Recruiters long ago discovered the Internet as a fast conduit to candidates to fill entry-level PR jobs, but agencies and corporations alike are now turning to the Web even for their top spots.
"At the senior level it's still very high touch, but we need technology" to identify and track prospects and match them with employers, says Don Spetner, SVP of global marketing and communications at
Korn/Ferry, an international executive search firm. The Internet is "the core of a massive shift that's taking place in recruitment and employment," Spetner adds.
For junior positions, the Web has become an old standby for recruiters. Spetner's company, for instance, just bought an Internet-based job placement site, Job Direct, for college-based recruitment,
which fills the bulk of its AE positions. "At the middle level, [the Internet's effects are] starting to happen," Spetner says. "It can't be totally hands-off, [but] it's what we call 'low touch.'"
Resumes submitted over the Internet - either in response to a specific job posting or those filed cold - provide a useful starting point for putting together a pool of candidates. Korn/Ferry keeps one
database - resumes submitted, searchable by a particular skill or experience level - and another database with the resumes of everyone ever interviewed by recruiters, along with internal notes on the
candidates.
The hot job market and the Internet have altered the behavior of candidates, too. "I think the advent of e-recruiting has changed the face of corporate recruiting forever," says Robert Rota, founder of
Executive Staffers, a Dallas-based search firm specializing in communications, PR and marketing placements. "Today it's acceptable to put your resume up [online] for anyone to look at it... Twenty years
ago you'd be disloyal to the organization and marked for termination somewhere down the line. That mentality has now changed completely."
Rota now cruises through resumes posted by individuals seeking their next jobs. He also posts his firm's own listings on the Web, at his own site and with the major job clearinghouses such as
Monster.com. Applicants who respond to specific postings generally are more interested in the open position, but online job openings may not turn up the targeted, qualified applicants that an off-line
recruiter can locate. For example, Rota recalls posting a position for traffic coordinator with an agency, and getting logistical traffic coordinators from city government.
Most companies and agencies have career pages on their own Web sites. In some cases, candidates are prompted to fill out an electronic form that the employer can evaluate and keep on file (without
knowing what vacancies there are). But more and more Web pages actually have the employer's job postings - including some executive-level jobs.
Ingram Micro, for instance, has two communications VP positions posted on its own site, one for IR, the other for global corporate communications, among dozens of others. The company has listed the
same positions with Monster.com, trying to cast its net as widely as possible for prospects. "Running an ad in the local papers doesn't get us anywhere, we've found," says Jennifer Marchetta, the
company's director of PR. "We have an internal recruiting person, responsible for recruiting our high-level positions, and she's used all kinds of methods."
Despite the changes brought on by the Internet, most senior communications jobs are still filled the old-fashioned way. Even Spetner, now with a company he considers on the leading edge of recruiting
technology, says he got his current position after being approached by a Korn/Ferry executive recruiter, not via the Web.
Internet technology may do a lot to improve employment matchmaking, but it still doesn't replace human networking.
(Spetner, 310/843-4176; Rota, 972/448-8730; Marchetta, 714/382-2692)