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Labor Pains
In squeaky-tight labor market, companies turn to
the Internet to recruit new talent
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Business New Haven
2/7/2000
By: Abigail White
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The Internet, that sprawling web of computer networks, has fast become a powerful vehicle for business through its broad reach and its users' imaginative use of information.
But can the Internet solve Corporate America's recruiting woes? The answer lies in how a company uses the Internet as a part of its overall recruiting efforts.
The search for candidates has been a tough one for many, if not most, companies. Online recruiting is the evolving mechanism by which candidates go looking for work. Today's tight labor market and current unemployment rates have a dramatic impact on recruiting and hiring.
The Internet's true recruiting value to employers is its immediacy and ability to interact, albeit digitally, with potential employees. Employers can post jobs on a company Web site or sites for newsgroups, commercial job hunting, and staffing or recruiting firms.
“We just completed a search for a Fortune 100 company on the West Coast. The company wanted to find somebody who had both domestic and international marketing experience. So we were able to utilize the Internet to cast a wider web for that particular candidate,” says Vince Dussick, an executive recruiter at Madison-based Dussick Management Associates. “This made for a better find - and a quicker find.”
Recruiting strategists find the Internet to be a logical choice to attract and hire quality employees. “Because of the growth of the economy, there are many, many more opportunities for qualified candidates than there are people who are filling them,” Dussick says. “Add to that [the fact that] it's not uncommon for a person to get an offer and then go back to their job and say, 'I just got an offer to leave this company,' and the company will match it. The company says, 'I can't afford to have this guy leave because I know I can't find anyone like him.'”
Some companies have stepped up their Internet recruiting applications by incorporating skills and attitude testing in attempt to prequalify potential employees. Studies of business employment activities reveal a growing trend of at least one person in the company human resources department dedicated strictly to Internet recruiting.
As is evident from the December employment data, strains on the labor supply are the greatest they have been in a generation, even as the unrelenting strength in spending by consumers and businesses means that the demand for workers will not let up any time soon.
“The interesting point about all this is that when it comes to the recruiting or search industry, in my perspective, is our business has expanded and there are more companies utilizing more of our services than ever before,” Dussick says.
“In thinking about the evolution of Internet usage, I think our business would have expanded anyway since in today's corporate culture there's a demand for multi-skilled, multi-functional professionals, and that's an area we add value to as recruiters.
“Another point to make about the Internet,” adds Dussick, “is that nothing is going to replace me sitting down with a candidate and looking them in the eye and saying, 'Tell me about your story.'”
Companies also see the value of using computers for providing information over the Internet to readers looking for an area of the firm that interests them: investor relations, research, sales, technology, for example. The profile of people looking for work are educated, motivated and of course computer-literate.
“I think the biggest factor for most companies is that because the Web is being used so extensively now that any company in any related field knows they're getting interest from lots of people in their industry looking at their Web sites,” says Mark Saron, owner of Skybridge in New Haven.
“We've used the Internet to find the talent we need for the work we do in creating Web sites,” explains Saron. “I believe in phone calls over e-mail. You get a better sense of a person and their abilities and if they are who they represent themselves to be on the Internet.
“We have had success in finding programming talent, animated GIF providers and freelancers,” he adds. “Once you get a good person, it's easy to refer them to other people looking for that kind of help.”
Internet recruiting also may embrace entry-level candidates. “One of our areas of greatest need is for the home health aides, which is more or less an entry-level position,” says Susan Cecchini, HR manager for VNA Community Health Care Inc. in Guilford.
Cecchini says the VNA used the state's Department of Labor Web site to post job openings. Different online networks are used by the same company for different levels of employment.
“Our sense is there's a difference in where people will go to look for a posting,” she says. “We haven't had any success on the Department of Labor site yet because we haven't had any responses to it, but another site we used for a support-services person has had limited success because we did find several interesting candidates and we're reviewing the résumés at the present time.
“We are also in the process of developing our own Web site,” Cecchini adds. “We're looking to include a wide variety of things such as consumer information on our community services like the cholesterol clinics and blood pressure screenings; and we would also have employment listings and use that for recruitment as well. We're hoping to have that be interactive so people can either complete an application or send a résumé to us directly. We will also continue to use newspapers for employment as well.”
Most companies are already using the Internet, so why not to find workers? “We already use the Internet to get statistical information, or information to help consumers that we would pass on to various family members,” says Cecchini.
“I use it regarding salary-range information, statistics on unemployment rates, benefits and things like that. Most of us belong to industry organizations, either statewide or nationally - all of which have Web sites available and many of them do recruiting online. For example, the Connecticut Association for Healthcare has a Web site and they do offer recruitment on the site. We've used it in the past for certain positions - something more industry-specific as upper management positions: controller, accounting manager or human-resources manager.
Knowledge about different avenues available to participate in online networks can be turned into custom recruiting strategies. What companies are learning is how finding a more specific pool of prospective employees has become a matching of recruiting objectives with job researchers already looking for company information and job opportunities.
“Because our clients have the Internet as another way to source candidates, we have to be more conscious of providing them with an added value,” says Dussick. “The added value has to do with interviewing more, qualifying the candidates more, developing a broader base of candidates that we can draw upon - and then increasing the process of identifying the right candidates in a more effective way. This is the challenge that we have in the executive search business.
“The Internet also enables me, the executive search firm, another means of communicating with both our clients and our candidates,” Dussick adds. “It's another way of getting to that candidate outside the phone, which enables me to spend more time qualifying, identifying and interviewing.”
Using the Internet to attract employees is likely going to continue to proliferate as candidates seek company information, career planning, and job opportunities. In the actual recruiting process, using the Internet to further qualify candidates makes the process more effective.
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