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The Problem (and Solution) of Applicants Without Email Addresses

Can you offer any experience from PG County as far as how you dealt with requiring Custodian applicants etc. – folks where there is a perception they might not have an email address, how did you overcome this perception did you help facilitate them signing up for free GMAIL accounts, did you offer them to come to the HR area and someone would assist them or was it not even a thought considered?

So here is the strategy (and this comes up a lot with other iRecruitment installations, too):

ACME has an HR customer service center setup for this purpose, which provides support for walk-in applicants, as well as email and phone support.  First, they have finally (I believe) eliminated all paper applications. Everyone is required to create an application for a job via iRecruitment.  Second, when someone does not have an email address, the HR customer service people will assist users with setting up a free email account. I know they support non-English languages whenever possible, as there are probably 3 languages other than English commonly spoken in the district, though I’m not sure to what extent for non-constituents.

Which brings me to another point: Oracle doesn’t care what email address I use, so I can use a fake address, as long as no one else has used the same fake email address.  Like: [email protected].  Of course, this is strong discouraged, but there is no way to validate an email address.  This really puts the responsibility on the job seeker, where it really should lay.

I can only speak from my own experience and practice in other organizations, and not specifically to ACME’s processes, but the email and computer literacy components act as a filter, especially when there are nearly always more applicants than jobs.  In an organization that uses SSHR extensively for benefits enrollment, talent management, payslips, tax forms, and of course recruitment, the ability to use a computing device becomes a requirement of employment.  For employees, let’s say bus drivers, they have access to kiosk PC’s at various locations and generally at their bus lots to do self-service actions. At ACME it has been a cultural change and has taken several years to adopt, which includes the unions, employees, support staff, and administration.

I hope this helps answer some of the concerns.