Case Study - E-recruitment - not complicated just common sense

“E-recruitment - it was so easy. Everything was up and running in just six weeks. In fact our six month pilot with JGP was so successful that we are now actively pursuing the greater opportunities e-recruitment has to offer”, Tony Madden, Human Resources Manager, Bracknell Forest Borough Council.

In just six months, Bracknell Forest has revolutionised its recruitment business. Now more than 60% of all job applications are online; advertising spend has dropped by almost 40% and, as currently only a quarter of all jobs are just being advertised on the web, potential savings are even greater.

Print and production costs have been slashed as most people now apply online or download their own packs and the Council also hopes that another hidden benefit of e-recruitment will be a reduction in staff turnover.

Bracknell Forest's Recruitment Strategy Manager, Janet Berry, the person responsible for implementing e-recruitment said: “In a conventional newspaper ad there is no space to talk about what living and working in Bracknell Forest is like. On the web you can give people more information so they know what to expect and can make a more informed decision before deciding whether they would like to come and work for us”.

Bracknell Forest's remarkable achievement is down to a combination of factors, not least the enthusiasm with which the whole Council has embraced the change.

Janet said: “The demand for e-recruitment was manager-led. In a time of tight budgets they were keen to scrutinise advertising spend and simplify the whole process so needed little convincing that e-recruitment was the way forward”.

So keen were they in fact that the Council took the unusual step of recruiting Janet to spearhead new recruitment initiatives with her number one task being to get e-recruitment up and running.

Janet said: “The pilot has been an incredible success. When JGP told us how much we would save we thought it was just sales talk. It wasn't. We have been constantly surprised by just how many people have first heard about one of our jobs online.

“For example, we recently spent £6,000 to £7,000 advertising a job in the press, only to find that most people saw it on the web first and in the last three months alone 42% of all new appointees first saw the job advertised online.

“Buying an off-the-shelf product was also a good move saving the inevitable lengthy discussions over specifications. As HR is not centralised here, with each department having its own HR team, it was essential that we had a product rigid enough to ensure consistency and quality, but flexible enough to allow for variations in procedures. Now with everyone on the same system we have an overview across the Council of all our recruitment”.

Delighted with the success of the project to date, the Council is now keen to look at what else e-recruitment can offer.

Tony said: “We are determined to build on the success we have achieved so far. We want to e-enable our whole recruitment process linking our incoming applications to our electronic recruitment system. We want to signpost more to our web site, increase the number of jobs only advertised online, re-cycle candidates and really start to use statistics to inform future recruitment decisions”.

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