A human resource manager has a pivotal role in ensuring that an organization attracts and retains its workforce to remain competitive in a business environment. The success of an organization lies mostly like an environment it creates for its workforce. A workplace environment that emphasizes the diversity of ideas and human capital enhances employees’ engagement; therefore has a high chance of success. The workforce cohesion is a tradition that needs to start with recruitment. An organization needs to develop means of attracting a wide array of potential employees by constituting recruitment formulae that facilitate a faster and effective means of acquiring potential talents for the company. Before the introduction of technology in the recruitment process, traditional recruitment processed and approaches were the best for human resource managers to identify and recruit potential workers. However, technology is changing the nature of recruitment in the current business environment; and there is a need to have in place the technologies hiring process to make the recruitment process faster and effective for an organization.
The traditional recruitment process does not rely on modern technologies to draw the attention of potential applicants. Such are the recruitment means that use paperwork for screening and testing a pool of employees to determine the best candidate for a job post. The conventional recruitment approaches also depend on face-to-face interviews with potential employees. On the other hand, modern or technology-based recruitment means are those that entirely depend on technology to search, screen, interview, and select the best candidate out of a pool of applicants. Despite the emergent of technology-based recruitment, traditional recruitment approaches are still a method of hiring that most organizations use to outsource their human workforce. However, the complexities in the current business environment are factors of considerations when selecting the best approach to recruitment. A business needs a flexible, versatile, and cheaper means of reaching out to potential employees by considering the effectiveness of means of recruitment as well as the competition in the business environment. In this literature analysis, therefore, the aim is to understand the view of most authors on what makes it suitable to move from traditional recruitment approaches to technology-based recruitment approaches. The literature analysis focuses on seven journals on the topic and examines common themes regarding the topic.
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Literature Analysis
The need to change from traditional approaches to hiring employees to a technology-based means of recruitments is a topic that most scholars emphasize. The authors of articles discussing the topic emphasis on the effectiveness of technology-based means of hiring that places them a notch higher than the traditional means of recruitment. Also, there are different topics that scholars examine regarding the topic. Mostly, the emphasis is that organizations should change their approaches of recruitment to reflect the current technology-oriented and online means of acquiring diverse employees for the organization's progress.
Traditional Vs. Technology-Based Recruitment Approaches
Reading through different scholarly articles on this topic, one of the areas that that most scholars clarify is the distinction between the two modes of recruitments. For instance, an article by Mindia & Hoque (2018) illustrates the differences that exist between traditional and technology-based recruitment. What comes out of their discussion is that traditional recruitment approaches involve tedious means of searching for employees. It involves creating adverts and posting on billboards, magazines, and sometimes, using referrals. From the discussion, Mindia & Hoque (2018) debates that traditional is mostly effective for internal recruitment. Research on different articles that also major on the topic of recruitment approaches reveals that most of these authors similarly define traditional recruitment to Mindia & Hoque (2018). However, the difference in the definition of the traditional recruitment approach is visible in the article Im, Kim, Xu, Lee, Hamajima, Inohara & Chee (2020). While most of the authors emphasize that traditional recruitment is not reliant on technology, Im et al. (2020) claim that conventions recruitment partially rely on technology such as telephone but do not effectively put them into use for their benefits. In most of these articles, modern or technology-based recruitment links to new technologies such as smartphones, the internet, and different recruitment system such as social media recruitment. Moghaddam, Rezaei, & Amin (2015) defines it as an approach that purely relies on the digital connection between employers and potential employees to form working partners with mutual benefits.
The Weak Points of Traditional Means of Recruitment
In most of these articles, the authors have a huge interest in pinpointing the weaknesses of the traditional recruitment methods that create a need and also push most companies to change to technology-based recruitment plans. For instance, Mindia & Hoque (2018) claim that due to demands that come with workplace diversity, conventional means of recruiting employees are becoming obsolete as they cannot guarantee a diverse workforce. Moghaddam, Rezaei & Amin (2015) backs up this idea by arguing that companies currently work for more than profit-making. Issues such as corporate image are becoming critical. Therefore, diversity is becoming a significant factor in recruitment. With the traditional recruitment approach, however, Moghaddam, Rezaei & Amin (2015) note that there is limited scope to the organization, and this minimizes the chances of diversity-based recruitment.
Other weaknesses of the traditional recruitment method that make it less effective in the current business environment, and are also the epicenter of research by most authors on this topic are time wastage and cost on production. Research by Navimipour & Soltani (2016) is particular to the high cost of production when an organization uses the traditional approach of recruitment and selection. In quantitative research design, one of the findings is that with the conventional approach to recruitment, the company is likely to waste a lot of time to reach the potential recruiters. Navimipour & Soltani (2016) that cost the companies a lot of money and time for quality production. Some articles also look at the cost of production from the perspective of the money the company needs to use to attract a pool of potential employees. For instance, Terek, Mitic, Cvetkoska, Vukonjanski & Nikolic (2018) reveal that searching for potential employees through the traditional means cost more because the company must strive to have many adverts to research a large number of potential employees. Terek et al. (2018) claim that an organization uses a lot of money to advertise for job vacancies by using traditional recruitment approaches such as magazines and television than when they use modern technology-based approaches.
Potential Employees’ Perception on E-Recruitment and Traditional Recruitment Approaches
At the center of discussion in some of these articles is the perception a potential employee has on the approach of recruitment, and how such a perception influences their view on the organizations. Moghaddam, Rezaei & Amin (2015) claim that the means of presenting the adverts and the organization as an entity to the potential employees is critical in attracting a pool of workers to apply for a post in the company. From the authors’ viewpoint, the current business environment demands more than the financial success of a company. Potential employees look at the image, the diversity, and the potential career development that a company has that can be beneficial to them. In this sense, a company must find the best way of presenting its goals, culture, objectives, and operations to the potential employees in the best manner possible to attract them. With this in mind, companies must switch to a technology platform where they can interact with potential employees and showcase the traits that make them the best in the industry.
Research by Mishra & Kumar (2019) reveals that currently, most talented employees perceive the technology-based recruitment approach to be the best based on the quality of their content. From the article, the authors state that in the current business environment, potential workers look at the successful e-recruitment website that meets clearly defined goals and provides compelling content that draws job seekers’ attention about how well the organization is promoting its workers. Mishra & Kumar (2019), therefore, claim that to seek and get the best workers in the market, an organization must come up with a good platform for interacting with potential recruits. The website or the technology the organization chooses as a tool for recruitment should be user-friendly to the potential recruits. Furthermore, it should also be easy to navigate, attractively designed to complement the content, and have the ability to provide the best and quickest e-mail response or customer service.
Mishra & Kumar (2019) further states that an organization cannot meet such demands if it relies on the dogmatic approach to advertising job posts such as the use of television and magazines. The author concludes by stating that when a potential employee meets a company that advertises its job post via an online platform, there is a positive perception that a potential worker creates in the mind that increases the chances of applying for the job as opposed to those advertised using the traditional approaches.
Impacts of the Digital Recruitment to the Organization
The impact of the e-recruiting on an organization is another theme that most of the authors who have had an interest in this topic. Zin, Fazlin, Nik, Mat & Alias (2016) claim that when an organization uses e-recruiting as opposed to traditional, they have wider access to talented workers. In this sense, there is a high chance that they might land top talent workers who can have a massive impact on the production process. Furthermore, the authors claim that with e-recruiting, there is a guarantee of diversity in the organization. Diversity in the organization means that it has a positive image in the society; there is creativity and also a culture that is accommodative to every person. In such a case, there are high chances of success. Terek et al. (2018) echo a similar concern. The authors claim that a company that uses the online platform as a means of advertising their job posts has a chance to interact with many potential recruits at a low cost. A post on a social media platform is accessible to many people. In this sense, it is cheaper than adverts on the mainstream media.
Furthermore, Mindia & Hoque (2018) reveal that the digital recruitment system allows a company to track the potential recruiters and keep their record. In this sense, it saves costs when the company requires contacting the potential workers. The authors suggest that a company needs to shift to a digital recruitment platform to reduce the cost of product and services promotion.
The Literature Analysis Summary
From the literature analysis, there is apparent concern from the researchers about the effectiveness of the traditional recruitment approach. From a critical review of the articles, most of the authors pinpoint the weaknesses of the conversational recruitment approach that an organization needs to understand while using such methods. The high cost, the limited scope, and the inflexibility to change in the recruitment and hiring environment are some of the leading weaknesses that most of the authors pinpoint in their articles. The researchers, therefore, recommend a shift to a digital recruitment system that has a mechanism of limiting such weaknesses and opening up a wider scope for diversity recruitment.
Another theme that is consistent in these articles is the perception the potential employees have on different approaches to recruitment. In this case, a number of these articles reveal that the digital platform is interactive and user-friendly to the potential employees. In this sense, they have a positive perception about and, therefore, have a high chance of applying for a job that the media advertises. Finally, the impacts of digital recruitment is also another concern among the researchers. The review reveals that an organization that applies the technology to its recruitment planning stands a chance of reaping more benefits as opposed to those that rely on traditional recruitment approaches.
References
Im, E. O., Kim, S., Xu, S., Lee, C., Hamajima, Y., Inohara, A., & Chee, W. (2020). Issues in recruiting and retaining Asian American breast cancer survivors in a technology-based intervention study. Cancer nursing , 43 (1), E22-E29.
Mindia, P. M., & Hoque, M. K. (2018). Effects of e-recruitment and internet on recruitment process: an empirical study on multinational companies of Bangladesh. International Journal of Scientific Research and Management (IJSRM) , 6 (01).
Mishra, S., & Kumar, S. P. (2019). E-recruitment and training comprehensiveness: untapped antecedents of employer branding. Industrial and Commercial Training .
Moghaddam, H. A., Rezaei, S., & Amin, M. (2015). Examining job seekers’ perception and behavioural intention toward online recruitment: a PLS path modelling approach. Journal for Global Business Advancement , 8 (3), 305-325.
Navimipour, N. J., & Soltani, Z. (2016). The impact of cost, technology acceptance and employees' satisfaction on the effectiveness of the electronic customer relationship management systems. Computers in Human Behavior , 55 , 1052-1066.
Terek, E., Mitic, S., Cvetkoska, V., Vukonjanski, J., & Nikolic, M. (2018). The influence of information technology on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Dynamic Relationships Management Journal .
Zin, S. M., Fazlin, N., Nik, H., Mat, R. C., & Alias, W. N. I. W. (2016). E-recruitment technology: the effective source of recruitment. vol , 6 , 84-89.
