Human Resources in the Internet

Human Resources in the Internet Age -- Literature Review

Henderson, Lisa. "Raising the Bar on Subject Recruitment." Journal of Applied Clinical

Trials. 2009. HighBeam Research. (January 4, 2011). http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-1800432001.html.

The tremendous value of online portals for recruiters is hardly limited to the realm of hiring managers. To fully understand the potential of online recruitment, it is also useful to consider the way it has been used by recruiter in other applications. Within the pharmaceutical industry, clinical trials are crucial to the process of securing government approval for new drugs before they can be legally marketed. It is a lengthy and expensive process and approximately one-third of its total costs can be absorbed by the recruitment of suitable subjects for those clinical trials. Moreover, fully eighty percent of the 80,000 clinical drug trials conducted annually in the United States fail to recruit the required number of subjects within the contract period; furthermore, one-quarter of the subjects actually enrolled eventually drop out before the trials are concluded.

Traditionally, pharmaceutical clinical drug trial recruiters have relied on newspaper and other print media advertisements to reach potential subjects for clinical trials. However, with the recent decrease in readership, many of those traditional advertisement avenues are no longer as available or effective. Consequently, pharmaceutical clinical trial recruiters have begun using Internet applications and social networks more heavily. In addition to enabling them to reach many potential test subjects who may no longer read traditional newspapers and magazines, pharmaceutical recruiters have also discovered some of the same advantage as have been recognized by hiring managers. That includes the ability to exploit extended networks of potential recruits who have much greater likelihood of participating in their trials based on the parameters used by recruiters in the their searches of those online network resources.

"Joining the queue: Recruitment firms." The Economist. 2010. HighBeam Research.

(January 4, 2011). http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-219687188.html.

The current economic recession has greatly increased the popularity of online employment search sites such as Monster.com and HotJobs, but that has also reduced their effectiveness, particularly from the point-of-view of many employers. That is mainly because when unemployment rates increase, so do the rates of job searchers who use Monster and HotJobs so extensively (and indiscriminately) that it amounts to spamming prospective employers. Some of these job hunters routinely respond to more than one-hundred job postings every day, which has the undesirable effect of turning job search sites into nothing more than online posting boards because they make it much harder for employers to identify qualified candidates. Monster, for example, has experienced a ninety percent reduction in its number of job listings since 1999, when it was first introduced in a Super Bowl television advertisement. One solution implemented by sites such as TheLadders.com has been to impose a monthly service charge (in their case, of $35 per month) which is specifically intended to deter indiscriminate users from diluting the value of the site's services as a means of helping qualified job seekers and prospective employers find one another in the virtual medium.

The recession has greatly increased the value of online social networks because the decrease in the number of jobs available along with such an increase in job seekers has hurt traditional staffing firms. The nation's largest, Manpower, suffered a sixty-two percent reduction in profits in the last fiscal quarter of 2009 as compared with the previous year, for example. Especially in a climate where job seekers so greatly outnumber the available positions, the use of online social and professional networks for job recruiters becomes much more important since the proportion of job seekers to jobs substantially increases the man hours and other costs necessary to identify each qualified employee and place him of her with a suitable company.

Leader-Chivee, Lauren; Booz Allen, Hamilton; Cowan, Ellen. "Networking the way to success: online social networks for workplace and competitive advantage." Journal of People & Strategy. 2008. HighBeam Research. (January 4, 2011). http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-200784523.html.

Human Resource managers have begun incorporating professional and social online networks into an increasingly wider range of applications beyond merely recruitment. Certainly, they have begun using those resources and tools to attract desirable employees externally, but they have also started using them to maximize the potential of both internal hires as well as external hires through internal references. Meanwhile, the increasing globalization of modern business has also spurred the use of online networks to help business entities establish and maintain a consistent and uniform working experience among very large populations of employees, many of which now work in different cities, states, and continents. In that regard, Human Resources managers have discovered that online networks can help establish unity among employees working much too remotely from other employees to establish any kind of rapport or shared corporate culture through traditional means. Another advantage of this use of online social networks has been their ability to facilitate greater connections among and between groups of employees from different places of origin, backgrounds, and age.

There are also risks associated with the use of existing social networks such as MySpace and FaceBook that HR managers have also had to consider. Specifically, they do present the possible risk of leaking of proprietary information; they can result in damaging statements by firm employees with legal liability on the part of the company; and they can expose valued employees to being "poached" by external recruiters known as "head hunters." Consequently, some companies have embraced the concept of incorporating online social networks but they have chose to develop their own secure internal networks instead of relying on public networks such as MySpace and FaceBook. Their intention is simply to exploit the potential value of the new social network media but in a manner that reduces the potential risks associated with public versions of that concept.

Schramm, Jennifer. "Internet connections. (Future Focus)." HRMagazine. 2007.

HighBeam Research. (January 4, 2011). http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-168827737.html.

The popularity of the first version of Internet-based applications designed to connect job seekers and prospective employers has proven extremely useful but it has also revealed the need for significant changes, especially in the current economic climate where the ratio of job seekers to available jobs has increased so dramatically. That is because the first generation of these applications do not do much to filter results or otherwise help employers distinguish qualified and highly desirable candidates from less qualified and less desirable candidates. Therefore, the current trend driving the second generation of job search sites and professional networks has emphasized this specific feature.

The latest innovations in professional networks intended for the use of hiring organizations includes filtering software as well as applications that allow employers to play a more active role. Most first-generation versions of job search applications required the employer to play a passive role, essentially waiting to review those candidates who chose to apply to open positions. The latest second-generation versions of these professional networks have been specifically designed to help employers be more active in identifying and contacting potentially valuable prospective employees without having to wait for those applicants to contact the organization by applying for positions.