Human element offline - 06/2001

Skills shortages are already impacting on the quantity and quality of responses to Internet advertised job vacancies. Now job website Totaljobs.com has teamed up with recruitment specialists Professional Pre-Selection Services, to provide an additional offline service to help recruiters secure the best online talent faster.

During the three-month trial collaboration, PPS will providing a telephone response handling service to shortlist all online applicants.

Victoria Phillpot, MD at PPS says: ìWhere the Internet scores is in its ability to attract a phenomenal number of responses. On average 4 million people regularly seek jobs online, but huge volumes of applications can be time consuming to filter efficiently. And when talent becomes scarce, speed is even more important.î

ìWhilst software programmes can organise the responses and act as a filter at a certain level, a person with recruitment/HR skills conducting telephone screening is the fastest and most accurate way to separate the relevant from the irrelevant applications and reduce the level of e-administration. Telephone pre-screening is the nature of our business and is easily applied to handling Internet responses. Itís quick and efficient and can include a competency-based telephone interview stage to determine a candidateís suitability for a face-to-face interview.î

ìI am confident that the trial with Totaljobs.com will show that a holistic approach to recruitment, using combination of human skills and technology is the best way forward.î

Mark Asten, group sales manager for Totaljobs.com adds: ìWe linked up with PPS because we were aware of the need to look at how our clients were handling the responses to their Internet recruitment programmes. During the course of the pilot we will be offering PPSís telephone response handling services to those clients requiring extra assistance in the increasingly challenging search for the right candidates.î

www.pps500.co.uk