Making careers happen online

The advent of international online job boards in 1994 was soon emulated by South African companies which were up and running by 1997. The initial business proposition offered a pool of online careerseeker resumes to be made available, at a fee, to recruitment agencies. Furthermore there was online space to advertise jobs which could then be searched by the candidates.

"The key concern at the time was confidentiality," says Kris Jarzebowski, MD of CareerJunction, an online recruitment service. "While still a priority, strict guidelines and reputable company names have allayed careerseeker fears."

'Matching' technology was the next phase. Careerseekers fill in detailed online CVs which then allow recruiters to match jobs accordingly. A key differentiator, which still exists today, was the technology investment by the various online recruitment companies.

"Towards the end of this period, online recruitment sites had become more than simple job boards," says Jarzebowski. "It was the start of the career centre and included advice to the careerseeker."

By 2000 the emphasis in the industry was on streamlining the recruitment process even further. Online recruitment reduced cost and time to hire, ensured more accurate matches, real-time responses and thus faster candidate delivery.

Part of the service offering meant moving beyond technology: "CareerJunction started developing alliances, ensuring an extended reach for the recruiters."

These crossed the Internet, bringing newspapers, as well as other Internet sites, into partnerships. The success of these alliances meant an ongoing emphasis on developing partnerships to extend reach.

By 2003, continued work on technology ensured advanced online matching, with intelligent but user-friendly search mechanisms. But now competency-based assessment tools added a whole new dimension.

Online recruitment continues to move forward. Currently South Africa sees an alternative trend to the United States - where career Websites are perceived to be cutting into the newspapers' niche (www.emarketer.com, 2004).

"CareerJunction has the Multimedia Recruitment Advertising Strategy (MRAS)," explains Jarzebowski. "The alliances between our site and newspapers have resulted in extended reach rather than a negation of newspaper employment pages. Companies and recruitment agencies still place ads in newspapers but give the Web address of a job advert rather than requiring an e-mail or written response. This channels all applications to one point, cutting down on time and ensuring measurable results."

A further trend sees companies bringing recruitment in-house. How many companies choose to follow this path and the ultimate impact on the industry is yet to be seen. This could herald the change from recruitment agency to recruitment consultant, where agencies are utilised for their expert know-how on a retainer basis rather than according to placement fees.

For those companies that want to extend their reach and ensure a consistency between internal (intranet) and external recruitment, the use of technologies developed by online recruitment agencies is then 'purchased'. While the front end - the pages and tools viewed by the online visitor - is branded with the company's corporate identity, the back-end technology is run by the online recruitment agencies utilising the Application Service Provider (ASP) model.

The concept of Business Intelligence (BI) is also now entering the recruitment market: "It denotes the process of gathering information in the field of business using tools that 'wade' through large amounts of information to filter data into a usable form."

CareerJunction introduced BI tools in 2005, offering recruiters the capability to gain information that is essential for decision-making within the recruitment process.

With Best Practice eRecruitment strategies now in place and ongoing technological and industry developments, eRecruitment and recruitment is steadily moving forward and growing. This is an industry where technology, experience and people operate seamlessly together.