I have to apologise for the extra long gap since our last newsletter. This has been due to an unprecedented demand on my time to deal with new business, internal reorganisation and other issues. It is my intention to always keep this newsletter going on at least a bi-monthly basis.
This issue’s topic is a short extract from a presentation, entitled “Globalisation of Recruitment – Leveraging of Technology”, that I gave at the recent HRMATT Conference & Exposition in Trinidad.
Newsflash – The Information & Communications Society (ICTS) has announced that nominations are being accepted for their inaugural Excellence in ICT Awards for both individuals and projects. See http://www.icts.org.tt/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=48&Itemid=164 for more information and application forms. The deadline for applications is Friday November 2, 2007. There is great prestige associated with being a nominee so consider entering yourself or other deserving people.
Coping with Emailed Resumes
Many of you have to get involved with recruiting at some point. This means that job vacancies are advertised and you have to deal with the influx of resumes in the form of paper, CDs, emails and so forth.
To make your life much simpler, I recommend that you accept resumes only in the form of emails. Don’t even advertise an address or a telephone number – just state that all resumes should be sent to, for example, resume@companyX.com. These days, most jobs require an ability to communicate by email so it shouldn’t be that hard for applicants to comply with this.
The great advantage of doing this is that you can leverage technology to make the recruiting process much more effective and efficient.
Would advertising produce a deluge of emailed resumes? There is an abundance of software out there that will scan emailed resumes and extract skills to automatically create candidate records. You can then use the software to find candidates on this database that match your particular skill requirements. The software will also allow you to track the recruitment process so you are in control.
You will save a lot of time and the search for the right candidate will be far more accurate. Try searching on the Internet for “recruiting software” to see which product suits you best. Of course, your company may prefer to design and create its own recruitment software. In all cases, considerable thought and effort must go into setting up a “skills catalogue” to define the names of the skills that will be used in the skill extraction process as well as the skills search process.
One big advantage of receiving all your applications by email is that you can set the receiving email address to automatically acknowledge receipt of the applications. For example, say you advertise that all job applications are to go to resume@companyX.com. You can set an option on that email address to always respond with a message like “Thank you for submitting your application to Company X. We will review it and contact you should we find that you are suitable for an existing vacancy”.
It is much quicker, easier and cheaper to have standard acceptance and rejection emails, compared to corresponding by letter or telephone. It is not a substitute for the personal touch during the recruiting cycle, but it sure helps automate handling of the rejects.
Also, you no longer need a filing cabinet for all those job applications, and a big garbage bag (for the unsuitable résumés). Emailed applications can be quickly filed in appropriate PC “folders” and unsuitable ones are simply deleted. Now all those potential candidates are easily accessible (and searchable) whenever you like.
Plus this process lends itself to easy back-ups. No fears of a fire or flood wiping out your filing cabinets full of carefully collected paper resumes that are not copied anywhere else! You are in control and the recruiting process appears slick and very professional to the applicants.
Of course it is always easier to use a recruitment agency that embraces all this technology and does all the leg work for you and then all you need see is the screened, short-listed candidates. Happy recruiting!
Tell Us What You Think
We would love to hear what you think of this issue of CRS News. And of course, if you have any suggestions for upcoming issues that you would like to share with us, please send those too.