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recruitment providers.
Analysis of online recruitment methods in the UK
260 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 18 NO 3, 2008
© 2008 The Authors.
Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
The survey was initially conducted as a paper-based survey, but was changed to
an online survey in 2001. The online and paper-based surveys were run in parallel
for two quarters in order to ensure that the change in method of data collection did
not have an impact on the results. In each quarter, the survey was online for one
month in total.
For each quarter, including the June (Q2) 2006 survey, approximately 16,000
employers were contacted via email and were asked to complete the survey using a
web link that was included in the email. These potential respondents were drawn
from an electronic database of employers developed specifically by the authors for
this purpose. From December (Q4) 2002 onward, this database was supplemented
with a list of subscribers to a weekly UK HR magazine. The survey was also
advertised in a daily broadsheet newspaper and a weekly HR publication in order
to maximise its reach to the target population of recruiters. Respondents included
HR directors and managers, finance directors, managing directors and recruitment
specialists from a sample of UK organisations with over 25 employees. It was
requested as part of the survey that the respondent should have the primary
responsibility for recruitment decision making within their organisation.
Interviews
Fifteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives from
organisations that use online recruitment methods. The interviewees were senior HR
or resourcing managers with responsibility for recruitment. While it is not possible
to be representative of the population with only 15 interviews, participants from a
range of organisations were included to allow some variation by industry sector,
organisation size and geographical location. The organisations also varied in their
use of online recruitment methods. An additional five interviews were conducted
with providers of online recruitment technology in order to obtain a broader
perspective. The purpose of these interviews was to supplement the survey data
with a more in-depth view of what it is that may lead to, first, an organisation’s
decision to use online recruitment and, second, their success at using online
recruitment methods. Interviewees were asked to discuss their use of online
recruitment, the reasons for their initial adoption of the method and the degree of
success that they had experienced with the method. They were also asked for their
opinions on why their use of online recruitment had been successful or unsuccessful.
Each interview was recorded and transcribed. The content of the interviews was
analysed using the content analysis software Nvivo (QSR International Victoria,
Australia) in order to identify common themes.
RESULTS
The survey produced 25,224 responses over the period of December (Q4) 1999 to
June (Q2) 2006 (an average of 935 organisations per survey).
For the June (Q2) 2006 survey, 39 per cent of responding organisations had
between 25 and 199 employees, 33 per cent had between 200 and 499 employees, and
34 per cent had over 500 employees. Responding organisations were evenly spread
across the UK, with between 20 and