Can Employers and Recruiters Fish the same Pond?

In a recent media release, the Managing Director of a major online recruitment site suggested that companies are encouraged not only to advertise their vacancies via their service but that they also provide such companies with extended technology to build and manage their own searchable talent databases.

While empowering companies to take control of their own recruitment processes may seem like the ultimate answer, this empowerment comes with certain pros and cons for Employers, Recruiters and Job Seekers alike.

The Pros and Cons to providing online Recruitment solutions to Employers

The Employer's Investment:

Providing companies with facilities to create their own searchable talent pool encourages employers to take full control of their entire recruitment process. Companies feel that having this degree of ownership over the hiring process allows them to avoid paying placement fees.

While having access to advanced online recruitment functionality seems the sensible cost-saving route to take, companies should do the numbers on what it costs them in the long run to fund a completely competent and skilled in-house recruitment team, together with the costs of acquiring the respective recruiting technologies. That is of course if they can afford to fund a recruitment division at all.

There are very real potential dangers facing those companies that extend hiring control to their line managers that may not possess the recruiting skills of recruitment professionals. A slightly off topic interview question could result in a lengthy and costly Mediation and Arbitration) - This is an unbiased body promoting industrial/ labour co-operation and justice within the workplace.">CCMA hearing, or failure to conduct a thorough screening on new recruiters may land the wrong employee in the wrong job with little hope of the company ever being able to legally pull the wrongful employee from the position.

Employers should recognise that their core focus is not recruitment. Their investments should be plunged into growing their own businesses rather than becoming concerned with the logistics of recruitment administration. Gillian Meier, CEO of Jobs.co.za suggests that while there is merit in advertising job vacancies on job portals, employers are advised that, unless they employ skilled recruiting professionals, they partner up with knowledgeable and reputable Recruitment Agencies to assist them in the screening and interviewing stages of the recruitment cycle.

The Job Seeker's Apprehension:

The position of most job sites in South Africa is that that they will allow Recruitment Agencies access to search their central job seeker database, while employers are in most cases not given the same privilege to search the main CV dataset. Furthermore, most job sites will encourage employers to advertise their job vacancies on their job boards. There are however some online recruitment solution providers that do offer companies access to search their own CV databases that they have managed to build up as a result of using the acquired online recruitment technology.

While the corporate brand is known to attract more job applications, commitment must be pledged to protecting the candidate's confidentiality. Unfortunately fewer Job Seekers are putting their CV's onto job sites as a result of them not fully comprehending the line between who can or cannot see their CV's on the respective databases. Job Seekers fear that their own employers may stumble across the fact that they are on the job market, providing for a very awkward working relationship while still employed by the company.

Meier advises job boards to be transparent about their stance on CV database access by constantly reassuring job seekers that their confidentiality is of the utmost importance and that their CV's will only be searched by head hunters and Recruitment Agencies, unless the candidate has expressly volunteered their details to become available in particular Corporate CV databases.

Job Seekers have the right to be fairly and properly represented by professional Recruiters. The recruiting agent is trained to conduct appropriate background checks on the Job Seeker, while at the same time offer the best possible representation of their candidate to the employer. The Recruiter is also trained to pick up any cause for concern, thereby assuring their clients (the employers) that they will submit suitable quality candidates for consideration. In addition, recruiting agents are in a position to negotiate remuneration and employment terms on behalf of the prospective employee to ensure that the potentially over-eager employee receives fair compensation for their skills rather than impulsively accepting the first offer that comes along.

The Recruiter's Predicament:

The strategy to provide equal or similar online recruitment solutions to both the employer and the Recruiter is a common international trend. In South Africa however, this approach faces much aversion by the Recruitment Industry. While Recruitment Agencies may understand the business decision for this strategy they still feel that they are somewhat betrayed by those online recruitment partners offering CV databases to Corporates. The controversy amongst the industry is on the rise as Recruitment Agencies fear that their own businesses may become threatened once Employers feel empowered to such an extent that they believe they have no further need for Recruitment Agencies at all.

To survive the struggle for existence, Meier suggests that Recruitment Agencies focus on strengthening their relationships with those employers that they might still be providing a supporting screening function to and try to extend their services to include additional value add that will make the employers dependency on the Recruiter indispensable.

Jobs.co.za believes that it is essential for employers to promote their companies through corporate branding, and to attract more job applications they should certainly be exposing their job vacancies on popular job portals. However when it comes to the screening process, unless companies employ their own recruiting professionals, they should tread wisely by outsourcing the job application screening process to those in the know.

Author: Gillian Meier, CEO of Jobs.co.za