E-Recruiting: Advantages and Disadvantages.
One of the main activities of human resource management is staffing. Staffing is important because it provides a supply of individuals needed to fill the jobs within an organization necessary to achieve business objectives. Once HR professionals have done job analysis a job description can be prepared. This job description is used when recruiting individuals. E-recruiting, or Internet recruiting, is one of the methods by which HR professionals have available. This method of recruiting has several advantages over traditional methods but also has several disadvantages. .
Companies first began using the Internet as a recruiting tool by posting available jobs on a bulletin board. Using this method, prospective applicants could search for positions in which they were interested and contact employers directly. Usually this contact was made via telephone, fax, or mail. As the use of email became more common some companies accepted applications through email. Due to the detonative use of the Internet some companies developed corporate websites by which prospects could apply online by completing a web form. "There are more than 160 million Internet users in the U.S. and 1.2 billion worldwide. In the U.S. it is estimated that 74% of those with Internet access, aged 18 or older, annually use the Internet as part of job searching" (Hall). In fact, 75% of Internet users search online for jobs while 79% of Internet users search using newspaper classified ads, according to Greenfield Online, an online market research firm. .
Similarly, human resource recruiters regularly use the Internet as a means of locating and contacting qualified prospective employees. "Various surveys found that 80% to 90% of employers use the Internet for recruiting. As many as 100,000 recruiting Web sites are available to employers and job candidates on which to post jobs and review resumes of various types" (Jackson and Mathis, 216).