AN ASSESSMENT OF THE ROLE OF THE INTERNET AS A TOOL FOR SEARCHING A JOB BY GENERATION “Z”

Abstract

Among the uses of the Internet for businesses, getting fulfill the manpower requirements becomes a top most use of the Internet due to its cost efficiency over conventional recruitment strategies. Followed by this organizational practice, many individuals use the Internet as a tool for searching & selecting a job. Importantly, Generation “Z” (Gen Z) in which the Internet penetration is in height, extensively use the Internet for finding a job with right match. Yet, the role of the Internet as a tool for searching jobs is seldom addressed in existing scholarly outcomes. Thus, the objective of this study is to ascertain empirical evidences on the role of the Internet as a tool for searching a job in the context of Gen Z. An explanatory study was conducted with the participation of randomly picked 151 Gen Z respondents who represent the Ihala Udugampola Grama Niladhari division of Gampaha district of Sri Lanka. Data gathering technique was a survey questionnaire of 41 items in which the responses are ranked based on a five Point Likert scale. Four key determinants namely; security, posting, service quality and convenience were found to be critical for the effectiveness of Internet as a tool for probing for a job by Gen Z. Further, the results of confirmatory factor analysis figured out that several indicators determine the effectiveness of the internet as a tool for searching a job by Gen Z. While stressing the empirical evidence on the role of the Internet as an effective tool for searching jobs, the findings carry practical implication of strengthening security, convenience, posting and service quality of the web sites those function as job agencies. Future studies are proposed deployment of representative sample for swelling the generalizability of the findings.