HR professionals have doubled the amount they spend on online recruitment
over the past 12 months, according to a report to be launched at the CIPD
National Conference this week.
A survey of more than 120 HR directors and 600 online job-seekers shows that
organisations spent on average 8 per cent of their recruitment budgets online
over the last year compared with 4 per cent the year before.
The Quiet Revolution: Technology Transforming Recruitment reveals that
professionals – classified as AB in marketing terms – are the most likely
groups to turn to the Web when they are looking for a new job.
Nearly 40 per cent of respondents chose the Internet when they were asked
where they would look first for a new job, compared with 19 per cent the year
before.
According to the study by online recruitment site Reed, the Internet would
also be the first choice for 34 per cent of job-seekers aged between 25 and 34,
an increase of 14 per cent on the previous 12 months.
James Reed, CEO of reed.co.uk, believes online methods will increasingly eat
into the traditional recruitment market.
He said, "New technology is transforming the world of HR resourcing,
but in surprising ways. In spite of the apparent failure of the dotcom dream,
our research indicates it may begin to threaten the rest of the UK advertising
market – worth over £1bn last year.
"While the best candidates increasingly look to the Internet first,
online advertising costs continue to plummet to zero.
"At the same time, I believe the future will be much more complex and
innovative than a simple transition of the recruitment classified advertising
model from offline to online."
The study shows that there is still some uncertainty among the HR profession
over the effectiveness of online recruitment.
Just over 40 per cent of organisations think online recruitment is an
efficient way of finding staff, but 20 per cent say it is ineffective.
Respondents highlight the time-consuming nature of assessing and responding
to irrelevant CVs as the biggest drawback of online recruitment.
The proportion of employers who have not experienced online recruitment but
are thinking of trying it in the future has halved over the past 12 months from
60 per cent to 33 per cent.
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By Ben Willmott
