Testimonials

Hamilton City Council

Online job searches way of future - By KATHY GRAHAM - Waikato Times | Friday, 14 March 2008

Hamilton City Council's website career page has received a pat on the back from a visiting UK digital strategist.

Fiona Stewart of Barkers, the UK's largest and longest established recruitment agency, was in Hamilton this week talking to employers in the city.

"The Hamilton City Council career site is one of the best I have seen since I've been here."

"It is easy to navigate and lets the candidate know about the whole job experience, not just what job is available."

Ms Stewart was brought to New Zealand by Haines Recruitment to speak to employers about the future of online recruitment in a series called The Digital Diaries.

With more than 75 per cent of New Zealanders having access to the internet the second highest rate in the world online recruitment is touted as the way of the future.

Ms Stewart said that in the UK 70 per cent of the working population expected to find and apply for their jobs online.

"Unlike here in New Zealand, the print media is in decline in the UK, so digital mediums have become the norm," Ms Stewart said.

Lynne Wilson, HR manager for Hamilton's Mitre 10 Mega was at Ms Stewart's presentation.

"We employ a lot of staff we have 106 at the moment and are always looking for interesting ways of selling ourselves in the employment market. It is still a pretty tight market at the moment, and advertising can be expensive, so you have to tailor the methods you use to the position you are advertising."

In the UK, Ms Stewart said there were thousands of different job boards where candidates can search for jobs. The key was how an employer could make their job stand out or target the candidates they wished to attract.

"At one time candidates had to chase employers, but today it is more likely that employers will be seeking out suitable candidates for their positions.

"Ms Stewart said it was about giving people the information in a way they wanted to receive it. She will be giving further presentations in New Zealand.

ESR

ESR's Careers Website has been in operation since November 2002.  Since its introduction we have received over 210,000 visitors to our Career site and we currently have an active talent pool of just under 7000 registered job seekers.

The Capital Hire eRecruitment system has significantly reduced the amount of time and resources spent processing CV's, processing job applications and talent pool management. All applications are automatically acknowledged and can be easily accessed by managers. The processing of applications is also a lot more efficient for both the applicant and ESR staff.

One of the many financial benefits we have received is a reduced spend on paper based advertising by 40% due to a more streamlined recruitment process and effective talent pool management.  Approximately 60% of our job applicants come from our existing talent database which is all managed electronically online.

The team at Capital Software have been a great support and very helpful in listening to our specific needs and adapting our careers website accordingly on an ongoing continual improvement basis.

David Bailey
HR Manger
ESR

Genesis Energy

We have been using the Capital Hire system since 2005 and have achieved a significant cost saving in our overall recruitment spend compared to previous years.

As soon as we started using the online recruitment system the time spent on recruitment administration went down by approximately 80%.

By using the marketing reporting function to indicate where candidates had first viewed our vacancies we were able to save money on recruitment advertising by targeting our advertising to the appropriate media.

We have built our online talent database to a point where we are able to search for the ideal candidates before considering whether to advertise externally, again saving money on recruitment costs.

We are very pleased with the system and services provided by Capital Software.

Fiona Knowles
HR Manager
Genesis Energy