Chapter 4 HR Planning and Recruiting

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

BY:GARY DESSLER

NINTH EDITION

PEARSON EDUCATION INTERNASIONAL

COPY RIGHT 2003

USA

After studying this chapter you should be able to:

•          Explain the main techniques used in employment planning and forecasting.
•          Name and describe the main internal sources of candidates.
•          List and discuss the main outside sources of candidates.
•          Explain how to recruit a more diverse workforce.
•          Develop a help wanted ad.
•          Effectively recruit job candidates.

STRATEGIC OVERVIEW Faced with information technology employee shortage of monumental proportions, knew its expamsion strategy would be stifled if it couldn’t fill its 10,000 job openings. The company’s future depended on attracting many more results but how should it do so? Sutter Health decided to move its job opening postings online, only to find that this was not the solution, Project manager Keith Vencel had to help Sutter devise a new answer.

In the previous chapter, we discussed job analysis and the methods managers use to create job descriptions and job specifications. The main purpose of this chapter is to improve your effectiveness in recruiting job candidates. The main topics we’ll discuss include personnel planning and forecasting, recruiting job candidates and developing and using application forms. In the following chapter, Employee Testing and Selection, we’ll turn to the methods managers use to select the best employees.

Personnel planning is the first step in the recruiting and selecting process. We can conveniently view this process as a series of hurdles:

1.  Decide what position you’ll have to fill, by engaging in personnel planning and forecasting.
2. Build a pool of candidates for these jobs by recruiting internal or external candidates.
3. Have applicants complete application forms and perhaps undergo an initial screening interview.
4. Use selection techniques like tests, background investigations and physical exams to identify viable candidates.
5. Finally decide who to make an offer to by having the supervisor and (perhaps) others on the team interview the final candidates.

We’ll cover recruitment and selection in this and the next two chapters. This chapter focuses on employment planning and forecasting (in other words, on how to determine what positions are to be filled and on recruiting techniques.

EMPLOYMENT PLANNING AND FORECASTING

Employment or personnel planning is the process of deciding what positions the firm will have to fill and how to fill them;Personnel planning covers all the firms future positions, from maintenance clerk to CEO. However, most firms use succession planning to refer to the process of deciding how to fill the company’s most important executive jobs.

Employment planning is an integral part of a firms strategic and HR planning processes. As with Sutter Health’s plan to expand, plans to enter new businesses, build new plants, or reduce costs all influence the types of positions the firm will need to fill. Thus, when JDS Uniphase, which designs, develops and manufactures and markets products for the fiber optics market, decided to expand its Melbourne, Florida, Operations, it expanded its employment there from 140 people to almost 750. One big question is whether to fill projected openings from outside?

Each option produces its own set of HR plans. Current employees may require, training, development and coaching before they re ready to fill new jobs. Going outside requires deciding what recruiting sources to use, among other things.

Like all good plans, management builds employment plans on premises basic assumptions about the future. Forecasting generates these premises. If you’re planning for employment requirements, you’ll usually need to forecast three things: personnel needs; the supply of inside candidates; and the supply of outside candidates. We’ll start with personnel needs.

How to Forecast Personnel Needs

The expected demand for your product or service is paramount when forecasting personnel needs. The usual process is therefore to forcast revenues first. Then estimate the size of the staff required to achieve this volume. In addition to expected demand, staffing plans may reflect:

1. ..    Projected turnover (as a result of resignations or terminations)
   2.      Quality and skills of your employees (in relation to what you see as the changing needs of your organization)
   3.      Strategic decisions to upgrade the quality of products or services or enter into new markets.
   4.      Technological and other changes resulting in increased productivity.
   5.      The financial resources available to your department.

Following are several methods to predict employment needs.

Trend analysis means studiying variations in your firms employment levels over the last few years to predict future needs. Thus, you might compute the number of employees in your firm at the end of each the last five years, or perhaps the number in each subgroup (like sales, production, secretarial and administrative people) at the end of each those years. The purpose is to identify trends that might continue into the future. Trend analysis can provide an initial estimate, but employment levels rarely depend just on the passage of time. Other factors (like changes in sales volume and productivity) also affect staffing needs.

Ratio Analysis means making forecasts based on the ratio between (1) some causal factor (like sales volume) and (2) the number of employees required (for instance, number of salespeople). For example, suppose a salesperson traditionally generates $500,000 in sales. If the sales revenue to salespeople ratio remains the same, you would require six new salespeople next year  (each of whom produces an extra $500,000) to produce a hoped for extra $3 million sales.

Like trend analysis, ratio analysis assumes that productivity remains about the same for instance, that each salesperson can’t be motivated to produce much more than $500,000 in sales. If sales productivity were to increase or decrease, the ratio of sales to salespeople would change. A forecast based on historical ratios would then no longer be accurate.

The scatter plot shows graphically how two variables such as measure of business activity and your firm’s staffing levels are related. If they are, then if you can forecast the level of business activity you should also be able to estimate your personnel requirements.

For example, assume a 500 bed hospital expects to expand to 1,200 beds over the next 5 years. The director of nursing and the human resource director want to forecast the requirement for registered nurses. The human resource director decides to determine the relationship between size of hospital (in terms of number of beds) and number of nurses required.

Using Computers to forecast personnel requirements employers also use software programs to forecast personnel requirements. Typical data needed include direct labor hours required to produce one unit of product (a measure of productivity), and three sales projections minimum, maximum and probable for the product line in question. Based on such data a typical program generates figures on average staff levels required to meet product demands, as well as separate computerized forecasts for direct labor (such as assembly workers), indirect staff (such as secretaries) and exempt staff (such as executives). With programs like these, employers can quickly translate projected productivity and sales levels into forecasts of personnel needs, and estimate the effects of various productivity and sales level assumptions on personnel requirements.

Many firms use such automated employee forecasting systems.  In retailing for instance automated labor scheduling systems help retailers estimate their required staffing needs based on sales foracasts and estimated store traffic.

Managerial Judgment Whicever forecasting method you use, managerial judgment will play a big role. Its rare that any historical trend, ratio or relationship will simply continue unchanged into the furure. You’ll therefore have to modify the forecast based on factors such as projected turnover or a desire to enter new markets you believe will be important.

In Practice making personnel forecasts ussually isn’t mechanical, even for major firms. For example, in 1999 Bank of America laid off many brokers when it merged with NationsBank. About a year later its rival First Union Corporation hired 700 new investment brokers. In response, BOA’S investments division, Banc of America Investment Services, beefed up its 600 person brokerage staff by hiring 200 licensed brokers and training another 1,000 employees to sell investment products like mutual funds.

It’s sometimes difficult to take a long term perspective, particularly when market conditions change dramatically. For example, after reducing its workforce by about 9%, America Trade Holding Corporation soon announced an additional 7% cut, due to increasingly adverse market conditions.

Forecasting the Supply of Inside Candidates

Knowing your staffing needs only satisfied half the staffing equation. Next you have to estimate the likely supply of both inside and outside candidates. Most firms starts with the inside candidates.

Here, the main task is determining which current employees might be qualified for the projected openings. For this you need to know your current employees skills sets their current qualifications. Sometimes its obvious how you have to proceed. For example, when Bill Gates needed someone to lead Microsofts new user interface project, his first question was, “Where’s Kai Fu?” His firms voice recognition expert, Kai Fu Lee, was in China at the time establishing a new research lab for the firm. Sometimes its not so obvious and managers turn to qualifications inventories. These contain data on things like performance records, educational backgrounds and promotability. They help managers determine which current employees are available for promotion or transfer, such inventories may be manual or computerized.

Manual systems and replacement chart managers use several simple manual devices to track employees qualifications. A personnel inventory and development record compiles qualifications information on each employee. The information includes education, company sponsored courses taken, career and development intersts, language and skills.

Personnel replacement chart are another option, particularly for the firms top positions. They show the present performance and promotibility for each positions, showing possible replacement. As an alternative you can develop position replacement card. Here you create a card for each position, showing possible replacements as well as their present performance, promotion potential and training.

Computerized Information System Companies don’t generally track the qualifications of hundreds or thousands of employees manually. Most firms computerize this information, using various packaged software systems.

In many of these systems the employees and the HR department enter information about the employees backgrounds, experience, and skills often using the company intranet.When a manager needs a person for a position, he or she describes the position (for instance, in terms of education and skills). After scanning its database of possible candidates, the system produces a list of qualified candidates.

Such a computerized skills inventory might include:

Work experience codes. A list of work experience titles, or codes describing the persons jobs within the company.

Product knowledege. The employee’s level of familiarity with the employer’s product lines or services.

Industry experience. The person’s industry experiences, since for some positions work in related industries is very useful.

Formal education. Each post secondary educational institution attended, field of study, degree granted and year granted.

Training courses. Those taken or conducted by the employee, including courses taught by outside firms like the American Management Association.

Foreign language skills. Which languages; degree or proficiency, spoken and written.

Relocation limitations. The employee’s willingness to relocate and the locales he or she would prefer.

Career interests. Work experience codes to indicate what the employee would like to be doing for the employer in the future.

Performance appraisals. Updated periodically, along with a summary of the employee’s strengths and deficiencies.

Skills. Skills such as “design graphic interface” (number of times performed, date last performed, time spent), as well as skill level, perhaps ranging from level 1 (can lead or instruct others) to level 3 (has some experience: can assist experienced workers).

In Practice, the data elements could number 100 or more. For example, one vendor of a package reportedly used by over 2,000 companies suggests 140 elements, ranging from home address to driver’s license number, weight, salary, sick leave used, skill and veteran status.

The Matter of Policy Several things make it increasingly important to secure the data in the firm’s personnel data banks. First, as you can see there is a lot of employee information in most such data banks. Second internet/intranet access and other changes mean it’s often easier for more people to access these data. Third legislation such as the federal privacy act of 1974 and the new york personnal privacy act of 1985, gives some employees legal rights regarding who has access to information about their work history and job performance.

Balancing the employers legitimate right to make this information available to those in the firm who need it with the employees right to privacy isn’t easy. One approach is to use the access matrices incorporated in many database management systems. These matrices define the rights of users (specified by name, rank, or functional identification) to various kinds access (such as “read only” or write only) to each database element. So the system might authorize employees in accounting to read information such as the employee’s address, phone number, social security number and pension status. The HR director on the other hand could both read and write all items.

 

Forecasting the Supply of Outside Candidates

If you won’t have enough inside candidates to fill the anticipated openings (or you want to go outside for another reason), you need to focus on trying to anticipate the availibility of outside candidates. This may involve several activities. For example, you may want to consider general economic conditions and the expected unemployment rate. Ussually, the lower rate of unemplyoment, the more difficult it will be to recruit personnel.

Information like this is easy to find: For example, Business Week presents a weekly snapshot of the economy on its outlook page, as well as a yearly forecast in December. Fortune magazine has a monthly foracast for the coming year. Similar information is readily available in the Economist and Wall Street Journal newspaper, as well as on the Internet (see www.infoplease.com). The U.S. Council of Economic Advisors prepares economic indicators each month showing the trend to date of various indicators. The regional Federal Reserve banks also publish monthly economic reports. Some recruiting firms also make projections. For example, the temporary employment services firm Manpower, Inc., conducts employer surveys and then projects demand for workers in cities across the country. Local labor market conditions are important too. For example, the build up of computer and semiconductor companies in California’s Silicon Valley resulted in relatively low unemployment there a few years ago, quite aside from general economic conditions around the country.

Your plans may also require that you forecast the availability of potential job candiddates in specific occupations such as nurses, computer programmers, or teachers. Recently, for instance there has been an undersupply of computer specialists and nurses. The Bereau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor publishes annual occupational projections in the Monthly Labor Review and often in Occupational projections in the Monthly Labor Review and often in Occupational Outlook Quarterly. O*NET includes online projections for most occupations. The National Science Foundation regularly foracasts labor market conditions in the science and technology fields. Other federal agencies providing occupational foracasts include the U.S. Public Health Service, the U.S. Employment Service and the U.S Office Education.

Some occupations are so in demand that they seem to remain in demand even when the economy slows. For example, when the economy slowed in 2001 (and many dot coms went out of business), the head of IT human resources for the Hartford Insurance Company reported seeing a”slight optick” in the number of candidates available. However, it had not shifted “to the point where it’s a buyer’s market now.”

Recent shortages of registered nurses across the country have been a particular problem. In some fast growing areas, such as San Antonio, Texas, hospital administrators describe the shortage as possibly having “life threatening implications”.

The jobs in high demand aren’t necessarily always high tech. For example, life insurance firms have recently found it difficult to recruit high producing agents, in part because of increased competition from financial services firms such as banks and stock brokerages.

EFFECTIVE RECRUITING

Assuming the company authorizes you to fill a position, the next step is to develop an applicant pool, using one or more of the recruitment sources described below. Its hard to overemphasize the importance of effective recruiting. The more applicants you have, the more selective you can be in your hiring. If only two candidates apply for two openings, you may have little choice but to hire them. But if 10 or 20 applicants appear, you can use techniques like interviews and tests to screen out all but the best.

Effective recruiting is increasingly important today, for several reasons. First, the ease of recruiting tend to ebb and flow with economic and unemployment levels. The U.S. unemployment rate declined each year for 10 years through mid 2001; this led some experts to refer to the recruiting situation up to that time as one of “evaporated employee sources”. High average turnover rates for some occupations are another problem; the average annual turnover rates for some occupations are another problem; the average annual turnover rate for high tech employees was recently 14.5%, according to one study. The increased emphasis on technology and therefore on skilled human capital also demands more selective hiring and thus a bigger applicant pool.

Finding the right inducements for attracting and hiring employees can be a problem. A few years ago, for example, about 47,000 computer animators graduated from art school. With a little experience, these people could therefore earn $100,000 a year. Similarly, $10,000 to $20,000 signing bonuses were often common for MBA students in the late 1990s.

Aggressive recruiting is therefore often the name of game. “Poaching workers is fair game,”reads on HR newsletter headline. Some recruiters even have their jargon. They call luring workers away from other high tech firms “nerd rustling”. 

The Recruiting Yield Pyramid

Some employers use a recruiting yield pyramid to calculate the number of applicants they must generate to hire the required number of new employees. The company knows it needs 50 new entry level accountants nexdt year. From experience the firm also knows the ratio of offers made to actual new hires is 2 to 1; about half the people to whom it makes offers accept them. Similarly, the firm knows that the ratio of candidates interviewed to offers made is 3 to 2, while the ratio of candidates invited for interviews to candidate actually interviewed is about 4 to 3. Finally, the firm knows that of six leads that come in from all its recruiting efforts, only one applicant typically gets an interview a 6 to 1 ratio. Given these ratios, the firm knows it must generate 1,200 leads to be able to invite 200 viable can candidates to its offices for interviews. The firm will then get to interview about 150 ofc those invited and from these it will make 100 offers. Of those 100 offers, about 50 will accept.

RESEARCH INSIGHT Of course, its not recruiting but effective recruiting that’s important. Consider this study of college recruiter effectiveness. The subjects were 41 graduating students from four colleges (arts and sciences, engineering, industrial relations and business) of a northeastern university. Researchers questioned the students twice during the spring semester, once just after they’d had their first round of employer interviews and once after their second round.

The quality of a firms recruiting had a big impact on candidates opinions of the firm. When asked after the initial job interview why they thought a particular company might be a good fit, all 41 students mentioned the nature of the job. However, 12 also mentioned the impression made by the recruiters themselves, and 9 said the comments of friends and acquitances affected their impressions. Unfortunately the reverse was also true. When asked why they judged some firms as bad fits, 39 mentioned the nature of the job, but 23 said they’d been turned off by recruiters: Some were dressed “sloppily”; others were “barely literate”; some were rude; and some made offensive, sexist comments. Not exactly the kind of recruiters you want representing your firm.

Line and Staff Cooperation The HR manager who recruits for a vacant job is seldom the one responsible for supervising its performance. He or she must therefore know exactly what the job entails and this means speaking with the supervisor involved. For example, the recruiter might want to know about the supervisor’s leadership style and about the work group is it a tough group to get along with, for instance? He or she might also want to visit the work site, to review the job description with the superviso9r to ensure that the job hasn’t changed and to obtain any additional insight into the skills and talents the new worker will need. Line and staff coordination is therefore essential. Now let’s look at the main sources of job candidates both internal and external.

INTERNAL SOURCES CANDIDATES

Recruiting may bring to mind employment agencies and classified ads, but current employees are often the best source of candidates.

Filling open position with inside candidates has many benefits. First, there’s really no substitute for knowing a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses. It is often therefore safer to promote employees from within, since you’re likely to have a more accurate view of the person’s skills than you would an outsider’s. Inside candidates may also be more committed to the company. Morale may rise, to the extent that employees see promotions as rewards for loyalty and competence. Inside candidates may also require less orientation and training than outsiders.

However, hiring from within can also backfire. Employees who apply for jobs and don’t get them may become discontented; telling unsuccessful applicants why they were rejected and what remedial actions they might take to be more successful in the future is thus crucial. Similarly, many employers require managers to post job openings and interview all inside candidates. Yet the manager often knows ahead of time exactly whom he or she wants to hire. Requiring the person to interview a stream of unsuspecting inside candidates can be a waste of time for all concerned. Groups are sometimes not as satisfied when their new boss is appointed from within their own ranks as when he or she is a newcomer: it may be difficult for the insider to shake off the reputation of being “one of the gang”.

Inbreeding is another potential drawback. When all managers come up through the ranks, they may have a tendency to maintain the status quo, when a new direction is whats required. Many “promote from within” firms like J.C. Penney, IBM and Delta Airlines went outside for CEOs in the 1990s when their boards decided they needed new vision and leadership. Balancing the benefits to morale and loyalty with the possible inbreeding problem can be a challenge.

Finding Internal Candidates

To be active, promotion from within requires using job posting, personnel records and skill banks. Job posting means publicizing the open job to employees (often by literally posting it on bulletin boards or internets) and listing the job’s attributes, like qualifications, supervisor, work schedule and pay rate. Some union contracts require job posting to ensure union members get first choice of new and better positions. Yet job posting can be a good practice even in nonunion firms, if it facilitates the transfer and promotion of qualified inside candidates. (However, firms often don’t post supervisory jobs; management often prefers to select supervisory candidates based on things like supervisors recommendations and appraisal and testing results.

Personnel records are also important. An examination of personnel records (including application forms) may reveal employees who are working in jobs below their educational or skill levels. It may also reveal persons who have potential for further training or who already have the right background for the open job. Computerized records systems (like those discussed above) can help ensure you consider qualified inside candidates for the opening. Some firms also develop “skillsbank” that list current employees with specific skills. For example, if you need an aerospace engineer in unit A and the skills bank shows a person with those skills in unit B, that person may be approached about transferring.

Hiring Employees the Second Time Around

Until recently, many managers considered it unwise to rehire former employees, such as those who’d left voluntarily for better jobs. Quitting was often seen as a form of betrayal. Managers often assumed that those they’d dismissed might exhibit disloyalty or a bad attitude if hired back.

Today thanks partly to high turnover in some high tech occupations rehiring former employees is back in style. For example, with many former employees finding that the life of a start up entrepreneur is not all they’d hoped it would be, EDS executive Troy Todd in Plano, Texas, says his company rehired over 500 “boomerang” employees just between January and July 2000. And with more dot com firms facing tough times recently, employers are reportedly “sniffing around” these beleaguered firms to find employees who want back into the “bricks and mortar world.

AT&T now routinely reemployers former workers, and in one recent year rehired more than 130 employees it had previously let go. Will McPherson, who leads a sales team for Phoenix, Arizona based Brill Pharmaceutical Corporation, recently faced such a situation. A salesperson who had left about a year earlier to pursue a start up venture returned when it didn’t work out. McPherson decided to rehire him. “I felt a little used and I told him that but when you’ve got someone who you know will do well asking for a job, its hard to turn him down. You can’t just not hire somebody [out of] principle.”

Rehiring former employees has its pros and cons. On the plus side, former employees are known quantities (more or less), and are already familiar with the company’s culture, style and ways of doing things. On the other hand, employees who were let go my return with less than positive attitudes. And hiring former employees who left for greener pastures back into better positions may signal your current employees that the best way to get ahead is to leave the firm.

In any event, there are several ways to reduce the chance of adverse reactions. For example, once rehired employees have been back on the job for a certain period, credit them with the years of service they had accumulated before they left. This may have a positive impact on benefits such as vacation time and thereby on morale. In addition, inquire (before rehiring them) about what they did during the layoff and how they feel about returning to the firm: “You don’t want to someone coming back who feels they’ve been mistreated,”said one manager.

Succession Planning

Forecasting the availability of inside executive candidates is particularly important in succession planning “the process of ensuring a suitable supply of successors for current and future senior or key jobs.” Succession planning often involves a complicated series of steps. For example, potential successors for top management might be routed through the top jobs at several key divisions as well as overseas, and then through Harvards Advanced Management Program. Jeffrey Immelt, the new CEO of GE, moved through these positions from 1989 through 2001: vice president, consumer services, GE applicances; vice president, world wide marketing and product management; vice presedent and general manager GE Plastic America commercial division; president and CEO, GE medical systems; president and chairman, GE.

Succession Planning

Forecasting the availability of inside executive candidates is particularly imprtant in succession planning “the process of ensuring a suitable supply of successors for current and future senior or key jobs.” Succession planning often involves a complicated series of steps. For example, potential successors for top management might be routed  through the top jobs at several key division as well as overseas and then through Harvards Advanced Management Program. Jeffrey Immelt, the new CEO of GE moved through these positions from 1989 through 2001: vice president, consumer services, GE appliances; vice president, worldwide marketing and product management; vice president and general manager GE Plastics America commercial division; president and CEO, GE medical systems; president and chairman, GE.

Succession planning typically includes activities like these:

Determiuning the projected need for managers and professionals by company level, function and skill.

Auditing current executive talent to project the likely future supply from internal sources.

Planning individual career paths based on objective estimates of future needs and assessment of potential

Career counseling in the context of the future needs of the firm, as well as those of individual

Accelerated promotions, with development targeted against the future needs of the business

Performance related training and development to prepare individuals for future roles as well as current responsibilities

Planned strategic recruitment to fill short term needs and to provide people to meet future needs

Actually filling the positions via recruiters, promotion from within and so on.

OUTSIDE SOURCES OF CANDIDATES

Firms can’t always get all the employee they need from their current staff and sometimes they just don’t want to. For example, when Delta Airlines board decided it needed to inject a new perspective into running the airline, it turned to an outsider, Leo Mullin to the new CEO. We’ll look at the sources firms use to find outside candidates next.

Advertising

Everyone is familiar with employment ads, and most of us have probably responded to one or more. To use help wanted ads successfully, employers have to address two issues: the advertising media and the ads construction.

The Media The selection of the best medium be it the local paper, the wall street journal, TV or the internet depends on the positions for which you recruiting. For example, the local newspaper is ussually the best sources for blue-collar help, clerical employees and lower level administrative employees. On the other hand, if youre’ recruiting for blue collar workers with special skills such as maintaining textile weaving looms you’d probably want to advertise in the heart of the textile industry, the Carolinas or Georgia, even if your plant is tennessee. The point is to target your ads where they’ll do the most good. Most employers as we’ll see are also tapping the internet.

For specialized employees, you can advertise in trade and professional journals like American Psychologist, Sales Management, Chemical Engineering, Electronic News, Travel Trade and Women’s Wear Daily or in Chronicle of Higher Education. Similarly, help wanted ads in papers like the Wall Street Journal and International Herald Tribune can be good sources of middle or senior management personnel. The Wall Street Journal and International Herald Tribune can be good sources of middle or senior management personnel. The Wall Street Journal for instance has several regional editions so the entire country or the appropriate geographic area can be targeted.

One drawback to this type of trade paper advertising is the long lead time that’s usually required. There may be a month or more between insertion of the ad and publication of the Journal or specialized paper (although more are supplementing their hard copy publications with online Web Sites).

Constructing the Ad Construction of the ad is important. Experienced advertisers use a four point guide called AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action) to construct ads. You must of course attract attention to the ad or readers may just miss or ignore it. Why does this ad attract attention? Ads like this with wide borders or heavy backgrounds stand out. For this reason, employers usually advertise key positions in separate display ads.

Develop interest in the Job. You can create interest by the nature of the job itself, with lines such as “you’ll thrive on challenging work.” You can also use other aspects of the job, such as its location to create interest.

Create desire by spotlighting the job’s interest factors with words such as travel or challenge, for instance. Keep your target audience in mind. For example, having a graduate school nearby may appeal to engineers and professional people.

Finally, make sure the ad prompts action with a statement like “call today,” or “write today for more information.”

After over 30 years of living with EEO laws, we might imagine that by now most employers are familiar with the sorts of things they ussually can’t put in ads (such as “man wanted,” or “young woman preferred”). Yet the results of one recent study on illegal recruitment advertisement suggests that questionable or illegal ads still do slip into recruitment advertising, so this is apparently still an area that requires caution.

Being creative Employers today are making their ads more creative: “Today recruitment ads sell the company’s image, promote its benefits and often bear more resamblance to ads for products than ads for jobs.” Firms are pushing their family friendliness (the consulting firm Booz, Allen & Hamilton has a diaper pin in one ad, for instance). They are also having advertising firms develop professional looking ads. And they ‘re being more careful about placement: One sporting goods store now places help wanted ads in the newspaper’s sports section not on the help wanted pages on the assumption “that’s where the avid sports fans go daily, and they are the people an employer would like to hire.

Employment Agencies

There are three types of employment agencies: (1) public agencies operated by federal, state, or local governments; (2) agencies associated with nonprofit organizations; and (3) privately owned agencies.

Public and Nonprofit Agencies Every state has a public, state run employment service agency. The U.S. Department of Labor supports these agencies, in part through grants and in part through other assistance such as a nationwide computerized job bank. The National Job Bank enables agency counselors in one state to advise applicants about available jobs not just in their local area, but in other areas as well.

These agencies are an important source of blue collar and white collar workers, but some employers have bad mixed experience with them. For one thing, applicants for unemployment insurance are required to register and to make themselves available for job interviews. A fraction of these people are not interested in getting back to work, so employers can end up with applicants who have little or no real desire for immediate employment. And fairly or not, employers probably view some of these local agencies as somewhat lethargic in their efforts to fill area employers jobs.

Yet these agencies usefulness is actually on the rise. Beyond just filling jobs, for instance, counselors will visit an employer’s work site, review the employers job requirements and even assisst the employer in writing job descriptions. Some states, like lllinois and Wisconsin, are turning their local state employment service agencies into “one stop” shops. The 1998 workforce investment act required states to give any citizen access to one stop shop neighborhood training/employment/educational services centers. One user says of the Queens New York One Stop Career Center in Jamaica, I love it: I’ve made this place like a second home.”Services available to employers include recruitment services, tax credit information, training programs and access to local and national labor market information.

Other employment agencies are tied to nonprofit organization. Most professional and technical socities, such as the institute for electrical and electronic engineers (IEEE) have units that help members find jobs. Many public welfare agencies try to place people have units that help members find jobs. Many public welfare agencies try to place people who are in special categories, such as those who are physically disabled or are war veterans.

Private Agencies Private employment agencies are important sources of clerical, white collar and managerial personnel. They charge fees (set by state law and posted in their offices) for each applicant they place. Market conditions generally determine whether candidate or employer pays the fee. The trend is toward fee paid jobs, in which the employer pays the fee. Employers correctly assume this is the best way to attract qualified, currently employed applicants who might not be so willing to switch jobs if they had to pay the fees.

Why turn an agency? Reasons include:

1.      Your firm doesn’t have its own HR department and is not geared to doing recruiting and screening.

2.      Your firm has found it difficult in the past to generate a pool of qualified applicants.

3.      You must fill a particular opening quickly.

4.      There is a perceived need to attract a greater number of minority or female applicants.

5.      You want to reach currently employed individuals, who might feel more comfortable dealing with agencies than with competing companies.

6.      You want to cut down on the time you’re devoting to interviewing.

Yet employment agencies are no panacea. For example, the employment agency’s screening may let poor a[licants bypass the preliminary stages of your own selection process. Unqualified applicants may thus go directly to the supervisors responsible for hiring, who may in turn naively hire them. Such errors show up in high turnover and absenteism rates, morale problems and low quality and productivity. Conversely, imporer testing and screening at the employment agency could block potentially successful applicants from entering your applicant pool.

To help avoid such problems, experts suggest the following:

1.      Give the agency an accurate and complete job description. The better it understands the job you want filled the greater the likelihood it will produce a reasonable pool of applicants.

2.      Tests, application blanks and interviews should be a part of the agency’s selection process. At the very least, you should know which devices the agency uses and consider their relevance to the selection process.

3.      Periodically review data on candidates accepted or rejected by your firm, and by the agency. Check on the effectiveness and fairness of the agency’s screening process.

4.      If feasible, develop a long term relationship with one or two agencies. It may also make sense to designate one person to serve as the liaison between employer and agency.

5.      Screen the agency. Check with other managers or HR people to find out which agencies have been the most effective at filling the sorts of positions you need filled. Review the internet and a few back issues of the Sunday classified ads to discover the agencies that handle the positions you want. Then question them: what is the background of the agency’s staff? What are their education and experience levels? Do they have the qualifications to understand the sorts of jobs for which you are recruiting? What is their reputation in the community and with the better business berau?

Temp Agencies and Alternative Staffing

Employers often supplement their permanent workforce by hiring contingent or temporary workers, often through temporary help employment agencies. Also known as part time or just in time workers, the contingent workforce is big and growing. It recently accounted for about 20 % of all new jobs created in the United States. Such workers are broadly defined as workers who don’t have permanent jobs.

Today’s contingent workforce isn’t limited to clerical or maintenance staff. In one year, almost 100,000 people found temporary work in engineering, science, or management support occupations, for instance. And growing numbers of firms use temporary workers as short term chief financial officers, or even chief executive officers. Its estimated that 60% of the total U.S. temporary payroll is nonclerical and includes “CEOs, human resources directors computer systems analysts, accountants, doctors and nurses. Over 84% of employers now reportedly use temp agencies, and their use is on the rise.

Some firms today employ so many temporary workers that they hire temporary agencies to help manage them. New York based MasterCard, for instance has a temporary workforce of 200 to 400 workers on any given day and retained. Manpower, Inc., a large temporary staffing agency, to coordinate the hiring, training and paperwork of new temporary workers. The temporary employment agency may even assign on site supervisors to help manage duties like these. Some temp agencies are even opening in shopping malls. Olsten staffing Services opened centers in six locations to assist mall tenants in areas such a job postings, temporary employment, candidate screening and interviewing, background checks, reliability and integrity testing and training.

Benefits and Costs Contingent staffing is on the rise for several reasons. Historically, of course employers have always used “temps” to fill in for permanent employees who were out sick or on vacation.

But today’s desire for ever higher productivity also contributes to temp workers growing popularity. As one expert puts it, “Productivity is measured in terms of output per hour paid for,”and”if employees are paid only when they’re working, as contingent workers are, overall productivity increases.”Employers also find that by tapping temporary help agencies, they can save the time and expense of personally recruiting and training new workers, as well as the expenses involved in personnel documentation (such as filing payroll taxes and maintaining absence records). Corporate downsizings are another factor: For example, while Dupont cut its workforce by about 47,000 in recent years, it also says that only 70% of those people actually stopped working of the company. The remaining 30% about 14,000 workers returned in some temporary capacity, or as vendors or contractors. Temp firms can be especially useful for seasonal hires. The HR director for one Long Beach, California, restaurant chain says: “Most of the time, it is a better quality labor force: Candidates arrive already pretested and trained.

The benefits of contingent staffers don’t come without a price. They may be more productive and less expensive to recruit and train, but contingent workers from temporary agencies generally cost employers 20% to 50% more than comparable permanent workers (per hour or per week), since the agency gets a fee. Furthermore, “People have a psychological refrence point to their place of employment. Once you put them into the contingent category, you re’ saying they re’ expendable.”One would also assume that such expendable workers are less likely to exhibit the loyalty many employers expect from their permanent workers. The fact that a lot of these workers take temp jobs hoping “to get a fulltime job” (although “additional income” is the top stated reason) may intensify this problem, to the extent that a temp finds his or her hopes dashed. Periods of low unemployment may also lead some temporary agencies to become less selective in choosing the people they send out to employers.

Guidelines for Success In order to make such employment relationships as fruithful as possible, anyone recruiting temps should understand these employees main concerns. In one survey, six key concerns emerged. Temporary workers said they were:

   1.      Treated by employers in a dehumanizing, impersonal and ultimately discouraging way.

   2.      Insecure about their employment and pessimistic about the future.

   3.      Worried about their lack of insurance and pension benefits.

   4.      Misled about their job assignments and in particular about whether temporary assignments were likely to become full time positions.

   5.      “Underemployed” (particularly those trying  to return to the full time labor market).

   6.      In general angry toward the corporate world and its values; participants repeatedly expressed feelings of alienation and disenchantment.

Given such concerns what can employers do to boost the probability that relationships with temporary workers will be mutually beneficial? Here are some guidelines.

  1.      Provide honest information to both temporary agencies and temporary workers about the length of the job assignment.

  2.      Implement personnel policies that ensure fair, nondiscriminatory treatment of temporary workers, as you do for permanents ones.

   3.      Use independent contractors (people who like consultants work for themselves rather than for the company) and permanent part time employees to complement the conventional temporary agency workforce. These people are likely to be more familiar with your firm’s procedures and more committed to its goals than are temporary workers.

  4.     Before hiring temporary workers, consider their potential impact on regular full time employees. For example, any apparent exploitation or mistreatment of contingent workers may have a corrosive effect on permanent workers morale.

  5.    Provide the necessary training and orientation. One surveys comments included, “[Organizations] need to be more specific in their instructions to temps. Give them  the [correct] tools and materials to do their jobs.”

  6.    Don’t use a classification such as “independent contractor” to avoid paying the taxes to which temp (or regular) employees are actually entitled.

  Working with temporary agencies also requires special care. Ensure basic policies and procedures are ijn place, including:

    Invoicing. Get a sample copy of the agency’s invoice. Make sure it fits your company needs.

  Time sheets. With temps, the time sheet is not just a verification of hours worked. Once the worker’s supervisor signs it, it’s usually an agreement to pay the agency’s fees.

   Temp to perm policy. What is the policy if the client wants to hire one of the agency’s temps as a permanent employee?

   Recruit of and benefits for temp employees. Find out how the agency plans to recruit employees and what sorts of benefits it pays.

   Dress code. Specify the appropriate attire at each of your offices or plants.

   Equal employment opportunity statement. Get a document from the agency stating that it is not discriminating when filling temp orders.

    Job description information. Have a procedure whereby you can ensure the agency understands the job to be filled and the sort of person, in terms of skills and so forth, you want to fill it.

Alternatif Staffing Temporary employees are examples of what HR professionals call alternative staffing basically the use of nontraditional recruitment sources. The use of alternative staffing sources is widespread and growing; one survey found that about 1 of 10 U.S. employees is employed in some type of alternative work arrangement. Other alternative staffing arrangements include “in house temporary employees”(people employed directly by the company, but or an explicit short term basis) and “contract technical employees” (highly skilled workers like engineers, who are supplied for long-term projects under contract from an outside technical services firm).

Executive Recruiters

Exacutive recruiters (also called headhunters) are special employement agencies retained by employers to seek out top management talent for their clients. They fill jobs in the $60,000 and up category, although $80,000 is often the lower limit. The percentage of your firm’s positions filled by these services might be small. However, these jobs would include crucial executive and technical positions. For executive positions, headhunters may be your only source of candidates. The employer always pays their fees.

Two trends technology and specialization are changing the  executive search business. Top firms used to take up to seven months to complete a bigt search. Much of that time was spent shuffling chores between headhunters and researches who dig up the initial “long list” of candidates. This time frame is too long in today’s fast moving environment. Most recruiting firms are therefore establishing Interned linked computerized databases the aim of which, according to one senior recruiter, is “to create a long list by pushing a button”. Korn/Ferry launched a new Internet linked computerized databases the aim of which, according to one senior recruiter, is “to create a long list by pushing a button”. Korn/Ferry launched a new Internet service called Futurestep to draw more managerial applicants into its files; in turn, it has teamed up with the Wall street Journal, which runs a career web site of its own.

Executive recruiters are also becoming more specialized and the large ones are creating new business aimed specifically at specialized functions or industries. For example, LAI Ward Howell recently launched a new business specializing in financial executives, with bases in London and New York.

Recruiters can be useful. They have many contacts and are especially adept at contacting qualified, currently employed candidates who aren’t actively looking to change jobs. They can also keep your firm’s name confidential until late into the search process. The recruiter can save top managements time by advertising for the position and screening what could turn out to be hundreds of applicants. The recruiter’s fee might actually turn out to be insignificant compared with the cost of the executive time saved.

But there are pitfalls. As an employer it is essential for you to explain completely what sort of candidate is required and why. Some recruiters also more salespeople than proffesionals. They may be more interested in persuading you to hire a candidate than in finding one who will really do the job. Recruiters also claim that what their clients say they want is often not really accurate. Therefore, be prepared for some in depth dissecting of your request.

In choosing a recruiter, guideli8nes include:

   1.      Make sure the firm is capable of conducting a through search. Under the code of the Association of Executive Recruiting Consultants, a recruiter can’t approach the executive talent of a former client for a vacancy with a new client. Since former clients are off limits for two years, the recruiter must search from a contantly diminishing pool. Particularly for the largest executive recruiting firms, it could turn out to be very difficult to deliver a top notch candidate, since the best potential candidates may already be working for the recruiter’s former clients.

   2.      Meet individual who will actually handle your assignment. If this person hasn’t the ability to seek out top candidates and sell them on your firm, it’s  unlikely you’ll get to see the best candidates. In wooing you as a new clients. This may not be the person who will do the actual search.

   3.      Ask how much the search firm charges. There are several things to keep in mind here. Search firm fees range from 25% to 35% of the guaranteed annual income of the position. They are often payable one third as a retainer at the outset, one third at the end of 30 days and one third after 60 days. Often a fee is on a “retained” rather than on a contingency basis it’s payable whether or not the search is terminated for any reasaon. The out of pocket expenses are extra and could run to 10% to 20% of the fee itself and sometimes more. Get the agreement in writing.

   4.      Choose a recruiter you can trust with privilaged information. This person will find not only your firm’s strengths but also its weaknesses.

   5.      Talk to some of the firms clients . Get the names of two or three companies for whom the firm has recently completed assignments. Ask such questions as: “Was the recruiter’s appraisal of the candidate accurate?”Was the placement a success? Did the firm conduct a search, or just fill the job from its files?”And did the recruiter accurately craft the job specifications?

  

   ENTREPRENEURS HR

   Expanding the Management Team

   There comes a time in the life of most small businesses when it dawns on the owner that his or her managers are incapable of taking the company to the next level. If the company is to expand the entrepreneur must decide what kinds of people to hire from outside, and how to hire them. Should the owner recruit this person? Or is an outside expert required?

   While most large firms don’t think twice about hiring executive search firms small firm owners will understandably hesitate before committing to a fee that could reach $20,000 to $30,000 (with expenses) for a $60,000 to $70,000 marketing manager. As an entrepreneur however you should keep in mind that such thinking can be shortsighted.

   Engaging in a search like this by yourself is not at all like looking for secretaries, supervisors, or data entry clerks. When you are looking to hire a key executive to help you run your firm, chances are you are not going to find your candidate by placing ads or using most of the other traditional approaches. For one thing the person you seek is probably employed and not reading the want ads. If he or she does happen to glance at the ads, chances are the person is happy enough not to make the effort to embark on a job search with you.

   In the other words, what you’ll end up with is a drawer of resumes of people who are, for one reason or another, out of work, unhappy with their work, or unsuited for your job. It is then going to fall on you to try to find several gems in this group by devoting the time to interview and assess these applicants.

Doing so is harder than it sounds. First, as a nonexpert you may not even know where to begin. You won’t know where to place or how to write the ads; you won’t know where to search who to contact or how to do the sort of job that needs to be done to screen out the larggards and misfits who may well appear on the surface to be viable candidates. You also won’t know enough to really do the kind of background checking that a position at this levels requires.Second, this process is going to be extremely time consuming and will divert your attention from other duties. Many business owners find that when they consider the opportunity costs (of not making sales calls, for instance), they are not saving any money at all.

Some owners do have success doing their own executive recruiting. Before retaining a recruiter, they make a list of five or ten competitors in their area and contact individuals not; The manager might describe the position and say something like “is there anyone in your network who you could recommend?

If you do decide to do the job yourself, consider retaining the services of an industrial psychologist to spend four or five hours assessing the problem solving ability, personality, interests and energy level of the two or three candidates in which you are most interested. Although you certainly don’t want the psychologist to make the decision for you, the input can provide aluable perspective on the candidates.

Exercise special care when recruiting applicants from competing companies. Always check to see if applicants are bound by noncompeting or nondisclosure agreements, for instance. And you may want to check with attorney before asking certain questions regarding patents or potential antitrust issues, for instance.

College Recruiting

Sending an employer’s representatives to college campuses to prescreen applicants and create an applicants and create an applicant pool from that college’s graduating class is an important source of management trainees, promotable candidates and professional and technical employees. One study concluded, for instance, that new college grads filled about 38% of all externally filled jobs requiring a college degree; the percentage just for entry level jobs requiring a college degree would probably be much higher.

There are two main problems with on campus recruiting. First, it is expensive and time consuming. Schedules must be set well in advance, company brochures printed, records of interviews kept and much time spent on campus. Second, as mentioned earlier, recruiters themselves are sometimes ineffective, or worse. Some recruiters are unprepared, show little interest in the candidate and act superior. Many recruiters also don’t effectively screen their student candidates. Such findings underscore the need to train recruiters in how to interview candidates, in what the company has to offer and in how to interview candidates, in what the company has to offer, and in how to put candidates at ease.

Like other recruiting sources, college recruiting seems to fall as economic conditions wind down. For example, as the economy slowed in 2001, BellSouth Telecomunications cut its recruiting from graduating classes by about 50% compared with the previous year.

College Recruiting Goals The campus recruiter has two main goals. The main one is determining whether a candidate is worthy of further consideration. Exactly which traits to look for will depend on your company’s specific needs. Traits to assess i8nclude communication skills, education, experience and interpersonal skills.

The other aim is to attract good candidates. A sincere and informal attitude, respect for the applicant as an individual, and prompt follow up letters can help sell the employer to the interviewee. Employers therefore have to choose recruiters and schools carefully. Employers naturally look among their employees for those who can do the best job of identifying top applicants and filling vacancies. Factors in selecting schools in which to recruit include the schools reputation and the performance of previous hires from that source.

One Site Visits Employers generally invite good candidates to the employer’s office or plant for an on visit, and there are several ways to make this visit fruitful. The invitation letter should be warm and friendly but businesslike, and should give the person a choices dates to visit the company. Assign someone to meet the applicant, preferably at the airport or at his or her hotel, and to act as host. A package describing the applicants schedule as well as other information regarding the company such as annual reports and employee benefits should be waiting for the applicant at the hotel. Carefully plan the interviews and adhere to the schedule. Interruptions should be avoided; give the candidate the undivided attention of each person with whom he or she interviews. Luncheon should be hosted by one or more other recently hired graduates with whom the applicant may feel at ease. Make an offer, if any, as soon as possible, preferably at the time of the visit. If this is not possible, tell the candidate when to expect a decision. If an offer is made, keep in mind that the applicant may have other offers, too. Frequent follow ups to “find out how the decision process is going”or to”ask if there are any other questions”may help to till the applicant in your favor.

Internship Many college students get their job through college internships, a recruiting approach that has grown dramatically in recent years. It’s estimated that almost three quarters of all recent college students took part in an internship before they graduated, for instance.

Internships can be win win situations for both students and employers. For students, it may mean being able to hone business skills, check out potential employers and learn more about their likes (and dislikes) when it comes to choosing careers. And employers, of course, can use the interns to make useful contributions while evaluating them as possible full time employees.

Referrals and Walk-Ins

“Employee referrals” campaigns are another option. The firm posts announcements of openings and requests for referrals in its bulletin and on its wallboards and intranet; prizes or cash rewards are offered for referrals that culminate in hirings. Employee referrals have been the source of almost half of all hires at AmeriCredit since the firm kicked off its “you’ve got friends, we want to meet them” employee referrals program. Employees making a referral receive $1000 awards, with the payments spread over a year. As the head of recruiting says, “Quality people know quality people. If you give employees the opportunity to make referrals, they automatically suggest high caliber people because they are stakeholders….

Employee referral programs have pros and cons. Current employees can and usually will provide accurate information about the job applicants they are refering, especially since they’re putting their own reputations on the line. The new employees may also come with a more realistic picture of what working in the firm is like after speaking with friends there. But the success for the campaign depends a lot on employee morale. And the campaign can backfire if an employees referral  is rejected and the employee becomes dissatisfied. Using referrals exclusively may also be discriminatory if most current employees (and their referrals) are male or white.

Employee referral programs are increasingly popular. Of the firms responding to one survey, 40% said they use an employee referral system and hire about 15% of their employees that way. A cash award for referring hired candidates is the most common incentive. Large firms reportedly spent about $34,000 annually on their referral programs (including cash payments for candidates), medium companies spent about $17,000 and small ones with fewer than 500 employees spent about $3,600. The cost per hire, however, is usually low; average per hire expenses were only $388, far below the cost of an employment service. However some employee referrals programs pay more. For example, the learning web site docent (www.docent.com) pays $5,000 for each technical person hired.

Recruiting high tech employees (remember nerd resulting?) is especially amenable to referral programs. Sources like the Internet are widely used for recruiting high tech workers, but some experts contend that the most effective recruting method is to encourage existing employees to refer qualified friends and colleagues. Awards for referrals can go as high as $5,000 for a new hire. Even fast moving Internet firms like Double click, Inc., rely heavily on employee referral programs. For example, the company’s internal referrals were up 43% in the first quarter of 2000.

Referrals can also facilitate hiring a diverse workforce. One survey found 70% of minority/ethnic candidates search for jobs on corporate web sites; 67% use general job listing sites, 53% classified ads, 52% referrals and 35% headhunter/ agencies. However only 6% listed “corporate web site” as one of the top five ways they actually found jobs; 25% listed referrals.

Particularly for hourly workers, walk ins direct applications made at your office are a major source of applicants; employers encourage this by posting hiring signs on the property. Treat walk ins courteously and diplomatically, for the sake of both the employer’s community reputation and the applicants self esteem. Many employers give every walk in a brief  interview with someone in the HR office, even if it is only to get information on the applicant “in case a position should be open in the future.”Good business practice also requires answering all letters of inquiry from applicants promptly and courteously.

Don’t underestimate the importance of employee referrals or in house job postings. One review of recruitment sources concluded, for instance, that “referrals by current personnel, in house job postings, and the rehiring of former employees are the most effective sources. Walk ins have been slightly less effective and the least effective sources are newspaper ads, school placement services, and employment agencies (government/private).

Recruiting on the Internet

A large and fast growing proportion of employers use the Internet as a recruiting tool. The percentage of Fortune 500 companies recruiting via the Internet jumped from 10% in 1997 to 75 % in 2000.

Not surprisingly, computer related positions were the jobs most commonly filled through Internet postings (accounting for 59% of the workers hired). Most resumes still arrive through traditional routes, however. In one recent survey, 42% resumes came through regular mail, 30% came via fax, 6% were hand delivered, 17% came via e-mail, and 5% came through firm’s Web sites.

Employers are using Internet recruiting in numerous ways. A Boston based recruiting firm posts job descriptions on its Web page. NEC Electronics, Inc., Unisys Corporation and LSI Logicorp have all posted Internet-based “cyber fairs” to recruit for applicants. Cisco systems, Inc., has a Web site with a Career at Cisco page.This offers links to such things as hot jobs (job descriptions for hard to fill positions); Cisco culture (a look at Cisco work life); Cisco college (internships and mentoring program information); and jobs (job listings).

Using a corporate web site to attract surfers requires making it easy to use the site. Thus, 71% of The Standard & Poors 500 place employment information just one click away from their home pages. Job seekers can submit their resumes online at 90% of the Fortune 500 Websites; however, only about 25% give job seekers the option of completing online applications, although it is the method many applicants prefer, according to one expert.

Employers list several advantages of Internet recruiting. First, it is cost effective: Newspapers can charge from $50 to $100 to several thousand dollars for print ads; job listings on the Intranet may cost as little as each $10 each.

 

The newspaper ad might also have a life span of perhaps 10 days, whereas the Internet ad may keep attracting applications for 30 days or more. Internet recruiting can also be more timely. Responses to electronic job listings may come the day the ad is posted, whereas responses to newspaper ads can take a week just to reach an employer. (although including a fax response number can provide quick responses, too). Employers can use Internet support tools such as Recruiter Toolbox to develop online ads that include prescreening tests which further automate the recruiting process. They can use a variety of job search sites, such as dice.com (see webnote) and monster.com.

Some firms have been phenomenally successful using Internet recruiting. For example, when Boeing Company had to hire 13,000 employees fast, it opened its recruiting web site. Only 200 resumes were received the first month, but within three months 19,000 resumes had arrived and six months 50,000.

Some employers cite just such a flood of responses as a downside of Internet recruiting. The problem is that the relative ease of responding to Internet ads encourages unqualified job seekers to apply; furthermore, applications may arrive from geographic areas that are unrealistically far away. On the whole, through more applicants are ussually better than fewer, and more companies are using their computers to scan, digitize and process applicant resumes automatically.

HR Net

Recruiting Online

Online recruiting Web sites like monster.com actually represent just the tip of the iceberg for employers seeking good resumes. For example, one online recruiter pointed out that”while monster and its competitors have about 5 million unique resumes in their databases, you can find double or triple that number on the open Internet.”These resumes are hidden away are the Web sites of virtual communities such as Geocities and Tripod, and at the Web sites of archieved newsgroup postings and listserve messages.

Suppose for example you want to find resumes of programes in Florida who are comfortable on the UNIX platform. On Geocities, go to www.geocities.com and in the text field under Explore our neighborhoods, type: resume and programmer and UNIX and Florida. Then click search and start reviewing resumes.

You can get even better results on sites like Angelfire or Tripod. These allow you to use Boolean operators (such as and, or, not and near), and even to focus on specific telephone area codes for your search. So, for your programmer search on Angelfire, type: resume and programmer and UNIX and (Florida near 305 or 954). Then click the Go Get It button for personal Web sites and resumes possible candidates.

You can also adjust your search to see through walled off areas of Web sites or to unearth hard to find links. For example, on Alta Vista’s advanced search function, type in Cisco.com and business development. You’ll find about 80 pages, including the firm’s promotion announcements and executive news. Would you like an applicant who graduated from wharton and has experience at McKinsey & Co.? Type in Wharton.penn.edu and McKinsey.

America’s Job Bank www.ajb.dni.us

On this site candidates can search for jobs by occupation, location, education and experience levels and salary. Those with a military background can search for civilian jobs that match their areas of expertise. Employers can cull a pool of nearly 2 million job seekers.

CareerBuilder www.careerbuilder.com

CareerBuilder offers information about career advancement and workplace trends, including tips and news for students and recent grads. Users can search more than 50 leading job sites that are part of the career builder network, with access to more than 3 million job postings.

CareerMosaic www.careermosaic.com

CareerMosaic offers insider profiles on such companies as Microsoft and Canon. Job seekers can search for openings by geographic area, job description or company name. CareerMosaic has links to more than a dozen countries in North America, Europe and the Pacific Rim.

CareerShop.com www.careershop.com

In addition to providing easy searches for job seekers and a pool of nearly 300,000 resumes for employers, CareerShop offers a marketplace for freelancers and employers, guidance for employers on human resource issues and a variety of counseling services.

ComputerJobs.com www.computerjobs.com

ComputerJos.com is the leading information technology employment site, with job opportunities organized by specific skills and regional markets. As part of its virtual recruiting service for employers, Computerjobs.com will do online behavioral testing and credit checks of candidates.

Dice.com www.dice.com

This is the first place to look for many IT professionals. This site lists over 150,000 job openings both permanent and contractual.

Employment911.com www.employment911.com

This meta site can speed your search by quickly scanning its own listings and those of 35 other sites.

JobOptions www.joboptions.com

Contemplating a move? On the Joboptions site, users can compute comparable salaries for different cities based on housing and other factors and they can search by job classification, location and qualifications. Employers can search more than 250,000 resumes.

Jobs.com www.jobs.com

Get the inside scoop on working for major companies with jobs.com’s Testify section. Jobs.com offers free software that simplifies the process of writing and delivering resumes via the Internet. The site features interactive career fairs (with chat and video web casts) with employers.

JobTrak.com www.jobtrak.com

JobTrak.com is the largest site for college students and alumni. It has partnerships with more than 1,000 university career centers, MBA programs and alumni associations. Students can receive advice from college counselors, contact alumni, and learn to negotiate a salary package.

Monster.com www.monster.com

The big daddy of job boards with 3 million resumes, Monster.com has communities for students, techies and self employed. Users can create a career management account where they can store up to five resumes, track applications and receive news tailored to their interests.

 

 

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