With the Internet quickly becoming the preferred forum for information, entertainment and shopping, it is no surprise that business owners are racing to use it as a recruiting and training tool.
What other venue links you with users worldwide? And aren’t those users — bright, young people with valuable skills who are computer-savvy and capable of navigating the Web — the ones you’re looking for to add to your company?
Under the fair assumption that computer users have something to offer today’s corporations, human resources personnel have picked up the vibe and are running with it. Mary Antal, manager of compensation and benefits at Fairlawn-based Bioproducts Inc., says she routinely uses the Internet for recruitment, posting positions on career boards, the online versions of help wanted ads in newspapers.
“It’s wonderful as far as having access to the whole public,” she says.
Beyond recruiting, Bioproducts is developing software for Web-based training.
Explains Antal, “We are starting to implement career development team training, to be tested this year.”
Candidates take tests and complete questionnaires to find career paths. Bioproducts is creating software so that what was previously done in print and saved to a computer can now be saved instantly for analysis.
While Bioproducts has a foothold on Web-based recruiting and training, other corporations are still in the planning stages. Allison Wallace of Goodrich-Ganneti Neighborhood Center says she would like to increase the nonprofit organization’s Internet activity.
“We need to be using the Internet more if we want to be more competitive,” she says.
To further that goal, Wallace has bought more computers for her staff.
“We want the employees to have access for research purposes,” she explains.
Wallace also plans to use the Web to find candidates for employment.
“More people are accessing the Internet as a vehicle for employment,” she says. “This translates into making our services more well-known.”
Because most employees at Goodrich-Ganneti are part time and there is a high rate of turnover, Wallace says she welcomes any way to make hiring easier.
“Internet recruiting will hopefully speed up the process,” she says. “Instead of the delay of newspaper advertising, where you wait a week to post a job, I can post on the Internet, where the information is available immediately, and job seekers can find out about our organization.”
Antal and Wallace are on the right track, says Lori Gottlieb, community manager of CareerBoard.com, a forum for online job seeking and recruitment where applicants post resumes for viewing by potential employers.
Gottlieb, who found her own job at CareerBoard.com, is ecstatic about online recruiting.
“The Internet is redefining recruiting,” she says. “It will be the number one way to recruit as people use the Internet more and more.”
Results of the Inside HR survey, conducted by the Employers Resource Council for SBN, reveal that the Internet will play a role in human resources. Seventy percent of respondents would consider using Web-based training within their organizations, and 60 percent already utilize an intranet to communicate internally.
Bioproducts Inc. and Goodrich-Ganneti both say they plan to use the Internet primarily as a recruiting device, a growing application as the Web becomes more accessible. The popularity of the Internet is not in question; what remains to be seen is how companies will take advantage of that popularity and translate it into methods of improving their bottom lines.
The obvious answer is in the increase of corporate utilization of online recruiting and advertising.
How to reach: Bioproducts Inc., (330) 665-2120; Goodrich-Ganneti, (216) 432-1717; CareerBoard.com, (216) 595-1632
Courie Weston ([email protected]) is a reporter for SBN.
