So this is all about posting job vacancies on my website?
That's only a fraction of what we're talking about with web-based recruitment. There are really two core components - ‘informational/promotional’ on the one hand, and ‘transactional’ on the other. You need to be doing both.

The informational/promotional phase is where the web’s used to display details of vacancies and market the benefits of joining your organisation. Of those, the marketing bit is where you can have a lot of fun. Since recruitment is fundamentally a sales and marketing discipline, you want to approach this from the perspective of the candidate. What will make them sit up and take notice? What differentiates you from the rest of the pack? If you offer flexible working terms, a good location or a great selection of benefits, this is the place to boast about it.

This informational and promotional work is where most of the action in web-based recruitment takes place today. In a recruitment survey carried out this spring by Webster Buchanan Research in association with Computers In Personnel, we found that over a third of respondents post jobs on their own website today, while a further 45% plan to do so within twelve months.

How's that compare to the transactional side?
Take-up here is much lower. The transactional stuff starts with you allowing people to submit their job applications online, either via your website or a third party jobsite – often using web-based forms that help you enforce some consistency in the information they provide. With a good system, you can deliver automated acknowledgements to applicants, and filter applications by keywords or more sophisticated search techniques.

But this is just the ‘front-end’ of the process, where you’re dealing directly with the candidate. A lot more goes on behind the scenes, and ideally, you want to automate that as well. You might get away with using a rudimentary Applicant Tracking System, the kind you’ll often find pre-built into your HR Management System. But if you’re handling a significant number of job applications each year or really want to reduce the number of HR people involved in the recruitment process, it’s worth looking at more feature-rich recruitment software. Some systems come with workflows that you can configure to manage activities such as interviewing, making job offers, and reference checking.

Keep an eye out too for candidate self-service capability. It works on a similar principle to employee and manager self-service, where employees can access the HR system online to change their personal details, sign up for training, view online payslips and so on. With candidate self-service, prospective employees can track the progress of their job application, which saves them calling you - and saves you having to pay someone to answer their call. Just as important, it keeps candidates in the loop - and since you’re trying to sell to them, it’s important that they feel connected.

How many people have actually got this far?
Not many. In Webster Buchanan’s survey, only 16% of interviewees said they allow job applications to be submitted via their website, but a further 26% said they plan to do so this year. And less than one in ten handles web applications electronically throughout the entire recruitment process, with 17% planning to do so within a year.

What about podcasts and other Web 2.0 whizzy stuff?
You’re going to see more and more organisations using advanced web technologies on their sites, including podcasts and video – anything from virtual video tours of their office or campus, to blogs written by recent recruits and podcasts featuring 'inspirational' presentations from their top management team. Using this kind of technology really helps if you’re trying to appeal to a younger audience since it gives the impression that you’re up-to-speed with the sort of technologies they use everyday. But you’ve got to make sure you execute it well – there’s nothing worse than trying to appeal to a younger generation and ending up sounding more fuddy-duddy than their parents.

Some organisations are trying some pretty advanced stuff here. IBM, for example, uses virtual worlds to handle onboarding, allowing candidates to kick off various administrative processes and meet other new recruits and IBM managers before they’ve even started at the company.

So what's the rationale for investing in all of this technology?
Like any automation project, cost is a big driver. If you’re taking paper and people out of a system, you should end up operating more efficiently. It’s also about speed of recruitment. In an age when top-quality candidates get snapped up overnight, you’re not going to be in with a shout if it takes you six weeks to sift through the post and read applications before you start shortlisting.

Don’t underestimate the marketing component either. A good, informative website can tell people a hundred times more about your company than a traditional job advert - again, you’ve got to sell to candidates, and this is a great way of doing it. And effective marketing is also about measuring. The more data you capture electronically, the more you can analyse it to measure recruitment effectiveness. Knowing where the best quality applicants are coming from and what the bottlenecks are in your recruitment process really helps you make your next recruitment campaign much more effective.