An Over-view of Online Recruitment: The Case of Public and Private Sectors in Tanzania

An Over-view of Online Recruitment: The Case of Public and Private Sectors in Tanzania

Nuran Ally Mwasha

School of Economics & Business Administration, Central China Normal University,

152 Luoyu Avenue, Wuhan, Hubei, 430079, P.R. China

nuranally@yahoo.com

Abstract:

The online recruitment has been a motivating method for many Organizations around the globe for employee recruitment. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the online recruitment and selection system in the public and private sector in Tanzania, by analyzing the general ICT situation, the current online recruitment methods, the challenges on effective operation of online recruitment, the steps taken by government to ensure the favorable environment on ICT sector and the recommendations for future research. According to different surveys as we will discuss later, Tanzania lacks adequate data on online recruitment. In this case, I will use the data about recruitment in general from the study done by Egbert et al (2009), the available data on corporate websites and other researches related to the internet usage in Tanzania. The results depict that online recruitment is used by different companies in Tanzania though in low rate compared to other sources of recruitment.

Key words: recruitment, online recruitment, corporate websites, job boards and Internet

1. Introduction

Over the past one decade, there has been a tremendous increase in the use of the internet including online recruitment specifically the web technology to recruit, select and test the applicants. It has been taken as the modern instrument to get highly qualified and effective, talented employees who will act as a ladder to achieve the Organizational goals. Cappelli, (2001) as cited by Lievens, (2003) argues that the use of the Internet for recruitment and testing has grown very rapidly in recent years. An organization has to make a plan for human resources by assessing the quality and quantity of the present labor force so as to achieve the organizations’ objectives. Also internet recruitment has been considered as the latest hiring tool (Sharma, 2011). The internet technology has enabled the job seekers and corporate websites to interact more easily as the job seekers can upload their resumes in the corporate websites so that recruiters can match their qualifications and the present job vacancies.

Online recruitment has been explained differently by different authors according to the context and content to be used. According to Galanaki (2002) cited by Marr (2007) defined the online recruitment as the action of advertising jobs through the internet and the other sources of information about jobs online. E-recruitment is also known as online recruitment, is the practice whereby the online technology is used, particularly websites as a means of assessing, interviewing, and hiring personnel (Rouse, 2012).

Many companies advertising their jobs on corporate websites include, among other things organizational logo, mission and vision, marketing and public relation, advertising and employees’ recruitment. iLogos Research, (2000) cited by (Haas et al, 2001) asserted that, a survey which involved Global 500 companies in 2000, about 79% recruit their employees through their websites. According to Fortune magazine (2013) the Global 500 companies are the world biggest companies with gross revenue. The survey conducted by Taleo (2003) for the use of the companies’ website for recruitment show that in 1998 was 29% which rise to 94% in 2003. Corporate websites are also suitable for recruiting passive candidates who are just surfing the internet not for job purposes as they can be attracted to view the available jobs. Besides using corporate web sites there are also on-line job boards. Job seekers post their resume in on-line job board to match their qualifications with available post. The famous job boards encompasses of monster.com, hire.com, headhunter.net, HotJobs and career builder (Carl et al, 2001and Noe et al, 2007).

An online recruitment has great potential for any organization as it’s up to date recruiting method provides current information; open up geographical borders searching for talents and is time and cost saving (Pin et al 2001; Ensher et al 2002; Sharma 2011 and Gopalia ̶̶). A newspaper may charge the company $50-$100 to print, while jobs in the internet my cost as little as $10 a piece (Dessler, 2000, p. 154). The online recruitment has reduced the hiring cost compared to traditional system using newspapers and magazine from $1383 for traditional system to 183$ e-recruitment system (Lee, 2005 & Haas et al, 2001).

2. The ICT Situation in Tanzania

2.1. ICT Policy

According to African Development Indicators 2006, as cited by the International Records Management Trust (2007) the key component of Tanzania Public Service Reform Program was to promote and improve the e-governance and service delivery through aggrandizing the underlying framework of ICT^[1] so as to deliver the required services in new technology. The national ICT policy was approved by the cabinet in 2003 and developed by the ministry of communications and transport [ibid].The general mission of ICT policy is to facilitate the economic growth, encouraging investments, social development and knowledge partake within and outside the country through ICT (National Information and Communications Technologies Policy, 2003).

Through this objective, the ICT was intended to reach the Tanzania society to transform them into knowledge based society by acquiring information about the country and the external world. The ICT system brought the great changes in information management and communication together with Human resources development in Tanzania. It has broadened the universal communication flow, enhanced easy learning and acquiring knowledge and sophisticates the way business is conducted (Kamuzora 2006 and Sida 2001).

Table 1: Key ICT statistical Indicators in Tanzania from Independence, at the start of the major Reform 1993 and 2002

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Source: National information and communications technology policy (2003).

Table 2: ICT Infrastructure Statistics 2008 - 2009

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Source: Swart & Wachira (2010), Tanzania: ICT in Education Situational Analysis as cited from Tanzania Communication Regulatory authority.

2.2. ICT Challenges

Besides, all efforts which have been made by the Tanzania communications commission to provide licenses to more than 10 companies to provide web services including internet, but still the services are too expensive and unreliable. Most of the connections are in small dimension international links that connect to the global internet such as in a country like America (Ministry of Communications and Transport, 2003). Additionally, Sife (2013) asserted that Tanzania is suffering from ICT poor infrastructures, illiteracy in computer usage and unreliable electricity power supply. Computers and its hardware are imported from abroad. This situation caused the high price in both computers and internet services and reduced the number of internet users.

2.3. Internet Accessibility

Within a period of five years the internet system in Tanzania brought the terrific changes in the communication system. This is because Tanzania has been connected to the international fibre-optic cable (SEACOM) in Dar es Salaam July, 2009 (SubTel Forum, 2009), which contributed enormously in the internet development. These changes have been brought through the increase of the cellular phones usage and the increase in internet cafes, especially in big cities like Dar es Salaam, Mwanza and Arusha. The main reason is that many telephone companies provide internet services to customers to enable them to access different internet services like internet banking (example, NMB mobile and CRDB mobile banking), utility bill pays (DAWASCO water bill payment, LUKU electricity bill payment), and connecting them with many people though social media. On the other hand the introduction of mobile data and 3G broadband services have extended the utilization of internet services national wide (Swarts & Wachira, 2010 and BuddeComm, 2013). By the mid of 2009, there were about more than 20 registered as internet provider and Internet services has been increased about 1.3%, accounted for 520,000 users (Behitsa & Diyamett, 2010).

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^[1] ICT – Information and Communications Technology