Switch to online graduate recruitment

19 February 2001 - More and more of Australia’s largest employers are moving to online graduate recruitment and away from slow and costly 'traditional' methods. This reflects market demand as recent surveys show that as many as 94% of undergraduate and MBA job seekers visit corporate websites to gather information and evaluate prospects before they make their applications.

Shell, Orica, Arthur Andersen, Ford Australia, MIM Holdings, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, and Westpac are just a few top businesses which are adding recruitment functionality to their websites with products such as GradManager from nga.net in Melbourne. Grad Manager was designed specifically for large organisations needing to collect and process applications at a fraction of normal recruiting costs.

Richard Ogier-Herbert, General Manager of nga.net in Melbourne, claims administrative cost savings in the region of 70% from the use of Grad Manager as a recruitment tool.

"The ease of access, centralised location, automated processing and communication and its position at the leading edge make GradManager ideal for large organisations to manage their volume recruitment," he said.

He expects up to 95% of Australia's top 500 companies to adopt this type of technology to meet volume recruitment needs.

Shell Australia takes on about 30 graduates a year in engineering, business and IT. From this year all graduate applications will be handled online. Candice Topp, who deals with graduate applications for Shell Australia comments that the group had switched to on-line graduate recruiting because "it is the way the market is heading."

"With more and more students using the internet, we saw significant benefits in encouraging on-line applications for our annual placement of graduates," Ms Topp said.

With a turnaround time of just 24 to 48 hours, compared with a week or more for paper-based applications, there is a major benefit for applicants.

"If you regard graduate applicants as customers, as we do, then it is in their best interests to have their interest and our determination acknowledged as quickly as possible. We can avoid so much time consuming manual processing by capturing data electronically, uploading it into information systems and doing all sorts of tracking." Ms Topp said.

Natalie Rice, Graduate Program Coordinator for Orica, considers that on-line graduate recruiting indicates a more professional approach and improves organisational efficiency. Orica has 1,500 graduate applications each year for around 20 places on the Graduate Leadership Program in engineering, science, IT and marketing.

"The paper-based system was becoming more and more demanding on us. The on-line application system will streamline the process, increasing our internal efficiencies and allowing us to screen and respond to applicants in a timely manner."

"It’s a two-way thing: we need to be quick off the mark to ensure we get the right people and the applicants themselves deserve a timely response," Ms Rice said.