Recruitment Methods: TRADITIONAL vs MODERN
Human resource is the most crucial asset of any company and the process of acquiring this asset is more crucial!!Before looking at the evaluation of traditional and modern recruitment methods let’s first look at what are different methods in each!!
Traditional Recruitment Methods:
- Newspaper– Recruiters have been using this since long for posting the job vacancies.
- Internal Hiring– Promoting one of the trusted existing employees to a hire position is the most accurate thing to do in terms of reliability.
- Local employment office– To get a variety of localites to have a look at the vacant job, putting up the job in LEOs fill the purpose.
- Temp agencies– one of the oldest methods of recruitment is to take help of a temporary employment agency to find potentials for the company.
Modern Recruitment Methods:
- Smart phones– Easiest and quickest way to connect with anyone in today’s time is over a call or text and same goes for the candidates.
- Social media/apps– Various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, twitter, LinkedIn offers a big pool of candidates and an inexpensive way to post the jobs. It has a vast scope of quick engagement with the potential candidate. Along with these What’s app and telegram groups are the fastest way to viral a job post!!
- Event recruitment– To reflect company’s ethics and values and to gain popularity through sponsoring an event is very common these days, and why not? Since it’s a great way to make a network of like minded people which later on helps in recruiting.
- Re-recruiting– Experienced and efficient employees who left their job due to any personal or organizational issue can be welcomed back to fill a position. It is a very convenient way as it saves training cost and reliability is high too!!
- Online recruitment– There are several job websites these days in the market which is the most frequently used method today for recruitment as these websites offer a vast pool of candidates to look at (ex- monster, indeed). Apart from this many recruitment agencies have their own website and job boards where candidates can easily fill a form and apply for that job making it easier for recruiters to get candidates on hand instead of hunting.
- Scouting– Companies send their representatives to universities or colleges to give details about the job vacancies. Popularly heard campus placements is a related term to this.
OKAY!! So, Now is the time to evaluate!! Here are some factors to evaluate!!
| S.No. | BASIS | TRADITIONAL | MODERN |
| 1 | Time | In newspapers and other print media most of the time goes between sending and receiving applications. Then comes the application shortlisting, which is another time to take on the task. | Modern methods are faster. Jobs can be submitted immediately, and requests are received in real time. Filtering is also faster, by filtering them using software. |
| 2 | Money | A fixed commission rate is usually charged, both from an organization and job seeker. This is more expensive than the modern method. | Here, the process is much cheaper. The hiring consultant charges a very small amount, based on the package, and performs all the functions of the internal hiring team. |
| 3 | Processing | Sequential processing. Error in one phase will continue to the next phase | Parallel processing.The error can be detected and corrected at that moment. It Saves the risk of forwarding errors. |
| 4 | Job Posting Duration | Print media or hiring offices have a limited time of job visibility, perhaps a week or more. That reduces the number of candidates one receives. | Posting to a twitter or company web page can last as long as it wants; which increases the chances of drawing more people to apply. |
| 5 | Reach | Reach is limited to the geographical boundaries-state or national or only the network we have. Which gives a limited no. of candidates to choose from. | Modern methods offer wider access. It Reaches people outside the local and state boundaries and provides a large pool of skilled and trained people. |
| 6 | Depth and detail | Do not provide a way to assess a candidate’s suitability and eligibility apart from the job criteria. Knowing his/her personality, therefore, becomes difficult. | The employer may ask questions to measure the person’s ability and pre-evaluate applicants at that very time. Therefore, only those who meet the hiring requirement will proceed to another level of hiring. |
| 7 | Competition | In today’s world, using traditional media, there is very little scope of getting popularity or showcase a company’s existence. Since they do not have a platform for mass communication. | Social media presence is very necessary in today’s world as it is the quickest way to reach a wide variety of people. Therefore, making us competent in the market. |
| 8 | Technical competence | Traditional methods are pretty simple to use as it doesn’t involve complex software but it’s all upon offline strategies one follows. | Using the power of the Internet or social media to hire people requires technical expertise and proper management. |
With the advent of new technologies like ATS software, body language assessment programs, virtual recruitment tools, social media analysis, machine learning tools, Voice recognition, traditional and modern methods of recruitment seem to be in two different worlds.
It may seem that the finger is pointing towards the modern method, but there are times when one would like to go the normal way. For example, small organizations prefer to go with the traditional method. Also, using modern methods requires a certain level of technology that may not be available in most organizations. It is best to list the needs and priorities before choosing any one option.
Therefore, it is entirely the decision of the organization or recruiter that it wants to hire in a normal way or non-traditional way or in a combination of both!
