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Online Recruiting Gains Popularity Worldwide
Global use of the Internet for recruiting purposes has expanded from 29 percent of Global 500 companies in 1998 to 88 percent in 2001, led by strong growth among European and Asia-Pacific corporations, according to iLogos Research. June 21, 2001

Online Recruiting Gains Popularity Worldwide

Global use of the Internet for recruiting purposes has expanded from 29 percent of Global 500 companies in 1998 to 88 percent in 2001, led by strong growth among European and Asia-Pacific corporations, according to iLogos Research.

The strong growth in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region is for the most part due to the different adoption stages of the Internet in various regions of the world, according to Yves Lermusiaux, president and founder of iLogos Research.

"Most importantly, in order to leverage the true power of the Internet, corporations need to marry the front-end careers Web site with a back-end automation solution, facilitating global communication," Lermusiaux said. "This results in a fast and systematic process automating the recruiting supply chain and bringing a standardized, real-time process to one of the most important, and least efficient, areas of corporate governance."

The iLogos study determined that the largest increase in the adoption rate for corporate Web site recruiting occurred among Global 500 companies located in the Asia-Pacific region, with an increase of 20 percent over the last year, to 88 percent of Asia-Pacific Global 500 companies. European companies saw an increase in online recruiting of 10 percent, to 83 percent of European Global 500 companies; and North American Global 500 companies increased just 1 percent, to 93 percent.

In 1998, 14 percent of Global 500 companies did not have a corporate Web site; in 2001, all Global 500 companies have a corporate Web site. More than half (57 percent) of Global 500 companies did not use the corporate Web site for recruiting purposes in 1998; only 12 percent of Global 500 companies do not use the corporate Web site for recruiting purposes in 2001.

According to the study, most Global 500 companies currently incorporate Internet recruiting into the typical hiring strategy, and by 2002, iLogos Research expects that nearly 100 percent of the Global 500 will be utilizing corporate Web sites for recruiting, with a few late adopters coming in 2003. The next opportunity will be true e-headhunting, followed by online workforce optimization including such processes as skills inventorying, skills gapping and talent deployment, in real time, based on the needs of the organization.

"The increased adoption of corporate career Web site recruiting positions the world's largest companies to take advantage of the powerful opportunity to not just Webify existing processes, but to use technology to gain productivity and effectiveness by taking the next steps into online recruiting and talent management," said Alice Snell, iLogos Research vice president.

Employers and recruiters have continued to solidify and expand their e-recruiting practices, particularly at the management level, despite the economic downturn, according to a survey by 6FigureJobs.com.

"Strangely enough, the bad economy has been quite good for the growth of online recruiting," said Christopher Miller, CEO of 6FigureJobs.com. "Employers and recruiters are now working with tighter budgets and less manpower overall, and this shift plays right into the primary strengths of online recruiting -- proven cost efficiency and the potentially dramatic savings in labor per search and time to hire."

Fully 97 percent of the respondents to the 6FigureJobs.com survey indicated that they prefer to receive candidate resumes electronically via e-mail or "one-click apply" functionality rather than through regular mail. When asked to select the best attributes of Internet recruiting, respondents cited ease of use (72 percent); broad reach (68 percent); speed of posting (64 percent); 24-hour access (63 percent); and cost-efficiency (51 percent).

When asked to select the biggest drawbacks, respondents cited lack of quality candidates (54 percent); too many responses (47 percent); cost (46 percent); inability to screen responses (32 percent); and trackability of responses (27 percent).

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