An Automated Recommendation Approach to Selection in Personnel Recruitment

Many online recruitment platforms suffer from the inappropriateness of Boolean search methods for matching candidates with job requirements. While such platforms have so far been a successful means for decreasing personnel advertising cost, the huge amount of electronic candidate profiles has not yet been exploited to optimize search quality. In this paper, using findings from an empirical survey on modern recruitment practices among Germany's top 1,000 enterprises and supported by findings from personnel selection theory, we identify a gap between the actual requirements of matching people with jobs and current e-recruitment procedures. Based on information systems research and drawing from selection and assessment theory, a framework for developing new matching methods is proposed. We describe the elements of a matching method using a probabilistic automated recommendation approach and then present first quite promising results from applying the algorithm to synthetic data.