*Ahjaz Ahmed,  ** Prof M. A. Azeem

Ph.D. Research Scholar, Dept. of Management and Commerce, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad. 

Professor, Dept of Management and Commerce, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad, 

Abstract:

Introduction: social media and job portals are key players in the recruitment process in today’s job market. Both organizations and job seekers might benefit more from these tools. The primary goal of the current study is to determine how recruiters use social media and job portals to find suitable candidates. Job Portals and Social media sites growing globally which influence communication and socializing, draw attention to how they impact the hiring process for applicants and staff retention in businesses. Effective recruitment is one of the most critical demands of businesses, and social media platforms which include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc, is a growing communication channel worldwide. 

Methodology: This study is descriptive in nature and based on primary data. A structured questionnaire has been used to collect data from HR recruiters who recruit candidates through job portals and social media. The sample size of 100 respondents is selected using a Random sampling technique. The data were analysed using the statistical software IBM SPSS 20, excel, and MS word. Statistical technique regression methods were used for testing the hypothesis and to understand the impact of job portal and social media sites in recruitment process. 

Outcomes: The result of the study shows that the job portal is an impactful tool which can be used in recruitment process to make the process more impactful, effective, accurate and sophisticated. Social media platforms also play a vital role in recruitment process to reach maximum number of suitable candidates. These tools are powerful in terms of their reach and scope which makes the recruitment process more cost effective and less time consuming. The recruitment process has always been a challenging task for any recruiter but in 21^st century the digital transformation has made the recruitment easy and sophisticated which help an organization to attract skilled and experienced candidates.

Key Words: – social media, Job Portals, Recruitment process, HR Recruiters.      

Introduction:

The hiring process is the first step in giving businesses a competitive edge and a strategic advantage, and recruiting and selection are the main responsibilities of the human resources department. Finding and obtaining suitable candidates for unfilled positions in sufficient numbers and at the appropriate price to allow the company to select the best candidates is another duty. In order to evaluate and choose who should be hired in accordance with the law and in the short- and long-term interests of the candidate and the organization, selection is the process of gathering information. The process of attracting, vetting, and choosing qualified candidates for a position at a company or organisation is referred to as recruitment. Companies are currently searching for novel strategies to boost their competitiveness. New products, new images& new marketing ideas are some of the ways. The hiring process used to find new employees inspires and motivates them to apply for employment with a company. The fact that it encourages people to apply for jobs and raises the hiring ratio, or the number of applicants for a job, is typically seen as favourable. On the other hand, selection is often counterproductive because it eliminates a sizable portion of applicants, leaving only the best to be hired. The process of attracting, vetting, and choosing the ideal candidate for a position at the ideal time is referred to as recruitment. Every recruiter vacates traditional recruitment and begins working on electronic recruitment because it takes less time than traditional tactics like newspapers, radio, and employer referrals.

Review of Literature:  

Karácsony, P. Izsák, T& Vasa, L. (2020). Studied that younger generation is using social media more and more, making it a relatively new player in the online work market. The purpose of this study was to evaluate young people’s job-search behaviours and attitudes, especially those of university students. In March 2020, the survey was sent to students in Austria and Hungary by email and social media. In reviewing the findings, we examine what the younger generation is looking for in a career today and how businesses are adjusting to the new environment created by the extensive use of social media.

Ellison et al., (2007). Studied that Millions of people can connect, exchange, and meet through social media, the most well-known social media websites include Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Orkut, Instagram, and Bebo. College students, youths, and young, active individuals predominate in this social media engagement. According to earlier studies, this social media network allows user groups to communicate with a friend. Many job seekers search job through this platform, that’s why the role of social media is increase in era of technology.   

Lee et al., (2017).  Studied that however, the use of social media in recruitment also has its limitations and found that social media can be a double-edged sword, with the potential to attract both highly skilled candidates and those who are not a good fit for the organization. Additionally, social media can be time-consuming for recruiters, as they must sift through a large number of profiles to identify potential candidates.

Prabjot Kaur (2015). Stated the challenges with e-recruitment. According to the author, e-recruitment can get over the limitations of conventional ways to make it simple to access applicants. She shares information about the benefits and drawbacks of e-recruitment. To reduce the expense of using traditional methods, she concentrated on web-based recruitment. She divides online hiring into three groups, including job boards, employer websites, and professional websites. In the end, she concluded that e-recruitment should only support traditional approaches rather than replace them.

Lakshmi S.L (2013). The research intends to investigate the benefits and drawbacks of e-recruitment for the organization. The firm can reach a large workforce and quickly discover skilled workers with the use of e-recruitment. Employers are now enlisted with the aid of private or public organizations, which can help companies save time and money. She noted that the group has two different ways of recruitment. Traditional approaches rely entirely on paperwork to screen candidates while using resources that are not technically supported. In modern methods, everything is connected to internet at the same time. She concludes that the use of the internet has made the world “smaller” and made everything easier for better application.

Bhupendra Singh et.al (2015), focused in their article on the use of social recruitment sites by recruiters to locate potential candidates and their understanding of the sites’ value. The study’s main goal was to find out why certain social media sites are popular with businesses and job seekers. They list a few social media platforms for hiring, including Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter. They get to the conclusion in their study that social media sites are particularly beneficial for e-recruitment.

Sneha Singh (2017), said that more than 97% of job seekers do online job searches. A recruiter can post opportunities online through job sites or own career websites, which are just two of the many ways that the Internet makes it easy for them to identify possible candidates. The recruiters since 2017 are extremely connected nevertheless, job board is not the only place you can find talent. Recruiters are socially active and connected through all channels: 24/7.

Dr.M.R. Vasudevan & M. Deepthi (2017), said that practically everyone now has access to the Internet because of technological advancements. Internet accessibility enables the desired advancement in technologically related areas. Social media and job portals play an important part in employment by providing service to both recruiters and job seekers. In this review, it was found that social media and job portals play a vital role in job offers and successful job searches for both job seekers and employers.

A. Catherine Diana et al. (2011), social media in recruitment: in this study, the researcher looked into how recruiters use social media (to what extent, how many, how regularly, etc.) to reach out to potential candidates and hire staff members for their company. The study’s focus is on a sample of individuals concerning these problems. According to her study, social networking sites can cover a big candidate pool with a variety of skills more effectively and efficiently.

Job Portals: 

A job portal is a place where recruiters and job seekers may connect to discuss their needs. Employers aim to fill job openings with the best applicant by examining qualifications, experiences, and other factors, while job seekers search for opportunities by using their knowledge, abilities, and other factors. A job portal is an online tool that connects recruiters and job searchers. Users can register by setting up accounts, submitting resumes, looking for appropriate positions, and more. There are three different users of the application, Candidates for jobs, recruiters, and administrators People began using the internet more frequently as time went on because there were more possibilities there than on other platforms. Many people began looking for work, but they were unable to find any on one platform. Even employers were looking for talented applicants in one location. The gradual introduction of employment portals is the result of this. 

Social media is mostly utilized for marketing, recruitment, job events, video chats, messaging, and communications, among other things. Social recruiting refers to selecting potential employees from social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn based on their profiles, blogs, and other online presence. Users establish profiles here to target employers and be chosen. Social media recruitment has been developed and is currently used for various concerns and fears, technological advancement undoubtedly reshaped the recruitment process with the dark side of manipulation by this tool, Rahman, M. et al. (2022). Many businesses are experiencing low economic growth at the moment, therefore corporations planned to spend as little money as possible on the hiring process. The businesses believe that hiring through social media will be productive and economical. As previously stated, job boards and employment provide little success in a competitive market. Due to the laborious procedure of gathering candidate information, some businesses and corporations hire people who are only minimally competent. This encourages businesses to conduct their hiring through social media.

E-Recruitment:

The practice of selecting candidates for open positions utilizing electronic resources, notably the internet, is known as e-recruitment, also known as online recruiting. Businesses now use the internet to communicate with a large number of job searchers and find the finest people for the organization quickly, cheaply, and efficiently. E-recruitment aims to improve and streamline the hiring procedure. Moreover, it is less expensive and cost-effective. Online hiring can reach a wide pool of candidates and streamline the selection process (Chandrasekar, K., 2022). This improves the effectiveness and efficiency of the hiring process. Low internet speed in India is a problem for e-recruitment but despite the slow speed, many people preferred to look for a way to locate work via web portals.

Need for E-Recruitment.

Recruiters are increasingly searching and selecting candidates online and through networks, especially for positions that are in great demand. Regarding all the businesses that had utilized e-recruitment, the main driving forces behind their decision were, to enhance brand image, promote the company’s reputation, reduce the cost of job interviews, and staffing to make the job simpler. 

Benefits of E-Recruitment:

• Benefiting both the employer and the job seeker, organizations may locate potential candidates through their CVs attached to the World Wide Web, and vice versa, job seekers can look for employers through their job vacancy advertisements posted online.
• Low cost per candidate compared to traditional hiring methods.
• Less time is needed to hire a potential employee for the company.
• Wide geographic coverage allows for hiring applicants from anywhere in the world. 
• E-Recruitment makes it simple to find the best candidates for open positions by matching their resumes to job descriptions.
• Filtering criteria that make it easier for them to locate possible candidates.
• Through E-Recruitment, the right candidates for the right jobs can be quickly identified by comparing their CVs to the job profile.

Aim and Objective

The aim and objective of the study are to understand the role of job portals and social media in the recruitment process, how these tools are used to attract a large pool of candidates, improve recruitment efficiency, reduce recruitment costs, improve candidate targeting, enhance employer branding, and improve candidate engagement.

Research Methodology

Data has been collected from both primary and secondary sources. Primary data is collected with the help of a questionnaire from HR recruiters. Secondary data is gathered from published and unpublished records, websites, journals, magazines, etc. based on the review of various studies. The questionnaire has been designed and distributed among HR managers by adding relevant questions.

This is a descriptive type study in which the HR recruiters were targeted to respond to the questionnaire using a simple random sampling method. More than 100 HRs responded to the questionnaire but after cleaning and analyzing the data, only 100 respondents were found to be suitable. This study is based on the responses of HR recruiters and to know the role of job portals and social media in the recruitment process, multiple regression was used to test the hypothesis.

Table 1.1

Demographic Profile

Demographic profile of the respondents is analysed to understand the different aspects of the respondents which is based on the gender of the respondents which includes both male and female and the participation of male 52 (52%) is more than female 48 (48%). Recruitment process is taken place using different modes i.e., online, offline and hybrid modes while from the respondents, most of the recruiters use hybrid modes i.e., both online and offline modes in which only online mode is used by 27 (27%) participants, offline 11 (11%) and both modes 62 (62%). Most of the respondents are from Hyderabad city 82 (82%) and from the other city only 18 (18%) participants participated in the survey.

Table 1.2

From the above model summary, it is found that the relationship between dependent and independent variables are good which means the R value is 0.688 i.e., 68.8%, the value describes that Job Portal and social media have good relationship with recruitment process. Adjusted R square shows the corrected goodness of fit of the model. The model shows that the job portal and social media platforms are used in the recruitment process and these tools are fit for the process.

Table 1.3

From the above table of ANOVA, the p value is 0.000 which means the result is significant and the null hypothesis is rejected. F ratio also shows the model is good. The independent variables i.e., Job portal and social media have a great role in the recruitment process which impact the entire process of recruitment.

Table 1.4

From the coefficient table, the result shows that the job portal and social media (independent variables) have significant impact on recruitment process because the p value of both independent variables is below 0.05. From the table, the value of Beta coefficients show that job portal (0.531) has more impact on recruitment process compare to social media (.251). 

Findings 

From the demographic profile of the respondents, it is found that the participation of male 52 (52%) is more than female 48 (48%). Recruitment process takes place using different modes i.e., online, offline and hybrid modes while from the respondents, most of the recruiters use hybrid modes i.e., both online and offline modes in which only online mode is used by 27 (27%) participants, offline 11 (11%) and both modes 62 (62%). Most of the respondents are from Hyderabad city 82 (82%) and only 18 (18%) participants participated from other cities in the survey.

The analysis shows that the relationship between dependent and independent variables are good which means the R value is 0.688 i.e., 68.8%, the value describes that Job Portal and social media have good relationship with recruitment process. Adjusted R square shows the corrected goodness of fit of the model. The model shows that the job portal and social media platforms are used in the recruitment process and these tools are fit for the process. The p value is 0.000 which means the result is significant and the null hypothesis is rejected. F ratio also shows the model is good. The independent variables i.e., Job portal and social media have a great role in the recruitment process which impact the entire process of recruitment. From the coefficient table, the result shows that the job portal and social media (independent variables) have significant impact on recruitment process because the p value of both independent variables is below 0.05. From the table, the value of Beta coefficients show that job portal (0.531) has more impact on recruitment process compare to social media (.251). 

Conclusion

Job portals and social media have significantly impacted the recruitment process in recent years due to their effectiveness and accuracy in recruiting the talents. Job portals and social media have made it easier for companies to reach a larger audience. They can now post job vacancies online, and these postings can be seen by potential candidates across the world. This has helped companies to widen their talent pool and hire people from different parts of the world. With job portals and social media, the recruitment process has become faster. Companies can now receive applications and resumes instantly, shortlist candidates and conduct interviews online. This has eliminated the need for physical interviews, which can be time-consuming and expensive. Social media has enabled companies to showcase their brand and culture to a wider audience. Companies can now share their vision, mission, and culture with potential candidates. This has helped companies to build a strong employer brand and attract top talent. Job portals and social media have reduced the cost of recruitment. Companies no longer need to spend a lot of money on advertising in newspapers, magazines or job fairs. They can now post vacancies online for free or at a lower cost. Social media has made it easier for companies to engage with candidates. Companies can now respond to candidates’ questions and concerns on social media. This has helped to build a relationship with candidates and keep them engaged throughout the recruitment process. The job portal is more impactful tool for recruitment process which can be better used than other tools. From the study, it proved that the impact of job portals and social media in recruitment process is positive and it can be used in recruitment process to make the recruitment process more impactful, effective, accurate and sophisticated.

References:

1.              Bhupendra Sigh et.al (2015). Importance of social networking sites in e-recruitment. International Journal of Electronic and Electrical Engineering.

2.              Chandrasekar, K., Sethupathy, K., Karthick, R., Karthick, R., Poovizhi, S., & Sathiyendran, N. (2022) Efficiency and Effectiveness of e-Recruitment in the Current Scenario.

3.              Deepthi, M., & Vasudevan, M. R. (2017). Role of Job Portal and social media in students’ life to achieve Quality of Life (QOL)-A review. International Journal in Management & Social Science, 5(8), 49-63. 

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7.              Karácsony, P., Izsák, T., & Vasa, L. (2020). ATTITUDES OF Z GENERATION TO JOB SEARCHING THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA. Economics & Sociology, 13(4), 227-240. doi: https://doi.org/10.14254/2071-789X.2020/13-4/14

8.              Lakshmi S.L (2013) E-Recruitment: A Boom to The Organizations in The Competitive World. IOSR Journal of Business and Management (IOSR-JBM)

9.              Lee, at al. (2017). The role of social media in the job search process. Journal of Employment Counseling, 54(4), 152-162.

10.           Prabjot Kaur (2015) E-recruitment: A conceptual study. International Journal of Applied Research.

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14.           Sneha Singh (2017) E-Recruitment: A New Dimension of Human Resource Management in India. International Journal of Advance Research in Computer Science Nd Management Studies.