WHAT ARE E-RECRUITMENT SYSTEMS

In a nutshell, E-Recruitment (also Internet recruiting) is the process of sourcing staff using the internet. eRecruitment is synonymous with various terms, including: online recruitment and internet recruiting. Due to the increase in number of people searching online for jobs, progressive companies are taking advantage of eRecruitment systems to manage the entire recruitment process and reduce recruiting-related costs. There are various advantages of eRecruitment, however these are outside the scope of this article.

E-recruitment software systems are essentially advanced software tools designed to help manage the recruitment process and tap into the internet for efficiency in communication and extended reach and sourcing capabiltity. A good eRecruitment system should help increase recruitment efficiency while driving down recruitment costs and time to hire.

Recruitment essentially entails 2 process phases and various tools or services and channels to help you implement these phases.

The 2 distinct process phases of recruitment are: (1) Sourcing, and (2) Hiring Management.

1. Sourcing

Sourcing entails using various channels (online & offline) to market your vacancy and thus find the right talent for your organization.

Online sourcing channels have surpassed many traditional paper based advertising channels (offline channels), and these would typically include your corporate website, job boards (eg Career Junction), classified sites, talent databases, community networking sites and people search engines. This article serves to discuss eRecruitment with specific reference to eRecruitment software applications or applicant tracking systems as they are most commonly referred to.

In terms of sourcing, most eRecruitment systems allow the recruiter to advertise and manage jobs on their corporate website, and thus tap into the internet and the power of their brand to attract top quality candidates. More advanced eRecruitment systems (or applicant tracking systems) not only allow the recruiter to advertise their jobs on their own website, but offer the recruiter the ability to tap into multiple channels including online & offline channels. These channels could include posting jobs to their internal intranet for employee transfers, cross posting to job boards like Career Junction, receiving cv submissions from recruitment agencies, receiving faxed and emailed resumes, and receiving applications via newspaper adverts. Additional sourcing features could include employee referral systems, and advanced resume database storage and mining.

Using your corporate website is an effective way to increase your job marketing reach, improve your sourcing while driving down recruitment costs, and reinforce the value of your brand to potential talent and future customers. Using an e-recruitment solution to tap into multiple sourcing channels in an effective and efficient manner could lead to a more cost effective cost per hire and a decrease in time to hire.

Many tools are available to help companies in their eRecruitment, however very few come full circle in helping recruiters manage the sourcing and hiring management process thoroughly and holistically. Many tools tend to offer the ability to only advertise jobs on their corporate website, however stop there. This leads us onto the second phase- hiring management.

2. Hiring Management

Hiring management (applicant tracking) entails managing the entire recruitment cycle from creating and getting approval on the job requisition, to advertising and managing the sourcing aspect of recruitment, through to managing the application process, and finally to interviews and candidate hired and onboarded. Some e-recruitment software applications (or applicant tracking software) not only help post jobs onto your corporate website and cross post your jobs onto various job boards, but they also help manage and track applications and the entire recruitment process. They auto communicate with job applicants, and have robust tools to help you build, search and manage your own talent pool. Applicant tracking or advanced eRecruitment software applications interface with background checking vendors and psychometric assessment vendors, as well as help track and manage applicants through to the interview and hiring stage. From here they may initiate an approval process or pull in hiring managers. Finally the e-recruitment system will help pull your recent hires into your payroll and HRIS system through onboarding.

These advanced hiring management tools are what allow efficiency in the recruitment process. They make administrative tasks more efficient, driving down time to hire and recruitment costs. Besides helping companies communicate more effectively with potential talent, these hiring management tools keep a history of all actions taken through any recruitment process, as well as help to build a talent pool that can be used to build a labour supply chain for future vacancies. They also streamline the recruitment process and offer advanced reporting functionality, allowing HR and recruitment to become more strategic.

In conclusion it must be remembered that the evolution of eRecruitment solutions has been borne out of the overall ideology of talent management. The term Talent Management is used to describe a new way of thinking about how to source, retain, develop, deploy and engage people in organizations. E-recruitment or applicant tracking software is a subset of Talent Management software applications, and goes along way in achieving improved sourcing and management of talent. Used effectively e-recruitment or applicant tracking systems can lead to a huge sourcing improvement for companies, helping them to win the war for talent.