E-Recruitment - What It Is and How to Implement It

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E-Recruitment - What It Is and How to Implement It

Mission Critical • February 13, 2023

There’s no doubt data centre business is booming across the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. Recent figures show the APAC data centre industry grew by 24% in 2021, exceeding that of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It now accounts for almost 30% of the world’s IT load capacity.

With this tremendous amount of growth, demand has naturally soared for talent to fill an abundance of data centre jobs. But the current skills shortage is severely hampering further progression. In fact, 45% of APAC data centre managers name it as their top challenge.

In an environment where competition for talent is fierce, you need to find ways of getting a leg up. One way is to look how you can expedite your hiring process to secure talent quickly, and a savvy option is to use a recruitment agency that utilises e-recruitment tools. Let’s look at these tools in greater detail, along with the pros and cons of using them in data centre recruitment.

What Is E-Recruitment?

As the name suggests, e-recruitment centres on electronic (or online) recruitment techniques. It encompasses the use of cloud-based recruitment software and internet resources to find talent.

While you can outlay the costs yourself for your business, you can also access them if you choose to partner with a data centre recruitment agency (like us!) who use them as part of their package.

What follows is an outline of the most popular e-recruitment tools.

Job Boards

In Australia, job boards are the most popular e-recruitment tool with over one in two employers using them to find candidates in 2021. They’re just as popular with candidates - 54% of Australian job seekers used them to find their next role. Results are fairly similar across other APAC nations.

While job boards certainly seem to be the right place to locate talent, posting across multiple platforms can be time-consuming. However, Recruiters who use a good ATS software program can exponentially speed things up by automating this process. Which is a nice segue to the next e-recruitment tool...

AI & ATS Software

Most sectors, including the data centre recruitment industry, have been using Applicant Tracking System (ATS) software to speed up the applicant and CV reviewing process.

ATS programs work by automatically scanning candidate CVs and analysing the information, with particular focus on their skills, experience and education. The program uses the data to then create a candidate profile, which is plugged into a searchable database. Recruiters then use this to find the most relevant candidates, searching by keywords and phrases associated with the open role. As you can imagine, it saves an inordinate amount of manual processing time.

As with all things technological, ATS has rapidly advanced in recent years with the best systems now using artificial intelligence to further optimise not just the hiring process, but the candidate experience.

Video Interviews and Online Testing

The pandemic forced Recruiters’ hands when it came to the use of video interviewing. The practice has stuck, mainly because it speeds up the time to hire (something 75% of jobseekers feel is very or somewhat important.)

For positions that require competency testing and/or personality testing, there’s also been an increase in Recruiters preferring to use online platforms.

E-Recruitment Tools – The Pros

By automating so much of the time-consuming recruitment tasks, it’s clear e-recruitment tools give you the benefit of speed, allowing you to reach the most important stage of your search that much quicker – candidate interviews.

But another key benefit of these tools is the ability to enhance your candidate experience. A recent global survey of over 3500 jobseekers found seven out of ten considered dropping out, or did drop out of, their last hiring experience. The main reasons included that the process was taking too long (39%); it was too complicated (37%); and it had too many touch points (27%).

You can alleviate these issues with the candidate experience in utilising e-recruitment tools, such as ATS software, as each applicant remains updated about their progress in the recruitment process, and the platforms are usually very user-friendly.

Another advantage is the cost saving, particularly when you factor in how much time it takes for your HR personnel to engage in traditional recruitment methods.

E-Recruitment Tools – The Cons

One of the biggest criticisms of ATS software relates to their AI capabilities. While useful in many ways, current AI technology doesn’t consider cultural fit or human characteristics, such as personality and emotional intelligence.

One way to address these disadvantages is by using a specialist data centre recruitment agency. While the team here at Mission Critical use the latest e-recruitment software, the amount our clients pay for it makes up small portion of our overall fee.

We also have plenty of experience in interviewing candidates across Australia and the Asia Pacific and determining if they’re the right cultural fit for our client. In using our professional services to source data centre talent, you benefit from the best of both worlds – AI and that essential human touch. Let us know if we can help.

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Construction Salaries: Are You Paying Enough?

By Mission Critical • August 29, 2023

Are you paying your team enough? Money talks regardless of market conditions, and with the cost of living increasing, you can bet that salary is now the primary consideration for candidates and employees. As data centre recruitment in Australia is a niche and highly competitive market at the best of times, this is a question every employer must pay attention to. Several factors are placing upward pressure on construction salaries: the economic environment, record employment growth in the sector, and a strong pipeline for data centre projects that require specialist skill sets. Approximately 183,000 square kilometres of data centre construction is currently underway in Australia, according to CBRE data , with future growth linked to the rise of AI applications and gaming clouds. General inflation is also starting to bite. In 2023, the Avdiev Report forecasts salary increases between 1-5% slated for 70% of roles in the property sectors (including construction and project management), with pay rises of 6% and above for 30% of jobs. We’ll highlight the significant signs you’re not paying your team enough and what steps to take to avoid underpaying your employees. The Company Is Frequently Out Bid on Job Offers Does your organisation often find itself about to bring a candidate over the line with a shiny new job offer, only to find out at the eleventh hour that the candidate has chosen another role? Whether or not the candidate cites salary as the reason for turning down the offer, chances are that salary was the deciding factor. This proper preparation can help you avoid stumbling into this trap. Before recruitment starts, run a benchmarking exercise to compare the company’s salaries to the market average (or median), and what competitors are likely paying. If you need to argue for increasing salary budgets for critical roles, being armed with this data will help you make it. To access more in-depth salary trends that aren’t online, engaging an agency specialising in data centre recruitment in Australia will help. Recruiters are regularly privy to a range of relevant job descriptions, along with job offers and counteroffers, all of which are rich sources of market intelligence. Low Interest In Advertised Positions One of the common signs that you’re not paying your team enough appears at the front end of the recruitment process. While not all talent attraction challenges are linked to salary, pay does become critical wherever demand for specific skills or positions is high, and supply is limited. If your company would like more applicants for roles but isn’t finding them, consider whether your job ads have enough detail. Including the salary range in job ads can encourage more qualified people to apply while acting as an effective screening tool. Emphasising other perks, such as bonuses and non-salary benefits, is also essential for attracting good talent. Overall, it’s sensible to highlight the company’s generous remuneration and other great reasons to work there. Candidates will always compare positions based on competitive compensation and opportunities for growth. Staff Retention Is Poor Has the front door started to swing so much that it’s revolving? Poor retention can have more than one cause, but any uptick in resignations is a warning light that usually calls for evaluating current salaries. If employees are exiting the business within months of starting a new role or are being headhunted, these could be signs you’re not paying your team enough. Have your employees' roles and responsibilities evolved since their initial hiring? If their duties have expanded significantly without a corresponding salary increase, they are likelier to embrace a new role and score an instant pay rise. Word Is Getting Around If gossip about the company’s apparent stinginess is reaching the ears of management, that’s a vital clue that remuneration may be misaligned with the market. Rather than allowing negative talk to start driving away employees, getting in front of these concerns as quickly as possible is better. Listening to employee concerns and taking notes is a wise place to start addressing this issue. Employee satisfaction surveys and one-on-one conversations will help you gauge sentiment about salaries. These conversations can support pay reviews and help you take necessary steps to avoid losing valuable employees. Summary So, are you paying your team enough? While the answer can make managers uncomfortable, it’s always worth asking! Regularly reviewing pay and understanding trends influencing construction salaries will help you build loyal teams and spend less time on recruitment. For expert help with finding the right talent, salary advice and retention strategies, you may contact the friendly team at Mission Critical. As leading specialists in data centre recruitment in Australia, we can help you solve your talent problems and devise a pay strategy that ticks all the boxes. Check out our latest report here for in-depth salary trends relevant to data centre hiring.