E-Recruiting- Sign on correspondance

Question

Hi
Signature on Correspondence.  Users don’t want to sign on each document. What is the best method, are you using, a digital signature or note on the doc that 'SAP generated document and no sign is required.

Answer 1

Hi Robin,
I have to admit that i spite of the various projects I did on my own or got in contact with this is a new requirement. So far I found the following attempts to the topic.
1) Some companies no longer communicate by hardcopy letters with the applicant anymore. If someone sends its resume via letter or via email the application is not entered into the system. there is a person (probably an intern) printing a standard word letter and sending the document to the applicant to inform him that he shall apply online. Usually noone in the project cares if the intern likes signing the letter or not - that's life :o).
Only contracts are send as hardcopy and they have to be signed by hand anyways.
2) Very often recruitment comes from a nearly 100% hardcopy process when they switch to e-recruiting. Some companies had online tools before but the process itself / the communication with the applicant was hardcopy. So they change from singning 100% of the correspondence to perhaps 10% as the rest is handled via email. So usually they have 90% less work - so why complain?
Perhaps some HR people get to mind that if the new IT system automates parts of the process they have probably really less to do and if they focus on the topic someone else might really think of it and find out that more productive system leads to less recruiters necessary - so they try to avoid this topic.
3) From my former HR time I know that it usually helps to bundle the work. Instead of running to the printer every 5 minutes and sign a single letter we printed all not urgent letters overnight and in the morning someone was responsible for taking all letters and distributing them to the different recruiters / admins. Then they signed their 50-100 lettern in 5 Minutes and they were put on a pile so the intern could send them away. This makes things much more efficient and accepted by the recruiting team. I know one of our customers printing e-recruiting letters over night too.
In general you could write an "automated letter"- info on the letter. It is surely also possible to add the pictures of signitures to sap and put it in the smartform. As I usually implelemt a recruiter info table for tel. numbers, signature title and stuff, I would add a column there to store the name of the picture. Only restriction might be the restrictions on picture resolution in smartforms. But signing letters by hand is in my opinion a way you express your appriciation to the applicant. Even if you print an image you can always see it.
I have a customer being always among the top companies in employer branding and applicant rankings. The correct and individual way of communication with the applicant is there seen as an important element to build and keep this rank. If the recruiters would complain about signing the letters the project lead might force them to write the whole letters by hand again to show what is really much effort :o). At last e-recruiting is for treating applicants well first and recruiter come in second place.
Best Regards
Roman Weise