive in the morning since the internet is accessible 24 hours of the day. The delivery of the

message that the company is in need of talents would become more efficient. The organization

can also have a faster way of assessing the applicants by their faster submission of requirement

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such as curriculum vitae or an essay on an important question that the company would like to be

answered. These can be sent via internet and the delivery would be in a matter of seconds.

Therefore, the recruitment process is being able to find the right man for a job and

finding the right job for a man (Sison, 1994). This is the very essence of recruitment. The launch

of an e-recruitment is for the sake of efficiency.

Any extra cost that an be added to the recruitment program due to converting the process

into an e-recruitment procedure for the improvement of the selection will more be outweighing

the cost itself because of bringing in efficient employees in the organization. There will be less

employee dissatisfaction that must be dealt with. With the use of e-recruitment, which can be

scientific in nature as a new technique, a lot can be done in order to reduce and eliminate the

inefficiency of manual recruitment or errors in the selection of employee.

Further, having an e-recruitment would be able to help the organization have a reach on

the database of employees that had bad records in previous selection program of other

companies. With the use of e-recruitment, organizations can have access and filter applicants

who had a bad record such as not showing up on interviews or signing contracts and then

backing out which caused some discomfort to past employers. This may not be present in a

manual or traditional process because of the absence of database versus the use of modern

technology with that of e-recruitment.

There are factors that need to be considered in what makes a good employee. Catching a

good employee through the job market is the essential objective of having an effective e-

recruitment program. The selection of such is basis to an effective human resource management.

However, there is no full guarantee, even if the recruitment process has changed from traditional

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to something that is electronic, that the employees who are selected will be efficient and

productive because many other factors are influential to the performance of an employee.

A prospective applicant may be interested in placing a job not solely because of the

corresponding pay but possibly on the opportunity for having his talent and ability be

demonstrated and enhanced. There should be given an enough opportunity for the job and a

chance for advancement to be able to achieve career aspirations and growth. The e-recruitment

might have been successful in searching for the right man for the job because he might have the

right and perfect set of skills needed. However, if the employee is assigned to jobs that he is very

much qualified but the working climate is not made in such a way to foster individual growth

such as proper incentives and other motivations to do a better and more than what are expected,

the organization may not get the highest potential or quality performance which the employee is

capable of.

On the other hand, the e-recruitment process is not only beneficial to the company but to

applicants as well. Besides foregoing the costs of buying broadsheets and shouldering the cost

for sending out curriculum vitae to the employers through snail mail or even taking up a leave

from a current job just to walk on the business district and drop off a bio-date, the applicant can

search for the job anytime of the day without the need for a cost for snail mail and production of

printing of curriculum vitas in good papers. He just needs to do one in electronic form and

submit via email. This makes the job hunt for the applicant very much efficient as compared if

the e-recruitment process has not been invented. Therefore, the right talent for the job is being

able to be found in a faster rate. The selection process of an organization to fill in a job will

definitely be faster and more efficient as well as effecting. The elimination of dealing with an

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incorrect job fit will be eliminated and the whole organization needs not to suffer because of a

bad apple in the organizational tree.

There are several reasons why organizations must be able to have an effective e-

recruitment process (Sison, 1994):

1. Employees who have been properly selected in an efficient manner had better achieve

organizational objectives.

2. An incompetent employee is a liability to the organization.

3. Personnel requirements vary form job to job.

4. People who have varying degree of intelligence, aptitudes and abilities.

5. Labor laws protect employees, making it difficult to fire incompetent and problem

employees.

6. Individuals have different interests, goals and objectives in life.

7. Careless and inefficient hiring is costly and can cause problems to the company,

especially to the supervisors and managers who have to deal with the workers.

It was mentioned that an incompetent employee is a liability to the organization. More

than incurring costs to the organization in order to pay for the labor cost and benefits

administration as required by law; the employee is not delivering the minimum expectations of

job output from him. Moreover, other employees of the organization will be affected by such

liability because other employees to ensure that the business is at its usual roll would absorb the

work that is not done.

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When an incompetent employee was hired because of inefficient process, the liability of

the company starts. For example, in a traditional employee recruitment, because of the

inefficiency of the process and the urgency of the need tosses to the company fill up a job

vacancy, the personnel department might have been very much pressured to make a decision

already despite the roster or applicants seem to be not fit or do not possess all the qualities

required. They may be thinking that the employee can be trained in order to provide the right

qualification for the job.

The result, an employee may only cause direct losses to the company in terms of

substandard performance and low productivity but he is also a potential source of other problems

to management, his co-workers and even to customers. For instance, a person that is with high

temper might have been selected to be a front liner and would be dealing with customers. Since

the customer is king in this time of the business, and the employee is with high temper and

would not be able handle the customer well. In this regard, the company may lose customers and

the result would be opportunity loss. Customer dissatisfaction due to low quality of work,

unsatisfactory or unpleasant associations with the incompetent employee can result to loss of

loyalty of customers (Sison, 1994).

If an incompetent employee has been selected to fill in a job vacancy, it would require

longer job training and need for closer supervision. Thus, the immediate superior would be

entailing more time in order to have a closer management of the work of the employee. Instead

of allocating the precious time of other employees this is being used up in order to help the

incompetent employee finish his job. Materials and other resources of the company are wasted. If

the incompetent employee is given an important equipment to be used such as expensive

databases, it could result to damage, which the organization has no choice but to replace

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immediately to ensure business continuity. That is why in a high-technology driven

organizations where databases are important because information are consisting of money and

confidentiality to subscribers such as in banks, telecommunications and customer services, data

administrators are very well picked in order to ensure competence. Imagine in a

telecommunications industry if an intelligent network has crashed down, it would mean rapture

in the services providing to subscribers. In banks, if the database have been damaged and are not

restored immediately thousands of its depositors who might wish to withdraw from ATM

machines or through the internet are deeply affected.

Further, longer time for completion of assignment and poorer quality of finished product

is required. The wages and fringe benefits paid by the organization because of accident or errors

in line of duty due to the incompetent employee’s carelessness and inattention to his work or

even to follow the basic safety rules.

Low employee morale and inefficiency can result to hiring an incompetent employee.

The members of the team or department can expect everyone to be punctual, efficient and

helpful. An incompetent employee seldom possesses these qualities and be therefore arouses the

resentment of his co-workers who feel he is not doing his own share of the job. His continued

presence in the team would foster the team’s low morale because a person from the team is

getting the same level of wage and yet he is not delivering the right job.

As a result, there could be a disadvantage to the organization as an indirect cause of the

problem. Problems of employee turnover, discipline, grievances and even or possibly court

litigation such as the tension and strained relations with the supervisor and management may all

result.

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On the other hand, however, having an e-recruitment in the selection process may result

in the reduction of costs of training and supervision as well as utilization of every employee’s

best skills. Because of having a right fit in the organization, an employee would be experiencing

job satisfaction and greater production. The result for the organization would be having higher

earnings.

Conclusion

An organization that must be able to meet competition and survive in a cutthroat business

environment must have a core human resource that is powerful and rich in terms of talents and

skills. This would only be possible if it can maintain leadership it its field in terms of employee

recruitment.

As discussed in the paper, the importance of the efficiency of the selection process can be

achieved through the utilization of e-recruitment. This would ensure that the reach for employees

with talents and set of qualities and skills are fit for the organization’s needs. Further, the e-

recruitment process is the benchmark of the use of the internet, which the forward-looking

companies are using. This would entail and ensure that the company will not be left behind on

the usage of available tools in the market.

It was also emphasized that the installation of a program for recruitment and hiring is

important. It is not assumed though that in the utilization and implementation of e-recruitment

does not mean avoiding the pre-works of the traditional recruitment process.

An organization needs people who can contribute to the company’s where people have

the right qualifications and attitude for the job. The right job should be more economical to

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maintain because from the right recruitment process competent employees learn faster are less

costly to train and easier to supervise than unqualified employees. People who possess the right

qualification and attitudes in their jobs would be surely to be able to give better work

performance, get along better with other co-workers and are happier and satisfied in their jobs.

These type of employees are far less likely to do damage or liability to the whole organization

with the work dynamics, equipment and other resources.

The e-recruitment program must be able to be sold to the management. This must be

presented to the top management in order to be aligned to the entire strategy of the business. It is

important that the advantages and disadvantages of an e-recruitment process be presented to be

able to get a go decision in the implementation. It is important though, that the recruitment

program of the company is able to get top management support. The communication of

explaining the rules and procedures of the program from the top to the bottom of the organization

should be addressed to be able to have support from all over the organization.

The liabilities of an incompetent employee was presented and its direct and indirect

damage that may cause to the organization’s resources and work dynamics. Therefore, the

importance of having an efficient and effective employee selection process through the e-

recruitment process can never be underestimated.

Truly, an asset of the organization must be fully utilized to be able to propel the company

in greater heights especially during the challenging times. The people, as the most important

asset of the organization, can be a source of productive ideas and innovation, which can yield to

reaching business objectives.

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