Recruitment and online advertising

It is a cliché to say that online advertising has really taken off. It has now moved beyond the realm of banner advertising. Today we have video advertising, pop-ups, pop-unders, interstitials, supertitials etc.

I often wonder whether how online advertising came to be – did a specific industry think of online advertising which then snowballed into an online advertising movement, or is it the other way around. It’s a chicken and egg situation isn’t it?

The reason for me pondering along these lines is the manner in which some industries are synonymous with a strong internet presence. Finance is one. Recruitment is another. For quite sometime now, both finance and recruitment have had a very strong online presence. Today if one is looking for a job, the first step to take is to get online and visit different websites. Likewise, with different financial products. For example, if I am looking for a credit card with 0% interest, the only thing I do is enter ‘ 0% credit cards’ as my search string in google.

Yesterday, I had discussed ‘The Finance sector and online advertising‘. Today I’ll dwell on Recruitment and online advertising.

It has been proven time and time again that online advertising has an incredible ability to engage with the audience. This ability to engage is unmatched. Various studies have revealed that over 70% job seekers applied for jobs found online. Of these over 65% managed to get interviewed and over 55% of those interviewed actually landed the job! Amazing isn’t it?

Usage of online advertising for recruitment has also moved up the value chain, as it were. Earlier recruitment online was about search and pay-per-click. This is now graduating to a branding focus using online, CV database searches, use of microsites etc.

Advantages of online recruitment

Cost

Sticking a vacancy on your website costs nothing. Posting a vacancy on a job board costs a few hundred $s or £s. Contrast this with using a recruitment agency who you pay approx 25% of the annual wage or the thousands of $s or £s you pay for an ad in a national newspaper and you immediately realize the cost saving of online recruitment.

Quick responses

If a vacancy is put up on a job site in the morning, you have responses by lunchtime. And if the vacancy is posted on the correct jobsites, you could end up hundreds of CVs in hours. Literally.

Better chances of success

To see a print ad, the candidate has to see the ad on a particular page or a particular newspaper. In case of online, the ad is there on the net perennially allowing the user to visit and revisit the page.

Large audience

Following on from the earlier point, you have an audience of millions. In case of print advertising, the audience would be in thousands.

Easy to Execute

Sticking an ad on your website or on a jobsite is child’s play and it happens in seconds. If a vacancy arises today, I can create a job description and post it in hours and have responses by end of the day. Print advertising will take a few days before it appears.

Disadvantages of online recruitment

Online recruitment is not all a bed or roses, however. There a demerits.

Inundated with candidates

It is as easy to respond to an ad as it is to post an ad. Potential candidates will happily post their CVs, notwithstanding the fact that they may not necessarily fit the role. The recruitment guy, therefore, has quite a job sifting thru’ the CVs separating the grain from the chaff. That this has spawned an entirely new industry of ‘creating good CVs’ is quite another matter.

Not all roles are amenable to online advertising

Head-hunters/recruiters have a definite role. There a jobs that a difficult to fill where the head-hunter clearly adds value. A company that is looking for a CXO level person, would rarely advertise online. A potential CXO would, in any case, not look at a Monster for potential openings!

Recruiters should use online recruitment prudently. A clear understanding of where it will work and where it won’t would help select a recruitment model – online or otherwise- which would give best value for money.