Telecommuting * By Robert Moskowitz
Can It Yield Better Results Than Face-To-Face Meetings?
It makes a certain amount of sense, doesn't it? After all, companies today spend thousands of dollars to bring recruits into their offices and to rent them rooms in nearby hotels. Shaving just these travel costs would easily cut a hefty slice from today's ever-increasing recruiting costs.
So it's understandable that some firms are experimenting with various aspects of putting the recruiting and hiring process onto the Internet. For example:
1) A company called VirtualStaff (www.virtualstaff.com/) operates as a network of business and computer professionals who do programming, Web page development, desktop publishing, and business research and analysis for clients via the Internet. Not surprisingly, they (and other employers) meet and often hire good candidates over the Internet, rather than face-to-face. Recently, they teamed up with Cornell University to provide Internet-based workshops covering Electronic Staffing, conducted in online computer labs all across the country. [Call Cornell University for further information: (212)340-2863.]
2) A relatively new PC-to-PC video conferencing network--called SearchLinc--has been put together by the owners of Career Magazine (www.careermag.com). The system allows companies to conduct clear and full-motion online video interviews in real time (although only black and white) without the usual technical hassles or logistical nightmares. One important service: users receive detailed information about compatible sites close to each prospective interviewee. In a recent experiment, recruiters in Dallas satisfactorily interviewed two dozen job candidates dialing in from an IT trade show at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City.
3) Hundreds of Human Resource departments are routinely posting their job openings on the Internet. Some firms have devoted entire Web sites to recruiting, complete with company histories, lists of job titles and qualifications, and at least a first step into the application process for interested candidates.
4) Job posting services from the Wall Street Journal (www.wsj.com), the Washington Post (www.washingtonpost.com), and Classifieds 2000 (www.classifieds2000.com) now use advanced technology to automatically copy all the jobs listed on employers' own Web sites and reformat them to meet the specifications of the newspapers' online databases, simultaneously creating links back to the employers' own Web pages. This gives the employers' job postings direct access to a much higher volume of Internet traffic.
5) The JobMarket (www.thejobmarket.com) is one of many Web sites that help job seekers find employers. This one offers thousands of classified ads, backed up by company information from Dun & Bradstreet, an online resume builder, a calendar of job fairs, and an "advice forum" that covers everything from career counseling to relocation logistics and salary concerns. Employers can pay $50 to post each classified ad, and have it linked directly to their own Web site. Advertisers get unlimited access to search the database of candidates.
6) A site called "Job Engine" (www.jobengine.com) brings new speed and sophistication to the process of posting a resume where prospective employers can easily find it.
7) CareerCrossroads (www.careerxroads.com) is both a book and a Web site listing 500 other Web sites of interest and value to job seekers.
The trend is clearly toward using telecommuting technology to simplify and speed the process of hiring, as it already simplifies and speeds the process of delivering work products once you have been hired.
And why not? In many ways, telecommuting instead of walking into a hiring process can yield far better results than conventional face-to-face meetings.
One reason is that physical characteristics don't come into play as much. Good looks--which have been shown to influence hiring decisions in ways that later turn out to be sub-optimal--are far less enticing over the Internet. In fact, the lack of face-to-face interaction when hiring over the Internet seems to not-so-subtly shift the employer's basis for judgment from superficials to the objectively important factors in filling an open position.
Here's one way the process of telecommuting to a job interview might be handled:
First, applicants would search the Internet for appealing job openings. At the same time, employers would search the Internet for resumes of candidates likely to fit one of the positions they have open. In our scenario, an employer and a candidate find each other.
Now the applicant electronically submits answers to a series of questions asked electronically by the employer's HR staff. These questions could be generated in sequence by interactive software--each question selected on the basis of the candidate's answers to previous questions--or they could be entirely standardized for all candidates, and simply be sent in one questionnaire or application to the candidate via email. In some cases, the interaction could be as conventional as a one-on-one conversation between the applicant and a job counselor or recruiter conducted via Internet email instead of telephone or postal mail.
During this part of the process, the employer would almost certainly check the applicant's references, and also ask the applicant to submit samples of previous work or to demonstrate his or her capabilities by completing a test assignment. But the candidate still would not have to appear at the employer's office. It's no great stretch to imagine the work of the test assignment being done entirely via telecommuting.
At the same time, the applicant would be asking his or her own questions of the employer, and very likely checking the employer's vital signs, including perhaps its stock price, business prospects, hiring and firing history, and financial viability.
Assuming both parties meet the other's minimum standards, details of the employment contract would be negotiated next. Via email or a video conference, the candidate and HR staff would nail down such important factors as compensation, job title, responsibilities, starting date, vacation and other benefits, bonus possibilities, and potential for perks. At some point, the candidate would probably have to visit a doctor for a physical exam. But everything else can already be handled virtually. It's only a matter of learning to be comfortable hiring this new way.
This sketch of online hiring may not work out perfectly in practice, but intrinsically it's no worse than many of the face-to-face hiring systems employers are using right now.
While we're ramping up these online hiring methods, however, it's likely that employers would continue to insist on a face-to-face interview as a last step before making a firm job offer. After all, you can hear some people asking, "How do we know it's really the candidate who's answering all these questions and doing all this work?"
Which brings up the classic "what's in the black box" conundrum. Some people will be concerned that it be the candidate giving all the answers and meeting all the requirements. But what if, instead, it's a close-knit family who--together--can meet the requirements of a single job description that can be done via telecommuting? If this "virtual employee" meets the requirements, does the work, and provides the expected responses to all questions, should the employer be concerned about the identity of the "virtual employee?" or even whether it is a single individual or a team?
Let's go farther: Should the employer be concerned whether or not the "virtual employee" is even human? If computers ever learn to demonstrate intelligence--under the terms of the Turing Test (give appropriate answers to any reasonable question, and maintain a reasonable conversation with another person, all via a typewriter)--why couldn't these intelligent computers get and hold real jobs? After all, some computers are already replacing some employees. Why must these replacements always be made with the knowledge and consent of the employer? But don't bother to answer these questions now: this is a topic for a future discussion.
A new and different approach to facilitating small business startup and success in the private sector is now finding a place in the business world. One of the most prominent is a non-profit consortium in Silicon Valley called CommerceNet. Founded in 1994, it began as a project of the federal government, but has now evolved into a membership based company involved in a joint venture that is attempting to develop an Internet-based infrastructure for electronic commerce.
An open question among advocates of business incubation has long been "where is the optimal location for R&D centers of excellence?" CommerceNet is now attempting to demonstrate that the breadth and immediacy of connections with other business organizations--that is, "being virtual"--and not simply an organization's physical location, are the key elements in structuring a successful and viable "network of innovation?"
So far, there are about 300 corporate and organizational members in the consortium. Together, they are struggling to find ways to make a global business community viable through telecommuting and electronic commerce.
Although the concept may later need fine-tuning to be effective in many different industries, locations or markets, it seems worthwhile to test its viability right now within the software industry, which has long been a trend-setter and a key source of value enhancement in all other industries.
In fact, this experiment is particularly timely, because the software industry is going through a phase of rapidly increasing competition and widespread opportunities for entrepreneurs and small companies. In California, software entrepreneurs face particularly critical issues, not the least of which include a shortage of financial and human capital.
According to a recent report on this issue from Dr. Charles Grantham at the Institute for the Study of Distributed Work, and supported by the California Office of Strategic Technology under its Goldstrike Program, this new model of business incubation through telecommuting must focus on providing the small business community with a structure and mechanism to easily access:
* information on "best practices" for business development
* industry and management experience
* resources for international marketing, sales and distribution
Dr. Grantham suggests that every business today competes in two worlds: a world of physical resources that managers can see and touch, plus a second telecommuting world centered around information. The physical world is adequately addressed by traditional business incubators. But these institutions typically give short shrift to the other essential aspect of the situation: the telecommuting dimension.
Clearly, for an entrepreneurial firm to become a successful venture, many different needs must be adequately addressed. But not all these required resources must be co-located. In fact, with the globalization of today's technical and business resources, having everything near to hand is often an unreasonable requirement. That's one reason converting some or all the functions of business incubation to a brand new telecommuting paradigm would make so much sense, not only in the US but elsewhere around the globe.
A telecommuting incubator would focus on the presently underserved requirements of business growth and success, such as:
* identifying strategic opportunities
* identifying key core competencies and human resource requirements
* actively managing intellectual capital
* creating strategic alliances.
All these steps are important in the development of a sustainable competitive advantage for an up and coming business enterprise. And not surprisingly, they are blind to geographic and resource constraints. Instead, they reflect what ought to be the main goals of a telecommuting-based business incubator: pooling technical and business talent across all frontiers, providing a clear focus on success, and offering a strategy to meet each business opportunity at hand.
A telecommuting based "network of innovation" would electronically bring together centers of technical, business, and management excellence in ways far more flexible and dynamic than is now available. For example, increasing the level of connectivity between practitioners of "best practices" would greatly facilitate powerful alliances of startups, universities, and large companies--all of which would have excellence as a common underlying theme. A telecommuting based business incubator would also make it far easier for the best marketers, technologists and managers to assemble themselves into strategic alliances geared to address highly specific business opportunities.
As presently envisioned, a telecommutingbased business incubator would focus on forming strategic alliances and bringing together as early as possible all the ingredients essential for success in a new business venture. It would be Internet-based, and would be set up and operated to optimize the use of distributed resources. It would also be a for-profit entity, with university and public sector organizations playing supporting roles.
Naturally, the telecommuting incubator would work in conjunction with physical incubators, when appropriate.
Dr. Grantham suggests that by supporting this kind of telecommuting based business incubator, the public and private sectors could play critically important roles in plugging the knowledge gap which now threatens to limit the future growth of our knowledge-based economy.
For more information on any aspect of this discussion, contact Dr. Grantham at the Institute for the Study of Distributed Work, (501)974-0140, or by email at isdw@aol.com .
Whether you're an experienced teleworker or a novice considering whether or not to explore the possibility, the alt.support.telecommute newsgroup is full of people who can provide a great deal of advice on just about any aspect of the technology, the sociology, the economics, or the practical business of telecommuting.
If you're looking for work, you can post your resume, or a brief notice "selling" yourself as a telecommuter, on this listserv (and possibly others that are relevant to your specific job skills and goals).
Lots of different people scan through these notices, and you just might make a connection that takes you from thinking about telecommuting to doing it in a very short time.
Copyright © 1998 by Robert Moskowitz. All rights reserved.