Electronic recruiting: Using the Internet to find qualified staff
Electronic recruiting: Using the Internet to find qualified staff
Avoiding information overload and frustration
Experts define the Internet's size and usage differently, but all agree it is growing exponentially. estats, a Web-based organization that catalogues the Internet, estimates that 24 million people in the United States used the Internet in 1997. They project the number of U.S. users to grow to more than 140 million by 2002. Some industry experts predict that by 2000 there will be one billion Internet users worldwide.
Lured by the prospect of reaching unprecedented numbers of people with little expense, countless organizations now use the Internet to enhance visibility, market products and services, and provide education. It is also now increasingly used as a recruitment vehicle.
"That's where everything's going," says Al Todak, owner of Medical Employment Services, an Olympia, WA-based Internet recruitment advertising company, and president of PRN MedSearch, a health care recruitment firm. Todak, who has used the Internet since the early days of its commercialization, says that more and more nursing professionals use it to look for jobs.
"Three or four years ago, I saw only experienced managers or masters-prepared nurses [using the Internet]. Now, with almost all nursing students required to be on-line, [many more nurses across the career spectrum are using it]. The ones not on-line today are the 50-somethings with no computer."
Many private duty providers have either already added the Internet to their recruitment arsenal or are considering adding it. However, its seemingly infinite choices and information overload may make some wonder why they should even contemplate using it. With so much information and so many choices for both employers and job seekers, sources agree that Internet recruitment efforts can easily become an ineffective exercise in frustration. But you can make it an effective recruitment tool without overtaxing resources or patience, they add. Some tips to harness the Internet's power follow:
r Set up a Web site.
Setting-up a Web site, or home page, may be one of the first Internet recruitment methods providers think of, but unless yours is a nationally known company, a Web site may be one of the least effective methods, sources say. There are approximately 30 million Web sites today, and the number is expected to double in one year. With such competition, your Web site is likely to get lost in the shuffle.
A potential employee might locate your Web site in two ways:
- directly accessing it by typing your exact Web-site address;
- connecting to it through an Internet search engine.
Unless they are specifically interested in your company, Internet job seekers are more likely to know about large companies' Web sites and access them, sources say. Connections with unfamiliar sites would likely come through Internet searches using search engines.
The search engine connection
Search engines such as yahoo.com and altavista.com use elaborate logic systems to explore the Internet and locate sites that match various search criteria, generally based on keywords. The interplay between a Web site's keywords, a search engine's logic, and an individual Internet user's selection criteria determines whether a Web site appears in a search request, experts say.
Small word changes and different search engines can yield very different responses. For example, in Private Duty Homecare's own search experiment using a popular search engine and the terms "nurse employment" and "nurse jobs," we found no overlapping listings for the first twenty matches, although both search results gave linkages to employment Web sites.
A "nurse employment" search on a search engine that uses different logic identified more than 700,000 matches. The first 20 responses were a hodgepodge ranging from employment Web sites to individuals looking for positions to articles about nursing employment.
r Post Internet ads.
There are a number of ways to post jobs via the Internet. The cost, exposure, and applicant screening capabilities of each vary significantly. Private duty providers should consider all these factors when selecting Internet recruitment vehicles, sources say. (See related story, p. 108, on job posting options.)
Fee structures may be per listing or on a subscription basis, ranging from free of charge to several thousand dollars.
Ad exposure comes in three levels:
- Web site search engine connections;
- overall Web site/job listing access;
- individual search criteria.
Employment Web sites, like all others, must contend with the dynamics between search engine logic and individual user requests. Those devoted exclusively to recruitment usually have staff dedicated to continually updating keyword and logic connections to ensure that their site surfaces at the top of each search engine's criteria, according to Ken Levinson, president of CJ Ventures Inc., a health care job sourcing service.
Once arriving at a Web site, job seekers may or may not see your ad. Some, particularly professional associations, restrict employment ad viewing to "members only," limiting the potential number of applicants who may learn of your opening. On the other hand, many thousands of potential employees may visit open access employment Web sites every day, experts say.
Individual search criteria, the way in which a potential employee learns of specific job openings, also varies widely between sites. Smaller sites may have totally open job listings, allowing job seekers to scroll through all listed positions.
Larger Web sites, which may have thousands of postings, require that job seekers find positions through searches. Searches use various methodologies to select positions. Some sort first based on location and secondly on broad employment categories, such as home health care or outpatient care. Others, especially industry-specific ones, may select on job titles such as director or manager.
Linking employers and potential employees may depend on both parties choosing the same search criteria or considering similar titles for the same functions. For example, a home care marketing manager looking for a similar position may search a database for manager positions. But a private duty provider may have a director of business development position posted which the job seeker may never find. Employers could face the same issue in reverse when perusing resume databanks in which individuals seeking new positions have posted their resumes.
Many professional associations, including the National Association for Home Care, the American College of Healthcare Executives, and the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, have employment sections on their Web sites. Ad placement rules and fees for each site vary. For example, some allow only member organizations to post and individual professional members to access ads. Others allow open access to anyone who visits the Web site.
Private duty providers may also consider an employment service Web site. These popular sites have many thousands of "hits," or visits, each day. Many offer a variety of listings across industries and job categories. Others specialize in industries; there are many health care sites. (For a list, see related story on Internet resources, p. 108.) When considering an employment Web site ad, private duty providers should weigh the high traffic with the site's search methodology and job categories, sources advise.
r Network on the Web.
A very inexpensive way to recruit staff over the Internet is to network with professional colleagues through listservs and news groups. "A listserv, or list, is an interactive e-mail-based system of people with a common interest," Todak says.
"It is mainly computer-controlled. Subscribers can put themselves on or off the list by sending commands to a certain e-mail address. Lists are either'moderated' or'unmoderated'. [If unmoderated], conversations are instantly sent to all other members of the list. [If moderated], a [user] has to allow passage of the message before it goes through to all subscribers," he continues.
Depending on whether listserv rules allow job networking, an employer can instantly notify all listserv subscribers, ranging from a few to thousands of individuals.
(For a list of Web sites, see box, p. 108.)
r Avoid "spamming."
Unsuspecting private duty providers may run across offers to purchase massive e-mail address databanks with the promise of instantaneously marketing to many thousands, or even millions of e-mail addresses. Such unsolicited advertising, also known as "spamming," is illegal in the same manner as sending unrequested faxes, Todak warns.
Don't neglect traditional methods
Many private duty providers believe recruiting over the Internet is not worth the effort because of the Internet's enormity and the providers' own size, location, and recruitment area. Sources also say that the Internet is no substitute for other recruitment vehicles, but it may be an important adjunct to more traditional recruiting methods.
"Don't throw out traditional [recruitment] methods. But [the Internet] is a smidgen of the cost [of regular advertising], the risk is low, and it can broaden your access to a more qualified pool of applicants, [so why not] explore new and different ideas?"says Eve Stern, RN, MS, president and chief executive officer of Jobspan.com, a Bellevue, WA-based employment Web site specializing in health care.
Private duty providers in rural areas or smaller communities in particular may question the Internet's relevancy in their recruitment efforts. While "someone who lives locally and is only interested [in local positions] will look in the paper, the question is,'can you find someone who will move?'" asks Kate Purcell, RN, owner of National Nurse Search, an Oklahoma City-based recruitment and career placement company. You never know when someone interested in making a career or lifestyle change may be searching the Internet for just the location and position you offer, sources say.
Todak illustrates the point: A small hospital in a remote Maine community had been searching for a nurse manager for some time, with no success. The hospital contacted Todak who notified subscribers to his Med-employ listserv, a group of nursing professionals who have indicated their interest in new professional opportunities. One of the subscribers, currently living in Florida, had grown up near the Maine community and was interested in returning to the area. "There is no way in the world we would have otherwise found that individual," he says.
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