5 Things We Learnt About Open Hiring

Greyston Bakery pioneered the practice and has built their business around it, centred from their bakery in Yonkers, New York. The idea of 'Open Hiring' is simple and - simple incredible - anyone interested in working for the bakery adds their name to a list and when a vacancy comes up, they are contacted in order of when they signed up and offered a job. It’s that straightforward. No background checks, no CVs, no application, no interview. Want the job? You have the job!

In Greyston’s words, ‘Open Hiring replaces scrutiny with trust and gives people who want to work an opportunity to do that.’ Seemingly, the results are compelling, with global brands like The Body Shop adopting Open Hiring to support the ethos as well as enjoying the business benefits.

Who better to explore this concept with than Robin Schooling whose article, ‘The Brave New World of Open Hiring’, has helped move the topic into mainstream recruitment conversations - and fellow recruiting legend, the one and only Gerry Crispin.

What did we learn about Open Hiring both during the live show and the wider articles shared?

1. Investment Shift: from Assessment to Training

A typical recruitment process is expensive in terms of time & money. Attracting candidates, CV sifting, phone screening candidates, scheduling interviews, arranging feedback and so on. The calculation made by Greyston is at every hire using a traditional 'assessment focused' recruiting process cost over $4000 per hire. The question was raised: what if that $4000 was invested into training after, rather than assessment before the hire?

It's become increasingly hip to claim that employers should 'hire for attitude, train for skills'. And yet how many businesses actually practice what claim to believe in? Greyston have been doing this since the 1970's - hiring people based on the attitude (prepared to take the job) and then focusing the time & money otherwise spent in assessment, into training instead. It's a radical concept, only insofar that how stunningly logical it obviously is.

2. Deploy Open Hiring When the Job Can Be Trained Easily 

There are caveats; no-one is suggesting using this method of recruitment for roles which require deep domain knowledge. However, there are many jobs which can be trained in a short time frame - think about hospitality roles, contact centres, manufacturing assembling, warehousing and so on. Arguably, even recruiting roles can be added to this - short time frame to the job, up to the candidate to apply to learning and perform. Using this method, and investing the time / money into the training, employers can get workers in post and contributing to the business in a far shorter time frame compared with standard recruiting processes.

3. Particularly suitable for Employers with a Variety of Job Roles

In terms of patterns where Open Hiring is effective, Gerry and Robin agreed that for larger businesses with different types of job opportunity were the optimum fit. For Greyston, there were different types of jobs from which candidates could choose, after being shown the jobs on the first day. The variety of job roles gave candidates further agency on their entry into business (they choose the job role), as well as reduce the risk of poor matching that inherently comes with the Open Hiring approach.

Additionally, the evidence shows that people stay in post longer when they chosen their job, after being shown how the job is done. The Body Shop saw staff turnover drop dramatically in roles where Open Hiring was applied, especially in their distribution centre, where it fell by 60%.

Finally, Open Hiring also offers tremendous promise for increasing the diversity of the workforce, and making the whole hiring process for more inclusive. Keep in mind that not everyone is digitally connected, or has a CV, or can get to an interview. Plus, anyone with a criminal history, low education or job skills, or limited job history would normally be ruled out and marginalised from any work opportunity. With Open Hiring they’re on the list for a job regardless of those factors.

4. Ideal for Seasonality Requirements

In addition to larger companies with diversity of job roles, Open Hiring also suits organisations with seasonal demands. Businesses with specific jobs where you can predict openings based on staff turnover or growth in a particular season. Gerry name checked another HR/ recruiting icon Arte Nathan who used a similar approach when he was CHRO of Wynn Resorts in Las Vegas. The casinos would see seasonal peaks in staff requirements. The recruitment process was reinvented to involve reaching out to local religious and community leaders. That and removing the barriers to applying once again, showed a positive impact on hiring. Regardless of the sources of hire and their background and checks (or lack of) the people hired showed equal capability and similar turnover.

5. The Implications of Open Hiring for Recruiters

Our panellists were quick to say recruiters should not fear Open Hiring. There will always be a place for an effective recruiter. As expected though, people do fear change. It is understandable to jump to self-preservation mode when we feel threatened. When Robin shared details of Open Hiring in a discussion forum, contributors were quick to pile on with potential pitfalls and ‘what-ifs’. As we know though, swimming against the tide often works better than people think. 

With Open Hiring the scope for seismic, positive change is huge. The impact on the business, the job seeker, employment and the local economy could, and evidently does, have far reaching effects.

Recruiters embracing this method would need to refocus their activity. A shift away from 'assessment based' hiring to 'open hiring' means greater focus at front of the funnel, more time on employer branding and more coaching & facilitating with hiring managers.

What do you think? If you have introduced or used this style of recruiting, we would love to hear your experiences.

As always, if you missed the full live show – you can watch again here. 

Remember to sign up for the next live show where we will be joined by Andrew Gadomski and Katrina Hutchinson-O’Neill and asking ‘Do you have an Internal Mobility programme?’ Plus make sure you sign up for the Recruiting Brainfood Newsletter.

Show notes produced in association with Green Umbrella Marketing. 

Hung Lee is the curator of Recruiting Brainfood, the weekly newsletter for the recruiting industry. Trusted by 20,000+ recruiters & HR professionals worldwide. Make sure to sign up to award winning newsletter here and register for the next Brainfood Live on Friday 13th Mar 2.30PM GMT/ 9.30AM ET where we are exploring ‘Internal Mobility Programmes’ with recruiting experts Andrew Gadomski and Katrina Hutchinson-O’Neill