How job hunting and recruitment has changed

23

October

2016

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The internet has changed the job hunting and recruitment process drastically. Now job seekers are applying for jobs  and connecting with employers over Social Media. If you haven’t been paying attention to social media, in particularly to LinkedIn, you have some catching up to do. You cannot afford to ignore LinkedIn today.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has become an increasingly popular way to network with people in the same industry. More and more employers are using LinkedIn as a recruitment and hiring tool  and students and professionals are using it in their job searches. Treat it like more than a resume. Sure, they both convey your current and former professional roles. But your resume is a formal document used for the specific purpose of gaining the attention of a hiring authority and motivating them to call you to initiate an interview process. Your LinkedIn profile is social. It is for networking and interacting with a wide variety of people, not just hiring authorities. Consequently, it is an important part of the job hunt aside from a formal job request. It allows you to demonstrate what you really care about as a professional, and it can help you build relationships with people who are in a position to positively impact your job hunt.

Also the traditional way of a job interview has changed. Besides face-to-face interviews there are now also mobile interviews and video interviews.

Mobile interview

More than 70% of active job seekers use their mobile phones to look for jobs. Unfortunately, companies are struggling to keep up despite the enormous opportunity mobile provides: just 20% of companies have mobile-optimized career sites, and a mere three percent have a mobile app. It order to keep up with the changes companies need to use IT.

Video interview

A video interview uses online video technology to allow job seekers and hiring professionals to connect earlier in the hiring process. Video interviews take place remotely and use video technology as the communication medium. Since so much communication occurs at the nonverbal level, seeing and being seen is extremely important. And video interviews give people a better way to present themselves, both verbally and nonverbally. There are different kinds of video interviews: Live video interviews (synchronous) and one-way video interviews (asynchronous). Synchronous interviews are conducted live over the Internet. In contrast, an asynchronous video interview is pre-recorded by the job seeker and submitted to the employer.

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Digital Transformation Project – Primark

20

October

2016

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Our project is about the use of Information Technology in the Human Resource department (HR) of Primark. Primark is a clothing retailer the company launched in Dublin Ireland, in 1969. Today Primark owns 253 stores across the UK, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Holland and Belgium and employs over 70,000 people across the globe.

Current use of IT in the HR department

During the recruitment, Primark asks the candidates to make an online assessment test. When candidates pass the test they are invited to an interview. There is a mandatory online safety training once a year and an online employee satisfaction survey is being. Every month every Primark store sends a newsletter to all its employees. Primark owns a website where customers are asked to fill out a survey about their shopping experience and the employee who helped them. On each receipt, a unique employee number is mentioned, which has to be filled in at the first page of the survey. This is fairly simple compare to competitors like H&M and Zara which have integrated IT in their business more effectively.

The New Technology

Nowadays it is old fashioned to use paper for these HR practices. We suggest the development of an closed online platform, where every current process will be digitalized. Employees and management do not need to work with papers anymore. As a result, forms cannot be lost again and a clear overview of pay checks and other employee information will be provided. The processes between HR and employees will be optimized, accelerated and user-friendly. Each employee will receive an account on this platform and with this account a dashboard will be visible where not only the monthly newsletter and other information can be accessed, but also HR relates practices. Employees will be able to see their work and availability schedule, pay check, sick hours and day offs. Swapping shifts will be much easier and just a few clicks away.

Managerial recommendations

The goal of our report was to examine how digital transformation can accommodate the work relationship between the Primark HR department and the employees. If we take a look at the impact the platform on the processes between HR and employees we can see that: it contributes to employee satisfaction, which indirectly leads to better company performance because time will be spent more in the store working, instead of walking between different departments to deliver forms or get approvals. By providing good training and informative user guides the employees will understand the system quickly. However this process can take time and can be tricky for the company this is why the company will have to carefully plan and monitor this change. Overall the new technology will change the company greatly and provide a platform to share information, these information will make communication clearer and improve the satisfaction of the employees, for the management it means that the company will have access to more data that it can use to improve process.

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Information asymmetry in politics

6

October

2016

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The theory of asymmetric information was developed in the 1970s and 1980s as a plausible explanation for common phenomena that mainstream economics couldn’t explain. In simple terms, information asymmetry  means that two parties to an economic transaction have different information about the goods or services being exchanged. This creates an imbalance of power. Problems related to information asymmetry are adverse selection and moral hazard. Adverse selection refers to a process in which undesired results occur when one party has more or better information. And moral hazard is a situation where one party has information advantage, they may have the incentives to use that advantage to exploit the other party.

Asymmetric information starts the downward economic spiral. A lack of equal information causes economic imbalances that result in adverse selection and moral hazards. All of these economic weaknesses have the potential to lead to market failure. A market failure is any scenario where an individual or firm’s pursuit of pure self-interest leads to incefficient results.

Information asymmetry is not only present between buyers and sellers of a product, but also at the car garage, the dentists, with a health insurance or in politics. The political candidates running for election are the ones with the better and more information and representative voters are taking the risks.

When elections are called, politicians and their supporters attempt to influence policy by competing directly for the votes of constituents in what are called campaigns. The message of the campaign contains the ideas that the candidate wants to share with the voters. With these messages the candidates try to convince the voters that they are the best and most suitable candidate. The voters would likely want to support politicians who are competent, serve public interest as well as follow the law and social norms. But among the candidates there may be some who are less suitable, even ill-intentioned. The voters can never be perfectly informed about the real abilities and intentions of the political candidates. There will always be some degree of uncertainty with reference to the characteristics of the political candidates. This is information asymmetry.

While exercising power, politicians are increasingly exposed to temptation. One of the greatest temptations is for politicians to use their position in service of their own ambitions instead of the promises they made during the campaign and to use their status and influence to their own personal advantage, or to serve the interests of friends, family, or business partners, while gradually forgetting about public interests.

Possible solutions for adverse selection and moral hazard in economic transactions are inspections, warranties, modify incentives and making the asymmetry smaller by looking information up. But what about politics? The other candidates and the media already try to inform the voters, which is also not always truthfully. Is there a way to reduce the asymmetry? Or should we just trust that the candidates serve the public’s interest?

 

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/asymmetricinformation.asp
http://thismatter.com/money/banking/information-asymmetry.htm

Click to access szanto_toth_2012_inf_asymmetry_corruption_121017.pdf

http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/052115/do-any-markets-not-exhibit-asymmetric-information.asp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_campaign

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