It seems to be a common complaint: Online employee recruitment efforts produce lots of resumes but few great prospects.
PC Magazine reported last month that the percentage of new hires coming from job boards and board aggregator sites has dropped to between 27 percent and 37 percent as the job market has tightened.
And, even more ominously, recruitment software maker Lever looked at 4 million “candidate considerations” during the 12 months that ended in July and found that only 1 in 100 candidates gets hired. The ratio is slightly lower at small companies and slightly higher at larger ones, but 52 percent of candidates who applied directly through a company’s website or online job posting were “underqualified,” Lever said.
Automated job-match programs — like Monster, Indeed, Glassdoor, Career Builder, Dice and the state-run Arkansas JobLink — are still useful, but experts say employers have to use them smartly to get the best results. And that starts with knowing what you want.
To avoid poor yields from the automated programs, employers should be specific and share the culture of their companies when posting jobs on online boards, experts told Arkansas Business.
“Company job descriptions should be more specific about telling who you are as a company and the types of people who will be successful,” said Cameron Smith of Cameron Smith & Associates in Rogers, an executive recruitment firm.
He also said employers should keep track of real metrics that gauge whether candidates are taking desirable actions so they know what content is resonating with job seekers. “It helps you to see what is working and what isn’t and how you can improve if something isn’t working.”
But there is point at which an ad can be too specific, Allison Ramsey warned. She said it could have the adverse effect of not attracting enough applicants.
“I wish I had the magic answer,” said Ramsey, who has been a local area manager for Staffmark of Cincinnati since 1993 and is communications director for the Arkansas Society for Human Resource Management State Council.
Accurate and complete job descriptions are also necessary to ensure that posting on boards is helping an employer, said Daryl Bassett, director of the Arkansas Department of Workforce Services.
The department operates Arkansas JobLink, an online job bank that also receives postings daily from the national Labor Exchange, other states’ job banks and USAjob.gov. The service is free to employers and job seekers.
Bassett said some 290,000 local and national job openings have been posted with Arkansas JobLink so far this year, and the most common mistake he sees employers make is submitting incomplete descriptions with erroneous or missing salary information. “These errors could lead to missing matches with potentially good candidates,” he said. “Additionally, some employers fill job ads with a list of ideal requirements most applicants won’t meet, resulting in low match rates and fewer candidates.”
Bassett said employers should work with their local workforce center to improve job postings, while Ramsey suggested listing mandatory and desired skills separately.
But Ramsey also finds fault with flawed filtering systems and job seekers being indiscriminate.
Ramsey said job boards search for keywords in postings. Job seekers are notified of openings posted that have those keywords in them and simply click yes to submit a resume without reading or only skimming the description. For example, Ramsey said, “I’ll post a job for a plant manager, and I’ll get a guy who has worked at Taco Bell.”
The other side of that, she said, is that, with a low unemployment rate of 3.9 percent, the few who aren’t working may be jobless because they have few job skills. As a result, they apply for jobs for which they are unqualified.
Arkansas JobLink uses the keyword-based filtering Ramsey mentioned. Bassett said it searches resumes for keywords, and job seekers whose resumes have that keyword are automatically notified of the posting. But he said this saves both employers and job seekers time.
The job bank also uses the Transferable Occupational Relationship Quotient, a software system that identifies and matches skills to related occupations and industries to expand and target job search opportunities. The system puts postings from other job banks into Arkansas JobLink and Arkansas JobLink postings into other online job banks, too.
Despite their flaws, Ramsey said job boards reach more people than traditional methods, and a 2014 Collegefeed survey of 15,000 young job-seekers backs up that statement. The survey concluded that around 70 percent of millennials say they hear about companies through friends and job boards.
Job boards are also beneficial because they can help fill non-specialized positions quickly, Smith said.
Ramsey added that posting openings online is cheaper than print help-wanted ads. The cost to post might be about $1,200 of the $4,000-$6,000 companies spend on recruiting, she said.
According to the PC Magazine article, job boards still represent 60 to 80 percent of what small companies spend on recruiting. Ramsey said the rest of her estimate is the cost of time spent searching for the right person.
And time is money, Ramsey said, so companies should post a job as soon as a position is available and leave it up for at least 30 days.
Social Media Aids in Recruiting
Bassett, of the Arkansas Department of Workforce Services, finds that efforts “to reach and attract young job seekers must include a robust use of social media in today’s society.”
Putting the word out that way, however, means employees must be prepared to receive responses by private message on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And Smith said engaging social media posts must include visuals. “Some companies have real, authentic photos and videos on their corporate websites,” Smith said. “Don’t just say what makes your company a great place to work; show it.”
Comparing Job Posting Costs
Online sites vary widely in pricing, features offered
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Glassdoor offers employers the ability to post 10 jobs for seven days for free. Then they can get a customized quote by contacting the sales department. Options include purchasing a customized company profile on the site, a single job posting or job slots that can be reused and display advertising that targets the best candidates. |
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Monster offers one 30-day job posting for $299 to $599. The most expensive option includes advertising on other sites, 20 free auto-matched resumes, targeting through social media and the ability to search and find people by location and to email up to 200 directly. There are also discounts for bulk puchases. |
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Single job posting pricing on CareerBuilder begins at $419 for 30 days, with discounts for the advanced purchase of more than one posting. All postings purchased must be used within 12 months. The posting will also appear in searches within a 30-mile radius of the city and ZIP code the employer selects as the location of the job. |
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Simply Hired has been acquired by Recruit Holdings Co. of Tokyo, which also owns Indeed. While employers can post jobs for free to both, a paid listing is more prominently displayed. Employers can choose their own budget and pay each time someone clicks on their post. |
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LinkedIn sells a 30-day job posting for $199, a five-job pack at a 22 percent discount and a 10-job pack at a 37 percent savings. Employers can also sponsor a post for an additional price per click and budget that they choose. The minimum bid per click is $1. The minimum total budget is $50. |
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Dice caters to technical and engineering professionals with a 30-day single posting for $395. Prices go as low as $250 for five-10 postings. Premium products, like 60-day postings, require employers to contact the sales department. |
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Craigslist charges anywhere from $15-$75 for a 30-day posting, depending on the location selected. Listings are posted in reverse chronological order, so a job an employer posts might get buried in just a few days and not show up until the job seekers have seen several pages of newer postings. |
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Facebook offers those who operate pages, like businesses, the ability to boost a post for a minimum daily budget of $1 for up 14 days. Facebook says that post will reach 67-180 people. A company’s reach goes up the more it chooses to pay. It can reach a targeted audience, people who like the company’s page or people who like its page and their friends. |