E-Recruitment: The Cisco Way
Cisco Systems is the leader in online recruiting. The San Jose-based, USS 8.5 billion
technology leader experienced unparalleled growth, fueling its phenomenal economic
performance with an e-recruiting system designed to bring in more than its fair share
of the best talent available, From 1990 to 1997, Cisco rocketed from 250 people to
more than 14,500 people in 55 countries. The company’s goal was to hire the small
percentage of the top talent in engineering and business, The company’s website is
carefully monitored and well-designed, and it serves as a benchmark for other
ectuiting websites, Its other recruiting strategies include placing advertisements in
newspapers and strategically placing cards in colleges to attract job seekers to its
website, These recruiting pages are informative and user-friendly, Cisco Systems,
whose site has been called “the venus fly trap of e-recruitment”, has an innovative
approach to e-recruiting, which includes a shopping cart function for applying for
numerous jobs, a ‘Make Friends @Cisco’ program, whereby a candidate can contact
employees in similar roles before applying for a position, In addition, web site
features an emergency escape key called “Oh No! My Boss is Coming”, to help
would-be Cisco employees hide their job hunt from their current employers, There is a
button which automatically brings up ‘The 7 Habits of a Successful Employee’, This
feature was adopted by the company as research indicated that 90 percent of the
applicants search for a new role while at work.At the front end of the recruiting process, Cisco carefully targets its message to the
best candidates. Its recruiters hold focus groups to learn the work practices, social
interests, hobbies, and lifestyles of the most successful engineers and managers at
their company. Cisco then identifies the most popular and influential web sites on
which to post recruitment ads in addition to posting positions on standard job-search
Web sites. And, since most applicants are likely to visit the Cisco site during their
work hours, the site has a facility that allows monitoring of not only the number of
visits to its site, but also enables the company where the visitor works. The company
gives visitors the opportunity to fill a shopping cart with job openings they are
interested in, or join the “Make Friends” program, which connect them with a Cisco
employee from the department in which they wish to work. It also has a Profiler tool
that helps job seekers to update their resumes. Through its web site, Cisco is able to
post hundreds of detailed job descriptions at a very low cost, and with great
convenience for prospective employees. Jobs can be easily searched by title, job
description, keywords, field of interest, and by location. Recruits can conveniently
inform themselves of the relevant job definitions and skill requirements. Through a
special “Hot Jobs @ Cisco” page, the company lists unique positions that it is
especially eager to fill. But the Web site does more than simply list job openings. It
also gives potential recruits a window to life at Cisco, making it easier for prospective
employees to gain accurate information about the company and its way of working.
For those who want even more information, the site’s “Make Friends @ Cisco” links
applicants with Cisco employees, which makes it easy for them to talk about life at
Cisco, about potential job opportunities, and about common interests.
Cisco has successfully automated 70 percent of its recruiting process. At the same
time, Cisco is building a database that predicts the qualities and characteristics that
make a star Cisco employee.
A major drawback of this website was that it put too much emphasis on the process,
creating complex application procedures such as its Profiler. If job seekers did not fill
out forms properly, they received error messages and had to repeat the process until
they got it right.