Anyone who has looked for a job during the recent recession or tried to hire skilled workers knows how important the Internet has become in the recruitment process. As the economy improves and the housing industry begins its recovery, hiring will be on the rise and most home builders will be turning to the Internet to make the best hires quickly and cost-effectively.

While there are advantages to recruiting employees online, there is also a learning curve, which includes a reallocation of resources to manage applications timely and effectively. However, with a little homework, home builders can soon use the power of online recruiting to assemble the most talented team for their organizations.

Getting Started

Once you have your job requirements well-defined and your employment branding campaign in place, you are ready to advertise your open positions online. As part of your recruiting strategy, you should always consider your company website as the primary source of information for candidates. However, not all home builders have the resources or expertise to manage the online application and tracking processes internally. In these situations, a good solution is to develop strategic partnerships with one or more job boards.

Research job boards that are most recognized and prominent in the market(s) in which you are seeking talent. Even if you have a long-term relationship with a job board located in your primary operating locations, consider occasional or lower-level agreements with job boards targeted to specific geographies or talent pools. Some nationwide job boards include Monster, Career Builder, Workopolis, and Jobing. In addition, a few sites that specialize in construction industry jobs include ConstructionJobs.com, Builder Jobs, and MEP Jobs.

When considering these partnerships you want to fully understand the terms and conditions related to costs, administration of changes, how candidate resumes will be managed and stored, and your options for highlighting/featuring your company and job postings. You should expect regular reports on candidate activity and the ability to determine cost-to-hire.

Even if you have an internal applicant tracking system, you may still want to consider a partnership with job boards, with the option to route resumes to your system for management of the candidate pools.

Social Media Sites

Although job boards are the most obvious place for online recruiting, don’t overlook the potential of social media sites, which have become viable venues for advertising job openings, seeking candidates, and launching viral campaigns related to your talent needs.

LinkedIn has continued to maintain a professional focus, and many LinkedIn profiles are mirror images of candidates’ resumes. However, Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo and other social media venues are effective resources for posting jobs, eliciting interest in your organization, and seeking candidates. Putting your existing employees into action in these venues is a great way to market your opportunities — just be sure to set guidelines and expectations as you turn them loose. Managers need to understand the impact of searching online for information about potential hires. Information culled from social media sites and other online activity gives us impressions, but it is important that judgments about job candidates are not based on attributes unrelated to the requirements and qualifications of the job.

Professional Associations

Professional or industry association websites offer additional online avenues for networking opportunities. National and local home builder and developer associations are ideal venues, and if your organization has appropriate membership levels you can often advertise in their career sections free of charge. Also, consider the professional associations related to any jobs you are seeking to fill. For example, there is project management (Project Management Institute), supply chain and purchasing (Institute of Supply Management), human resources (Society for Human Resource Management), and others. Individuals committed to their industry and profession will maintain connections within these organizations. Through networking and online postings you will typically find talented people who maintain their contacts, knowledge base, certifications, etc.

Tailor Postings

In general, your employment branding will communicate much about your culture, success factors for your organization, and opportunities for challenge and growth. However, as you define specific job postings, you will also define more detailed corporate profiles to attract ideal candidates. It is also important to tailor job postings to various job types. For example, senior level leaders and more experienced candidates will often seek opportunities through their networks, recruiters, and professional associations. They are looking for information on how they can influence strategic direction and impact operations. Meanwhile, candidates new to the job market or those in lower-level positions will seek out more traditional types of information, such as job duties, size and scope of responsibilities, schedules, location, etc.

Managing the Process

As you move your recruiting process online, you’ll also need to set up procedures for dealing with job postings and communications. Even if you outsource much of the process to a job board or recruiting service, your organization needs to be proactive in assuring accurate, updated, relevant and compelling communication. The time commitment for this work depends largely on the quantity and diversity of jobs in your organization.

In addition, managers need to be involved in online recruiting for it to be successful. Not only should they contribute to the company’s overall workforce planning and recruiting processes, they should be trained in how the online recruiting process and systems work so they can proactively monitor active postings.

Communication in the recruiting process is something that should be well thought out and planned as part of the entire process. Although it is not expected that every applicant receive communication from you, a simple acknowledgement of the application or resume receipt and some level of “what next?” can be set up to automatically occur. However, once any level of contact takes place with potential candidates there should be follow-up communication.

The further a candidate moves in the process, the more personal the follow-up communication should become. For example, if someone participates in a telephone pre-screen interview and it is determined that he or she will not progress; a follow-up e-mail, letter, or phone call should occur to inform the candidate of his or her status. Once someone progresses to in-person interviews, a phone call to inform the applicant of his or her status is the best method of communication. Such communication procedures maintain personal contact and demonstrate respect for the people and the process. The communication can come from the hiring manager or someone in the human resources team.

Many job applicants will ask for feedback: “What did I do wrong?” “What could I have done better?” “Will I be considered for future positions?” You should respond in a respectful, but guarded manner. Where it is appropriate, you may provide feedback, but be cautious of leaving an impression that decisions are being based on something other than the most qualified candidate.

As I used to advise my recruiting team: “Even if someone is unqualified for a job, he or she is still a person who deserves dignity and communication. Plus, unqualified candidates may become customers or make a referral to another employee or customer in the future. We should always leave them with a positive impression and experience with our company.”

Jayne Phillips, SPHR, is an AVID Advisor with AVID Ratings, the leading provider of customer loyalty research and consulting to the home-building industry. Through the AVID system, homebuilders improve referrals, reduce warranty costs, and strengthen their brands. She can be reached at jayne.phillips@avidratings.com