Channel the Resume Flood With Applicant Tracking Systems - online recruiting - Brief Article

Workforce, Jan, 2001 by Paul A. Gilster

An economy-wide shortage of labor and an overwhelming influx of candidates are behind the growth and popularity of applicant tracking.

If you need skilled workers--and who doesn't?--be aware that HR recruiting is changing as fast as the technology that now supports it. An economy-wide shortage of labor and an overwhelming influx of electronic resumes are driving the growth of applicant tracking systems (ATS) from companies like BrassRing Systems and Personic.

The key driver: strong employment growth in service industries coupled with unemployment at a 30-year low. In fact, the unemployment rate, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, declined to 4 percent in November. No wonder the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) predicted last year that half the needed jobs in information technology--almost 850,000--would go unfilled in 2000, a shortage of one job in every dozen.

Nor does the situation look likely to change soon.

The BLS' projections for the American work force between 1998 and 2008 call for an increase in total employment of 14 percent, with service industries accounting for almost all the job growth. During the same period, the supply of workers is projected to increase by only 12 percent.

Statistics like these have built a market for products that aid recruiters. "We're seeing growth in this category simply because companies have a need to hire people and automate broken processes," said International Data Corporation research manager Andrew Goloboy. IDC sees the overall category of workforce management tools--including applications for hiring, employing and retaining workers--rising from $1 billion in 1999 to S4 billion in 2003.

One huge factor is the number of resumes generated by online recruitment. Some 2.5 million of them are now online. Web sites like Monster.com, where recruiters create job postings that generate these resumes, have led to an explosion in their numbers. But so have career Web sites run by corporations. A recent Recruitsoft/iLogos Research report finds 100 percent of Fortune 500 companies will have careers sections, post jobs, and accept applications on their corporate Web site by 2002. And while while 76 percent of Fortune 500 companies currently post jobs on their corporate sites, fewer than 10 percent use hiring management systems to handle the flow.

And what a flow it is. The average life expectancy of a hot resume, says Recruitsoft, is a mere 72 hours. Nor is it just the speed of turnover that's boosting the ATS market. Because they're easy to post and disseminate, online resumes often wind up scattershot through hundreds of corporations. "They're being broadcast all over the world," says Michael Foster, CEO of AIRS, a firm specializing in tools to help companies search for qualified people. "These firehose streams of resumes demand systems to filter them out and manage the result."

With 48 percent of corporate recruiters posting their job opportunities on the Web last year, according to Watson Wyatt Worldwide, the trick is to solicit resumes from people with the right skills, to manage that electronic information and track it through the hiring process.

For online recruitment is here to stay. Forrester Research believes it will grow from a $1.2 billion industry to $7.1 billion by 2005. Recruiters will increase their online spending 52 percent in the next three years, mainly at the expense of print advertising and search agency fees. With numbers like these, expect to see a continuing demand for resume management and application tracking services. They'll give companies a leg up on finding and managing job applicants whose worth can only continue to climb.

Paul A. Gilster is a freelance writer based in Raleigh, North Carolina.