By
Melanie
Rembrandt
With
today's skyrocketing unemployment rates and fierce competition
among job seekers, what can you do to improve your chances
of hiring the right employees and ensure that they stay
with your company long-term? By using current technological
tools to post jobs and enhance internal communications,
you can improve your hiring process and work environment.
Here are a few tips to help you find, and keep, top employees
by using the latest online technology.
Find
The Perfect New Hire
·
Start by writing a good job description
that is descriptive and truthful.
Put
yourself in the job seeker's shoes. Why would a prospective
new hire want to work for your company? Emphasize the unique
qualities of each job opening, and be straightforward. Use
simple verbiage and avoid jargon or abbreviations. "Don't
use industry acronyms or abbreviations in your job description,"
states Sandra Grabczynski, author of "A Corporate Guide
To College Recruiting", and consultant with Effective
Recruiting Solutions. "Because of new technology, acronyms
with a different meaning that are inappropriate for a specific
job can appear in online searches. It's important to spell
words out when describing a position for the Internet."
·
Create a user-friendly company employment
section on your Web site.
"Traffic to corporate websites, and hence to adjunct
corporate careers websites, is ever increasing," states
Alice Snell, Vice President of iLogos Research in an article
from The Electronic Recruiting Exchange. Today, many job
seekers will get their first impression of your company
via your Web site. It should look professional and provide
fast links to current job openings, detailed job descriptions,
online applications, and the appropriate contact person's
name, phone number and e-mail address.
Include information about company benefits such as promotion
opportunities, retirement packages, day care, gym memberships,
educational programs, dry cleaning services, flexible hours,
etc. To stand out, post unique company news and events on
your site. Position your company as an industry leader by
offering items such as articles, links to professional organizations,
online forums, question and answer columns, feedback tools,
candidate/mentor advice, volunteer activities, and local
community facts.
Providing the right data about your company can mean the
difference between winning and losing a qualified candidate
to the competition. "If consumers have a bad experience
on a corporate Web site, they'll not just quit visiting
that site, they'll quit doing business with the company
completely," states Larry Free, president and CEO of
ForeSee Results in a recent study from the Great Lakes IT
Report.
· Offer special features designed
for job seekers.
Give job seekers the information they need quickly. Provide
easy ways to perform detailed job searches, store résumé
and cover letters in their original format, respond to openings
and e-mail listings to friends. Since potential candidates
do not want to waste time recreating their résumés
online, provide a simple way to download current résumé
files to your site. Also, offer anonymous résumé
posting capabilities to protect job seeker identity. Links
to career resources, assessment tools, books, and interview
techniques are also popular features.
Once completed, consider innovative ways to attract top
talent to your site. Host an online chat session with an
expert from your company, attend or sponsor a local event
to recruit new hires or provide free training on a subject
(financial success, interview techniques, etc.). Job seekers
will be more likely to use and return to your company's
site if you offer valuable, timesaving tools and information
that caters to their specific needs.
·
Utilize a company profile.
Create a profile to improve company awareness and project
a favorable image to job seekers and site visitors. A company
profile is usually a Web page that includes a company description
with a logo and provides links to the career section on
your company Web site and current job openings. E-recruitment
application service providers connect these profiles to
a huge online network so that interested candidates, and
passive job seekers surfing the Web, can learn about your
business, access current job listings and apply immediately.
Company profiles are a cost-effective way to reach a large
marketplace of potential candidates quickly and easily.
· Post job listings on your local newspaper site.
"Local sites matter," according to a recent "Career
Networks" report by Forrester Research. "Geography
is more important to online job seekers than industry-focused
sites," states the report. Most job seekers look for
work on a local level, and traditional newspapers are now
using the latest e-recruitment technology to provide online
classified advertisements to their readers.
Companies can now post their jobs on the local newspaper
site and reach a targeted, local audience as well as an
online network of job seekers from one Web location. Take
advantage of your local newspaper's Web site to find top
candidates in the local area as well as those planning to
move to your city.
Keep
Top Employees Long-Term
You've
found the perfect new hire and have a great team of employees.
Now, how do you keep them from leaving the company? To have
a successful work environment that motivates employees to
perform well in today's economy, you need to stay in touch
with employee emotions and activities.
"If
you believe that relationships are key for long-term success,
then you have to talk to customers and employees to remain
in business," states Theresa Welbourne, Ph.D., President
and CEO of eePulse, Inc., an application service provider
that conducts unique e-mail surveys to monitor employee
productivity levels. "Many employers are so afraid
of what their employees will say that they don't ask, but
you have to ask to collect systematic, representative and
real-time data, and you need to be committed to respond
to something."
To
keep employees long-term, companies need to make internal
communications a top priority. "Collaboration is just
as essential inside the enterprise as it is for channel
partners, system integrators, agents and so on," according
to BusinessWeek magazine's article, "CRM and the Internet-Managing
Collaborative Relationship Networks for Strategic Advantage".
There are numerous e-mail, survey, collaboration and Web-based
tools on the market to help you improve your company's internal
communications. For example, eePulse, Inc. provides a Web-based
survey that can check employee energy levels, problems and
successes. Managers can react in real-time to avoid problematic
issues, reward good efforts by employees and improve overall
communications within the company.
In
addition, company-wide Intranets are a great way to share
current, internal information quickly and cost-effectively.
Research the different tools available and decide which
solutions will best meet your specific needs. The time you
spend here can result in lower turnover rates and a happier
work environment.
The
Internet is growing, and it's important to take advantage
of the networking opportunities it provides on both a local
and national level. IDC Research notes that B2B e-commerce
will see a 78% increase next year to $916 billion, and Jupiter
Research forecasts households accessing the Internet via
broadband connectivity will increase to $35.1 million by
2006.
By
using the latest Internet technology to connect to potential
candidates and current employees, your company will improve
internal and external customer relationships and create
a work environment that both new and old employees will
want to be a part of for a long time.
