What are the changes in the recruitment processes in the age of big data?

Details

Supervisors

Belleflamme, Paul

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] en Ingénieur de gestion

Abstract

The objective of this research is to determine how data analytics and the new recruitment tools related to big data are currently used by recruitment professionals in Belgium. I also analysed how these tools are integrated in the classic recruitment process and which changes they have induced. This research should enable recruiters to realize which development possibilities they have in this field as the literature review gives an overview of the different tools which exist, while the results analyse where they could be integrated in the classic recruitment process. Information was gathered in two ways. I first sent a survey to recruitment offices in order to analyse if they use data analytics, in what purpose and which kinds of sources they consider. In order to have deeper information, I interviewed seven recruitment offices about the tools related to big data they use and which changes have appeared in their business. The main finding of this research is that recruiters are often not aware they use data analytics and big data in their daily business. Then, I found that the new recruitment tools have varied influences on the different steps of the recruitment process. The two parts of the process which were the most impacted by these tools are the sources used in order to diffuse job ads but also the selection step. Indeed, job ads appear now on different supports, namely the job boards, the job search engines and LinkedIn. Facebook, Twitter and blogs are currently not used for this purpose. These different sources of applicants can be easily dealt with in using an applicant tracking system which enables automation of the process. The selection step is influenced in two ways: the pre-screening of resumes is now totally part of the classic recruitment process, as it is possible on LinkedIn and with the databases of most companies, but available information which is used to select candidates has increased too. The new considered information sources are LinkedIn, Facebook, blogs, websites and Google. These new tools induced several changes which are: a less subjective profile definition, an automated pre-screening of resumes which could lead to vocabulary based discrimination, a multilateral communication between the candidates and the companies, an increase of the number of referrals and a selection decision based on more sensitive information than before. In order to well utilise these different hiring tools and avoid doing errors based on misunderstanding, trainings should be proposed to recruiters and clear policies about the use of social media should be implemented by all companies which use them.