Companies on tight budgets turn to e-recruitment

Companies caught in the throes of an economic slowdown don’t have to end up with inadequate human capital just because of tight finances. At the height of the economic crisis, many businesses that saved up on cash still got the best people by recruiting through the Internet.

Though it suffered slower growth like most companies, JobStreet.com, Asia’s leading online recruitment company, managed to post a decent 40 percent increase in revenues in the previous year and achieved record sales in the first quarter of 2002.

According to JobStreet.com founder Mark Chang, this is proof of businesses’ growing confidence in online recruitment even during times of crisis.

"During the economic slowdown, more companies tried to save money by going into online recruitment. Also, more jobseekers used the Internet to help them look for jobs so companies had access to more talents," Chang said.

He said e-recruitment is especially suitable to countries like India and the Philippines where there is a huge, untapped labor force.

"It is not easy for companies to reach out to their potential employees. That is why e-recruitment fits the solution very well," he said.

"The online recruitment industry will continue to pick up no matter what happens to the global economy because e-recruitment is a cheaper and easier way to reach out to a large pool of promising workers. As the number of Internet users continue to increase, more and more people will start using the Internet to look for jobs online," he added.

The whole recruitment industry in the Philippines is currently valued at around P1 billion. In three years, the online recruitment business is estimated to be worth P200 million or about 20 percent of the total industry value.

This enormous potential, plus the opportunity to innovate in the human resources sector, is what initially drew the Gokongwei family – who are known for diversified business interests – to the online recruitment business.

Lisa Gokongwei, vice president for finance of the joint venture (JobStreet.com Phils. Inc.), said the e-recruitment business model appeared to be the most viable at the time when the so-called dot-com bubble was about to burst.

"When we decided to partner with JobStreet, the Malaysian business was already on the path to profitability. Finally, here was a Web business that had a viable business model," she said.

As in any other industry, the key for online businesses to succeed is to offer value-added services to clients. "Putting up a dot-com, as we have all discovered too late in the game, is not about cashing out. It’s about creating value for the customer. It’s about having a clear business model from the very start," Gokongwei explained.

"In JobStreet, we have the opportunity to innovate in the job classified business. JobStreet also allows knowledge workers and other professionals to control their careers by equipping themselves with information about the job marketplace anytime and anyplace," she added.

JobStreet Phils. has more than 500 job listings on its website on any given day and boasts a fill rate success of 65 percent. This means that of the total number of jobs reported as filled by companies who advertised in JobStreet.com, 65 percent were filled through the website.

Close to 2,000 companies have availed themselves of JobStreet’s services, which include access to half-a-million resumés within the year, as its database continues to grow by 650 resumés a day.