Netting Jobs

Anita, an IT professional in her twenties, completed her bachelor of
engineering (BE) and was looking for a job. To make the process of finding a job
easy and quick, she posted her resume on a job portal, and, within a month, she
managed to bag a plum job with an ITeS company. Incidentally, Anita is not
alone; she is one among millions of Indians who are logging onto the Internet to
post resumes and apply for vacancies online.

A recent survey by Kelly Services, a global Fortune 500 company offering
staffing solutions, has revealed that Indian job seekers are increasingly
logging onto the Internet to find jobs, and almost 50% are able to find their
most recent positions online.

Even though it may sound like a death knell for the Indian print and other
forms of job advertising, online recruitment has eclipsed all other recruitment
channels, including direct approaches, newspaper advertising, and word of mouth,
according to the survey results.

Indian IT companies seem to agree with the recent findings of the Kelly
Services survey. Most HR managers say that the findings of the survey are not in
the least bit surprising; India has a young population with high career
aspirations, with the Internet serving as a convergence point for companies and
consultants as it is a quick and convenient route to locating right jobs in the
market.

Agrees C Mahalingam, senior vice president and chief people officer, Symphony
Services: Indian job seekers are very net-savvy and, therefore, it is not
surprising that they surf for job opportunities globally. Particularly those in
their twenties and thirties are ambitious, mobile, and career-minded, and they
understand the opportunities across the globe and within the Indian
subcontinent, and hence they are willing to give it a try.

A number of corporates are using the online medium for hiring, and modules
like jobsites, websites, intranets, and interestingly, social networking sites
like Orkut and LinkedIn are increasingly being used, says Dr Dwivedi, group
head, HR, Financial Technologies Group.

The job portal or the companys website offers the first insight into a
vacancy and companies are increasingly deploying automated resume tracking
systems in order to scrutinize resumes without wasting time with these automated
tools. Most new age organizations post vacancies on the Internet right at the
beginning of the recruitment process, thus, ensuring a wider reach to the
prospective candidate community in a cost-effective manner. Posting vacancies
online also enables job seekers to reach out to multiple job openings
simultaneously, believes Abhay Valsangkar, senior director, HR, Symantec India.

Hype or Reality

Fundamentally, HR managers agree that online recruitment is a win-win
approach for both the job seeker and the organization hiring. But online
recruitment has several dimensions.

Online recruitment could include candidates who visit the company website and
apply directly for the vacancies posted on the website. It could also include
job seekers who notice job opportunities posted either as a banner advertisement
or as new postings on job boards like Monster.com or Naukri.com.

And last but not the least, it could also include prospective employees who
explore opportunities through social networking and other websites. All these
are great online recruitment media and can be leveraged extensively. The key
thing is to recognize which online avenue will get you the kind of profile you
are looking for and optimize your opportunity accordingly, says Mahalingam.

With increasing dependence on Web portals, a majority of candidates have
gained confidence in posting their resumes on the Internet; thereby maintaining
confidentiality and providing their profiles better viewership. Dharmaraj Nayak,
senior manager, HR, CSC India, admits to having closed many positions, including
niche skills, using Web portals. Web portals have always come handy while
recruiting in huge numbers and lately, the dependency has increased to a great
extent, he adds. Even Raghuvanshi says that over the last ten years, online
recruitment has become an important plank in the recruiting strategy of large
and mid-size companies.

Being a reasonable mode of communication, the power of reach with this medium
is very high. A single text search of a vanilla skill can lead to a hundred
plus profiles. But when it comes to finding the right candidate, it, more or
less, depends on the capability of the recruiter to find the right resume
through correct searches and then matching the profile with the requirement,
says Jay Menon, VP, Talent Acquisition Group, Polaris Software Lab.

However, the probability of being able to find the right candidate for the
job is higher for relatively junior levels. Online recruitment is most
effective for the lower and middle level requirements than at senior levels.
This is because the candidates aspiring for these positions are more forthcoming
in letting the world know that they are available. This trend, however, is not
common with the senior profile candidates, says MV Subramanian, director,
Staffing, HP India Sales. Valsangkar of Symantec feels that there will be an
emergence of some online communities that will be leveraged by organizations for
reaching out to senior professionals.

Joji Gill, director, HR, Microsoft India, feels the online recruitment medium
lacks sophisticated filters for instance, when reaching out through a placement
agency, the company can be sure of filling a position with the exact fit talent
which might not be true of online recruitment.

There is a difference of opinion when it comes to online recruitment
replacing other channels of recruitment with HR managers divided over the issue.
While Nayak believes that online recruitment merely serves as secondary source
of recruitment, Valsangkar feels that online recruitment enables HR to source
employees who suit their criteria in a faster manner, and gradually, the
industry has risen to overtake other modes of recruitment. Therefore, it would
be incorrect to assume that online recruitment is subservient to other channels.

Although online recruitment was initially considered a supplement, the trend
is fast changing as almost all large companies now have an online presence in
recruitment but users invariably use more than one channel. Infosys, for
instance, uses a mix of various channels in its recruitment process, be it the
career opportunity page on the companys website, advertisement, campus
relations, search firms, or employee referrals.

Behind the Boom

With a large percentage of Indians regularly logging onto the Internet, the
online recruitment market is seeing a lot of action. Almost every other job
portal is looking to grab a bigger chunk of the market via advertisements and
campaigns in print, Internet, and television, and by offering niche services.

Online job portals, too, are becoming aggressive on TV campaigns, and have
increased their share by featuring their jobs in business newspapers, and by
conducting job fairs in association with major brands.

Apart from being a cost-effective medium of recruitment and having a wider
reach of audience, online recruitment provides a very significant branding
opportunity for organizations. Over the portals, companies can repeat the
adverts simultaneously without refreshing the same, to make it more captivating
for capturing user attention, says Nayak.

By using an online platform, companies can eliminate geographical and time
zone constraints, particularly useful in todays workplace where diversity is
seen as a competitive advantage in the global marketplace, says Somnath.

Cost, however, is one of the most important factors driving the growth of the
online recruitment market considering that companies would have spent a huge sum
on advertisements in the print. More often than not, online recruitment also
acts as a support to other mediums with candidates identifying vacancies on job
portals and approaching companies via other means like agencies or employee
referrals, says Gill of Microsoft.

Stumbling Blocks

Outdated resumes are a big problem area. This could be due to two reasons:
either the person is not interested in exploring a change in the job or the
candidates updated contact details are not keyed in correctly leading to
problems for the HR department when it comes to contacting the right candidate.

HR managers also feel that many people place their resumes online mainly to
evaluate their marketability rather than searching for a job opportunity. This
invariably leads to wastage of time as well as ONJs (offered but not joined)
candidates.

Agrees Subramanian that this situation mostly arises with the entry-level
resumes as most candidates aspiring for the position also apply with other
companies.

In response to a particular posting, a lot of irrelevant resumes also come in
therefore sifting through a large candidate base to ascertain the probable
right fits becomes a mammoth task. A large number of unsuitable resumes,
whether at an entry level or at a higher level, is an issue. Another issue to be
tackled is being able to distinguish between active and passive job seekers,
says Somnath, senior officer, HRD manager, global entry-level recruitment and
campus relations, Infosys Technologies.

Proliferation of resumes that dont meet the employers specific needs is a
major problem area. This is a problem with those who go to the website and
expect a response from the company. Although an automated response goes to the
candidate, thanking him/her for showing interest in the company, they do expect
a response and assume that the company would respond to each and every one of
them including those who did not meet your requirements.

The poor quality of services offered on job portals also needs to be
addressed, says Jay Menon. Also, in the market, there is not much
differentiation in job portals in their service offerings giving dependable
profiles. Job portals could offer enhanced services like having the background
verified; having a database based on the skill or experience, and, most
importantly, tie-ups with skill registry certified by a recognized third party
agency or industry body like Nasscom, he says.

Miles to Go

The growth of the online recruitment medium is dependent on the economic
growth of the country, and if the Indian economy continues its robust growth,
online recruitment would be the fastest growing channel in the recruitment
industry, owing to the economies of scale and efficiency that it offers.

The online recruitment industry is set to become far more broad-based, so
the spread of jobs, both types and numbers, will be much greater than today. The
quantum could go at least 10-20 times of what it is today. What will happen is
that purely from a response or resume basis, there will be a qualitative shift
to how refined a search can be and how good resumes can get. So, from pure
sourcing, the shift would be to include sourcing and screening resumes, says
Rajeev Gaur, chief operating officer, Times Business Solutions.

While the size of the website would be important, how well it would be able
to cater to a client or a candidate would become the key differentiator.
Technology and attracting people to the website would remain critical
components.

Stuti Das

stutid@cybermedia.co.in