First lessons in online recruitment - 09/2001

From September students at 40 UK universities and colleges will be the first to learn about online recruitment. The initiative comes from Job Partners and Peter Kingsbury, senior lecturer at the University of Luton.

The module, which is free of charge, is designed for students who study recruitment at all levels. It uses a fictitious retailer, Jones Brothers, to demonstrate how information technology can streamline the recruitment process. Students will use an online recruitment system to appoint a Corporate Organisation and employee development manager, a department manager or a supervisor. They will use the system to design a job description and person specification, put the job advertisement out through different channels, shortlist candidates and devise interview questions. Students can also apply for the case study jobs themselves and then be interviewed.

Job Partners have supplied the technology for the module based on their market leading online recruitment solution, ActiveRecruiter. The module will enable students to use a working version of ActiveRecruiter through an online link. Julian Kulkarni co-founder of Job Partners says:

ìWhen I was at University I noticed that teaching materials were sometimes behind the times. They often didnít reflect what was currently happening in the outside world. We want to help todayís students go out into the workforce knowing the impact and contribution technology can make to human resource management. This is particularly important because the market is growing rapidly. By the time many current students get into the workplace and professional students finish their studies, using erecruitment will be the norm.î
Peter Kingsbury of the University of Luton, has been championing the use of information technology to aid decision making in human resources for some years. He says:

ìHR courses can be boring and often do not reflect or utilise the advances in technology and the real world. For example, when I studied statistics I spent a lot of time making calculations and didnít have time to think what the results actually meant. This course will enable students to focus on recruitment strategies and effective decision making because the process is taken care of by the technologyî.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development is among the 40 institutions that have signed up for the module. One of the first Universities to sign up for the course is Middlesex. Wendy Banfield, FCIPD and senior lecturer of human resource management at Middlesex University Business School said:

ìI am very excited to be one of the first teachers of human resource management to use Job Partnersí recruitment system, the dedicated module which has been specifically developed to foster the selection skills of human resources management students. This module will enable me to give my students something new and interesting, which will better prepare them as human resources management professionals.î

Business analysts, IDC have estimated that the worldwide e-recruiting market will be worth $13.4 billion in revenue by 2005, with a compound annual growth rate of 52.4%. By the time many of these students graduate erecruitment systems will be becoming commonplace.

www.luton.ac.uk or www.jobpartners.com