Companies are increasingly looking for new employees using electronic media. For this reason, you can only apply for many positions online. This has advantages for both companies and applicants.
Like many other things, the application process has changed fundamentally in the last decade due to the Internet and digitalization. Traditional paper applications are becoming increasingly rare these days. The cumbersome word “recruitment” is also disappearing more and more in this context and is making way for the term “e-recruiting”. Sven Laumer and his colleagues from the Chair of “Information Systems and Services” at the University of Bamberg have been monitoring developments for more than ten years. Since then, researchers have been surveying top and medium-sized companies once a year about how they recruit new employees and job seekers about how they conduct their job search. The Bamberg scientists can identify clear development trends: While at the turn of the millennium over 70 percent of applications were received by companies in paper form, today the figure is only just under ten percent. In some cases, individual companies no longer have the opportunity to apply in the traditional way. By the way, the PDF application is often counted as an email attachment.
Apply: online masks
In recent years, application processes via online masks have become increasingly popular. The employer can request specific information from these, such as job-relevant language skills. At the same time, the applicant is given the opportunity to stand out from the crowd by uploading individual documents. The job seeker therefore does not need to be afraid of being drowned in a sea of data sets because he was unable to emphasize his individual strengths. The job seekers surveyed preferred electronic applications for cost reasons alone. The paper version with passport photo, copies of certificates and postage quickly costs money. These factors do not apply with an electronic application.
Applicants in the talent pool
Many companies have set up so-called talent pools with the help of e-recruiting. Because there is usually more than one qualified candidate for a position. With the consent of the applicants, the companies save their documents together with additional unsolicited applications received and can access them if needed again. This means job seekers only have to apply once for multiple positions at the same company.
Sven Laumer and his team are convinced that the application process will become more and more electronic in the next few years. M-Recruiting is the name of the latest trend and means searching for jobs via mobile devices and apps. Incidentally, in their studies, the scientists were unable to identify any differences between the individual disciplines - e-recruiting is increasingly being used in scientific and technical professions as well as in humanities professions.
Illustration: Sergi Bosch
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Companies are increasingly looking for new employees using electronic media. For this reason, you can only apply for many positions online. This has advantages for both companies and applicants. Like many other things, the application process has changed fundamentally in the last decade due to the Internet and digitalization. There is a traditional paper application
