Recruitsoft / iLogos Research Study Highlights Best Practices For Fortune 500 Career Web Site Recruiting

Research shows Fortune 500 steadily optimizing career Web sites

San Francisco, CA – (BUSINESS WIRE) – October 26, 2000 –

Recruitsoft/ iLogos Research, a leading research-based practice that monitors and analyzes trends in the Internet recruiting industry, announced today that its benchmark study has designated the 20 Best Practices for Fortune 500 Career Web Site Recruiting. The study presents the recruiting industry’s standard for career Web site features; a comparison of the current practices of the Fortune 500, including specific examples; and predictions for future career Web site practices. Details of the study results will be presented in three separate Webcasts beginning today, and continuing on November 2nd and 9th, each day at 4 pm EST at www.recruitsoft.com/webcast.

"We saw the need to assess trends in the Internet recruiting industry and designated 20 Best Practices to set a benchmarking standard for all companies as they evolve their online recruiting strategies," said Yves Lermusiaux, founder of iLogos Research and Recruitsoft Vice President of Strategy and Content. "Most companies have yet to fully integrate the various features that make the career page on corporate Web sites attractive to and user friendly for potential candidates, as well as more automated for internal processing of the candidates' information. Companies will increasingly move toward adopting the tactics that will entirely support their recruiting efforts and integrate the recruiting supply chain—online."

20 Best Practices
The 20 Best Practices for Fortune 500 Career Web Site Recruiting were determined by Recruitsoft/ iLogos Research to signify distinct features on corporate Web sites that optimize the ability of the corporate career Web site to "Attract, Convince and Capture" potential qualified candidates. The 20 Best Practices focus on optimal functions that:

• attract traffic to the corporate Career Web site,
• convince potential candidates of the company’s status as an employer of choice, and
• capture and process the candidate’s information in a streamlined process that benefits both candidate and corporate recruiter.

The study surveys the current practices of the Fortune 500 and compares this data with the 20 Best Practices determined by Recruitsoft/iLogos Research. The research data indicates that although most of the Fortune 500 companies have a Careers section on their corporate Web sites, many do not incorporate important Internet recruiting functions into the entire recruiting process. Additionally, the study predicts Internet recruiting Next Practices that are likely to be adopted by corporations in the near future.

According to the study, the career pages of corporate Web sites present an invaluable opportunity for corporations to gain a competitive advantage in recruiting. Strategically developed sections target qualified candidates and integrate the entire recruiting process. Optimal Web site recruiting results—including faster time-to-contribution, lower cost per hire and significant increases in retention—may be obtained through a systematic approach to corporate Web site recruiting.

Current Practices
The trend toward adopting the corporate career page as the central place for recruiting continues to grow; however, these career pages could be more robust, according to the study. Currently, only 55 percent of the Fortune 500 publish information on employee benefits on the career Web site, and just 44 percent of these companies include information on corporate culture. Both are important elements in luring potential employees with corporate information prior to the job application phase. Less than half (42 percent) of Fortune 500 career Web sites feature a separate college recruiting section and the same amount give jobseekers the ability to search a database of open positions.

Study results show that many Fortune 500 companies have not fully embraced the 20 Best Practices for Career Web Site Recruiting. In fact, although 89 percent of the Fortune 500 have a careers section on their corporate Web site dedicated to recruiting, most of these companies fail to integrate the entire recruiting supply chain, a practice that can save recruiters valuable time and resources.

Especially valuable in today’s tight labor market are the ‘e-mail to a friend’ and ‘anonymous application’ candidate sourcing functions. Respectively, only nine percent and one percent of the Fortune 500 offer these options for candidates on their corporate Web sites. These career page features target the passive jobseeker, defined as an individual who is employed but may be open to offers of employment. Many corporate recruiters consider passive jobseekers to be the most desirable candidates.

The study indicates that detailed profiling features should be more proactively embraced as mechanisms to obtain candidate information. Only 19 percent of Fortune 500 companies’ corporate Web sites include some form of candidate profiling and merely six percent provide candidates with a Job Agent for automated notification of new positions matching the candidates’ interests and skills. These Best Practices provide a guide for corporate recruiters to strategically target quality candidates.

Next Practices
The study predicts that Next Practices for the career Web sites of the Fortune 500 will evolve to utilize optimal features in the near future. Recruitsoft/ iLogos Research forecasts that, by 2002, the vast majority of Fortune 500 companies will:

• Link to the careers section directly from the Web site homepage
• Post information on employee benefits and corporate culture
• Provide a separate college recruiting section
• Give jobseekers the ability to search a database of open job positions
• Include multi-language capabilities to accommodate the increasingly diverse and global workforce
• Allow feedback to jobseekers on the status of their application and candidacy throughout the recruiting process
• Extend real-time recruiting functionality into wireless devices
• Adopt "CRM (Customer Relationship Management) style" one-to-one recruiting through personalized messaging and communications

According to the study, companies late in awakening to the recruitment potential of corporate Web sites may rapidly adopt current Best Practices. The technological hurdles have been reduced by full-featured Hiring Management Systems delivered via an Application Service Provider (ASP) model for powering enterprise recruiting. Thanks to such technology, both experienced and new Career Web site recruiting corporations can immediately implement sophisticated features via Web-based systems to achieve a state-of-the-art Web site recruiting process.

"The dominant theme of Internet recruiting for the next decade will be cultivating human capital. Corporations will be looking to form and maintain a lasting relationship with candidates," said Lermusiaux. "The Internet is at the core of 21st century recruiting and companies must ensure that their recruiting practices and processes are aligned with technological capabilities that support and help achieve corporate goals."

About Recruitsoft /iLogos Research
Recruitsoft /iLogos Research studies and monitors trends in the Internet recruiting industry. Recruitsoft/iLogos Research periodically publishes reports and indexes and is dedicated to understanding the needs of large corporations looking for ways to win in today’s competitive human capital world.

The research-driven practice produces data on industry trends, best practice methodologies and benchmarking. Specializing in the impact of new technologies on human capital acquisition among large corporations, iLogos Research monitors, analyzes and forecasts innovative technologies, Internet strategies and break-through practices that allow corporations to optimize and adapt best practices.

Founded in 1997 as iLogos Internet Intelligence, iLogos was acquired by Recruitsoft in September 1999 and today remains a leading industry source of intelligence. iLogos Research is recognized as the most rigorous source of data for human capital Internet-related issues.

Among iLogos published reports and studies are Global 500 Web Site Recruiting, 2000 Survey; Lessons from the Global 500, 1999; and Achieving Results with Internet Recruiting, 1998.

About Recruitsoft
Recruitsoft delivers the most complete online recruiting solutions for leading companies across many industries, including United Airlines (NYSE: UAL), Bombardier Aerospace and Transportation, MetLife, Cabletron Systems (NYSE: CS), and Sutter Health. The company’s Recruiter WebTop™ application service provides a complete business application over the Internet to power the career Web pages of large corporations, leading to faster time-to-hire, lower cost-per-hire, and ultimately, increased quality of hires. Recruitsoft introduced the pay-per-hire fee structure to the Web-based recruiting industry and is considered to be the best-practice ASP for recruitment management solutions, based on its proprietary ACE Recruiting™ methodology. Recruitsoft is the first hiring management system (HMS) to integrate all areas of candidate sourcing. These services are accessible via one click and include: job postings on the corporate Web site, the company Intranet, job boards, advertising in all print media, automated background checking, contract-assisted candidate sourcing and access to labor exchanges.

Recruitsoft is funded in part by Telesystem Software Ventures LP (Telsoft), a venture-capital arm of Telesystem Ltd., a Red Herring Top 100 company; and by Omnicom (NYSE:OMC), the world’s leading provider of marketing communications and advertising services, through its Internet investment arm, Communicade. Recruitsoft strategic capability partners include Bernard Hodes Group, AIRS and Kennedy Information, among others.

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