Career & job searchProcurement by online procedure

How to get to the top of your network

The digital age does not only affect the way we do our shopping with smartphones. The importance of new technologies is growing in the labour market and in human resources as well.

Companies go to great lengths to “get on the bus” to speak to the best candidates currently available on the job market or to those that are already employed but are “open to all options”.

The role of digitalisation in job offers

Mr Terence Butler, recruitment manager for the company EY Luxembourg, explains, “A company can now spread information about a position and receive applications from within Luxembourg and from other countries.”

For the person applying for a post, the importance of the information provided by employers digitally is that it enables him/her to get more detailed information about the company culture and thus to assess whether the respective applicant's know-how matches the employer’s requirements.

The digitally transmitted information enables companies to reach their targets exponentially. They provide the applicant with tools to apply at any time and from any location. Using tablets and smartphones, you can make online connections day and night, at home, or via a WiFi connection. “For the new generation, this method has become completely normal.”

The employer brand or the culture of transparency

The “employer brand” is an expression used to describe all the elements of a company’s image with regard to its target groups, applicants, or employees. It aims to convey a positive and attractive picture of the company – while ensuring transparency.

One must keep in mind that positions offered, presented in digital form, are part of the company’s global marketing strategy. The company will therefore use the same procedures for HR management as it uses for traditional marketing. The “HR brand” covers all available information on the culture of the company, its history, its development, and its values.

This approach offers an important advantage to parties interested in a position. But Mr Butler adds, “If the applicant has not taken note of this information, it can be very annoying for the HR manager sitting across from him.”

The core area of HR

An understanding of future technological developments is not sufficient for proper HR management. Even if digitalisation changes sourcing fundamentally, it doesn’t affect the work of the HR system.

The employment agency ADEM has launched a redesigned website that optimises interactions between applicants who access vacancies directly and HR staff who have direct access to the CVs of the applicants. This will simplify the exchange of information between those on the Luxembourg labour market. In addition, users are accompanied by a consultant who takes on the role of moderator when the parties make contact.

ADEM explains, “With our Internet service, we want to optimise communication between the jobseeker and the company’s HR manager by supporting the applicants in their job search. In this way, they save time and benefit from a “consulting filter”, which allows them to redefine their priorities and wishes.”

The aspect of human communication will continue to play a key role in HR management for a long time to come. Digitalisation, in its turn, optimises it. HR experts are thus able to devote themselves to their professional core area, namely the search for competent personnel.