Online recruitment firms may feel pinch in slowdown

While online job placement can be big business, is it a replacement for the one-to-one personal approach?

With the number of situations vacant in the jobs market falling, the recruitment industry has suffered the effects of the slowdown in the Irish economy.

More employers are hesitant about expanding their workforce and fewer employees are prepared to risk changing jobs.

"Two years ago, if people got fed up with their jobs, it wouldn't take so long to find another one but now, as the market tightens up, there wouldn't be as huge a choice," says Mr Mark Staunton, president of the National Recruitment Federation.

So what happens when the jobs of people whose job it is to find jobs for other people come under threat? They follow the advice they give to thousands of school-leavers, graduates and experienced employment-seekers: they adapt.

"Seven or eight years ago, companies didn't want to put ads for jobs in the paper because they would be overloaded by a response. They wanted agencies to screen CVs," Mr Staunton explains.

"Then two years ago, recruitment agencies' main focus was to attract people to work because there was a shortage of skilled workers."

Now as the jobs market is once again driven by employers rather than job-seekers, the screening skills of recruitment agencies have come under renewed focus, while candidates face "a much stricter process of interviews and second interviews", according to Mr Staunton.

"Agencies are adapting their services to meet the requirements of the day, and it's a good thing. It improves standards in the industry," he adds.

Agencies are becoming more specialist, focusing on supplying high numbers of temporary workers to clients in particular fields such as catering or construction.

"Companies that are trying to rationalise due to the economic situation may have a department of six people and downsize that to four, who would all have to take on extra tasks.

"But some of those tasks may be seasonal, so they would get temps in," says Ms Mairéad Mulvey, manager of AOB Office Specialists.

A proven reputation and the ability to provide candidates at short notice are the main reasons companies approach agencies for temporary workers, according to Ms Mulvey. AOB is part of the Marlborough group, which is the Republic's largest recruitment company. "We would know what type of person would fit in with a company," she says.

Hiring staff on a temporary basis ensures repeat business for employment agencies - and repeat hits on career websites such as Monster.ie and IrishJobs.ie. For Mr Alan Townsend, managing director at Monster.ie, personal control is more important than personal contacts.

"What most people do is set up a job agent that e-mails them suitable jobs as they come in. That way people don't have to go through the loop at a recruitment agency," he says. "If you register at an agency, they would grill you to see if you were suitable to represent them, whereas with online sites you can be in control."

A spokeswoman for the Marlborough group, which last year abandoned plans for its recruitment website project, FillTheJob.com, maintains that the interview process is a better way to get a feel for the candidate.

"We have always advocated the one-to-one. Online recruitment is huge - Marlborough.ie receives a million hits a month at its peak - but the business is reverting back to the walk-in agency," she says.

Temps as well as recruiters rely on the personal touch, agrees Ms Mulvey. "From the candidate's point of view, it is important to build up a relationship with an agency so we can bend over backwards to meet their requirements. Candidates are as important as clients to us. We haven't lapsed on that side just because there are more people than jobs available."

But with cutbacks in the recruitment industry, temporary workers may find their contacts in an agency have moved on. And while most provide career advice, job sites usually act as the online equivalent to the jobs pages in the local and national press, rather than virtual agents. Users apply directly to the company when they submit a CV.

People still turn most frequently to the national press for job vacancies - 76 per cent, according to a poll on the Monster.ie website, with only 13 per cent opting for recruitment websites as their first port-of-call.

But the trend is all going in one direction, according to Mr Townsend.

"If you haven't changed jobs in three years then you might not know that a lot of people are now searching online," he says. "But the online population is growing and people who find jobs through sites like Monster are likely to stick with it."

The company spent more than €1.9 million (£1.5 million) last year on marketing, including a poster campaign and the "Beware of the Voices" television advertisements, in a drive to draw quality candidates to the site. But with more CVs than job vacancies in circulation, online recruitment companies are now working to increase the number of paying clients - the employers.

Mr Townsend believes online recruiting suits employers hiring temporary staff in particular because of its immediacy.

"A company can advertise a job in the morning, read the CVs and select a candidate by the afternoon. There are no lead times," he says.

According to Mr Ken Fitzpatrick, marketing director of IrishJobs.ie, human resource managers and recruitment officers are increasingly turning to websites to advertise positions.

IrishJobs.ie's client base has more than doubled over the past 12 months to more than 450 companies, with 135,000 job-seekers searching the site every month.

The company has signed a partnership deal with Primelearning.com and now offers online training courses on topics such as communications, customer care and team building though its recruitment site.

The purpose of the deal is to retain the loyalty of existing advertisers on the site, according to Mr Fitzpatrick.

"We have built up relationships with human resources managers and this is one way of providing additional services to them."

Despite the attraction of cheaper advertising costs, Mr Staunton at the National Recruitment Federation believes the online recruitment business will feel the pinch of an economic slowdown because one of its main advantages is the ability to source skilled candidates from abroad. As the market tightens, employers will fill positions with local candidates first.

"Internet recruiters will have a role to play," concludes Mr Staunton. "But it is the agencies that have been around for a long time, have good websites and provide add-on services to candidates that will do well."