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E-RECRUITMENT

INTRODUCTION:

“The Internet Will Help Achieve ‘friction free capitalism’ by putting Buyers & Sellers in
Direct Contact and Providing more Information to Both Each Other”- Bill Gates. Today’s
world is technology based world and we can feel its presence in each sphere of our lives.
Conception of internet has changed our lives tremendously and it has also changed the
perception of people towards their work (Bhupendra & Swati, 2015). Now whole world is
just a click away from us and we can connect with individuals from all over the world. Today
acquiring and retaining the employees is the biggest challenge and internet has proved to be a
boon to recruitment process. E-recruitment is a new technologic means for selecting one of
the companies most crucial resources, i.e human resource. This technological innovation
improves the process of recruiting knowledge sources by using the internet.

it allows businesses to make cost savings, update job offers and status at any time, to shorten
the recruitment cycle time, to identify and select the best knowledge potential out of a wider
range of candidates and gives the company an opportunity to improve its image and profile
(Anand & Chitra, 2016). E-recruitment is a process of recruiting candidates for filling vacant
position in the companies through the use of internet. E-recruitment is an integration and use
of internet technology to improve competence of recruitment process. Furthermore, better
and faster recruiting can constitute a competitive advantage against enterprises from the same
market. However, web-based recruitment is now sufficiently widespread to represent a
disadvantage for companies that delayed its integration in their own corporate information
systems and strategies (Anand & Chitra, 2016). Moreover, passive and active job seekers also
tend to prefer online applications to traditional application methods, because it saves time and
money and makes it possible to browse through a wider range of job offers.

It also allows job hunters to navigate through the corporate websites to build first
impressions and opinions on the company (either because jobs offers are being searched
directly on the corporate website, or through links, or by personal incentive). The many
different opportunities of e-recruitment methods are less widespread among small and
medium size businesses. Electronic recruitment, online recruitment, cyber recruiting or
internet recruiting are all synonyms of eRecruitment. E-Recruitment plays very vital role in
the process of recruitment as it provides a suitable number of applicants who fulfilled the
criteria set by the companies (Bhupendra & Swati, 2015). Traditionally, organizations
depended on fairly low technology, including newspaper advisements and employee referrals
to locate and attract qualified candidates. Other traditional tools used for recruitment include
radio, television, hand delivery/dispatch riders, handbills, postal services and courier service.
But now a days the traditional recruitment methods has been revolutionized by the wave of
internet. E- Recruitment is the latest trend and it has been adopted by large and small-sized
organizations.

The core objective of this study is to analyse the overall trends in e- Recruitment use and
practice and to list the opportunities and challenges faced by job seekers and
employersRudman (2010) and Härtel & Fujimoto (2010) explain that electronic recruitment
is the selection of prospective candidates applying for a job via the Internet (external) and
Intranet (internal). E- recruitment is also known as online recruitment. Using this method, a
candidate who is applying for an advertised position forwards their CV and a covering letter
electronically to the advertiser‟s website. That particular CV is retrieved by the advertiser
and screened among the other CV‟s received from different candidates (Finn, 2000). E-
Recruitment is the process of personnel recruitment using electronic resources, in particular
the internet. Companies and recruitment agents have moved much of their recruitment
process online so as to improve the speed by which candidates can be matched with live
vacancies.

Using database technologies, and online job advertising boards and search engines,
employers can now fill posts in a fraction of the time previously possible. Using an online e-
Recruitment system may potentially save the employer time as usually they can rate the
eCandidate and several persons in HR independently review eCandidates.

MAIN MATTER:

Meaning, Origin and Process of E- Recruitment :

The term e-Recruitment means the process of finding and hiring the best-qualified candidate
(from within or outside of an organization) for a job opening, in a timely and cost effective
manner (Bhupendra & Swati, 2015). The recruitment process includes activities like
analysing job requirements, attracting candidates, screening applicants, hiring and welcoming
the new employee to the organization. E- Recruitment is the practice of using web-based
resources for tasks involved with searching, attracting, assessing, interviewing and hiring new
employees. Armstrong (2009) defines e- Recruitment as a process that uses the internet to
advertise or post vacancies, provide information about the jobs and the organization and
enable e-mail communication to take place between employers and candidates.

The function of e- Recruitment is to make the processes more productive as well as less
expensive.

Online recruitment can attract a larger pool of potential employees and smoothens the
selection process.

The fundamental of e- Recruitment are as follows: Tracking: Helpful in tracking


the status of candidate with respect to the jobs applied by him/her.

Employer’s Website: Provides details of job opportunities and data collection for same.
Job Portals: Like career Age, Indeed, Monster, times job, etc these carry job advertisements
from employers and agencies.

Online Testing: Evaluation of candidates over internet based on various job profiles to
judge them on various factors.

Social Networking: Sites like google+, twitter, facebook, linked in, etc helps in building
networking and finding career opportunities

E- Recruitment started in the form of autonomous job sites called bulletin board systems in
the 1980s. A new global trend was started in U.S. when Jeff Taylor Launched Monster. Com
with 20 clients and 200 job openings in 1994.

Today more than three-fourth of the fortune 500 companies use online recruiting and also
now people use mobile application for uploading resumes and searching jobs on portals. E-
Recruitment can be done through company website, social sites and online job portals. There
are large number of online job portals like indeed.com, careerjet.com,
freshersworld.com,Naukri.com,Timesjob.com, monster.com, jobsahead.com, clickjobs, etc.
social networking sites like linkedin, facebook, twitter, google+ also plays a major role in
online recruitment. Online portals have played a crucial role in providing companies with the
best application with required qualification to be filled at the right place in the organization.
E-Recruitment has proved to be a very convenient mode for both company and job seekers as
both can upload the necessary details required and can find a suitable opportunity there
(Bhupendra & Swati, 2015). The emergence of e- Recruitment as a strategy of cost and time
saving mechanism coincide with the introduction of New Public Management (NPM) in the
public sector geared toward addressing institutional and structural problems afflicting public
bureaucracies in both developing and developed countries (Snell et al, 2002). In 1991, British
scientist Time Berne’s Lee introduced the world wide web (www) to academic scientist. This
is a harbinger to internet recruiting. In Nigeria, e-Recruitment in the public sector is a
relatively new phenomenon introduced around 2005 to hire personnel in the public sector.
Agencies like Federal Civil Service Commission, Nigerian Army, Nigerian Police Force,
Nigerian Customs Service, and corporate Affairs Commission among others adopted the use
of internet in their recruitment process.

In contrast to some countries like Malaysia that are using organizational website to recruit
potential candidates, in Nigeria the reverse is the case because, many organizations,
especially those that have potential of drawing a large number of applicants, have latched on
to the scratch card business by engaging private recruiting consultants and in the process,
extort money from anxiously waiting applicants (Ikechukwu, 2010). If you take the time to
fill in a job application, you might think someone would at least have the courtesy to actually
look at it.

But as more and more job applications are made online, companies are increasingly turning
to computer programs to help manage the load. This means it's as likely as not it won't be
someone vetting you - but something. These programs, called applicant tracking systems,
scan your CV to decide whether you move on in the process or fall at the first hurdle The
reason for the shift towards online recruitment activities, and use of web 2.0 technology for
more Human Resource Management functions is most due to the inadequacy of the paper-
based process. Most hiring managers and line managers indicated that the lack of systematic
log of information and improper storage of paper applications lead to inevitable delays in
application processing time. This increase the time to hire and thus cost to hire, while
compromising the quality of hire due to incompetent practices, human errors and biases
(Depardieu & Islam, 2008). Findings in a CIPD survey showed that e-Recruitment sections
on employer’s sites is now the fourth most popular recruitment method. More than seven in
ten employers advertise vacancies on their corporate websites, while jobs boards are used by
four in ten with 73% reporting reduced costs through using e-Recruitment in Europe
(Omolawal, 2015). A 1996 survey showed that there were more than 1.2 million jobs posted
on line, 3,512 websites and 5,800 companies recruiting online (Hoggler, cited in Singh &
Finn, 2003). Furthermore, another survey by the internet Business Network puts the number
of online job posting in 1998 at about 28 million and this was estimated to climb to at least 30
million in 2004 (Omolawal, 2015). According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel
Development (CIPD), more than two thirds of organizations advertised vacancies on their
own websites in 2004 in the United Kingdom (McCurry, 2005). The consultancy
Empowerment Group estimated in 2009 that the online job seeking had grown by 76% in the
previous two years and was being used by 11 million people in the United Kingdom.
According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, Online recruitment represented 22.1% of all
online advertising in 2005. The World Advertising Research Centre (WARC) and the
Advertising Association estimated that the forecast growth in online recruitment advertising
was forecast to increase from £158m in 2005 to some £262m in 2007 (Terazono, 2005; Singh
& Finn, 2003). The trend has continued to grow and expand (Omolawal, 2015).

As in so many other aspects of the business world, the Internet has become an integral part of
the recruitment process. It started as a tool for the employer to advertise their positions to a
wider audience and job posting would be accessible to job seekers for 24 hours per day.
Internet allows Human Resource Professionals to post open positions in detail online so
applicants can review the information at their own time, thus minimizing the time
requirements by the recruiter on this phase of the process. Companies of all sizes typically
have, at minimum, a website which allows them to conduct part of their business online.
Some include a career section with online recruiting: storing information on open positions,
employee benefits to entice potential applicants and an application process. By accepting
letters of application and CVs sent via e-mail, applicants now have the opportunity to respond
right up until the closure date and time of the job advertisement (Stacey, 2010). Many
companies are now taking the next steps in incorporating the internet into the next steps of
their recruitment process: screening suitable candidates can take up a lot of time and
resources, even more so when more applicants respond.

Software is now available for screening of applications (Omolawal, 2015). Online attitude
and aptitude tests are becoming more popular as a means of selecting the right candidates
(Yazdani, 2010). Video conference has also emerged thereby allowing interviews to be
conducted online, while job offer and acceptance are being conducted online with e-signing
allowing applicants to accept and confirm offer online. In many organizations, online
processes have been added to the conduct of induction, a process which is called e-on-
boarding. A later trend has been the creation of online data bases, where job seekers could
store their CVs thereby giving employers the opportunity to search for candidates who fit
their required profile. This can speed up the application process and give people who are
interested in changing their job the initiative to show their availability, without actively
applying for jobs (Elkington, 2005; McCurrey, 2005; Omolawal, 2015).

According to Etomi (2002), the entire process of e- Recruitment and ICT utilization for staff
recruitment involves automation of the recruitment efforts from the beginning to the end and
it is summarized as follows

• Organziat6ions put job vacancies on the internet (own site or employment agency sites);

• Interested candidates are encouraged to react with their resumes electronically; • Resumes
are electronically screened;

• Intelligent matching system converts summary of experience to a summary of skills;

• Applicants with relevant profile for the job are contacted electronically;

• Interviews are conducted online or using computers at specific locations;

• Discussions are thereafter held through telephone, e-mail or video-conferencing;

• Terms are agreed;

• Offers are made and accepted.

Essencially, e- Recruitment works on software and some common software include web 2.0
Artificial Intelligence (AI), HR software, Application Tracking System (ATS) among others.

Trends of E- Recruitment:

There is growing evidence that organizations are using internet technology and the world
wideweb as a platform for recruiting and testing candidates. The IES survey of 50
organizations using e- Recruitment reported that the primary drivers behind the decisions to
pursue e- Recruitment were to:

• Improve corporate image and profile;

• Reduce recruitment costs;

• Reduce administrative burden;

• Employ better tools for the recruitment team.

The trends in e- Recruitment use suggest a changing landscape whereby in future the
candidate is connected to the central system and there is involvement of the line manager in
the process (see figure 1). In addition to the reported benefits such as cost efficiencies, the
role of HR in this model viewed as more of a facilitative role, in theory allowing time for
recruiters to become involved in the strategic issues within resourcing

The e- Recruitment Landscape:

Latest trends in e-recruitment is the use of mobile application for job search. Use of mobile
application makes job searching more easy for job seekers. Company websites also plays a
major role in searching a potential candidates. Various social networking sites are available to
connect with job seekers and attracting them towards organizations. Blogs are also getting
popular now a days. Also resume scanner helps companies to screen and shortlist the resumes
as per candidates, qualifications and experience, special skills and Salary details and is
provided by major portals in Nigeria. There are abundant evidences which prove that
organizations are increasingly using internet as a platform for recruiting candidates.

Major reasons for e- Recruitment usages: having web presence and using internet improve
corporate image, minimizes hiring costs, reduces paper work and administrative burden,
ability to arrange advanced web tools for the recruitment team (Bhupendra & Swati, 2015;
Anand & Chitra, 2016). The employer must learn to reach job seekers by creating profiles on
facebook, Linked in (social networking) along with using job portals for making recruitment
more effective. Also they can advertise job vacancies with the numerous online recruitment
agencies- to brace the talent hunt process. According to Shahila and Vijayalakshmi (2013),
the modern trends of e- Recruitment are as follows:
 Speedy Communication: Company and the perspective employee can
communicate with each other via the blogs. Thus blogs, podcasts, vodcasts are being
considered a tool of e- Recruitment. No more the process can be blamed for being
one way communication like mails, faxes only being speedy as done electronically,
podcasts are the services of digital media file. Vodcasts are the video podcasts.
 Candidate’s Preference: history states that employers had the privilege to be
selective in hiring process, especially in screening resumes but were not always fair.
Because of the time constraint it was not possible to go through all the applications.
Today the candidates can choose their employers as not only the financial state is
known to them but also the culture is known. Applying for the organization will no
more be influenced only by the image.
 Search Engine Advertisement: Print ad is phasing out due to the popularity of
search engine ads. Pay-per click is not only convenient but also more attractive.
 RSS Feed: Job boards are embracing RSS feed. Hotjobs, Google deserves special
mention. Google offers one to upload the jobs on Google Base even when one doesn’t
have their own site. RSS can be read using software “RSS reader”. It is a family of
web feed formats use to publish frequently updated works. Such as blog entries, news
headlines in a standard format.

Opportunities of E- Recruitment:

E- Recruitment has created a great leap in the history of recruitment since its existence in
1980s. E- Recruitment has been an excellent mode of finding suitable applicants of the
companies desirous of filling the empty vacancies in their organizations. A very renowned
personality Prof. M.S. Rao who is the managing director at a renowned company has
expressed his precious views about e- Recruitment as follows:- “the e- Recruitment saves lot
of time for both employers and job seekers. It provides wider scope, choice and opportunities
for both company and applicants”.

• Wider scope

• Time saving

• Cost saving Benefits to employer


• Advertising benefits

• Keywords make search easier

Challenges of E- Recruitm:

E- Recruitment since its inception has turn out to be successful but it has faced quite a
number of challenges hurdles in the path of success. Some fails to provide correct
information online as they are not computer savvy. They tend to commit mistakes like filling
their name wrongly, their native place wrongly, their qualifications etc. online resumes easily
gets duplicated and hence chances of neglecting the real candidates instead of duplicate
increases. As resumes are uploaded online so there is no surety of authenticity and
correctness of information provided by personnels.

Some challenges are the quality and the quantity of candidates through the web tools. Many
organizations have reported getting large number of applicants from unqualified people. In
case of absence of internet connection candidates cannot check any portal or site (Bhupendra
Swati, 2015). Some company makes their website quite multifaceted due to over engineering
which makes it difficult for job seekers to find relevant opportunities and apply for the same
as not everyone is computer savvy. Also employers cannot judge the personality of
candidates online as there is lack of face to face interaction.

In case of candidates comes out to be a total change than what was expected at the time of
interview, it leads to complete waste of time for employers as they have to restart the process
again. Sometimes it’s difficult to find a candidate within budget and stipulated time frame, in
that case it’s quite challenging for employers to find a talent as per their desire. The job-
portals have the challenge of filtering the information they showcase and removing the fake
job offers as well as the job seekers (Bhupendra & Swati, 2015). According to Armstrong
(2009), the positives associated with internet recruitment come with a number of challenges.
In getting broader exposure, employers also may get more unqualified applicants. Internet
recruitment creates additional work for HR staff members who now need to review more
resumes, more e-mail and the need to install expensive software to track the numerous
applications. A related concern is that many of the individuals who access job sites are just
browsers who are not actively looking for jobs. Another major concern is that some
applicants may have limited internet access, especially the individuals from lower
socioeconomic groups and from certain regions of the world. Also privacy is another
potential disadvantage of this new process: sharing information gleaned from people who
apply to job boards or even company websites has become common, but information sharing
is being done in ways that raise ethical issues and violate discrimination (Omolawal, 2015).
The challenges identified by other scholars (Anderson, 2003; McCurry, 2005, Mathis &
Jackson, 2006) include:

• Screening and checking the skill mapping and authenticity of million of resumes is a
problem and time consuming exercise for organizations.

• There is low internet penetration and no access and lack of awareness of internet in many
locations across the world.

• Organizations cannot be dependent solely and totally on the online recruitment methods. In
countries like India and Nigeria, the employers and the employees still prefer a face-to-face
interaction rather than sending emails.

Other major challenges with e-Recruitment centre on the quantity and quality of candidates
using webbased tools, the lack of knowledge of e- Recruitment within the HR community,
and limited commitment to eRecruitment by senior managers. For example, many
applications from unqualified candidates have been received by organizations using e-
Recruitment systems, at the same time, the lack of knowledge of erecruitment among HR
professionals and the limited commitment of senior managers have hindered the effective
implementation of e- Recruitment in some organizations. Furthermore, recruiting through the
internet has raised concerns among potential applicants about keeping their personal
information secure and confidential, many organizations’ recruitment sites display privacy
statements that detail how the information applicants provide will be stored and used.
However, data security remains a major concern, particularly when it comes to online testing
and making hiring decisions (Omolawal, 2015). Shrivastava and Shaw (2004) noted that the
accuracy, verifiability, and accountability of applicants’ data are also major issues for
managers whose organizations use e- Recruitment system. In addition, Robertson (2001) also
noted that the lack of personal interactions during the process of applying for employment
online limits the flow of communication between potential employees and the employer,
leading to frustration on the part of the job candidates and missed opportunities to share or
gather additional information by employers. Storey (2007) also noted that online testing
raises issues related to applicants’ reactions to the testing, the equivalence of online and
pencil-and-paper tests, adverse impact, and protecting candidates identities. Therefore, before
adopting any kind of online selection methods, organizations should carefully study the
impact of these methods and the strengths and weakness of the methods.

On-line recruitment – its scope and definition:

“Obtaining candidates for employment through the Internet, so-called e-recruitment” is a


dynamically developing group of recruitment methods (Listwan 2010). The present scope of
e-recruitment is variously estimated, depending on the sector, country, type of position being
recruited for, and type of organization. Data on the spread of e-recruitment suggests that 3/4
of all large organizations – according to research in the United States in 2010 – (Stone et al.
2013), all state governments (Selden, Orenstein 2011), and 2/3 of companies in Europe make
use of recruitment portals (Zając 2012). Poland is not a leader in the spread of new
technologies (Runiewicz-Wardyn 2008). However, here too employer Internet access has
ceased to be a restriction on the use of online recruitment tools: according to the Main
Statistical Office, by 2011 over 95% of businesses had such access (further data in this area is
found in Woźniak 2013). The situation is worse for potential employees: lack of Internet
access excludes 1/3 of Poles from taking advantage of online recruitment. However,
significant lack of Internet usage is currently found only among persons over 60 years of age
(as many as 80 out of 100 Poles in this age group do not make use of the Internet). In the
remaining age groups, lack of Internet usage is fairly similar and affects a little less than 1/3
of each group. There is almost complete Internet usage among persons with higher
educations; slightly less (around 85%) among those with only secondary school educations;
still less among those with a vocational education (46%); and considerably less. . And
although these statistics would seem to indicate that online recruitment is better suited for
hiring persons with higher education, employers do not limit its use solely to persons with
such education, or to those prepared to work in high technology areas (i.e., the branch
considered to lead in this type of recruitment method). One proof is that the most frequently
published advertisements on recruitment websites are for employees without higher education
(around 600,000 advertisements in 2011 were for cashiers, salespersons, and drivers – Zając
2012), and if advertisements on recruitment websites are analyzed in terms of the positions
offered, the most frequently sought employees are drivers and construction workers (Zając
2012; Woźniak 2013). Defining online recruitment precisely is not as easy as simply
considering use of the Internet to be its distinguishing feature. Use of the Internet to make
contact with candidates is not after all characteristic solely of the new forms of recruitment.
Just as e-learning is not constituted by sending email invitations to a training session, so e-
recruitment is not constituted by sending emails with interview invitations or application
rejections. The natural condition for recognizing a recruitment activity as e-recruitment is the
online realization of an 'important part' of the recruitment process. Thus e-recruitment is
defined as 'a way of implementing [recruitment] strategies, policies, and practices in
organizations through a conscious and directed support of and/or with the full use of web-
based channels' (Girard, Fallery 2010). Such a definition emphasizes the use of the Internet
not for peripheral activities in the given human resources sphere, but for essential issues. In
the recruitment field this means the web-based realization of a set recruitment plan for
making contact with potential candidates, locating these candidates (labor market
segmentation), and also collecting the information about them that is necessary for the
selection process.

Four stages in the development of e-recruitment methods:

Formulation of a precise definition of e-recruitment is hindered by continual variation in the


ways Internet resources are used in the recruitment process. Researchers who have been
trying to put order in the successive stages of the widening collection of web-based
recruitment instruments and methods have proposed differentiating various kinds of e-
recruitment by naming them 'Web'… [and various numbers] on the pattern of the
nomenclature used for the development stages of communication modes created by the
Internet In analyzing this table it should be noted that initially the Internet served for the
placement of recruitment ads analogous to those in the printed press stating that a company
was seeking employees (so-called Web 1.0). In this period of online recruitment the only
actual difference in comparison with use of the printed press for recruitment aims was the
opportunity for employees to searchwebsites serving as employment agencies (such as
Monster.com, the Polish Jobpilot.pl, or pracuj.pl). These services corresponded to a
traditional search through the classified advertisements of the press – the 'help-wanted'
section in the case of recruitment

However, e-recruitment is characterized by a significant modification not only in the ways of


realizing operational tasks in the recruitment sphere, but by changes in the nature of these
tasks (Woźniak 2013a). This was already happening in Web 1.0; currently the larger traffic
on enterprises' own sites and more capacious Internet connections have meant that companies
can put more information on their websites and use a richer set of methods for transmitting it
– films, testimonials, blogs, or games. As was confirmed by traditional recruitment, more
information, richer means of transmitting it, and greater individualization increase the
attractiveness of job offers in the eyes of candidates (Yüce, Highhouse 1998)

Recruitment in Web 2.0 is connected (like everything called Web 2.0 in the language used to
speak of the Internet) with the use of material created spontaneously by participants in online
communities. The plural in the term 'communities' is important here, as along with the
emergence of the possibility of creating social networking sites and other forums where
participants can put statements and material they created themselves, the range of such sites
is continually growing. By definition, the Web 2.0 model differs from Web 1.0 in its
obliteration of the difference between a privileged broadcaster of information and a recipient,
and the use of content created by Internet users for the purpose of communicating with one
another. In principle, in the Internet based on the Web 2.0 model, the creator of a website
(such as Facebook, Nasza Klasa, or Allegro) where users communicate should be transparent;
that is, it should only create its own rules of use and control their observation. The content of
the website is created by the Internet users themselves, and their interaction consists both in
exchanging communications, and – in particular – in the possibility of making personal
information about themselves available to other members of a given society. In this sense, we
speak of Web 2.0 recruitment when a potential employer actively seeks material – other than
job-wanted advertisements – placed by other users of the Internet. Characteristic Internet
tools used in Web 2.0 recruitment are social networking sites of a private type (Facebook, for
instance) or professional type (Linked IN), video platforms such as Youtube.com, virtual
worlds of the Second-Life type, and search engines analyzing data in various areas of the
Inter-net. Such an understanding of Web 2.0 recruitment emphasizes the search through
recruitment material created – generally without an open connection with seeking
employment – by potential job candidates (and other persons), for the purpose of acquiring
pre-selection information about them (allowing potentially interesting candidates to be
distinguished) and possibly making contact. Sometimes the marketing nature of the Web 2.0
description is emphasized; it is pointed out that social networking sites make use of
instruments that have long been available on the Internet, and the activeness of its users is
overrated. Based on data from 2007 it can be said: “According to Hitwise, only 0.2% of visits
to YouTube are users uploading a video, 0.05% visits to Google Video include uploaded
videos and 0.16% of Flickr visits are people posting photos. Only the social encyclopedia
Wikipedia shows a significant amount of participation, with 4.56% of visits to the site
resulting in content editing” in: Who's Really Participating in Web 2.0 – TIME, available on
http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,859 9,1614751,00.html access 12.02.2014.
Some research emphasized the stratification of Web 2.0 practices, where the age is the most
clear dimension – in US 38% of 18–24 years olds with internet access had ever shared
something – created by himself – on line, compared to 15% of 65+ (Brake 2013). Sometimes
Web 2.0 is considered to be every type of multilateral internet communication (Girard,
Fallery 2010) and then real change is seen only in the use, in those communities, of
crowdsourcing, which, in conjunction with the use of games, allows recruitment departments
to be transformed from costs centres to profit centres (or the lowering of recruitment costs to
nearly zero and the obtaining of additional value for the organization – for instance, through
advertising to a group of recipients acquired thanks to the links among users of community
attractions such as games, knowledge centres, etc.). If Web 2.0 recruitment is understood in a
manner that stresses the unilateral nature of the communication (the recruiters search through
the communications of various persons for the purpose of finding potential candidates), then
an activity consisting in the creation of an Internet community around the communications of
potential employers (Jeffrey 2012) naturally becomes the differentiator of Web 3.0
recruitment. Entering into dialogue with Internet users, either for the purpose of directly
encouraging them to apply or with the aim of creating groups associated with the company in
varying ways in order to use these connections for recruitment purposes, becomes the

characteristic trait of another communications environment, that is, one based on the bilateral
(or multilateral) communication sphere of Web 3.0. Usually, external activities in the sphere
of employer branding are based on constructing, in the organization's environment, a group
with a positive attitude toward the organization and a greater acquaintance with its problems
(brand ambassadors) (Woźniak 2013), but achieving and maintaining rich relations between a
company and groups in its environment ordinarily requires bilateral communication, which in
large measure takes place online. In particular, the Internet facilitates the use of certain
instruments suitable for gamification, the trend of using game mechanisms for various kinds
of traditional tasks. The classic example now is the game used in recruitment by the Marriot
Corporation. Found on the Marriot's recruitment site, which contains various job offers, the
game involves virtually performing various functions related to hotel work.
Recommendations as to the manner of creating a company's employer brand go beyond using
the new forms of communicating with the social environment – such as through Internet
games, competitions, or emotionally charged events. It is sometimes suggested that the
content of communications should be fairly specific and that activities intended to establish
the veracity of these communications should be included. Moreover, recommendations in the
sphere of human resources marketing and in research into Corporate Social Responsibility
suggest creating values for employees both through functional (instrumental) traits and
through symbolic ones connected with the company's brand. Management of a company's
employer brand means creating values for potential employees by using the facts that a brand
has value beyond practical benefits and the value of an employer brand could emerge
partially under the influence of the company's consumer brand (Keller 2003; Cable, Turban
2003; Gomez, Neves 2010). The academic literature on recruitment emphasizes that defining
the content of the Employee Value Proposition in order to strengthen the company's brand is
not the clear answer, if only because of the limited scientific understanding of the question
(Lievens, Highhouse 2003). ”Given the embryonic state of employer branding theory,
however, it is unclear precisely which consumer / corporate brand success characteristics
might apply or which other characteristics may be relevant” (Maroko, Uncles 2008). The
cited authors emphasize that the difference between consumers and job candidates justifies
the belief that these elements may be different. In transferring considerations from the field of
consumer marketing to the 'product' of being an employer requires distinguishing the
practical traits of the offered job, such as remuneration, logistics (location, length, flexibility,
hours, amenities, and material benefits), and development potential and possibility for
advancement, from the symbolic benefits, which include the prestige connected with working
for a given employer due to the employer's image prevailing in specific social groups, and the
employee's personal sense of the accordance between his own self-image and his employer.
The next stage in the development of e-recruitment instruments is considered to be Web 4.0
recruitment (Jeffrey 2012), which is to supposed to make the searching of social networking
sites automatic in the sense that it puts searching for appropriate candidates, and encouraging
them to apply, in the hands of a crowdsourcing mechanism consisting in transferring the task
to be performed to a group of entities not having precisely defined boundaries. In analogy to
seeking recommendations for potential candidates from a company's own employees, Web
4.0 recruitment wants to give this task to Internet users, based on the conviction that giving
even a small reward to recommenders whose recommendee is hired results in Internet users
undertaking the search and producing thereby a large number of applicants. Thanks to a good
mechanism for automatic pre-selection, the excess of applications, which was the bane of
earlier e-recruitment methods, does not currently constitute a problem burdening recruiters
with additional work. An excess of applications as a drawback to online recruitment is
pointed out by, among others, Listwan (2010) and Armstrong (2011). According to data of
2003, 92% of HR managers feel overwhelmed by inappropriate e-applications, and 71%
complain that the majority of the applicants sending applications do not meet the
requirements for the position (after: Maurer, Cook 2011). Furthermore, research into online
recruitment has shown that a company's high degree of attractiveness will encourage the
application of persons who are not suitable for the job offered (organizations considered
attractive, for instance, on account of their brand recognizability or their good reputation will
receive a higher percentage of applications from applicants who do not meet the prerequisites
for the job.) Among the many poor candidates, the automatic online pre-selection tools
(including tests filled in on-line and computer programs automatically monitoring the
adequacy of formal qualifications) are able to choose, free of cost, a small pool of candidates
who will presumably possess a close approximation to the desired qualifications. It should be
clearly emphasized that a prerequisite for successful crowdsourcing of recruitment is that the
company should have a positive image in the eyes of the group to which the recruitment
information will be addressed (that is, the potential recommenders and recommendees).

This entails the increased importance of maintaining contact with the social environment,
including in particular the routine work of creating the company's image in the target group –
from maintaining blogs, through discussions on online forums, to activity in communities of
practitioners. For this reason, facilitation of the work of the personnel department in Web 4.0
recruitment might be only superficial. Furthermore, the fact that a firm needs to have a
positive image in the social environment means that recruitment by these methods could be
harder for some companies than for others. Another question is the possibility of reaching
passive candidates. Research into crowdsourcing shows that tasks suitable for crowdsourcing
(that is, those that have a significant probability of being outsourced to indeterminate
performers) have the following traits: the problem is easily defined and presented; the
knowledge needed for its solution is not very accessible in the decision-makers' environment;
the crowd is large and part of it is motivated and possesses the knowledge necessary to
resolve the problem; the solution is easy to appraise as to quality; and communications
technologies are cheap (Afuah, Tucci 2012). From the recruitment viewpoint, it can be
observed that the search for persons having specialized, but formally defined, qualifications
(for instance, the ability to use IT tools, certified by course work or participation in a project
of the appropriate type), is easier for crowdsourcing than the search for persons with specific
character profiles or competences. It can also be seen that a condition of recruitment
crowdsourcing is a company's possession of a 'community of fans', distinguished by their
good opinion about a company, (and thus motivated to auto-selection, i.e., ready to perform
the task of 'recommending'): that is, the company has a good reputation in a large group
having access to various persons in the social environment. To recapitulate, it should be
stated that activity in the employer branding sphere is a condition of effectiveness for e-
recruitment of the higher types as well. Without adapting its image to the expectations of its
target groups, a company will have difficulty acquiring candidates even using modern
recruitment tools.

The current state of e-recruitment;

The empirical data, as far as these instruments' actual use in e-recruitment type practices
goes, is very diverse. Some of the US data, which comes from research on large test groups,
suggests that e-recruitment methods from Web 1.0 to Web 3.0 are in general use by
companies. For example, data recently published by the firm Bullhorn shows that respondents
from all Anglophone countries (the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and Australia)
declare that they put recruitment advertisements on the LinkedIn site (around 85%, the rest of
the world – 75%), on Facebook (around 25%, the rest of the world – 17%) and Twitter
(around 50%, the rest of the world – 28%) (Bullhorn 2013). Only 9% of employers in the US
stated that they did not use social media for recruitment (Jobvite 2010). The barriers are
gradually disappearing for the use of e-recruitment techniques characteristic of Web 2.0 and
Web 3.0. The attitude to the privacy of information available on social networking sites,
which was earlier treated as a barrier to the spread of Web 3.0 recruitment, is undergoing
continual transformation. In actuality, some such sites are private and egocentric in nature,
being oriented to the creation of links between people (acquaintances) rather than to passing
on information about facts (Levinson 2010), but the border between social networks and
business networks is increasingly disappearing at present (Girard, Fallery 2010). Ever more
often, Internet users themselves declare that their online activity is self-promotional in nature,
not only in the sense of promoting their contribution to the net but also in promoting
themselves on potential labor markets. For Internet users, social media is a means to maintain
contact with acquaintances (49%) but also a means of furthering career development and of
entertainment (around 40%) – after: HRK 03.2011, n = 1685 (among users of
Gazetapraca.pl.) (HRK 2011). In Poland, the generality of Internet users declare their use of
e-recruitment (as job-seekers). Already in 2010 almost 100% of respondents stated that they
had gone to websites and portals with employment offers in looking for work and they
ascribed the greatest effectiveness in obtaining it to such sites (at the level of personal
recommendations, i.e., more than 2/3 chose them as being effective – report from Agora
research on a test sample of 1200 persons, see the description in Woźniak 2013). There is a
lack of data on the scale of companies' using their own sites, but there are estimates that
2/3rds of employers use portals with employment offers (Zając 2012). Even if the estimates
are excessive, it should be recognized that large firms in Poland make general use of lower-
stage erecruitment (see the discussion in Woźniak 2013).

According to random data appearing in branch reports, it may be supposed that the way
personnel departments in Poland use social networking communities to gather information
about a specific candidate who was earlier identified as potentially interesting (that is, by a
Google-type search). In research by the portal pracuj.pl, as many as 46% of the
representatives of personnel departments indicated that verifying information contained in a
CV on the basis of information that can be found about a candidate on the Internet is the
recruitment practice that has the most chance of becoming universal in the next two years.
For comparison, according to American data published in the years 2006–2008, around 20–
25% of employers surveyed declared that they had used social networking sites to verify
information about candidates, while 40% stated that such a use would probably be introduced
in the coming year (see the bibliographic references in Woźniak 2013). The only trend that
was more often mentioned by the respondents was the introduction of firststage e-recruitment
(62%): this may be interpreted as announcing job offers online and pre-selection on the basis
of tests and automatic methods of appraising applications.

It should be mentioned that activity on social networking sites is rather a spontaneous activity
by human resources employees than a routine recruitment procedure for employers. Among
Polish employers, 77% state that they had not previously conducted any activities on
Facebook, and only 17% had conducted branding activity there, publishing their profiles as
employers. Recruitment actions using Facebook were conducted by 5% of employers,
although it is not known whether respondents, in choosing such an answer, were thinking of
collecting information about candidates or only promoting recruitment or internship offers on
the site. Only 2% of respondents stated that they obtained candidates thanks to contextual
advertising. The spread of recruitment with the help of a company's own employees or
crowdsourcing is still at an early stage. It should be cleared noted that the use of higher e-
recruitment tools depends not only on actual access to technical instruments and personnel
departments' competence in their use, but above all on the needs created by the local labor
market. India has a difficult labor market in the IT segment, and thus constitutes a good
testing ground for new recruitment practices. Apparently as manyas 57% of the employers
studied there used recruitment practices based on crowdsourcing. However, some data gives
different estimates of the universality of e-recruitment even in the United States. For instance,
CareerXroads SOH 2/2012 notes that only 20% of persons hired in the course of the last year
by the companies it studied came from recruitment company websites, and 10% came from
the companies' own websites (Crispin, Mehler 2012). Such statistics testify that the spread of
e-recruitment is occurring gradually in the United States as well.

Critique of the theoretical approach at the basis of e-recruitment research:

Scientific research into the influence of branding information in e-recruitment processes is


based on a not very refined theoretical model. The entry point for research is a list of factors,
created ad hoc, that may have branding significance either through the provision of functional
or symbolic benefits. Further analysis is based on the indication that appraising attractiveness
results from the specifics of the individual making the evaluation, as explained either by
signaling theory or through the theory of cultural fit (see Woźniak 2014b). As a source of
practical knowledge, such a model for explaining how the attractiveness of organizations is
appraised under the influence of specific information – where the appraisal is based on the
individual's 'understanding' of the information the firm reveals about itself – has at least two
limitations. In order to be practically useful, this model of explanation would require separate
research into the reliability of the information transmitted by the firm in the eyes of specific
interpreters. Furthermore, it does not provide indications as to which information could have
significance. This first question becomes an obvious problem if it is assumed that information
is spread not only by Internet sites (and thus by an issuer of uncertain veracity) but also by
brand ambassadors, in whom candidates have greater confidence (at least in the case where
both parties – ambassador and candidate – are jointly involved in the same network
community). It is obvious, after all, that if a firm is a sender lacking credibility the basic
impact of the information it sends will be explained by signaling theory – every piece of
information suggesting negative attributes will have a dominant strength and will have a
negative influence on the company's image, regardless of the candidate's values. The reader
can find empirical bases for this statement in my text (Woźniak 2014b). At the same time,
since as many as 65% of respondents in Poland declare that they are ready to share negative
information about their employers (HRK report 2011, cited after Woźniak 2013), it should be
accepted that inquisitive candidates (in 2011 only 45% of Internet users in Poland declared
that they look for information about potential employers on social networking sites – ibid)
will always be able to access online information that will undermine the credibility of a
company and the information about it that reaches candidates through other channels.
Furthermore, the expanding anticapitalist movement and the critical attitude toward the
reliability of capitalist promises promotes a greater degree of inquiry by candidates and their
search for negative information about a potential employer. This means that candidates
continually receive fairly strong negative and positive communications in reference to the job
offers from specific companies, and thus theories explaining candidates' decision about their
value by reference to information characterized in one manner (positive or negative) are
insufficient. The second question – the choice of information that could have importance for
the candidate's appraisal – also requires a new theoretical impulse. Reference to total rewards
theory (Armstrong 2010) as a classification of all the benefits that accrue to an employee
from a contract with a given employer could provide an adequate theoretical language. In
particular, with the help of this theory it is relatively easy to explain why even small benefits,
in forms easily imitated by other companies, such as sponsoring sports events or athletes in
connection with tickets to such events for employees, or sports events involving both
celebrity athletes and employees (Woźniak 2014c), have importance in an appraisal of an
employer's attractiveness.

A company's search to stand out, beyond offering a salary higher than the market rate or a
better opportunity to develop professional skills, is one of the basic practical problems in the
area of employer branding. In seeking atypical benefits to be offered by potential employers,
it is not sufficient anymore to create an ad-hoc list of possible benefits. What is needed is a
theoretical language drawing benefit from the employee-company relationship, and such a
language is supplied by the total rewards theory and the analyses that have been conducted
for years in the sphere of employee-motivation systems.

RECRUITMENT AND E-RECRUITMENT IN THE LITERATURE:


The success of every organization depends on the vital value of the experience, skills,
innovativeness and intellectual capital of its employees and efficient and effective
recruitment by human resource personnel give rise to the generation of an organization’s
intellectual capital. As global competition for talent persists, an organization’s ability to
attract and recruit top and appropriate talent expeditiously becomes pivotal to the
organization’s ability to compete successfully. For decades, organizations typically relied
solely on the traditional paper-based recruitment method for talent but for the past twenty
years, there has been a paradigm shift in recruitment as many organizations have been
transitioning into the use of electronic recruitment (e-recruitment) or a combination of the
traditional paper-based recruitment method with electronic recruitment, but the trend towards
adoption of electronic recruitment is ever increasing as the enormous benefits of electronic
recruitment is becoming obvious to many human resource managers. There are many
definitions used to describe recruitment (e.g., Breaugh, 1992; Breaugh & Starke, 2000;
Rynes, 1991; Saks, 2005; Taylor & Collins, 2000). “Recruitment includes those practices and
activities carried on by the organization with the primary purpose of identifying and
attracting potential employees” (Barber, 1998, p.5). Sims (2002) defined recruitment as the
process of discovering, developing, seeking and attracting individuals to fill actual and/or
anticipated job vacancies; it has three general purposes: to fill job vacancies; to acquire new
skills; and to allow organizational growth. Recruitment activities involve either external
candidates from outsideorganizations or current employees, in which case it is called internal
recruitment, but the focus of this paper is solely on the process of recruiting external
candidates. The term, online recruitment, e-recruitment, cyber recruiting, or internet
recruiting imply the formal sourcing of job information online (Vistal, Patil & Patil, 2012) .
E-recruitment is a hiring process that utilizes a variety of electronic means and technologies
with the primary purpose of identifying, attracting, and selecting potential employees (Lee,
2011). E-recruiting technologies are web-based technologies that help recruiters and job
applicants to complete their tasks more efficiently and effectively by automating recruiting
processes and providing the information necessary for making appropriate decisions. These
technologies include, career web sites, applicant tracking system, job search agent,
prescreening/self-assessment tools, talent management systems, streaming videos. Candidate
relationship management system, and social media (Lee, 2011). This usually means the use of
an organization’s own website, a third-party job site or job board, a curriculum vitae (CV)
database, search engine marketing or social media platforms to fill vacancies. Organizations
advertise job vacancies through worldwide web, and job seekers send their applications and
curriculum vitae (CV) through e-mail using the internet (Lee, 2011). E-recruitment, is an
umbrella or composite-term characterized by diverse properties and a broad range of
practices, tools, and processes related to recruiting (Heery & Noon, 2001). Erecruitment, is
elaborated to include candidate management technology, and the recruitment process in
general, example, tracking applicants, selecting, offering jobs and rejecting (Parry & Tyson,
2009). Electronic recruitment or e-recruitment has been an issue of interest over the past
twenty years and today many organizations use the internet as a source of recruitment. E-
recruitment covers the following digital Human Resource Management (HRM) practices:
advertising of employment opportunities on job databases, career portals, social networking
sites, corporate web sites and intranets, and other online resources; e-recruitment systems for
application submission, tracking, screening and candidate management; résumé databases
and search engines, etc. (Holm, 2012). The virtual recruiting environment will vary in the
level of sophistication depending on the level of technology used and the scope of activities it
covers. The choice as to which of these methods to adopt relies on the organizations’ size,
needs, and recruitment budget. E-recruitment can be divided into two main categories: a)
corporate website used for recruitment and b) commercial job boards where job
advertisements are posted (Parry, et al., 2009. Harris (2004) makes a clear distinction
between we-find-you approaches and you-find-us approaches. We- find- you approaches
refer to the methods whereby the recruiter searches for applicants while you – find us
approaches refer to methods whereby the potential applicant searches for the organization
(Harris, 2004). We-find you approaches include: searching through resumes on a job board,
web-event recruitment, relationship recruiting, using the service of aggregator sites (Harris,
2004). Kulkarni (2012) stated in his article about Electronic Resource Human (E-HRM)
Implementation, that e-HRM is a web-based solution that takes advantage of the latest web
application technology to deliver and online real-time human resource management solution.
In other words, Electronic organizations, e-recruitment techniques and related technology are
used, albeit to different extents, in the tasks of attracting applicants, processing incoming
applications and communicating with candidates, supporting Cappelli’s (2001) findings that
the e-recruitment process consists of three major steps: attracting, sorting, and contacting
candidates. The typical and traditional paper-based recruitment is no longer present in its
original form in many firms, as many firms now use a combination of e-recruitment and
traditional recruitment, and e-recruitment techniques and related technology are observed to
be used by firms in the three major tasks - attracting job seekers, sorting applications, and
communicating with job candidates - all these three tasks are fully automated in many
organizations. E-recruitment allows technology aided résumé scanning, which is
advantageous to hiring managers and job seekers, as it allows applicants from various
locations worldwide to submit consistent information to HR managers and permits easy
storage of the information. Thus, the organizational adoption of e-recruitment leads to,
increased connectivity among organizational departments and managers and results in a
reinvention of the organization. Recruitment and e-recruitment as defined by various authors
are depicted in Table 1 below. Human Resources Management (E-HRM) can be considered
as a way to implement HR strategies, policies and practices in organizations through the use
of web-based technology. In many

CHALLENGES OF E RECRUITMENT:

Traditional recruitment method have been replaced by the online recruitment or e recruitment
with the entry of internet. Most of the small and large scale organizations are adopting to the
e recruitmentprocess. But in this process the e recruitment face many challenges in the
organization manner. The main challenges are explained given below Managerial challenges:
The managerial challenges are listed as follows. Any technology would remain unused
without user acceptance. It is important that hiring and

 recruiting managers are knowledgeable and comfortable about the use of online recruiting
methods. Organizations must hence conduct a comprehensive training program for HR
managers to help them use the e recruitment tool without any difficulty The use e
recruitment method has not put an end of the use of other recruitment methods such as

 employees referrals, newspapers, ads etc..given the limited financial resources, finding the
optimal mix of various recruitment methods is a challenge for human resource managers.
Organizational challenges Most qualified applicants are often passive job seekers, who are
presently employed but may be

 interested in new job opportunities. A strategy to recognize passive job seekers and
motivate them to apply must be developed Business process redesign is needed across the
whole process of human resource management to

 realize the online recruitment benefits (taylor, 2005) Technical challenges Lack of
confidentiality and security of information discourages the posting of job applications by
 job seekers. While security is one of the biggest challenges with job applicants, top most
companies do not specify it explicitly on the career websites Combining the process online
recruitment with process of conventional recruitment is critical due

 to limited availability of software resources. Paper based resume must be converted into a
digitized form and stored in the database.

IMPORTANCE OF E RECRUITMENT:

E recruitment is electronic e recruitment; it is very helpful to the many organizations. The


aim of this study was limited to elements of e recruitment and recent trends of e recruitment
and benefits of e recruitment. It has been said that recruitment is not only about hiring the
best rather it‟s the question to enroll the right candidate in the organization. E recruitment it
has many benefits for both job seekers and recruiter like cost saving benefits and time
saving., quickness, but still it cannot be suitable for every job When you plan to recruit
people for your business you generally expect it to be a hassle. there will be a lot of people
who will apply and who wont be qualified, and there will be a lot of people who will be
qualified but for one reason or the other you just won‟t feel comfortable with them they just
don‟t fit with what you „re looking for in regarded to the company, sometimes, your ad
won‟t target the right people or they won‟t see it, and you won‟t get enough response,
despite the cost. Today, with this medium tried, tested and proven to be true and more
importantly indispensable, professional recruiters and employers alike rely on job portals as a
primary source of professional talent both on a stand – alone basis and in some cases to
complement traditional hiring methods. The following are the importance of e recruitment:
Reduced time to time hire ,e recruitment allows for immediate real time interaction 24*7 job

 search activity. It is most important in e recruitment . Reduced cost of hire , costs of


posting jobs and searching for candidates on job portals can

 be up ton 90% lower than the costs of using traditional search firms or advertising methods.
Wider reach for employers it is also one of the important of e recruitment

 State of the art filtration tools are very important

 Branding opportunity for employers


 Sophisticated management tools are important

 Allows for confidentiality both employers and job seekers can elect to maintain their

 confidentiality.

GAPS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH:

The research question I posed at the outset is: How does the introduction of electronic
recruitment (e-recruitment) affect the recruitment process in organizations, and what are the
benefits of this technology for recruiting organizations? This is a testable research question,
for one research method that can be employed to answer this research question is: Surveying
a total 360 senior HR executives in 180 firms across several states in the United States, (two
HR executives from each of the 180 organizations) who have all implemented e-recruitment
in their organizations anytime in the past ten years. The survey would involve the HR
executives answering questionnaires relating to the process of implementing e-recruitment,
including the benefits accruing to their organizations as a result of firm implementation of e-
recruitment. The research in this paper offers avenues for future research in the area e-
recruiting, which are outlined in Table 2 below.

As is generally the case with innovations, organizational leaders are usually faced with some
challenges in managing internet technology, including those related to data processing and
management, avoiding legal pitfalls, and using IT to aid in achieving strategic objectives. In
this regard, a first identified gap, which has been ignored in the literature is a legal
perspective on the use of e-recruiting. It is believed that an organization’s exclusive use of
erecruitment may result in some legal issues unless the organization can put forth some
convincing and justifiable reasons thereto. For instance, if a company uses psychometric
tests, minorities in terms of ethnic affiliation, competences and mental abilities could be
rejected because of the limited number of profiles the tests utilize (Dhamija, 2012; Cappelli,
2001). Some also argue that exclusive use of e-recruitment discriminates against lower
skilled individuals, because of their potentially lower interest in online search (Kinder, 2000).
Specifically, because it is believed that blacks, Hispanics and Native American are the ethnic
minorities with the least computer skills and have the least access to computers, whereas,
Asians and whites have more computer skills and have more access to computers, it is
believed that ethnic minorities are likely to be disadvantaged by an organization’s exclusive
use of e-recruiting. Therefore, future research should investigate, if e-recruiting can have
disparate impact on certain ethnic minorities. A ruling in 1971 by the US. Supreme Court in
Griggs Versus Duke Power Co., upheld that it is illegal for organizations to use recruitment
and selection systems that disproportionately affect a group protected under the Disparate
Impact Theory and Title VII of the Civil Rights Title Act, unless the firm can prove that the
recruitment procedure is related to job performance, therefore future research in this area
would be very important. There have been rapid technological innovations in the world and
enormous changes in employee recruitment and selection are occurring, though research into
the phenomenon of e-recruitment has lagged, leaving our understanding of applicant
perceptions of online recruitment open to questionsand in dire need of topical research. Little
is known about job seekers’ perceptions and reactions to web-based recruitment and selection
procedures, (whether employers’ websites and the process of e-recruiting are perceived as,
efficient, user-friendly, and fair by job seekers is unknown), so this proposed study can
examine job applicants’ perceptions of and reactions to e-recruitment. Therefore, a second
identifiable gap in the literature which future research can enlighten us on would be, what job
seekers’ perceptions and reactions to organizational use of e-recruitment are as a screening
and hiring tool. It is widely argued and known that Electronic human resource management
(e-HRM) systems are successfully transforming the role of Human Resource by facilitating
the transfer of transaction processing responsibilities to employees, managers and other third
parties world-wide, whilst accommodating regulatory and cultural differences, one of which
is language. Therefore a third identified gap is brought about by globalization, for another
possible approach to understanding the significance of contextual factors on the adoption of
e-recruitment lies in studying the organizational environment at a higher, social level and in
addressing among other things the impact of culture and language on multinational
corporations’ use of e-recruitment, and how organizations can more effectively relay
organizational culture and language information to job seekers via their electronic
recruitment websites. I deem this as an obvious and highly relevant topic for future research,
which may help shed even more light on how recruitment practices are influenced by
demands and expectations of a wider society. Finally, the internet was initially hailed as the
future of recruitment and was expected to replace traditional paper-based recruitment as the
preferred recruitment method, and while many organizations have adopted electronic
recruitment, some for well over a decade, many other organizations have not made the
transition to online recruiting. Even though it can be assumed that the primary reasons for
adopting e-recruitment by many organizations, is efficiency in hiring and cost reductions, it is
surprising that e-recruitment has not fully replaced traditional recruitment as thought about
twenty years ago. If there are tremendous cost savings and efficiency in erecruitment as many
believe, then why is that many other organizations have not transitioned into e-recruitment?
Future research would be necessary to answer this question and highlight the primary
motivations why many organizations have adopted e-recruitment and the underlying reasons
why many other firms have chosen not to adopt e-recruitment, at least not yet

Conclusion:

From what has been discussed so far, it can be seen that e- Recruitment has created a great
leap in the history of recruitment since its existence in 1980s. Online recruitment has many
advantages to companies like low cost, less time, quick, wider area and better match. It has
been correctly said that the adoption of e- Recruitment is about more than just technology.

It is about the recruitment system being able to attract the right candidate, the selection
process being based on sound and credible criteria, and the tracking process being able to
integrate with existing systems. Perhaps most significantly, e-Recruitment is about cultural
and behavioural change, both within HR and at line management level. E-Recruitment has
proved to be important part of the recruitment strategy. It can be used to keep track and
maintain candidate applications, mostly among larger organizations. In addition to the above
discussion, a continuous improvement in considering the technological issues related to
eRecruitment is highly recommended Online recruitment is the fastest developing area in the
application of Internet technology to managing human resources. The continual variability of
the instruments used in this field hinders a theory-based understanding of its specifics.
Clarification is also not facilitated by understanding based on analogies and theses from the
sphere of consumer marketing, instead of on theories derived from analysing the details of
the employee-company relationship.

This text has proposed a classification of online recruitment methods by distinguishing four
stages of e-recruitment development, together with an indication of the conditions that
produce success in the use of a given type. In particular, it was shown that branding activity,
which creates brand ambassadors in a company's social environment, is a condition for the
success of recruitment efforts of the third and fourth type. Electronic recruitment has changed
the way jobs are applied for and has become so simple that anyone can do it. The credit goes
to the programmers, software, computers and the Internet. The whole world has become
“smaller” with the use of the Internet and everything is made easier for better application.
The Internet and e-recruitment therefore face a very bright future. The future generations who
are growing up with computers are not likely to use the traditional methods of recruitment;
they will probably primarily rely only on the erecruitment method. Companies in the future
will see e-recruitment as their main business tool; a tool with which they can control the job
market. It will most likely also give them the competitive advantage in the tough labour
market. Simplicity, stability and speed will be the three key features of e-recruitment in the
future (Taylor, 2001). This study has explored the effectiveness of using e-recruitment in
organizations. It has been found that e-recruitment is effective in terms of saving recruitment
cost, reducing time to hire and helping companies in developing competitive edge, market
image and attracting right skilled candidates.

Online recruitment is also effective in terms of managing talent process that is also
considered effective. It has also found that e-recruitment will likely to grow in coming years
It has also been shown that increasingly often at present what is meant by the term 'e-
recruitment' is all four types presented above. Succeeding stages in using the potential created
by the Internet will probably result in new ideas for its use in recruitment. The proposed
classification allows us to show that although access to the Internet – both among
entrepreneurs, as people searching for jobs – is similar in Poland to the US, higher level
recruitment is decidedly less widespread in Poland. Our analysis is based on data from
chosen Polish and American reports of research conducted on large samples of Internet users,
as there is no scientific data available in this field. The choice of information that should have
the largest impact on a company's target group is the subject of scientific discussion. It has
been shown that research into employer branding is based on theories from the field of
consumer marketing (brand equity) and is understood by analogy. Two medium-range
scientific theories analyzing the effects of the information reaching potential candidates
supply contrary predictions about the reactions of candidates in certain situations and do not
explain the results of the influence of certain groups of branding information. It was shown
that these theories are of limited usefulness for e-recruitment and profile. It is recent trend in
recruitment process Many small and large scale of organizations are adopted to the e
recruitment process. It is totally depending on the technology or network or internet. research
and therefore, the text proposes basing research on total rewards theory, as it is the most
general theory describing the relation between the company and the employee and classifying
the factors that are important in that relationship.
From the perspective of this article's contribution to the development of knowledge, three
factors should be stressed. First, the above text provides information concerning e-
recruitment in the non-Atlantic sphere, whose omission has been emphasized in the literature
(Baum, Kabst 2012). Second, in regard to succeeding phases of the use of e-recruitment, the
importance has been shown of employer branding (understood not only as the creation of an
employer's image as the supplier of a set of practical and symbolic benefits to its employees,
but also as a tool for creating various communities of company friends). The use of brand
ambassadors (as former interns, participants in competitions organized by the company, or
persons interested in a given branch or its products are called), is a prerequisite for doing e-
recruitment by crowdsourcing. Third, the essential weakness has been shown of the present
research paradigm for appraising the attractiveness of employers within the framework of e-
recruitment and a different, more useful, theoretical model has been proposed. It should be
made plain that the conclusions presented in this article are subject to question in regard to
the empirical data on which they are based. The author used consulting firms' reports on
Polish Internet users and the reports of American firms collecting information in a similar
manner. The test samples were thus comprised of persons who function well in the virtual
world and it should be clear that this restricts the conclusion In this paper, I defined,
summarized and synthesized the literature on recruitment and erecruitment and highlighted
several benefits that accrue to organizations for adopting erecruitment, and proposed some
testable future research questions along with suggested empirical research methods. In this
paper, I also postulated that the introduction of e-recruitment leads to several benefits for
recruiting organizations, such as, enhancement of organizational recruitment brand image,
savings in time resulting in efficient and effective recruitment, savings in transaction and
administrative costs, access to a huge applicant pool, and allows recruitment professionals to
spend more time on more value-added tasks, which I hope would provide impetus and guide
managers in more organizations to transition into e-recruitment, for the benefits are enormous
and palpable. Organizational leaders and HR (human resource) managers who have
implemented or expect to implement e-recruitment systems must commit to ensuring the
system's success by systematically evaluating e-recruitment processes and outcomes, and
increase the training of human resource personnel to operate the system effectively and
efficiently.

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In view of the abundant benefits,
e-recruitment should be incorporated into the overall recruitment strategy of organisations
and a
well defined and structured applicant tracking system should be integrated, with the
system
having a back-end support. Also, along with the back-office support, a comprehensive
website to
receive and process job applications (through direct or online advertising) should be
developed
by organisations.
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