In Germany the number of small and medium-sized entities (SMEs) using the internet in order to staff vacant posts is rising. Thus, 40 % of people hired nowadays by small and medium-sized businesses were found either over the company’s website or via online job markets. For the first time in 2008 more than one third of job ads were published on internet job markets (+4.5 percent as compared to the previous year) and more than sixty percent on companies´ websites (+ 4.3 percent). This was revealed by the “Recruiting Trends im Mittelstand 2009” study carried out by order of the job portal Monster.de.
In contrast to major enterprises, for SMEs job ads published in print media and by the Federal employment agency still play quite an important role, even though the importance of these channels of publication is decreasing. Thus, print media and the Federal employment agency lost 3.0% and 8.2% respectively last year as compared to the previous year.
In the meantime SMEs have become to consider receiving online applications to be more efficient and practical than by traditional post. Thus, the study revealed that 46% of respondents prefer applications via email or online application forms. Even though small and medium-sized businesses are currently still receiving more applications on paper than electronically over the internet, respondents expect that in four to five years online applications will outnumber those on paper.
Nowadays about half of all small and medium-sized entities make use of the advantages of electronic applications and save them beyond the recruitment process. More and more businesses save the profiles of current and former employees for future internal staffing of posts or for re-employment of former employees.
The study was carried out by the Centre of Human Resources Information Systems (CHRIS) at the universities of the cities of Frankfurt upon Main and Bamberg on behalf of monster.de. 1000 German SMEs were interviewed in the course of this study. 