Home : Newsletters : 2003 : January
Workthing's new study shows that 11.1 million internet users, or 44% of the UK online population, have used the internet to look for jobs in the last 12 months. This figure represents 30% of the UK working population which BMRB's TGI survey puts at 36.9 million. Workthing's study also confirms that online job seekers are an attractive target audience for recruitment advertisers, with 68% of online job seekers falling into the ABC1 social categories and 63% being in full time work.
While using the internet to look for jobs is an established mainstream activity, the study's findings relating to the use of online recruitment by HR professionals show that many employers are not taking full advantage of the benefits that the internet has to offer the recruitment process. Those that have corporate recruitment sites were asked which elements of functionality their sites used - 66% were able to publish jobs directly onto their sites, 42% featured an online application form, 31% offered automated responses to candidates, 23% included a CV database and 8% used interactive tests such as psychometric assessment.
In addition to the functionality of their corporate recruitment sites recruiters were asked which methods they used to sort and sift through applications. 85% of recruiters said they manually sorted CV's by hand, 3% used an online tool to sort CV's while 10% used both methods to sift applications.
Despite only four in ten companies providing candidates with the ability to apply online and only one in five corporate recruitment sites including a CV database corporate recruitment sites were listed as the third most popular recruitment method used by HR professionals. 76% said they had used their corporate recruitment sites as a recruitment method in the last 12 months. This compares to 94% who had used local newspapers, 94% recruitment agencies, 76% national newspapers, 75% intranet, 74% trade magazines, 73% job centres, 71% job boards, 62% search and selection techniques and 58% internal advertising. The survey also shows that 35% of recruiters plan to increase their investment in their corporate recruitment site in the next 12 months.
These findings, showing the importance of the corporate recruitment site as a recruitment tool, are consistent with the findings of the IQPC Exchange / Enhance Media Benchmarking Study that has shown corporate recruitment sites to be the best online source of quality candidates for the last three years.
The most important conclusion to draw from the research is that although almost a third of the working population have used the internet to look for jobs most employers are still not taking full advantage of the internet as a recruitment tool. Especially striking is the fact that 85% of employers are still sorting and sifting applications by hand. To some extent this lack of sophistication amongst employers can be regarded as good news. It means that if you're an recruitment professional wanting to start using the internet to recruit staff then it's not too late to gain a competitive edge through this new technology. Very few companies have got it right yet and there's plenty of scope to use your site to attract increasingly demanding internet users before your competitors. Adopting new online recruitment technologies should help you gain a competitive edge and enable you to attract the best candidates in your sector.
The results of the Workthing E-Recruitment Study 2003 are available for £195 + VAT.