Sunday, June 17, 2001

Global 500 Increase Web Site Recruiting in Europe

iLogos Research, a research firm dedicated to the study of trends in the online recruiting industry, today released its 2001 version of the Global 500 Web Site Recruiting Survey, which has been providing information about the adoption of corporate Web site recruiting, worldwide, since 1998. The Global 500 Survey includes the largest companies in the world based on gross revenue and segments the information by three regions: Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America. The survey reports what percent of Global 500 companies are using the corporate Web site as a tool to acquire human capital assets. Additionally, the report cites online recruiting trends and forecasts future strategies. iLogos Research is a division of Recruitsoft, Inc., the leading provider of online hiring management solutions.

"Since 1998, global Internet usage for recruiting purposes has expanded significantly," said Yves Lermusiaux, president and founder of iLogos Research, "from 29 percent of Global 500 companies in 1998 to 88 percent today. This year’s survey shows that European and Asia-Pacific companies’ growth is stronger than that of North American corporations. For the most part, this is due to the different adoption stages of the Internet in various regions of the world. However, there still remain significant opportunities to be exploited with newer integrated technologies in corporate hiring management practices overall."

Lermusiaux continued, "Most importantly, in order to leverage the true power of the Internet, corporations need to marry the front-end careers Web site with a back-end automation solution, facilitating global communication. This results in a fast and systematic process automating the recruiting supply chain and bringing a standardized, real-time process to one of the most important, and least efficient, areas of corporate governance."

The study determines that the largest increase in the adoption rate for corporate Web site recruiting occurred among Global 500 companies located in the Asia-Pacific region, with an increase of 20 percent over the last year, to 88 percent of Asia-Pacific Global 500 companies. European companies saw an increase in online recruiting of 10 percent, to 83 percent of European Global 500 companies; and North American Global 500 companies increased just one percent, to a leading 93 percent, approaching saturation in career Web site recruiting.

Additionally, in 1998, 14 percent of Global 500 companies did not have a corporate Web site; today, all Global 500 companies have a corporate Web site. Furthermore, in 1998, 57 percent of Global 500 companies did not use the corporate Web site for recruiting purposes; today, only 12 percent of Global 500 companies do not use the corporate Website for recruiting purposes.

According to the study, most Global 500 companies currently incorporate Internet recruiting into the typical hiring strategy. By 2002, iLogos Research expects that nearly 100 percent of the Global 500 will be utilizing corporate Web sites for recruiting, with a few late adopters coming in 2003.

According to iLogos, the next opportunity will be true eheadhunting, followed by online workforce optimization including such processes as skills inventorying, skills gapping and talent deployment, in real time, based on the needs of the organization. iLogos Research Vice President Alice Snell said, "The increased adoption of corporate Career Web site recruiting positions the world's largest companies to take advantage of the powerful opportunity to not just Web-ify existing processes, but to use technology to gain productivity and effectiveness by taking the next steps into online recruiting and talent management."