•You will hear a recruiting manager telling how to find jobs on the web.•As you

Good morning, everyone, this is our weekly program "IT and You". For this week, we have Rivka Polatrick to talk something about finding jobs on the web.
No matter which software or methodology is used on the back end, establishing a career portal starts out with one common action: setting up a link or a button on the corporate web site typically on the home page, labeled "careers" or "jobs". Clicking that link or button transports visitors into the recruiting application, which often has the same look and feel of the corporate web site.
Web recruiting software typically falls into three basic categories, although they overlap because they all offer additional functions beyond posting jobs. For example, most also include applicant tracking and reporting functions.
The first option: Take advantage of the web recruitment function included in HR modules of ERP system. Steve Gilloo]y, senior consultant for New York-based Mercer Human Resources Consulting once said that when a company has purchased an HR suite, it is just a matter of turning on the web-based front end and everything from the configuration of the site to the creation of the supporting data and the tracking of applicants is just an extension of the core ERP system.
Now comes the second option. Instead of using that built-in function, you may choose to purchase a specialized best-of-breed recruitment application from a software vendor. Some companies specialize in a particular industry, and others target businesses by size. Most of these packages can operate as either a stand-alone product or can link to the company’s HR management system (HRMS). For example, BearingPoint Inc., an international business and, technology consulting firm based in McLean, Va. uses software from Recruitmax of Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla, to drive recruiting on its corporate website as well as on its internal career portal and its alumni network portal. Through these sites, people can apply for jobs themselves or refer to others. To get information on new hires from the Recruitmax application into the company’s HRMS from PeopleSoft of Pleasanton, Calif., BearingPoint created a customized interface that sends an extensible markup language (XML) feed every hour to a helper application that sits on the PeopleSoft side of the fence.
A third option is to use an application service provider (ASP). Many best-of-breed vendors offer their software on such a hosted basis. Also, recruiting Web sites such as Monster. com host corporate career sites.  An ASP is easier to set up and operate, and this method may increase security. Some companies don’t want potential applicants to have access inside the firewall, so they have someone else host the career portion of their website.
If you go with the ASP model, typically you are looking at a fixed duration contract, make sure you understand what will happen at the end of the contract or if the vendor is acquired by another company, and if, when you do your due diligence, the vendor looks like it poses some risk, make sure a copy of the source code is put in escrow.