Understanding Recruitment Advertising Methods

Recruitment and its Importance in HR Management

Discuss about the Effectiveness Of Recruitment Advertisements Website.

Recruitment is the process that deals with attracting the relevant candidates for the job vacancies available in the companies. It is considered as the most important part of the human resource management system as recruitment and selection is the primary function of the HR department of the company (Ryan, Gubern & Rodriguez, 2000). The HR department of many of the company needs to source these candidates from one or other mediums in order to attract them. Some of the companies make use of third parties that perform the recruitment function for them while other makes use of the online portals to advertise abo the jobs. Advertisements are one of the most important medium to source the candidate (Reichert, Kim & Fosu, 2007). Traditionally it was done by print media now there are many mediums on which the advertisements can be posted.

Different types of researches have been conducted on the recruitment practices and functions. This is the report that deals with research on how the employers are attracting the applicants via employment vacancy advertisements. This paper will investigate about the concept of contemporary recruitment and how these advertising can be used to attract more and more candidates.

Advertising in recruitment: advertising is one of the methods in the recruitment process that allow the recruiter to reach to the masses in order to provide some information about the job vacancy. Advertising is used in this process because it is the cheap method that reaches to large audience in very less time. Advertisements can be given via print media like in newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, etc. and via broadcasting media such as TV, Radio, etc (Collins & Han, 2004).

Contemporary advertising in recruitment process involves the modern methods to reach the candidates. It has been analysed that most of the companies these days are using these modern and technological tools to reach the candidates and sourcing them. Some of the modern methods includes social networking, online portals etc. Online portals help the recruiters to post the ad regarding the job and its associated content. Social networking sites are the most popular way these days to advertise the jobs (Rai & Kothari, 2008).

An employment vacancy advertisement is the advertisement that has been posted on one of the mediums discussed above. It is a paid announcement of the job vacancy available in the company. The advertisements are considered as the very important part of the recruitment process (Sisodia & Chowdhary, 2012). Human resources professionals are the organisations create the job advertisements and those advertisements are posted on the portal or the advertising sites. The major aim of posting the job advertisements is to attract the people and the relevant candidates. An effective ad results in reducing the time that spent on the wrong candidates.

Role of Advertising in Recruitment

Recruitment is the process that that deals with attracting the candidates for the job vacancy available in the company. The early stages of the recruitment process involve the process of communication. In this process, the organisations try to persuade the potential candidates to pursue the job opportunities available for them and the seekers of the job try to search for the potential opportunities for them (Chapman, et al. 2005). As per the Soelberg’d model, job seekers identify and short list their favourites on the basis of the information provided to them which used to be very little. Thus it is required by the employers to identify that how these job seekers are looking for their jobs.

In this early stage of the recruitment process, the information that has been gained by the job seekers is dependent on the way that information has been posted and the recruitment sources that have been used by them. These methods of exchanging information have undergone a great change because of the change in technology (Allen, Mahto & Otondo, 2007). Innovation in the internet technologies has transformed the early process of recruitment to a great extent. Most of the organisations are using organisational web pages and the official websites of the companies to post the ads of the vacancies that are available in the company. This is the major and the most authentic source for the job seekers to look for the vacancies available. 90% of the companies use their websites in US fir posting the ads for job vacancies (Cober, et al. 2004). Recruitment from the official website of the company allows the companies to share sufficient information about the company and the job (Roberson, Collins & Oreg, 2005). It shares some of the characteristics of the traditional methods of recruitment but have some of the key differences. The difference is that, it provides the information to the large number of audiences who can visits and access the company’s website on internet. Another very popular method of recruitment is the recruitment websites (Celani & Singh, 2011). These are the websites that allow the companies to share their content or the job vacancy content on the portal that can be accessible by anybody via internet. Job seekers can determine the nature and the information regarding the job and the relevant jobs appeared in front of them (Baum & Kabst, 2014). However, it is the choice of the company that how much information can be provided to the candidates. This suggests that recruitment websites are very different from the traditional form of recruitment such as newspaper ads.

Contemporary Advertising Methods

Earlier studies on recruitment focus on the responses of the candidates on the initial screening of the interviews. The only interaction that occurred between the applicant and the recruiter is the source where the job vacancies have been posted. These sources such as websites allow the applicant and the recruiter to exchange information. The theory of signalling suggests that the early interaction of the employers and the applicants act as the signal for the approaches that the organisation uses for recruitment (Avery & McKay, 2006). We provide the first test of this contention with actual organization Web sites. In our projected model of candidate attraction in a Web-based recruitment context, a prior organization familiarity and image, the amount of job and organization information on the Web site, and attitude toward the Web site stimulus intentions to follow employment through positive relationships with attitude toward the organization (Uggerslev, Fassina & Kraichy, 2012). At the same time, another researcher suggests that Information is also likely important for attraction (Cober, et al. 2003). It has been suggested that the amount of information that needs to be delivered to the applicants plays a very important role in swaying attraction of the applicants in the earlier phase of recruitment. Although, it has been realised that there are other aspects also that affects the level of attraction of the applicants towards the job. Recent researches have suggested that the job offers and the traits of the organisation are also the most important elements that affect the attraction. The major aim or the goal of the organisations at the initial phase of the recruitment is to communicate effectively with the applicants. Simultaneously, applicants are also reducing the uncertainties that are linked with the incomplete information provided to them (Perkins, Thomas & Taylor, 2000).

Job seekers usually try to look for the sources that provide them more information that is most relevant. Recruitment websites help the candidates to narrow down the attempts as it provide them to filter the options as per their requirements (Carless & Wintle, 2007). The searches that are made on the recruitment websites are cost effective for the candidates and also allow them to have better an easy access to the job availability. Preceding research has also found that organization status and image play a part in applicant attraction (Dineen, Ash & Noe, 2002). As per the brand equity theory, it has been analysed that just as branding helps the organisation to be a preferred choice of the customers, likewise, organisation branding also helps the organisation to have incremental preference of an organisation’s employment occasions beyond job and characteristics of the organisation. Former research on Web-based recruitment has depended on largely on fictional companies, making it impossible to assess the influence of image (Breaugh & Starke, 2000).

Employment Vacancy Advertisements – A Key Component of Recruitment

Researches that have conducted in this area suggested that interactions of the jobseekers with the organisation and the way the organisation is recruiting at the early phase affect the attraction level of the candidates towards the job (Carless & Imber, 2007). Thus, it is the early stage of communication the recruitment process that needs to focus on in order to attract the job seekers. These interactions at the initial level act as the signals about the image of the organisation. At the early stages, the only possible way to interact with the potential candidates is through the recruitment medium that the company is using (Collins & Stevens, 2002). Thus, it is required to post the ads of the jobs in a very attractive way so that the candidate feel attracted towards the company and the opportunity. Another research on recruitment methods and attractiveness of the job seekers suggests that employers are so much focussing on the advertisements of the jobs and making them attractive enough to take the attention of the candidates. It has been realised that recruitment has become the business and recruitment process is changing in order to attract the potential candidates (Carlson, Connerley & Mecham, 2002). It is not just about providing information but it becomes a medium to sell the jobs.

Attraction of the applicants can be defined as the interest of the applicants in the organisation as a potential candidate of the company. When any of the employees hunt for the job on the job portals, the first thing that attracts the employees is the content and the information provided to him or here on the portal (Carlson, Connerley & Mecham, 2002). Thus it is required by the employers to make the job posting very attractive. Most of the researches argue that the initial communication attracts the applicants but it has also been analysed that the attraction of the potential employees also depends upon the type of the recruitment used (Cable, et al. 2000). If the employer is using traditional methods than it is possible that less applicants applies for the job as compared to the job of the employer who posts the ad on the online portal.

This is the section of the report that clearly defines the way in which the research will be done. It is the most crucial part of the research is the accuracy of the results of the research depends upon the type of data used in the research. In order to conduct the research to find out the contemporary methods by the employers to attract the applicants by employment vacancy advertisements, the type of research that the researchers will conduct will be qualitative in nature. Qualitative research is the approach in which the cause of the problem has been justified or analysed. The primary and secondary, both the sources will be used to collect the data. In terms of collecting primary data, it is required by the researcher to conduct the interviews and survey questions. The secondary data is collected from the secondary sources such as articles, literatures, journals, books etc. literature review part of the research will be showing the data collected from the secondary sources. The basis of the findings will be Seek.com that is Australian online job advertisements site. Seek.com will be the main source of data collection in this research. Data analysis will be done by thematic method of analysis. In this method, various perspectives of the research questions have been identified and the different themes will be applied to analyse the data.

Activities	Duration (weeks)
Identification of objectives	1
Proposal formation	2
Literature review	2
Data collection	1
Data analysis	1
Final report	2

Early Stages of Recruitment Process and the Role of Communication

Activities	WEEKS
1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th
Identification of objectives
Proposal formation
Literature review
Data collection
Data analysis
Final report

References:

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