issues

This page considers online recruitment issues.

It covers -

• introduction
• performance

    introduction

Online recruitment poses several issues -

• efficiency
• privacy, spam and identity theft
• other aspects of performance
• corporate sites as a public face of an organisation

For job seekers and potential employers a salient concern is the efficiency of the online recruitment process. Most independent studies suggest that most recruitment is still done through personal networks and with some personal contact. Going line to post a CV or view 'want' advertisements does not eliminate the need for 'face time'.

Arguably the greatest impact of job search sites has been the ability to scan a large number of ads without getting ink on your fingers, although one observer comments that the switch from newsprint to bytes means that employees can surreptitiously job hunt at their desks.

The absence of benchmarking - and the paucity of information about how employers are using job boards and services - means that it is difficult for job seekers to determine which site/service offers greatest value for money. Surveys that we have undertaken about applicant and employer perceptions and experience in high technology and legal recruitment suggest that some organisations have successfully eschewed online services, instead relying on personal soft networks.

Privacy is emerging as another concern, with recognition that some sites have inadequate or misleading data protection policies, some sites do not adhere to those privacy policies and some users have a poor understanding of how personal data will be handled in the immediate and long term. Poor practice in handling of recruitment data is not restricted to the online environment, with privacy advocates for example having long-standing concerns regarding offline treatment of applications by employees and recruitment services and regarding the weakness of privacy legislation for the protection of that information.

Critics also note misuse of posted vitae for spamming and identity theft, discussed elsewhere on this site.

     performance

Dot-com euphoria about 'job finding by mouse' has increasingly been displaced by lower expectations, characterised by one observer as "pay and pray".

A realistic approach has been encouraged by criticisms from within the industry, with a UK recruitment specialist for example claiming that "online recruitment is riddled with inefficiency, misleading information and outright fraud".

Others have compared recruitment services - online and offline - to used car retailing or personal matchmaking, with claims that recruitment sites

• quote inflated salaries or incorrect job descriptions to make positions more attractive
• do not live up to claims about careful matching, instead emailing job seekers with ads that do not relate to information supplied during an exhaustive registration process
• repeatedly advertise the same jobs or positions that have already been filled
• make unsubstantiated claims about the security of personal data
• improperly sell personal data to retailers and other entities
• do not provide trained staff or other support for job seekers
• fail to expunge outdated information, whether on a systematic basis or in response to specific requests

Questions about public disclosure (particularly in relation to success rates) and benchmarks are common. Inaction by consumer protection watchdogs has reflected greater emphasis on identifying and prosecuting online financial and retail scams and - as with matchmaking - the difficulty of grappling with poor performance in an industry where there is room for subjectivity.

A final issue relates to use of corporate sites, a public face of an organisation.

A particular concern is lack of integration between advertising on a corporate site and follow-through by operational staff or recruitment specialists, with criticisms for example that applicants do not receive timely replies (or indeed any acknowledgement) and that personal information is not appropriately handled.

   next page  (studies)