IMPACT OF THE INTERNET ON SOURCE OF
HIRES – 2002
By Gerry Crispin and Mark Mehler
www.CareerXroads.com,
mmc@careerxroads.com
732-821-6652
A "Source of Hire" study based
on survey results from 22 large, competitive, well-regarded corporations was
recently conducted by Mark Mehler and Gerry Crispin, principals of MMC group,
an international employment consulting practice.
Mark and Gerry
are also co-authors of CareerXroads 2003, the world's leading reference guide
to job and resume websites, an annual directory now in its eighth edition.
I. RESULTS
A.
Methodology
CareerXroads conducted its source
of hire survey1 during January, 2003.
Seventy-two firms were
individually contacted and asked to report on their “sources of hire” for 20022.
All firms contacted were
guaranteed anonymity.
Each company was promised
that while their data would be aggregated and specific firms would not be
identified in the report3.
Twenty-two firms (30.6%)
responded4.
This is the second year that
CareerXroads has conducted a source of hire survey focused on examining the
impact of the Internet as sources of hire5.
B.
Internal vs External Sources of Hire
The 22 responding firms
filled an estimated 154,958 positions in 20026 .This number represents
both the “Internal” movement of existing employees (53,073) as well as
“External” hires (101,885).
Using as a basis the 15
firms that were able to track and report both
internal and external hires,
Internal
movement accounts for 34.2% of ALL positions filled.
C.
External Hires
-
2001 vs.
2002
Of the 22 firms, 17 reported
on their previous year’s (2001) external
hiring activity. These firms hired 114,859 employees in 2001 vs. 81,772 in 2002.
2002
represented a 28.9% reduction in hiring activity from 2001.
-
2003 vs.
2002
19 firms offered estimates about
their external hiring planned for 2003. They reported that hiring would
increase to 108,027 from the 96,615 they reported in 2002.
2003
external hires are estimated to increase by 11.8%.
-
Traditional
vs. Internet Sources of hire
CareerXroads’ comparison of
hiring sources- other than the Internet, were purposely limited to Employee
Referrals, Newspapers, and Career Fairs. Sources we believe to be heavily
impacted by the internet7.
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Source %
of External Hires |
|
2002 Hires Study
vs. 2001 Hires Study8 |
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|
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Employee Referrals 26.6% 23.3% |
|
Newspapers 04.8% |
|
Career Fairs 03.2% |
|
ALL Internet Sources 27.0% 20.5% |
|
|
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ALL Other Sources9
38.4% |
Table 1- Source of Hires Comparison
Employee
Referrals and Internet sources of hires, combined, now account for more than ½
of ALL external hires
-
Sources of
Internet Hires
CareerXroads asked companies
to report on the number of hires from 4 specific sites: Monster.com,
CareerBuilder.com, HotJobs.com and DirectEmployers.com as well as All Other niche job sites and, hires
credited to the Company WebSite that could not be attributed to other sources.
This last is a potential source of error10.
(18, 11, and 15 companies
respectively reported hires from the first three sites mentioned above and these
numbers, reported below, reflect percentages from only these companies - increasing their overall impact slightly. Just
5 employers were able to track hires from Direct Employers –although many more were
members/subscribers. This result was unrepresentative and DirectEmployers data was
incorporated in “other niche sites”). Another result shown below may also be
skewed. One firm reported 900 hires to CareerBuilder. This represented the
entire difference between the %hires credited to HotJobs and CareerBuilder.
CareerXroads also asked
companies if they used niche “Diversity” job sites to improve their hiring
strategy. 18 claimed they did. 4 indicated they did not. Since most firms did
not track hires from these specific niche sites, we asked the firms to estimate the % of their diversity hires
from these sites. Their answers suggest that employers believe there is a limited
return from this specialized resource. (10 claimed 1% or less, 3 estimated 2%,
3 estimated 3%, 1 estimated 4%, 1 estimated 10%)
Sources of Internet Hires
2002 Hires Study vs. 2001 Hires Study
% of ALL % of ALL % of ALL % of ALL
External Internet
External Internet
Hires
Hires12 Hires
Hires12
|
Company Web Site 15.5% 58.9% 12.76%
62% |
|
|
|
Monster.com 03.6% 14.3% 01.9%
09% |
|
|
|
CareerBuilder.com 01.5% 05.7% |
|
HotJobs.com 00.5% 01.9% |
|
(CareerBuilder+Hotjobs)11 02.0% 07.6%
01.1% 05% |
|
|
|
All Other Job/Resume Sites 06.8% 21.2% 04.7% 23% |
Table 2 – Comparison of Internet Sources of Hire
II. CONCLUSIONS
It was our intention with
this study to offer readers sufficient information and disclosure (See III.
Footnotes) to draw their own conclusions, in part because we are extremely
critical of surveys that do not qualify their collection methodology. We purposely kept the data collection simple
and the scope narrowly focused. Even so, there are significant qualifications-
which we’ve endeavored to describe in the following section. Some readers will also
want to research other studies and, while we have access to several private
studies we cannot share, readers will find valuable information in SHRMs
metrics surveys at http://www.shrm.org/staffingmetrics/
and at Staffing.org, www.staffing.org.
Below are the conclusions we
have drawn.
We also encourage readers to
engage us by sharing additional conclusions with us or debating ours (mmc@careerXroads.com).
We also invite corporations
listed among the Fortune 500 who view themselves as high-volume employers to
add to our database and report their 2002 results. Simply go to www.assessa.com and type YV859FJ in the
“Survey ID” window on the left side of the page.
-
Internal
Placement. Companies that cannot fill at least 1/3 of their open positions via
internal movement need to attend to succession planning, “employee biding” and
retention programs or face the full impact of increasing turnover and low
retention on staffing. Emphasis on measuring quality as well as quantity is
even more important with these programs because of the investment.
-
Employee Referrals.
Employee referral programs, where communications, status and results are
enhanced significantly by technology driven internet/intranet applications will
continue to grow. Best practices are typically above 40%. Successful job
seekers increasingly will perceive job postings as merely an indication of a
company they should target, research and network – to an employee.
-
Traditional “sources
of hire”. Newspapers, other print sources, job fairs, etc. are especially
vulnerable in that they drive job seekers to the internet without tagging them.
They will have to improve how they measure the “path” they create and the subsequent
results (hires) if they are to profit and be perceived as viable. Companies are
improving their accuracy (slowly) about where their “company web site” hires originated
from. Better efforts are coming. Assumptions just won’t cut it.
-
Corporate Web
Sites. Corporations that invest in their staffing web pages will expect that,
as a source of hire (either directly or in support of other sources) can expect
a proportionally larger impact on hires.
-
Monster.com.
Monster has significantly improved its ability to deliver results. Other major
job sites are also visible, effective and growing their share of hires. Most sites
however, are not on the company’s radar and poorly measured, even though in the
aggregate they represent the largest segment of Internet hiring (other than the
company website). These niche sites (diversity, function, etc.) need to
generate proof of concept through results. By their very nature they may target
a smaller percentage of a company’s total hires but they still need to
demonstrate to the employer that they can satisfy their need to reach an
audience, engage them and send them on to be hired. Traffic alone just won’t
cut it. Results count.
-
Words of
caution. First, by aggregating the hires of all classes of employee, there is
no conclusion that can be drawn about “best” source of hire. Second, since no
cost data was collected there is no conclusion as to the “yield” for each
source as a % of budget invested. Third, companies are far from examining the
quality of hire by source. The data simply says what is happening- not
necessarily what should happen.
III. FOOTNOTES
The
following footnotes should help to clarify the method and limitations of the
data we collected. CareerXroads does not imply that this study is
representative of all company hiring or even a typical company hiring pattern.
Understanding this study’s limitations (as well as those of other studies)
allows one to draw better conclusions when applying to your own situation
CareerXroads
was not paid by anyone to conduct this study nor are we selling additional
information related to this study. We do not sit on any advisory boards of job
or resume sites.
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…conducted the survey1 |
The following questions were
posted to Assessa, a free survey-response ASP (http://www.eyecues.com/asa/index.cfm?fuseaction=sur&id=YV859FJ).
Responding firms were
contacted and asked to add in their employee referral numbers. All responded.
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Copyright © 2002 EyeCues Education Systems Inc., Assessa.com. All rights reserved. Patents pending. |
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Seventy-two firms were…
asked to report… “sources of hire” for 20022. |
Only staffing leaders in
large, high-volume, companies known personally by Gerry and Mark were
contacted. First, to increase the likelihood that they would respond and,
second, to better understand whether those who didn’t – either couldn’t or
wouldn’t. All individuals contacted were either responsible directly for
staffing metrics or had access to the individuals responsible for staffing
metrics.
Many, perhaps most of the
firms that did not reply, eventually responded that they did not have the data.
One had literally no hires. It was the only one in that category. Some of the
world’s largest firms just do not know where their hires come from. A few, do
not know how many positions their firm filled in the previous year (let alone
last month or, even better, real time). This confirms SHRM’s (Society for Human
Resource Management) staffing metric survey response that suggests nearly 15%
of firms do not even track number of hires. We also asked firms to indicate the
level of accuracy about their numbers. 17 of the 21 responded that they were
accurate.
This survey’s obvious bias
is large firms that track metrics and are hiring.
The firms (both those
invited and those responding) were headquartered on both coasts, the
The survey was limited
|
... specific firms would
not be identified in the report3. |
Many companies will not
allow their personnel to share data in reports where they will be identified,
even if their data is not. They fear they may be singled out or the fact that
their company participated might be construed as an endorsement. All firms
invited to report data are well-known to the public. The general range of
employee size was 10,000 -100,000.
|
Twenty-one firms (29.2%)
responded4. |
Firms responding to the 2002
survey represented diverse industries including: Consumer Goods, Manufacturing,
Pharmaceuticals, Computer Software and Hardware, Banking & Financial
Services, Defense, Telecommunications and Hospitality & Food Services. No
one industry dominated. All had employee populations larger than 10,000.
|
This is the second year
…CareerXroads… examin(ed)… sources of hire5. |
A copy of the 2001 report is
available by request (mmc@careerxroads.com)
|
The 21 responding firms
filled an estimated 147,508 positions in 20026 |
These 21 firms actually
reported 137,594 hires. Six firms reported only External hires and did not know
internal hires. The remaining 15 firms reported both and it was calculated that
the internal positions from these 15 firms represented an average of 33.8%. We
took this figure and estimated that an additional 9,814 positions were likely
filled internally by those firms that did not track internal hires. Regardless,
Internal positions were not used for any other calculation and the figure 33.8%
was derived on the basis of known accurate data.
|
Traditional…Sources we
believe to be heavily impacted by the internet7. |
Certainly a debatable point
of view. We can certainly support the notion that technology applications have
had a positive impact on improving Employee Referrals. Newspapers would argue
that the measure of their impact is seriously misleading because they drive
traffic with little embedded tracking. We argue that even if this is true, we
do not believe it is that significant. Regardless, it is a moot point because in
the end perception becomes reality when companies make decisions based on what
they measure. The reported number is a heads-up to newspapers to invest in
helping firms measure their true impact. Those that argue we should include
college hires, perm-to-temp, contingency agencies, executive search, bill
boards, corporate direct sourcing, resume mining, research services, direct
mailing, professional conferences, etc., etc., all have a point. But, then if
you choose to go that far, what about the impact of the contingent workforce,
PEOs, outsourcing and other forms of hiring that even fewer firms track let
alone analyze? When you want to sponsor some research, let us know. If you do
your own, disclose fully. Until then, we’ll keep it short and sweet.
|
2001 Hires Study8 |
See Above - This is the
second year …CareerXroads… examin(ed)… sources of hire5.
|
ALL Other Sources |
|
44.6%9 |
See Above- Traditional…Sources
we believe to be heavily impacted by the internet7.
|
This last (Company Web
Site) is a potential source of error10. |
iLogos Research, a division
of Recruitsoft, has offered insight into the activities driving traffic to
company staffing sites. A 2001 study by iLogos, reported that of the visitors
to the staffing home page
3% visited as a result of a
company email
3% from a print ad
5% News article or broadcast
5% from a job fair
12% from job boards
34% from word of mouth
38% a link from home page or
within the site.
While this data does not translate
proportionately to hires, it is an indication of the multiplicity of sources
that may be lumped into one category.
|
(CareerBuilder+Hotjobs)11 07.6% 02.0% 05% 01.1% |
The comparison with 2001
data includes CareerBuilder, Headhunter (now part of CareerBuilder) and Hotjobs.
Writers interested in
further discussion may contact Gerry and Mark at 732-821-6652 or
mmc@careerxroads.com
|
…All Internet Hires12 |
Percentages do not total 100%. A few companies
did not report hires for each category.
Gerry Crispin and Mark Mehler can be reached at
www.CareerXroads.com,
mmc@careerxroads.com
732-821-6652