Online Recruitment for Engineers

                    'What methods are you using to find a job in the engineering sector?' was one of the questions we asked those who took part in our annual survey of job seekers using online job boards.
At a time when the economy is still struggling to come out of the downturn, that's an important and interesting question.

                     Not surprisingly, the Internet was the first-choice option for over 80%, who said they'd applied for a job they'd found online, either on an employer's own website or a recruitment consultant's.
But despite the overwhelming use of their Internet, many people don't like what they found on the websites they were using. In fact, a very large majority of them - 86% - don't think the sites they were visiting were any good at all.Hardly a ringing endorsement and a statistic that suggests many employers and recruitment sites aren't really making the time or effort to 'sell' their jobs properly to prospective candidates.

                   This may not be a major problem now, while the economy is tight and there are many people going after each job. But, as commercial conditions start to improve, skills shortages are bound to arise, as they already have in some sectors, and that will mean companies going head to head in competing for new staff.

               Self-evidently, those who fail to convey what their company is about, or force a would-be employee work to harder than they need to find the information they want, could end up missing out on good staff.

                So, if you're responsible for recruitment on your company website, take heed of what our respondents say they need you to do if you're not to frustrate them and put them off your company.
Above all, make sure your ad is well written because they hate ones that aren't - a bugbear for 43% of our respondents who don't want to waste time trying to figure out if your job is for them.

                      Next, give them the quality of job information they are looking for about your company, what it does and the position you have on offer.

                     And, if you are asking them to complete an application form, don't make it too complex. Just be clear and don't ask for more information than you need to make a decision.
 These are the main problems as more 'technical' issues, such as unclear navigation (17%) and slow download speeds (15%) don't create quite the same irritation factor. And if you're agonising over getting the look of your site just right, don't bother seems to be message coming back - only 6% of our respondents bothered to mention poor design and images as a concern.

                    And if you're a smaller company who thinks that there's no point investing time and effort in your online job ads because they'll never be found on Google, think again.While conventional wisdom may say that if you're not on the first page of Google forget it, our respondents seem happy to buck the trend with an extraordinary 43% or so of them willing to go down to page 3 and beyond.
Thoroughness, or a determination born of desperation? We'll have to wait for next year's survey to get a better view.