Best known for operating the world's largest, international, multimedia, news agency, London-based Reuters LLC is also a global provider of information to the word's financial services and corporate markets. Its staff of approximately 14,500 employees spans more than 90 countries. In the following discussion, Steve Schwander, director of talent acquisition for Reuters, talks with Authoria about his experience in introducing technology to the recruitment process at this geographically diverse enterprise.

How do the staffing needs of Reuters differ from those of most companies?

Well, at the executive and managerial levels our needs are probably similar to those of other organizations. I think at lower levels we're more likely to differ. While most people see Reuters as a media news and information provider, the financial information services we provide to financial and corporate markets generate almost 90 percent of our revenue. This means that nearly everyone we hire needs to have a solid, if not highly advanced, knowledge of business finance and the financial services industry.

Recruiting people with such specialized knowledge and skills is a major challenge. You not only need to recruit them in substantial numbers, but also at the right price point. In major financial markets, such as London and New York, we're often competing with high-paying investment banks and the headquarters of financial services firms.

By contrast, in cities like St. Louis and Tiverton (England) where Reuters has significant operations centers, just finding enough people with the right knowledge and skills can be a challenge. In the first case, we get inundated with applications, so effectively managing information is a real issue; and in the second, optimizing how you source talent is the primary concern. Technology can greatly aid the process in each of these areas.

How was the staffing process addressed in the past?

It seems difficult to believe for an organization of Reuters' size, but until the year 2000 it had no designated recruitment function. Moreover, most recruiting records were maintained manually. For each job requisition there was a Manila folder in which the relevant applications were kept along with a spreadsheet for tracking the applicants' progress. It was a highly manual and distributed process.

In 2000, the company built a dedicated group within HR to focus exclusively on recruiting. Until then, our staffing efforts were heavily dependent on outside agencies, which represented a considerable expense for an organization of our size and staffing demands. What we needed, therefore, was a more economical and effective way to bring candidates into the system. At about the same time, our entire HR department was undergoing a transformation aimed at improving efficiency and reducing costs.

By 2001, the recruitment group was firmly established and had identified two needs as being high priority. First, as mentioned, we needed a way to curb agency costs and simultaneously source the growing number candidates our growth demanded. Second, we needed a more efficient and reliable method of recordkeeping to fully comply with governmental EEOC (equal employment opportunity) regulations. So, technology was something we needed to give serious consideration to, and some promising solutions were appearing in the marketplace.

What approach did Reuters take in evaluating technology options?

We focused on the market's leading HR software vendors and assessed their offerings based on four factors: functionality, service, user friendliness, and cost. In 2001, we adopted Authoria Recruiting. That application enabled us to immediately begin posting jobs on the Internet rather than relying on agencies and print advertising. A year later, we added the company's Hiring Center component (also now part of Authoria Recruiting) that enabled us to process and track applications far more efficiently. Initially, we had about 60,000 registered profiles on the system. We wanted to leverage that database when selecting an applicant tracking system and build on the strength Authoria Recruiting had already brought to us. Today we have about 160,000 registered profiles.

Tell us something about the implementation process.

Considering that it was Reuters' first effort at implementing this kind of technology, it went very well. The vendor's staff was solid, knew its business thoroughly, and had an excellent implementation process in place. When we purchased and installed the second component, we sensed a slight disconnect between management and the implementation team, but that was understandable given the firm had just obtained the package through an acquisition and we were the first to adopt it.

Configuring the product upon installation required us to do a lot of serious thinking about where we wanted to go with the technology. It offers three or four options for handling a variety of tasks, and which you choose can make a difference down the road. So, it took us some time to think everything through and get things right. However, having done it, we're much better prepared to do it for future installations.

What sort of training is needed and how difficult is it do?

The amount of training needed to use Authoria Recruiting is certainly not overwhelming. To date, only a few from our group, including myself, have taken advantage of the training program; and, so far, we have rolled the program out to 160,000 users. Having Authoria train the trainers, who in turn train our users has two major advantages: first, it's much more economical-especially given Reuter's size and geographic diversity, and second, our in-house training staff has a much deeper understanding of our systems and processes, so they can tie the training much more closely to Reuters' unique needs.

Now, as we prepare to take the system to the next level where it will be much more service based, our training needs will grow substantially-a challenge we have still to address. We now need to explore the amount of training required to make all Reuters hiring managers proficient in using Authoria Recruiting.

How well has Authoria Recruiting been received by those now using it? We adopted a phased rollout plan in 2002, so the first two years saw it deployed to our U.K. and the U.S. recruiters. It was well received in both markets. Management issues temporarily slowed adoption in the U.K., but that is already back on track. So currently, about 60 to 70 percent of Reuters' job openings worldwide are now handled, to some extent if not fully, using Authoria Recruiting, and we are moving rapidly toward making that 100 percent.

What sort of results has Authoria Recruiting generated to date for Reuters? We started keeping records of our recruiting performance when the group originated in 2001. In the U.S. at that time, we were paying agency fees on 35 percent of our external hires. By 2004, this had dropped to eight percent of hires-a 77 percent decrease. So, the savings in U.S. agency fees alone has averaged $1.5 million a year. For the U.K., the savings picture looks much the same. And, we anticipate similar savings next year when we roll out in our other European locations and elsewhere.