The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham is launching an online recruitment system to aid its management of the 120,000 applications it receives for the 600 vacancies it advertises every year.
Leaders at the local authority have said that the new system will cut the time it takes to fill every position by around a third and cut down on the amount of paper is wasted in unsuccessful applications.
It will also allow the council to provide individual feedback on each candidate, which has proven impractical to do on a paper-based system. They also hope that an established online recruitment programme will reduce advertising spend by using stored candidate information from applications to target more specifically where advertisements are placed.
Adrian Molloy, from the council’s human resources department, said they were looking to establish fast and seamless integration of their online recruitment system.
“We’ve already seen a rapid reduction in the levels of administration required and have had positive feedback from line managers in particular, who are now becoming more involved in recruitment processes at an earlier stage thanks to the instant access of the online solution,” he explained.
“The ability to save applications in a ‘talent pool’ also means we have candidate insight readily accessible when looking to recruit for further positions.”
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Geoff Newman from online recruiter Recruitment Genius recognises a lot of public sector bodies are moving recruitment systems online.
“Online recruitment software not only allows huge cost-savings, but also is location independent, and because of programming languages used often easier to tailor to specific requirements. Not everyone in the public sector may be thinking about recruitment now, but they are certainly well placed for the future.”
