Job Banks Expanding on the Web, as More Seekers, Providers Meet

When he began searching for a banking job last fall, Pedro Urizar of Westwood decided to check out the Internet. He soon plunged headfirst into the world of online recruiting.

Urizar created his own home page, downloaded lists of headhunters and posted his resume on several electronic job banks, including the MonsterBoard, Online Career Center and E-Span. The interactive banks--the fastest-growing segment of the recruiting industry--list tens of thousands of jobs broken down by field and geographic location. Many of them are middle-management jobs that pay $50,000 a year or more.

Many job banks also offer help in putting together resumes and cover letters. Additionally, E-Span, which Urizar said was the best-organized of those he checked out, gave a detailed background on each corporation, which allowed Urizar to research potential employers and tailor his inquiries.

Best of all, the services were fast and completely free, since the electronic job banks make their money by charging the corporations that post positions online.

“All it cost me was time,” says Urizar, who in August joined Greyrock Business Credit as a $55,000-a-year senior auditor, thanks to a lead he discovered on the Internet. “It was a great resource for me. It allowed me to get the information and sort out opportunities very quickly.”

Today’s electronic job banks are part headhunter, part classified ad and part career counselor. They number in the hundreds and include older, well-known ones such as Career Magazine, CareerMosaic, E-Span, CareerWeb, IntelliMatch, MonsterBoard, Jobtrak, Online Career Center and the Virtual Job Fair, as well as new ones such as world.hire and jobfind.

Some target recent college graduates. Others focus on high-tech industries. Others, which have attracted corporate clients such as Manpower Inc., list many temporary jobs.

The job banks say that more than half their positions are in middle management, with average salaries of between $50,000 and $80,000 a year, although some pay as much as $250,000.

Not surprisingly, high-tech firms were among the first to discover the potential of electronic recruiting. Seal Beach-based Rockwell International Corp. uses the Internet and other electronic means to recruit engineers and technical support people, according to Tom Sumrall, a vice president for management planning.

Those outside high-tech industries shouldn’t despair. The most commonly searched word in E-Span’s database is “management,” followed by “marketing,” “manager,” “sales” and “engineer.” “Computer” ranks sixth, says E-Span marketing manager Barb Ruess.

At E-Span (https://www.espan.com), candidates start by completing an application that establishes their job profile. Each week E-Span searches its 35,000-jobs database and e-mails candidates listings of positions that meet their criteria.

The service also offers applicants everything from salary calculators to relocation information, airline schedules, upcoming trade shows and job fairs. It says it receives 66,000 hits daily.

At world.hire (https://www.world.hire.com), an electronic recruiting firm that counts Dallas Semiconductor and Mobil Oil as clients, applicants receive free job postings, resume storage, automatic candidate qualification and response.

World.hire works like a one-stop job shop, providing candidates with automated e-mail alerts of new postings, a resume-building center with cut and paste functions, job-hunting tips, password access for candidates to modify or update resumes as needed and e-mail acknowledgment of resumes and applications.

Electronic job banks are attractive to corporations because they compress a dozen or more traditional recruiting steps into simple keystrokes. And the recruiting software gets smarter with each generation.

New programs provide confidentiality so that resumes aren’t floating indiscriminately through cyberspace, and candidates who aren’t actively looking can be notified discreetly of potential opportunities.

It’s a trend that will only get bigger as both corporations and job applicants continue to meet on the Net.

Fujitsu Network Communications in Richardson, Texas, plans to hire 500 employees this year into midlevel tech and management positions that pay $50,000 to $90,000.

To help find candidates and sort through the resumes, Fujitsu recently signed an agreement with QuestMatch, a division of Decisive Quest Inc., to create customized corporate recruiting software. The service is at www.questmatch.com/fujitsu

Says Ken McGill, Fujitsu’s director of human resources: “We’re trying to reach folks who might not see our ads in other publications. I can see the Net becoming an important part of our overall recruiting process.”