The Oxford Handbook of Human Capital by Alan Burton-Jones J.-C. Spender

Author:Alan Burton-Jones, J.-C. Spender
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: OXFORD University Press
Published: 2011-09-02T16:00:00+00:00

12.5 ONLINE RECRUITING

12.5.1 The Role of Online Recruiting in Human Capital Acquisition

Online recruiting presents the latest development in the way in which organizations obtain human capital. The demand for online recruiting was induced by the use of the Internet and the increase in the personal career-related information that is available on the World Wide Web. Online recruiting brought three important innovations to the ways in which organizations obtain human capital. Each of the innovations is connected to the ability of online recruiting to offer vast amounts of information cheaply (Cappelli, 2001).

The first innovation concerns the employer side and refers to the possibility of identifying a large number of candidates at a much lower cost than traditional recruiting means. Of especial relevance is the fact that online searching facilitated finding high-quality ‘passive’ candidates who were employed by an organization and were not necessarily looking to move, and identifying them cheaply.

Companies have creatively used the Internet to identify passive candidates. According to a 2007 survey by the Society of Human Resource Management (2007), the most popular online sources to identify passive candidates included viewing membership directories for associations and trade groups, scanning social networking sites, mining blogs and discussion groups, and techniques known as ‘flipping’ (using a search engine to find candidates who link themselves to web pages), ‘peeling back’ (peeling back an organization’s website to reveal employee contact information), and ‘X-raying’ (using a search command to locate employee information on non-public web pages). A considerable portion—22 percent of the responding organizations—used ‘flipping’, and 14 percent of the organizations resorted to ‘peeling’ competitors’ web pages (SHRM, 2007).

Since social networking sites and online communities (such as linkedin or xing.com) are a recent phenomenon and are predicted to grow in importance, they merit more detailed discussion. These sites leverage their membership and offer recruiting services to companies. Xing.com, for example, matches job openings posted in the network with the profile of its members. Sites such as Blue Chip Expert further increase their offering to corporations by maintaining an exclusive membership. Individuals can only join Bluechipexpert.com if they are referred by a member. In fact, it is impossible to enter the site without an ‘invitation code’. As a result, the site prides itself on the high quality of its members, the majority of whom have graduate degrees and positions at the director level and above. Another form of online community is represented by sites such as the German e-fellows. net, which preselects high-quality students between the ages of 18 and 30, based on their academic excellence, professional experience such as internships, international experience, and extracurricular interests, and then targets its members with the job openings and recruiting events of its partner organizations. By becoming a partner organization of e-fellows.net, hiring companies benefit by building up future contact with high-quality professionals who are just about to start their professional career.

Access to a vast pool of candidates makes it easier to find the right type of human capital. The negative side of this, however, is that companies

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