Choose the Right Site for Effective Online Recruiting

The use of online job sites has exploded in the past several years. Sites such as Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com have experienced record numbers of both people looking for jobs and those wishing to hire them.

For employers, these sites offer a relatively inexpensive way to recruit. Advertising for applicants online reduces printing and mailing costs commonly associated with job applications and registration packets. Online recruiting also cuts down on travel expenses incurred by sending recruiters to job fairs and campus visits.

Job Site Research

There is no shortage of job search sites and since most offer similar services, deciding which one to choose can be tricky. In an increasingly crowded market, it’s wise to do some research. You want to advertise on the site most likely to reach your ideal applicants. Don’t commit to a site based on its size or reputation. Just because a site is big or has served other companies well doesn’t mean it will necessarily serve your needs.

When you’re researching job search sites, ask these questions:

• What’s the demographic of your audience?
• What is your circulation/traffic?
• How many companies like mine advertise with you?
• Do you keep stats on how many hires are successfully completed using your site?
• Will you limit the number of words and web links we can use in our recruiting ads?
• How long will an ad run and how soon after the job is filled will you remove it?

Getting answers to these questions will help you narrow down which sites are most likely to net good results for your business.

Niche Job Sites

With today’s overwhelming number of Internet job-search sites and users, employers are increasingly finding it harder to locate the right candidates. The sheer quantity of online resumes that must be sifted through has become for many companies too time consuming and labor intensive. The task that was supposed to be made easier thanks to job search sites has become, in many cases, more burdensome.

Employer frustration has led to the emergence of niche sites, which are more specialized by field, training, or location, such as Nurses.com or BayJobs.com. Micro-targeted sites save employers time and resources by connecting them to a specific group of candidates looking for a particular job or for work in a particular geographic area. Searching for recruits on these sites enables you to spend less time considering ill-fitting candidates and allows you to reap other rewards such as lower advertising costs and faster hiring. Niche sites also tend to be easier to navigate than the massive generic sites.

Niche job sites have also begun to offer networking capabilities that allow employers to find “passive job seekers,” or potential employees who aren’t necessarily looking for a job but who are communicating with other workers in their field about shared interests or ideas. Establishing relationships with these people can lead to important information, such as what desirable candidates are looking for in terms of job description, workplace environment, and compensation. They also offer employers the opportunity to dialogue with potential future hires.

Recruitment Strategy

While online job sites have revolutionized how companies recruit, they are only as effective as the strategy behind them. Not all job seekers search online. If you place too much emphasis on online recruiting, you are in danger of overlooking entire categories of potentials hires who may not turn to an online board to search for jobs.

For instance, workers over 50 years old are less likely to conduct a search for a job online than younger workers. Workers with limited knowledge of English will be less apt to turn to the computer for job leads. Certain categories of workers who do not need computer skills, such as forklift operators or waiters, may not be looking for work on the Web.

Therefore, while online job sites should be a piece of your recruitment strategy, and an increasingly important piece, refrain from making it the sole form of outreach.