Time for reinvention: Why digital recruitment is the new game

You’re a young college graduate with an above-average GPA and a degree from a prestigious university. The next stage of your life revolves around finding a well-paying job in your desired field and making a name for yourself in the corporate world. Your journey begins outside the interview room. You stand in a queue with 20 other people all waiting for their turn. The recruitment process is a slow one. One screening procedure leads to another and then another. And when you’re finally done with the interviews, the results aren’t given immediately. You might have to wait hours, days, or even weeks to find out the outcome. And they aren’t always guaranteed to be in your favour.

A poor outcome can make you feel dejected as if you wasted too much of your time and energy in one place. You feel like you could have used that energy somewhere else, and self-doubt makes you question your own goals and skill sets.

It’s not uncommon for many young people to feel disoriented in the work industry and struggle to find the right job for themselves and the helplessness about not belonging.  Many people believe that the lengthy hiring procedure is sometimes more challenging than the job itself.

But what if the recruitment process could be simplified? What if the time required to discover and hire a candidate was cut in half, and the entire process could be completed in less than an hour?

What if all hiring could be done online, to the benefit of both candidates and recruiters? A few decades ago, if you told someone that a simple software on the internet would one day transform the way recruiting firms operated and that an individual wouldn’t even have to get up from his sofa to get hired by a company, they would laugh in your face and call the idea absurd.

However, digital recruitment is becoming a new reality for many successful businesses

What is Digital Recruitment?

Today, the internet has become an important part of our daily lives; from getting news updates to talking to loved ones who are living continents away; the internet has allowed the world to be completely digitalized, including online businesses. The digitalization of businesses has transformed the way we work, how we live, and even how we communicate with one another.

Digital recruitment, also known as online recruiting, is a process in which hiring managers and human resources professionals use technology as a web-based tool to hire the candidate who best corresponds to the needs of the companies. Finding the most qualified and skilled individuals is now easier than ever before, thanks to the internet and the use of social media as a tool. Companies are no longer limited to hiring the top candidates through a local newspaper or advertising on a bulletin board; instead, companies can recruit from anywhere in the world for vacancies from the comfort of their own offices.

As half of the world's businesses migrated to the online sphere, it was inevitable that the hiring industry would undergo a significant transformation, with digital recruitment eventually becoming the primary means for recruiting candidates. Social media has proven to be one such crucial tool for recruiting companies in the hiring process. Platforms that we are already familiar with, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, can be wonderful tools for hiring organizations to locate qualified applicants.

Why Digital Recruitment Has Replaced Traditional Recruitment Methods?

The reason why digital recruitment has become more popular than traditional hiring methods is that it is more cost-effective and time-saving, among other benefits. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and company websites, among other online portals, are used for digital recruitment and selection. Quick and cost-effective ways of recruitment are essential in ensuring that an organization's performance remains top-notch in today's work climate. Companies can use digital recruiting and selection to hire qualified, competent, and diversely skilled employees without having to comply with time-consuming and space-constrained restrictions. Prospective employees begin their internet job search by visiting business websites that post available vacancies. Applicants apply for job openings through internet platforms after learning about the requirements.

Benifits of Digital Recruitment

Digital recruitment is a Cost-effective method

 The typical hiring procedure can be costly because a company must pay for advertising, third-party recruiter fees, travel expenditures, and operational expenses. Print media, for example, is an expensive and time-consuming promotional tool for the company. However, the cost of digital recruitment is substantially lower because the organization does not have to pay to put something on its website or social media platform. Because most recruiting is done online, this digitalized technique of hiring also benefits potential candidates by lowering the cost of travel and other expenses.

Digital recruitment provides accessibility to a larger audience

The convenient accessibility of the internet in every household, as well as the widespread use of social media as a tool for recruitment by people of all ages, has created a massive job market online where recruiters and candidates can access a diverse range of job prospects, benefiting both sides. When a job advertisement reaches a larger audience, it indicates that a business has a high chance of attracting the best-suited employees for a particular job opening. A large and diversified pool of job searchers promotes competitiveness for the job position, allowing the business to select from only the best-qualified candidates.

Digital recruitment makes candidate evaluation easy

Online recruiting is not only advantageous in terms of cost-cutting and time savings, but it also aids in applicant evaluation using various AI solutions and software tools designed to screen potential candidates and perform virtual interviews. Candidates can also be evaluated remotely utilizing methods such as video interviews and video evaluations. There is no need to travel long distances or settle for local talent. Hiring teams can also use the records to skip multiple interview rounds, reducing hiring time significantly.

Digital recruitment is a fast and efficient way of recruitment

There is no doubt that digital recruitment is a significantly faster procedure than traditional employment approaches. A job posting placed online, on any social networking platform, or the company's website will generate more responses and applications because the post reaches a large number of people, bringing in more applicants for the employer to screen. The recruiting process has been streamlined in terms of time efficiency, thanks to digital recruitment tools that allow underqualified candidates' resumes to be screened out and a larger pool of job candidates to be located.

Digital recruitment helps reduces paperwork

All candidate information, like application forms or competency tests, is hosted in a digital format through virtual recruiting, reducing the paperwork burden that traditional recruitment typically comes with. When required, employers can easily get information about a candidate in real time. Employers can readily obtain information on a candidate in real time as needed. If the candidate approves, employers can even record interviews. This allows employers to go back and evaluate what a candidate said, analyze his/her demeanor during the interview, reducing the necessity of taking detailed notes during the interview.

Disadvantages of Digital Recruitment 

Too many candidates to choose from

 Digital recruitment has its own set of drawbacks. Everyone is free to submit job applications on an online platform where job vacancies are listed for all to see, even if their qualifications and skill sets do not meet the employment requirements. As a result, the hiring team must sift through hundreds of applications and evaluate each candidate. Even among the shortlisted candidates, there is no guarantee of how many will show up for an actual interview. As a result, businesses must ensure that their job listing is clear, with exact job wording, description, qualifications, and roles and responsibilities of the desired candidate.

The competitive nature of the online job market 

The competition in the online job market isn’t only limited to the candidates. The online platform allows recruiters from other companies to publish their job openings, transforming the hiring market into a competitive one in which everyone wants to hire the best applicant. Because the employment market has grown so saturated, it is easy for recruiters to lose the promising potential to their rivals. As a result, many recruitment firms spend more money on online web portals to ensure their listing remains at the top.

The technical difficulties of digital recruitment

Technical issues are a prevalent problem in the digital age. An equipment failure or a poor internet connection could quickly derail an essential zoom call or online conference. This type of ongoing technical upheaval can be harmful to the company's long-standing reputation.

The impersonal nature of online recruitment

 Some candidates may find the digitalized approach of online recruitment overly impersonal at times. They may feel too disconnected because there is no face-to-face communication between the candidates and the hiring personnel. If hiring firms can discover a way to ensure that there are opportunities for communication throughout the recruitment process, employers may find that they can communicate with candidates more effectively in a virtual environment than they could while recruiting traditionally.

The Future of Digital Recruitment 

Technology has changed the face of the recruitment industry. Even now, the hiring market is constantly evolving through technological advancements. Whether it is through automation of the employment process or the usage of highly intelligent AI technology, the sector is fast evolving. Talent acquisition has gone a long way in our modern, digital society. Recruitment is now critical for every firm, particularly for those entering a high-growth stage. And, thanks to digitalization and the internet, candidate management is now more convenient and efficient than ever. Even though the print media still has sections filled with job postings, most job seekers today rely more on digital recruitment and the number is ever-growing.

We have now reached the point where industries have adopted AI technology as the backbone of their operations. With their capacity to sort applicants rapidly and precisely, many AI-based technologies have transformed the recruitment process. So, what does that tell us about the future of the hiring industry?

Digitalization and computerization are two of the most crucial trends that will certainly shape the future of all types of organizations around the world. With artificial intelligence occupying more and more space in the hiring process, the human workforce will likely resort to doing fewer tasks, particularly basic repetitive ones.

Recruitment experts will be able to focus more on candidate management responsibilities thanks to automation technologies and a more advanced AI processing. Predictive analytics will likely be used to identify potential candidates in the future, making the hiring process completely data-driven. Predictive analytics can help businesses make better judgments when it comes to hiring the best people for specific positions. Predictive analytics will accelerate candidate selection since they can sift through applicant data and automatically place the most qualified individuals with skills and experiences at the top of the list. The recruitment sector will most likely become even more competitive because of these changes.

Seeing how rapidly technology is changing the working of digital recruitment, it’s easy to see how in ten to fifteen years, candidates may no longer need to fill out application forms or submit resumes because all the information can be consolidated and quickly accessed through a new sort of smart gadget with our assessment results and important information already submitted.

This will make things much easier for both job seekers and employers. Instead of waiting for CVs, recruiting agencies will simply and rapidly search for applicants using their smart devices.

Digital recruitment is a process that is here to stay in the industry for a long time. As long as there growth in the technological sector and digitalization, it won’t take long before the digital recruitment process becomes the future of corporate recruiting.