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We initially created the "Easier Recruiting and Jobhunting" Web site to announce our plans for designing a new recruiting/jobhunting system and to solicit candidate opinions regarding job sites and Internet jobhunting. To attract jobseekers, we offered an original, free "eGuide to Successful Jobhunting".
We were highly successful getting candidates to answer two multiple-choice questions regarding the matching and communications provided by existing job sites. The questions were as follows:
Matching: What letter grade would you assign to how well existing job sites match candidates and jobs?
Communications: What letter grade would you assign to how well existing job sites facilitate communications between candidates and recruiters/hiring managers?
The results are summarized in the tables below
where GPA stands for grade point average (with A = 4, B = 3, etc.) and STDV stands
for standard deviation.
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We can see that the GPA is low in both matching and communications, and particularly low in communications. Clearly there is substantial room for improvement.
We also provided a more thorough Candidate Survey. Far fewer candidates
opted to fill out the longer survey, but the results were interesting
and we include them here.
The first question merely asked people why they are jobhunting, if, indeed, they were.
The most frequent response was that their previous job had ended. No additional details
were requested.
| If you are looking for a position, please indicate the reason you are looking. | |
| Count | |
|---|---|
| Not currently looking | 2 |
| Graduated or expect to graduate | 4 |
| Changed countries | 0 |
| Want to find a better job | 4 |
| Previous job has ended | 15 |
The next group of questions related to the degree to which candidates felt they were
well understood and evaluated. Overall, the candidates were not satisfied.
| Very well indeed | Reasonably well | Not well at all | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How well do you feel employers and agencies consider you for the totality of positions they have available? |
0 | 10 | 15 |
| How well do you feel employers and agencies understand the totality of your job skills? | 1 | 8 | 17 |
| How well do you feel employers and agencies consider what you can do, as opposed to just what you have done on previous jobs? | 2 | 7 | 15 |
| How well do you feel human resources departments make hiring managers available to candidates? | 1 | 10 | 14 |
| Total | 4 | 35 | 61 |
The next question demonstrates that candidates spend a lot of time evaluating job
descriptions that turn out not to be suitable for their background.
| Less than 10% | 10 to 24% | 25 to 49% | 50% or more | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What percentage of your jobhunting time do you spend evaluating job descriptions which turn out to be not suitable for your professional background? | 0 | 5 | 8 | 11 |
In the next question, candidates assigned an average letter grade from A to F to the Internet facilities that they have used in their job searches. The grade point average (GPA) was computed with A = 4, B = 3, etc., and the result was 1.619.
| A | B | C | D | F | GPA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What average letter grade would you assign to the jobbank, resume distribution and other recruiting facilities that you have used as a candidate? | 1 | 2 | 10 | 4 | 4 | 1.619 |
Next, candidates were asked to list the facilities and/or strategies that they
use most in their job search. The Internet-related choices received high ratings.
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Please indicate the kinds of facilities and/or strategies you have used most frequently in your jobhunting efforts. Please check at most five. |
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| Count | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| An Internet jobbank | 20 | |||||||||
| Job postings on an employer's Web site. | 20 | |||||||||
| An employer's recruiting system | 14 | |||||||||
| A resume distribution service | 7 | |||||||||
| A recruiting/placement agency | 11 | |||||||||
| Newspaper job postings | 16 | |||||||||
| Physical job boards | 4 | |||||||||
| Networking | 10 | |||||||||
| Cold calling (not in response to a posting) | 5 | |||||||||
| Availability | Desirability | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Low | Moderate | High | Very High | Average | Low | Moderate | High | Essential | Average | |
| Candidate can login to the system, maintain information about him/herself there and communicate with recruiters and hiring managers. | 5 | 9 | 5 | 3 | 1.273 | 1 | 5 | 9 | 8 | 2.043 |
| Skills matching between candidate and jobs based on skill levels and an unlimited number of skills. When a candidate adds more skills, he/she matches more jobs. | 4 | 11 | 5 | 3 | 1.304 | 2 | 8 | 5 | 8 | 1.826 |
| Automatic matching based on requirements such as type of position (full-time, part-time, consulting), consulting duration, salary range, sponsorship and geographical location. | 5 | 10 | 6 | 2 | 1.217 | 2 | 7 | 10 | 5 | 1.75 |
| Candidate can send automatically generated email to employers and agencies regarding job orders. | 6 | 9 | 5 | 1 | 1.048 | 4 | 8 | 6 | 3 | 1.381 |
| Candidate can receive automatic notification via email of new jobs having a good skills match with the candidate. | 2 | 10 | 8 | 2 | 1.455 | 1 | 9 | 6 | 8 | 1.875 |
| Candidate can have anonymity and hide references until he/she gets to know an employer or agency. | 6 | 12 | 2 | 2 | 1.000 | 3 | 9 | 5 | 6 | 1.609 |
| Candidate can receive email messages in batches at specific time intervals or request all waiting messages at any given time. | 7 | 6 | 7 | 0 | 1.000 | 3 | 9 | 8 | 1 | 1.333 |
| Candidate can perform "What-if" searches that are not used to contact employers/agencies and these searches can use fictitious skills information and/or requirements. E.g. this could be used to see what jobs the candidate could qualify for with some additional training. | 13 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0.450 | 3 | 7 | 7 | 4 | 1.571 |
| Candidate can enter information about him/herself on one system and then import that information into other systems. | 10 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 0.737 | 2 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 1.632 |
| Uniform user interface across many employment-related Web sites. | 10 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 0.737 | 3 | 6 | 8 | 3 | 1.550 |
| A | B | C | D | F | GPA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What letter grade would you assign to an Internet-based jobbank and recruiting system having all of the features above? | 6 | 11 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2.708 |
This GPA was more than a full letter grade higher than the GPA for existing systems (above). There are also a number of reasons to believe that, after the JobBank system is implemented, the difference in quality will be even greater:
In the interest of brevity, some features of our proposed system, such as the vendor candidate database, were omitted.
The candidates did not get to see the system that we are proposing so they might have had some difficulty imaging how it would work to their favor.
The candidates did not see how the system would make it easier for recruiters to find them.
The candidates might not have realized that their skill/requirements profile IS their query when they perform a search. They do not have to develop multiple queries to cover different aspects of their backgrounds nor manipulate queries to make them broader or narrower (to receive a reasonable number of job descriptions in response to their queries).
Finally, we wanted to establish that candidates would be willing to rates their
levels of expertise in various skills. (Some sites already do this, but often for
just a few skills.) The results showed that candidates were willing to rate their
skills, particular if a large number of employers and/or agencies would see their
information.
| Please select all appropriate conclusions to the following
statement: "I would be willing to rate my skills on a Web site..." |
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| Count | |
|---|---|
| "that makes my resume and the skills information I provide available to many employers and/or agencies." |
17 |
| "that belongs to a single EMPLOYER." | 10 |
| "that belongs to a single recruiting/placement agency." | 9 |
One candidate survey was completed by an investor in the project and two were completed by friends of the investor. Two submitted surveys were omitted: one contained no responses in the features section and another appeared to be duplicate submission.
Copyright 2006 L. Jones