Design Of An Online Job Search Portal System

Introduction

Background of the Study

The internet has revolutionized many aspects of our lives, even the way we look for jobs nowadays. If one wants to find a job, he or she can submit a resume online and receive an email notification on the applied job opportunity. However, unemployment is one of the detrimental social issues facing both developing and developed countries. A person is referred to as being unemployed if he or she is not working, not in a position to work, and searching for work under definite or known duration of time. Unemployment is a serious issue and has enormous effects on the well-being of unemployed people and even their families (McKee-Ryan, Song, Wanberg, & Kinicki, 2005). Japan's infamous corporate recruitment process is a tiring road that lasts months and involves contact with dozens of companies. "It's not that we are rejecting everything about the job-hunting process.

We just want to live. We just want a job"(The Japan Times: Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2010). Furthermore, in Europe, the unemployment rate has been rising rapidly since the 1970’s. Among the causes for this obstacle is the unfair distribution or lack of information on job opportunities thereby jobseekers lack reliable information on job vacancies available (Dorn & Naz, 2007). This means even though there might be job vacancies, jobseekers might not be having an access to that information. Online recruitment has now become the prevailing means for searching and applying for jobs made available by employers to jobseekers. According to Kanfer, job search is a dynamic self-regulatory and goal-oriented process, occurring as a response to a discrepancy between people’s employment goals and the situation they are in at the time (Kanfer, 2001).

The Internet having evolved in the employment recruitment process. Over 53% of those assimilated into the job market did so through an online job posting, moreover, according to a good number of forecasts that this will be on the rise as time elapses as noted in Germany. An efficient search of the internet has been of much help to jobseekers. Over the years, web portals have been developed that provide an effective way to search the internet for information by job seekers in an endeavor to find job vacancies. Despite these achievements, the information flow in the online labour market is far from optimal. A large number of online job portals have sprung up, dividing the online labour market into information islands and making it close to impossible for a job seeker to get an overview of all relevant open positions. Their strong market position, as the prime starting point for job seekers, allows job portals to charge employers high fees for publishing open positions.

Due to these costs employers publish their job postings only on a small number of portals, which prevents the offers from reaching all qualified applicants. Employers often receive a large number of applications for an open position, due to the strained situation of the labour market. The costs of manually preselecting potential candidates have risen and employers are searching for means to automate the preselection of candidates. Thus, employers would like to decrease transaction costs for publishing job postings and for preselecting appropriate candidates. Job seekers would profit from increased transparency in the labour market in their search for a matching position. Information Technology is yet to be efficiently and effectively incorporated in the job recruitment process: Recruitment processWeb recruitment is the process of identifying potential job applicants who might want join an organization and encouraging them to apply for existing or anticipated job vacancies (Bohlander & Snell, 2007). During this process, attempts are made to inform the applicants fully about the qualifications suited for the job and the career opportunities the organization can offer its employees. Similarly, recruitment can described as a process of attracting groups of individuals into an organization (Gatewood & Field, 1998). They stated recruitment has three major purposes:

1. To increase the pool of applicants while minimizing cost.
2. Achieve the organization’s legal and social obligations concerned with the demographic composition of its workers.
3. Aid in increasing the success rate of the selection process through the elimination of poorly qualified applicants with inadequate skills.

Both definitions perceive recruitment as a process that involve a series of steps that includes receiving, reviewing and acting on resumes and job application forms by job seekers. Therefore, Web recruitment refers to the placement of job postings on either corporate Web sites or Web-based job portals such as ‘Monster. com. ’Despite the widely recognized growth in Web-based recruitment and the changes they have brought (Ployhart, 2006), it has not yet reached its full potential as an effective recruitment platform. For instance, job postings on job boards such as ‘monster. com’ tend to solicit applications from a large number of job seekers who do not have appropriate qualifications for the jobs they applied for.

Since corporations are exposed to limited Web-based job applications, attracting applicant pools that are both smaller and of higher quality is essential in a Web recruitment case so as to increase efficiency of processing, minimize the number of applicants who will highly likely be rejected, and reduce the costs of identifying suitable job applicants (Cappelli, 2001). Moreover, Wang & Kleiner (2004) noted some regretful mistakes that employers have been making in the recruitment process:

1. Hiring with much haste.
2. Recruiting by gut feelings.
3. Hiring through perceived perfect references.
4. Recruiting on basis that former employers had no criticism.
5. Hiring as the applicant was successful in the interview.
6. Recruiting by being impressed by outstanding resume.
7. Hiring because they have an excellent recommended.

This challenges have been kept to some limit by the adoption of the internet in the recruitment process by online job portals. In most public organizations, however, the recruiting process starts well before the submission of any resume or application form. ResumesA resume is a general summary of one’s education and employment experience in the search for a job. Organizations receive resumes from job seekers, review them and shortlist those meeting the job qualifications. “The screening process begins with evaluating resumes. The objective of the resume is to generate enough interest to get an interview” (Gurumurthy & Kleiner, 2002). Employment interviews are generally considered by practitioners as the most used selection criteria. However, the resume usually precedes the interview, and other times results exclude some of those who had been interviewed. An applicant not being included might be based on initial impressions from the resume that ideally will be tested in the interview process. It is worth noting that only a limited number of researches has been done to verify the accuracy of the outcome drawn by potential employers about the personalities of the applicants. This therefore might not be an effective way of recruitment than through online job portals.

Employment Application Forms

Employment application forms are usually regarded as being more detailed and structured than resumes and providing a more accurate image of the job applicant. Whereas the general view of application forms for employment being that they enhance the screening and selection process of job applicants, employment application forms may also appear rigid in structure. Job applicants complain that the process of filling job application forms is tiresome and redundant as the required information is readily available in their resume. Cullinan advises job applicants, “Don’t get frustrated when completing an application form and always ask whether you may include a resume with the application form” (Cullinan,1993). It is found that many organizations nowadays integrate technology in their recruitment process. This is generally due to the promises that come with it like low costs, reducing time and reaching a greater number of the job-seeking population.

Statement of the Problem

Despite the wide use of the internet for job recruitment universally, many organizations in Kenya have not fully embraced this efficient method at hand as a good number of them prefer the traditional ways of recruiting that includes a face-to-face interview process. Therefore, there is a greater need for the organization to understand the benefits be incurred if they use the internet in their job recruitment process. For this case, Delight Enterprises, a dealer in construction and consultancy based in Nakuru, Kenya hire through job vacancies advertisements on their social media platforms; Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Even though they have a website, they have not incorporate a job posting and recruitment page to their website. Online recruitment has many advantages to companies like low cost, less time, quick, wider area, better match (Kapse, 2012).

Currently, job seekers are expected to be in the search for job vacancy information, send their resumes and application through the mailbox and turn up for interviews at the headquarters in Nakuru upon successful applications. Employment interviews are usually considered by many employers as the most used selection criteria. However, the resume usually precedes the interview, and often results exclude some of those who had been interviewed. An applicant not being included might be on the basis of initial impressions from the resume that ideally will be tested in the interview process (Gurumurthy & Kleiner, 2002). This project thereby seeks to provide a solution to this IT problem by developing a web application that will link job seekers to their potential employer thereby is reducing cost, time and increasing scope to the employer and job seeker.

Objectives

1. To develop a web application that will link jobseekers to their potential employer.
2. To reduce paperwork involved in job applications.
3. To ease the process of job placements.
4. To reduce time for job applications and reviews.

Research Questions

1. Can a web application be developed that will link jobseekers with their potential employer?
2. How will paperwork involved in job applications be reduced?
3. How can the process of job placements be eased?
4. What will be done to reduce the time for job applications and reviews?

Justification

There was need to develop a web application that would help jobseekers to quickly and conveniently find job opportunities. The system also will help the organization to reduce recruitment costs and time.

Scope

This project seeks to develop a web job portal for Delight Enterprises in Nakuru to link jobseekers and their potential employer.

Chapter Two Literature Review

The world now becoming more and more digital, has brought about a new dimension to the world of job search and recruiting. The World Wide Web has cut short the search time, costs and has offered a more transparent way of information conveyance to job seekers (Salmen, 2012). Those looking for jobs for the first time and those seeking greener pastures have now widely embraced the internet as their effective way to do so. E-recruitment is the use of internet to provide a platform for highly qualified candidates for jobs, reviewing their resumes, streamlining the application and selection process. E-recruitment enables the organization to carry out this process at a greater speed, effectively and efficiently emerging as a preferable and advantageous over the traditional way of recruitment (Tong and Sivanand, 2005).

There is a difference between the traditional paper-based and the emerging electronic-based recruitment process. In one study conducted between 2008 to 2010 in three companies in Denmark which may have insufficiently validated the recruitment process today as technology has had an effect on recruitment, it was concluded that the electronic-based recruitment process started with few electronic equipments for line managers to carry out the recruitment process (Holm’s, 2012). Chapman and Webster in their research on the use of technologies in recruiting, screening, and selection processes for job applicants conducted in the USA discovered that most organizations used the internet for recruitment and selection aiming to improve efficiency, lower costs, standardize systems and increase the applicant pool (Chapman & Webster, 2003).

E-recruitment which smaller companies may consider expensive, was found out to be still less costly than multiple newspaper advertisements (Smith, 1999). His study tried to conceptualize that the internet aids employers target prospective employees better unlike traditional methods. Moreover, according to the Pew Internet Research reported by NAS insights, about 72 per cent of American adults were online (NAS Insights, 2006). This translates to over 145 million people. This being a wide audience, the Internet proved to be an essential part of employee recruitment as there was neither simpler, faster nor more cost effective path to reach a great number of qualified jobseekers. Furthermore, 44 per cent of online Americans were searching for information about a job.

The Internet has allowed employers to reach these candidates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (NAS Insights, 2006)A survey conducted among several hiring managers to identify how the E-Recruitment software they used achieves efficiency of recruitment process at NRG Engineering Pvt. Ltd, a consulting company in the Oil and Gas industry. All of them unanimously consented that using ATS to a large extent reduced recruitment process time and streamlined the process (Aqayo Research, 2008)A Williams’ study on E-recruitment showed a good number of recruitments focused on internet-based recruitment over those of traditional methods. He reported that online methods proved extremely more popular, as a 66 per cent of the employers surveyed admitted that the jobs section of their company’s website was used as a recruitment tool for most jobs (Williams, 2009).

Ng and Burke in their study on the next generation at work explored the views, career expectations, and job search behaviors among a sample of students. They conducted a field survey involving 20,771 students across Canada to draw an implication on the views of campus students on jobs, organizations, careers and perception of their organizations. The study used multiple regression analysis and found that cooperative students seem to have more realistic expectation, have better insights into their own abilities and desires, and show higher self-confidence. It also reported that the respondents had low expectations of their campus career offices getting them a job, and expected to use the internet more frequently for their job searches (Ng & Burke, 2006). This implies a change from using traditional recruitment methods to more contemporary approaches such as the internet. Another study investigated the use of technology to recruiting and hiring in an e-commerce, information intensive environment. They reported that e-recruitment process is job specific and offers computer-assisted screening interviews and statistical prediction to help in cutting recruiting costs, time and increasing the number of job applicants (Smith & Rupp, 2004). A research on Internet job search and unemployment durations by Kuhn and Skuterud had seek to find out the types of unemployed workers searching for work online. They concluded that searching for a job through the internet is more common among those seeking employment or reemployment. The authors noted that, internet job search might significantly increase search outcomes on attributes such as quality of the job which they were not able to measured in their study (Kuhn and Skuterud, 2004). Also, Hadass in a study on the impact of internet recruiting on the matching of employees and HR Managers developed a recruitment model in which job seekers have private information about their qualification for different jobs and firms had unreliable screening technologies.

The findings of the model were empirically examined with use of personnel data from US-based multinational manufacturing firm with 15,000 employees and above. He made a conclusion that internet recruitment reduced application costs to job seekers and improved screening technology for organizations (Hadass, 2004). Lastly, Jansen, Jansen and Spink, drew implications for online job seeking and recruiting on their study on using the web to look for work. The authors wanted to know: how do people search for job-related information on the internet? , How effective are the searches? , and how often do job seekers find an appropriate job posting? They used data from job seekers who were submitting job-related queries to a major web search engine at three points in time over a five-year period. Their findings implied that people seeking job information usually submitted only one query with several terms and over 45 percent of job-seeking queries revealed a specific location reference. Among the documents retrieved, it was suggested that only 52 per cent were relevant and only 40 per cent of job-specific searches retrieved job postings.