The chief executive of Monster UK/Ireland is applauding a move by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) to organise online recruiters into a fully-fledged sector group with a code of conduct.

"I think we cannot do it ourselves," Rob Brouwer told Recruiter. "We have not been able to regulate ourselves, and we can't do it ourselves because everybody has their own standards — and why would you adapt to the standards of the other guys? I think it's a very good initiative."

REC officials revealed earlier this year their plans to bring online recruiters together into a sector group (Recruiter, 10 January) that would work towards development and implementation of a code of conduct for that industry. End users of online services and some online operators themselves have expressed frustration that the industry lacks transparency, regulation and any widely accepted code of practice.

Setting such a code of practice will mean that online recruiters must agree on common definitions, and metrics to compare and contrast job board performance, Brouwer said. "It all comes down to two things with online recruiters: the replies you get to the jobs, and the number of CVs you can access on your CV database. It all comes down to measurements of these metrics. That's the first step to agree."

While the UK market is buoyant and grabbing a piece of the online pie is comparatively easy, online recruiters see little reason to organise or to seek a uniform code of practice, in Brouwer's view. "At the moment, you can do what you want. Everybody's growing," he said. "As soon as the market becomes a little bit more tight, we will be forced to work together. But I think now is a good time to do it."

However, Brouwer is convinced that online recruiters cannot bring their industry together themselves. "Only an external party could get all the established job board and online recruiters on board."

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