Recruitment Online: Apply Here

The number of companies investing in direct recruitment through their corporate sites is rising. But the
jobsites are fighting back with creative new tools.

Three new online job boards joined the ever-expanding family of UK jobsites last month. The ridiculously
specialist jobsinasbestos.co.uk added itself to the pool, as did jobsforcadtechniciansinbristol.com and
Scottish education-related site, scotedjobs.com.

The continued addition of these and others is testament to the fact that more and more jobseekers
(some 12 million a year) are searching for their next career online, contributing to an industry now worth
pounds 200 million, according to the National Online Recruitment Audience Survey 2006. Yet, ever
since the boom in job boards first started in 2000 with the likes of Fish4, Monster and Total Jobs, client
companies - often blitzed with the same CVs from the different jobsites they use - have been wondering
if they could do a better job of it themselves. As early as 2003, a study by jobsite workthing.com
admitted that 73% of HR directors were complaining about the low quality and irrelevance of CVs being
supplied.

Back then the jobsites had a distinct advantage over most HR departments. In 2003 less than half (42%)
of client companies had application forms on their own corporate websites. Shockingly, 85% of
companies still sorted CVs by hand. But is the tide turning, and could jobsites soon lose their grip?
The answer could be yes. Many large companies are investing in improving direct recruitment through
their corporate sites. Sainsbury's went 100% online last year, while many are buying up the same
technology that the job boards themselves first used. Firms including Superdrug, Adidas, Boots, Nike
and Sainsbury's have all introduced e-recruitment specialist Jobpartners' ActiveRecruiter automation
technology to improve efficiency, turnaround times and pull all recruitment information into one source.
In Superdrug's case, the technology has reduced its cost per hire by 87%. In fact, the company now
recruits 54% of all its store and head office management and pharmacist vacancies via its website.
The Portland Building Society has gone one step further, integrating candidate assessment technology
from psychometric testing company SHL to enable online screening as part of its standard recruitment
process.

These advancements are not isolated cases. According to research by talent management system
provider Taleo (see graphs, opposite), which surveyed the FTSE 100's corporate websites during 2006,
94% now allow job hunters either to email companies their CV, or have on online applications. Today,
the number that have application forms on their website has broken the magic 50% for the first time.
Corporates investing in making their own sites more sophisticated are hoping to capture the growing
minority of people who proactively search for specific companies, rather than those who scatter their
CVs in an untargeted way. Many are buying up Google search terms already, and Google is itself
branching out into recruitment. Its 'Base' product is a site within its site where recruiters can upload jobs
directly.

'As Google becomes a job search engine in its own right, there could be a time in the next few years when people think: 'I trust and rely on Google to search for everything else I want online, so why not a job',' says James Saunders, managing director of recruitment website designer 4MAT. He says this could even lead to candidates using Google to post their CVs and market themselves online.

But are the job boards really under threat? People performance consultancy Hemsley Fraser had one
client company that recently ran a campaign to recruit senior training consultants where online job
boards gave an unsatisfactory yield: '60% of responses came from an industry specific magazine and
40% came from other routes, including postings on job boards and speculative enquiries,' says head of
human resources Jo Redgrave. 'However 100% of the people we actually appointed were sourced from
the magazine ad.'

But even despite this outcome, Redgrave has no plans to stop using generalist job boards altogether.
She says that compared to total recruitment costs, online advertising is a small outlay - hundreds of
pounds compared to thousands for a print ad, which is why job boards will still be used by her and
others as a safety net, or to discover others who might have slipped through. In addition, the channel
has proved successful for the company in recruiting people to its corporate HQ near Plymouth.

Job boards' Action

The job boards are not just sitting still. Over the past 12 months, Monster, the market leader, has
introduced podcasts, offering candidates advice in areas such as how to succeed at interviews and
negotiate a bigger salary. According to the latest audited figures from ABC Electronic, Monster UK
attracts 2.34 million visitors a month, generating 10.4 million searches. In March, the company also
launched its Monster Mobile site, giving users access to interactive job postings, information and advice
while they are on the move.

'It is an evolving process,' says Alan Townsend, chief operations officer at Monster UK and Ireland.
'Four or five years ago people were a bit scared at the number of corporations having their own career
sites. But those sites still have to look at how to attract people and the first port of call is often us.'
The result is that, in addition, many job boards are cashing in by hosting career sites on behalf of
corporate clients. Graduates who visit international engineering firm IMI's recruitment pages, for
example, will have an IMI branded experience, but be interacting with technology provided by Monster.
Similarly, the NHS uses Jobsite to provide all online recruitment services.

Felix Wetzel, marketing director of Jobsite, points to other innovations his company is making to ensure
it meets employers' expectations. In April, this included the launch of CVautoMatch, a new tool that
analyses the content of posted vacancies and cross-references data from Jobsite's current 365,000 live
CVs to instantly identify candidates who make the best match for their corporate client. 'We believe it's
the first tool able to search directly across CVs and posted vacancies, meaning neither clients nor
candidates have to go through any additional registration or form filling,' says Wetzel.

These improvements are having an impact. According to Simon Ponting, recruitment brand manager for
insurer AXA UK, the candidates he sees from online sites do now meet his expectations. 'The quality of
candidates from job boards such as Monster, Totaljobs, and Friends Reunited, plus niche sites such as
Brand Republic, is on a par with those that come via our website,' he says. 'And nine times out of 10
there's something that drives people to our website, so job boards are good for building brand
awareness.' Because AXA is a major recruiter it is also able to negotiate a discounted bulk rate with
larger service providers, helping hit its target cost per hire of pounds 700 to pounds 1,000.
The more niche job boards, such as jobsforcadtechniciansinbristol.com, believe their future is safe
because they still believe job hunters search for a 'type' of job first rather than the specific name of the
company they want to work for. 'People think of Sainsbury's or Tesco as being in the retail space,' says
Geoff Curry, managing director of Cityjobs.com, which focuses on vacancies within the Square Mile.
'However, what they don't necessarily think of is that these retailers now also operate financial and
pharmaceutical services and have a whole range of corporate functions and job functions.'
Specialists also argue that much depends on a candidate's criteria - whether they want to further their
career, improve their salary, work part-time, or cut their commute. 'Because of the nature of the
positions we offer in administration, location is the most important starting-point for candidates,' says Jim
Ryan, managing director of OfficeRecruit.

Why candidates visit sites needs to be monitored closely by HR directors. Some suggest there is strong
possibility internet recruitment will follow the model set by price comparison sites in the consumer arena.
'That will mean an increase in the number of 'aggregator' sites where jobs are 'scraped' from lots of sites and presented through a single portal,' says Saunders at 4MAT.

Currently, however, the biggest change that could affect both job boards and corporate career sites is
the rise in social networking. So much so, that leading HR teams are hoping to get in first. In April, Yell
(see below) joined forces with advertising and communications agency TMP to create a presence in the
alternative virtual universe, Second Life. Other companies are using the likes of MySpace and YouTube,
while AXA's Ponting reports that his firm offers a pounds 500 incentive for external referrals on
jobtonic.com and is looking to target professional networking site Linkedin later this year.

But, as the most recent recruitment and retention survey from the CIPD reveals, only 15% of the
working population is actively looking for a job at any one time. Perhaps the real challenge then is
developing an effective online recruitment strategy to attract passive job seekers. According to Alastair
Cartwright, commercial director of online recruitment communications agency Enhance Media, this
means getting beyond the job boards and corporate career sites. 'In a few years' time recruiters should
look to industry-related and lifestyle sites, analysing their own workforce to find out where they go
online, then target the same places,' he says. Maybe by then, the idea of job boards or even a
corporate's own online recruitment sites will seem as old-fashioned as advertising in the local paper.

TOOLS THAT LESSEN THE NEED FOR JOB BOARDS

At the end of March, Reed Consulting, launched GRADdirect, a suite of tools including webcasts,
surveying and SMS technology, helping clients target the 150,000 graduates registered on its own
jobsite. It was launched in response to research conducted at the end of last year, showing that 66% of
graduates who had applied for a job online got no response, while 93% of those who have had a
negative experience tend to tell friends and family.

Graham Wylie, Reed's head of marketing, says: 'With graduate vacancies predicted to rise for the fourth
consecutive year, there are significant challenges for recruiters looking for the right talent set, across an
increasing volume of graduates.' He points to research published by the Association of Graduate
Recruiters showing that 55% of its members are concerned about failing to hit their graduate scheme
targets for this year.

The new service allows employers to run attraction campaigns searching the database by degree type,
level of qualification, expressed career preference and geographical source. For major graduate
employers, such as Barclays, Royal Mail, HSBC, Sainsbury's, Transport for London and Clarks, which
already use one or more of the tools, the service delivers both time and cost savings by cutting out the
human element of sifting through hundreds of CVs. Other options available to recruiters include branded
email campaigns, an SMS alert service, e-shots, e-surveys, plus web and audio casts. 'It's all driven by
the increasing value graduates place on being engaged in the recruitment process,' says Wylie. 'We are
offering new ways for recruiters to open up dialogue with candidates so that they are treated like
customers.'

In April the Student Industrial Society (SIS) relaunched as Bright Futures and includes a new
multi-media website that pairs graduates with the best graduate recruiters. Included are social
networking capabilities, including blogs, wikis and forums. It will become home to a new online
community, giving jobseekers the chance to directly sell themselves to potential employers. Likewise,
employers can promote their own events, internships and placements. They can also 'test' recruitment
campaigns, and create focus groups and online dialogue.

For more information contact INFO@4MAT.com