Despite South African Recruiters having been stifled by our countries 'late blooming' in the technological and online arena, recruiting on the web has begun to display its merit and great advantages to many South African Recruiters.

The pros that extend from recruiting on the internet, far exceeds other resources available to recruitment agencies. Benefits from recruiting online are leaving an enormous impression on the South African job market and as the country continues to grow technologically the more South African Job Seekers become loyal to this means to filling employment demands.

While most benefits of e-cruiting are those obvious to that of the trained online eye, discussing such merits can only further swell the online reach and convince even the most traditional of Recruiter to consider switching. Online recruitment delivers both tangible and intangible benefits for Recruiters to tap into and feed off. Understanding these and how they positively impact on your recruitment strategy and overall experience will enable you to employ each benefit for its individual merit and benefit from the sum of each of its individual parts.

GREATER GEOGRAPHICAL REACH ON SKILLED WORKERS

All South African Recruiters are well aware that currently the South African Job market is lacking in the area of skilled workers in a very big way. With a high demand for skilled workers but unsatisfied by a poor supply, Recruiters need to find ways to locate the skilled workers remaining in the country, as few and far between that they may be. By advertising job adverts and searching online Job Seekers databases for such candidates', employers are able to tap into pools of candidates that ordinarily may not have been easy to locate. Not only do online Recruiters manage to locate actively skilled workers but through means of optimised job advertising and employer marketing, Recruiters are equipped to entice the passive job market to participate as well. Furthermore to sourcing skilled Job Seekers in South Africa, through online job portals, e-cruiters are able to expand their reach to international candidate markets as well and if viable, introduce renewed skills to decayed markets. With a greater reach on skilled workers, encompassing local and international geographical Job Seekers, Recruiters are soon able to locate relevant Job Seekers to fill job vacancies in niche industries where required.

AUTOMATED RECRTUIEMENT PROCESSES

Traditional recruiting is intrinsically labour intensive. From composing no more than a 30 word newspaper job advert, anticipating the responses, physically sifting through applications and requesting one on one interview's is doesn't get more tiring than this. These few steps are in fact only the very surface of what conventional recruitment entails and traditionally there are quite a few more steps involved in placing a relevant candidate in the right role. Online Recruiters are finding processes and procedures made simpler, faster and more reliable by applying web based staffing resources. Recruiting online allows for pre-screening questions to be posed to prospecting Job seekers, bulk short listing and regretting and ultimately quickens the time to hire. Online recruitment transforms what was previously a manual process into one that is automated, streamlined and proficient.

IMPROVED TIME TO HIRE

Working hand in hand with implementing automated processes to that of a manual recruitment function, from beginning to end is also improved on. Placing ideal candidates in relevant roles is something that takes time and patience, as with making any perfect match in life. While this is true, time is also money in the South African employment market and should Recruiters hesitate in making accurate decisions, skilled candidates can be snatched up from right beneath their nose if not equipped to make such decisions. When recruiting on the internet, due to many processes having been simplified and enhanced, Recruiters are able to shortlist relevant candidates in half the time as what traditional recruitment allows for. Once shortlisted, the interview process commences faster and ultimately makes a final employment decision that much swifter than it ordinarily would be.

COST EFFECTIVE

Some may argue that bandwidth costs and internet usage in South Africa is expensive and by no means a cost effective solution to streamlining a labour intensive business. While this may have been an accurate assessment to make a few years ago, as South Africa continues to convert to utilising web based applications, so bandwidth costs have become more affordable, internet access easier to tap into and a greater variety of options available for companies, small and large to exercise. By assessing the extent of your recruitment agencies needs, and facilitating internet resources in the most economically viable way, Recruiters that convert to facilitating the sourcing and placement of staff by making use of the internet will notice a cost effective kick back in more ways than one. Not only are internet expenses becoming more affordable, Recruiters need also remember that with the improved time to hire and prompt and efficient delivery on service level agreements, clients will convert to return customers, staffing tenders will become more frequent and 'customer loyalty' will display more sustainable guarantees for the future.

Online Recruitment has brought about exponential growth to the South African employment market like no other. Those open to converting to the solutions that online recruiting offers are able to transparently track its multiple benefits and convert manual, labour intensive functions into a simplified, automated staffing function.

Copyright (c) 2008 Camilla Patten