Recruitment Channels - Which one of them do you prefer?
It may still be nascent, but online recruitment is becoming one of the most exciting ways of hiring people in India. Not just Monster. com, the international E-recruitment portal, a host of recruitment-on-the-web ventures have mushroomed in India, including JobStreet. com, Prizedjobs. com, JobsDB. com, to name a few. Indian job portals like Naukri and Jobsahead are the major market share holders at present.
(PRWEB) February 20, 2004
There are a lot of fish in the ocean, and getting hold of the price catch is the ultimate goal for any fisherman. The same goes in the corporate world as companies utilize a number of recruitment channels to find the best-fit candidates. Print advertising, online job search, job fairs, referrals and linkages being the most common of all the channels used by the companies.
One industry thriving on the Internet today and gaining global success is the recruitment industry and associated industries with on-line recruitment.
Only a short time ago the idea of posting your resume or vacant position on a proactive database that enabled you to promote your skills or profile your position to companies or high-caliber candidates on a global scale would have been perceived as being absurd. Today, not only is it possible but it has become a commonplace.
Harpreet Singh was back from office. It had been a long, tiring day. A day made worse by the fact that he was tired of his job – as an executive of a large corporate house. He plonked down in front of his PC with his tall mug of coffee. More out of a habit than anything else, to check his mails. Some time back, he had posted his resume on a jobsite, without any real hope for an offer. But there, in his inbox, was that dream offer. Thanks to the emergence of online recruitment.
It may still be nascent, but online recruitment is becoming one of the most exciting ways of hiring people in India. Not just Monster. com, the international E-recruitment portal, a host of recruitment-on-the-web ventures have mushroomed in India, including JobStreet. com, Prizedjobs. com, JobsDB. com, to name a few. Indian job portals like Naukri and Jobsahead are the major market share holders at present.
On the online recruitment front companies like Elixir Web Solutions have around 100 web staffing strategists trained specifically on online recruitment strategies and effective online ad posting. Perry Madan, Practice Manager, Elixir Web Solutions, reveals, “We have regular huddles on how to improvise on our online recruitment strategies as it is our business backbone”.
Mr. Vipul Prakash, Head, Elixir Web Solutions, an HR Consulting firm, says “ In India, currently job portals are doing nothing more than posting a job on the Web unlike newspapers and magazine advertisements.” According to him, companies can leverage on four types of mode to approach job seekers, like newspapers and magazine advertisements, consultants, job fairs and job portals. “ We are strategizing about organizing job fairs in the metros, we regularly appear in Times Ascent and HT Careers and we are by far the No.1 Online job advertisers on all the major job portals.” Claims Vipul.
Online recruitment is being patronized by Indian corporate houses mainly because of factors like speed enhancement, achieving faster process efficiency, acknowledging productivity of a candidate and maintaining a professional approach to recruitment. According to a study by market research firm Forrester Research, the value of the online recruitment market worldwide is expected to grow to $1.7 billion by the end of 2003. Recruitment agencies feel that this growth will be seen in India too, notwithstanding the penetration of the Internet in the country. The main aspect here is the reach. An ad insert in The Times of India’s weekly pullout, Ascent, reaches over 2.5 million subscribers, and that translates into a minimum of 12.5 million readers. And naukri. com can boast of only 7 million page views a month. But the projections are rosy; the jobsites are looking at an exponential growth. Says Bikhchandani, Naukri. com: “Registered users are expected to grow at 400-500% every year.
The Internet population in India is estimated to touch 50 million users in the next three years. Research indicates that 25% of all Internet users search for jobs online which is a good sign for the business. In terms of changing mindset, a large number of companies have still reservations about the power of Internet to help them in recruitment. In the next two years, as more and more employers taste success with their Internet recruitment efforts, the mindset of late adopters will change and the market will explode.
Contrary to the popular belief, placement agencies will benefit from the growth of jobsites to provide value-added services to their clients. Earlier e-recruitment was considered as a competition by placement agencies, today there is a change in the market perception. Placement consultants can immensely benefit through this mode on account of faster reach, and also fast-mover advantage. Elixir Web Solutions has been on a fast track providing services to its clients. The company feels that there are several success factors associated with jobsites.
Jobsites: The Success Factors
Ø Value-added services
Ø Increase in number of products
Ø Modular, cost-effective, customized solutions
Ø Relationship management program with HR managers
Ø Focus on brand building
Now lets a have a look what the major job portals has to say about the current trends.
Naukri. com: “Because of the slowdown and the downsizing, e-recruitment increased as a cost effective alternative. The software solution that we offer through eApps was also time saving by over 80% and the revenue saving by over 300%.
Jobstreet. com: “We have witnessed a 50% jump in job postings since Jan 2003. It’s a matter of time when people start signing on larger contracts once their comfort level with the medium is higher.”
Jobsahead. com: “Corporates are slow responding, though candidates seem to have embraced the new medium. Last year, despite the slow market our business expanded. Over the past two quarters, our growth has in fact been steeper.”
Monsterindia. com: “Three main trends need to be highlighted. While the IT segment continues to be high on e-job search, traditional sectors – Manufacturing, Engineering, Production, Banking, Finance, Auditing and Insurance and Advertising/Marketing – are also catching up. Secondly, though it was believed that e-job search is mainly for junior to mid level placements, these days we see a large number of senior people also creating their resumes online. We have also exploded the myth that a job site competes with placement consultants.
It is true to say that the Internet is a goldmine of valuable resources that will increase the performance of any recruiter that understands how to find it.
Online recruitment no doubt is booming right now but does that mean that all the other recruitment channels would be dead and buried in some time? Well to answer this critical paradox Elixir Web Solutions did a survey in October this year. We ranked the levels of satisfaction with channels of job search in India from 1 to 5(with 1 expressing the greatest dissatisfaction, 3 having no opinion and 5 being extremely satisfied).
Respondents revealed that hiring a Staffing Agency (3.8) is the most effective method for job-hunting. Meanwhile, print advertising (3.77) is considered the next best thing, while the traditional practice of personal contacts/referrals (3.72) takes the third spot. Despite the Internet craze, electronic job searching (3.25) is still tepid for most respondents as it falls fourth in the survey. Job fairs (2.97 and advertising in trade magazines (2.87) are found nearly at the bottom of the job-hunting food chain.
Adds Vipul, “We have been retained by one of our client for providing complete hiring solutions from ad posting, screening to final shortlisting. This client has exclusively retained us on a per seat basis and this is where the job portals become a facilitator. The biggest catch in today’s world is to use them effectively to get the best and quick results.”
All the channels have their share in the market in some way or the other, more or less, good or bad. Online recruitment still has a long way to go. The market right now in India is estimated to be around 20 crore which should double in this fiscal. Though the growth rate is healthy, the size is much lower than recruitment ads in print media.
The author is a Business Analyst with Elixir Web Solutions, An HR Consulting Firm.
