• The site should sell your organization's culture and mission.
  What is it like to work and grow within your organization? How does your organization see its fit within the community?
  
  
• The site should sell careers, not just jobs. Most potential applicants are interested in how they can grow with the organization.
  
  
• The site should focus on your most important recruiting needs. Focus on either the openings you have a hard time filling, or those you fill the most often. Giving equal weight to every job posting only waters down your most critical needs.
  
  
• The site should have a way to establish a relationship with the visitor. Most passive job seekers will never visit your web site again. You should obtain enough information from the visitor to make contact with them when you have positions that match their skill sets.
  
  
• The site should have back end support. The most competitive employers have measures in place to get back in touch with potential applicants. Cisco Systems offers visitors a 'Cisco friend", an employee who will call the visitor and give them inside information on the company, its' culture, and career opportunities. Other employers use a call center model where sales reps call visitors back and establish a business relationship with them. One of the speakers said he got his current job when the president of the company called him back 10 minutes after he submitted his resume on-line.   ^top of page

• The site should provide specific information about salary, benefits, and scope of work. While many employers prefer to list salary as "Depending on Qualifications", most passive job seekers expect a quid pro quo for information. Additionally, it's more economical to let an applicant screen themselves out than to expend resources interviewing them only to have them refuse your offer at the end because the salary or job didn't meet their expectations.
  
  
• The site should provide information on the recruitment, application, and selection process. Potential applicants are more likely to leave information if they understand what will happen with it.
  
  
• The site should make it easy to apply. Most web recruiting sites offer an automated application system. The biggest impediment to recruiting passive job seekers today is the requirement of an updated resume. Cisco allows passive job seekers to simply fill out an abbreviated profile questionnaire on-line.
  
  
• The site should be easily accessible and navigable. Visitors should be able to easily access the recruitment site from the main page. Speakers suggested a big button that says 'Jobs'. The site should also be easy to navigate through.
  
  
• The site should be designed as a marketing tool. Speakers suggested that the recruiting site should have a different look and feel than the corporate site because it exists for a different purpose. It should also be test marketed with focus groups consisting of people outside your organization.
  
  
• The site should have mechanisms for screening potential applicants. It's one thing to collect more resumes. It's another to actually sift through them all to find the people you want. Speakers suggested that some of the major job boards are already becoming dinosaurs because they don't do an effective job screening resumes and establishing relationships with potential applicants. The best recruiting sites today offer skills assessment tests and personality profile tests that either make decisions about applicants, or allow applicants to self-select whether they want to apply.     ^top of page

• Integration with cellular telephones and other technologies.
  Integrated technologies are the wave of the future. The Internet will connect to household appliances, vehicles, electronics, and other communication mediums like cell phones. One speaker envisioned applicants leaving information on a web site via their cell phone/Internet connection, getting an automated call back two weeks later when a new job opened up, and then hitting a button to indicate they are interested in an interview.
  
  
• Video-streaming technology for informational and other interviews.
  To mitigate the cost of flying in candidates and interviewers, applicants will be able to use real-time video conferencing via their Internet connection to meet with employers. Cisco is even experimenting with providing video presentations by employees talking about their jobs.
  
  
• Automated skills and personality profile screening. 
  It's one thing to collect more resumes. It's another to actually sift through them all to find the people you want. Speakers suggested that some of the major the job boards are already becoming dinosaurs because they don't do an effective job screening resumes and establishing relationships with potential applicants. The best recruiting sites today offer skills assessment tests and personality profile tests that either make decisions about applicants, or allow applicants to self-select whether they want to apply.
  
  
• Permission to enter the organization's Intranet. Once the security considerations are addressed, many employers will begin letting potential applicants inside their Intranet to get an 'insider's view'. In one survey, 97% of college students said that their sole source of information about potential employers was the Internet. If organizational culture is one of the key selling points for job applicants, then the Intranet will likely be the best place to sell the organization.     ^top of page

Trilogy	http://www.trilogy.com/pages/careers/Careers.htm
Cisco Systems, Inc.	http://www.cisco.com/pcgi-bin/jobs.pl
Agilent Technologies	http://www.jobs.agilent.com
Goldman Sachs	http://www.gs.com/recruiting/home.html
U.S. Mint	http://www.usmint.gov/jobs/join_our_team_home.cfm
Microsoft	http://www.microsoft.com/jobs
IBM	http://www-3.ibm.com/employment/us
Merrill Lynch	http://www.ml.com/careers/index.htm
Human Code, Inc.	http://www.humancode.com/index2.htm
Boston Consulting Group	http://www.bcg.com/careers/careers_splash.asp

• Mr. Cary Smith - Hire.com http://www.hire.com  (Talent Officer)
  Hire.com is the leading e-recruiting application service provider (ASP) committed to empowering organizations to effectively win the talent war through an unparalleled automated process on their own corporate Web site, powered by Hire.com. Customers include Boeing, Microsoft, KPMG, Sprint, Houston Chronicle, priceline.com, Fidelity Investments, GT Interactive, First USA, Electronic Arts, General Instrument, IBM, EDS, MCI WorldCom, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Iomega, LSI Logic, the U.S. Mint and US WEST. Investors include the venture capital from Austin Ventures, Crosspoint Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and TL Ventures. Corporate investors include the Hearst Corporation, Pulitzer Inc., Essex Investment Company, LLC and Dell Computer Corporation.
  
  
• Mr. Kevin Wheeler - Global Learning Resources, Inc. http://www.glresources.com  (President)
  Kevin Wheeler is a consultant in strategic staffing and a pioneer in establishing corporate universities. He is a frequent contributing author to the Electronic Recruiting Daily published by the Electronic Recruiting Exchange (http://www.erexchange.com) He is the president of Global Learning Resources, Inc. which is an education and consulting firm specializing in the strategic acquisition, development and retention of employees. He published the Corporate University Review, a bi-monthly newsletter on corporate education and human capital.
  
  
• George Surovik, Sr. - Cisco http://www.cisco.com  (Sr. Manager -Employment)
  Mr. Surovik has over twenty years' experience working in the high-tech industry, including roles ranging from Recruiter to Worldwide Staffing Director. He currently manages a staff of over 30 people. Mr. Surovik has developed a recruitment strategy modeled after successful business and marketing strategies. His team emphasizes proactively recruiting targeted talent in nontraditional, innovative ways. Proving the success of his hiring methods, Cisco's SP employee base has grown by an average of 600 to 1200 each quarter during his tenure with less than 7 percent attrition. Mr. Surovik has also focused on improving the quality of hire and recruitment process. His primary duties include strategic organizational and workforce planning, as well as the growth and development of his staffing organizations. He is also responsible for developing team and individual staff members; directing and coordinating the smooth integration of acquisitions; and helping executives develop and refine hiring methods.

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Notes from Northwest Recruiters Association panel discussion on "How to Get Maximum Recruiting Impact from Your Web Site" Wednesday, May 17, 2000  Panel discussion: What follows is a synthesis of all three speaker's comments during the panel discussion and Q&A period.  Thank you to NWRA for allowing the publication of these notes and to Mark Sullivan, Affirmative Action Manager, Washington State Department of Labor and Industries (360) 902-5680 for the write up.
Look for L&I job opportunities at http://www.wa.gov/lni/ohr/lnijobs.htm