Closing the Recruitment / Hiring Gap: We Need a Bridge
Houston, we have a problem. Recent grads and prospective employers don’t understand how to communicate with each other. We need new options.
The latest study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) on student’s perception of recruitment is telling. For Millennials (read: recent adults), the intrusion of recruiting apps and messages on social media is a real put off, with the exception of contact through LinkedIn.
Why? Because you can’t walk into someone’s intimate, personal space, and start talking business. Online communication, especially social media, is a private affair.
According to the report, students can’t differentiate through all the online clutter about companies online either, and they want a deeper, more intimate engagement with prospective employers, not just online contact.
But according to NACE, employers are looking for talent online, especially through social media, and are increasingly investing in sophisticated digital recruitment applications. With everyone working at odds, we’ve got a real gap in “findability” (the ability to find and be found).
What we need is a three-dimensional resume or portfolio at the crossroads.
Job seekers: your job is to make yourself known. You are not going to get a lot of one to one intimate employer romancing in today’s economy. But, you can be so much more than just another online applicant. Why not make a trackable resume where prospective employers can find more evidence of your skills and accomplishments and you can see what they interested in you? You can.
Translating your skills and experience into more than text on a paper is crucial in today’s competitive workforce. When you use an online portfolio, you’re able to see what viewers look at, and where they spend their time. You don’t need a supercharged website or any special programming skills to make a portfolio that’s super meaningful.
Hiring managers: Instead of spending valuable resources on customized software and digital recruitment applications that job seekers avoid like the plague, why not spend a few minutes looking through digital portfolios that show you precisely who a job seeker is, what they’re all about, and how talented they are? I know from our experience at Pathbrite, that hiring managers are frustrated by all the generic, fluffy resumes that tell them almost nothing about the candidate in question.
Technology is not a replacement for human contact, nor should we aim to make it a mediator of all human connections. When it comes to networking for work or clients, I think of a portfolio as a way of revealing my authentic self. My professional portfolio makes more of my leadership, skills, and knowledge accessible to people interested in working with me.
I also like that when people look at my portfolio, I can see which artifacts are more compelling than others. I’m always amazed at how many people have looked at my family photos -- something I never thought would be very interesting to others.
But as I speak at conferences and events around the world, people almost always comment on the little things I’ve added that say so much more about me than a resume ever could. How can I put a picture of myself doing volunteer work or traveling abroad on my two-dimensional, text-only resume, in a way that truly captures the spirit of who I am as a person? In my portfolio, these touches of my humanity (often called “soft skills”) are interwoven with my hard skills like my M.B.A. and my past job titles. I am known more fully as a person and contributor through my portfolio.
Finding each other is important. It’s time we bridge some gaps. It’s time we find better alignment between people. It’s time to increase our connectivity in job searches and job placements. Let’s meet at the digital portfolio.
Product Consultant | Consultant, Produits ERP Specialist | Metal Industry
8 年https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4W2ohztFEp6ck41NGRvTzJpT2M
Product Consultant | Consultant, Produits ERP Specialist | Metal Industry
9 年Heather good one... Hi Everybody, My Name is Denzil and I am from Quadridge Technologies Pvt. Ltd. We have developed a solutions called LETSMEET, which is a Collaborative Audio-Video Conferencing Solution for the Enterprise. LetsMeet for HR This is the age for instant gratification and everyone across is looking for ways to shorten the time frames of things, we bring you LetsMeet. Its an ideal solution to lessen the protocols within HR by keeping costs to a minimal and saving time. A recent Aberdeen Group survey found that 94% of HR executives surveyed felt that video conferencing helps them improve their efficiency and productivity, get LetsMeet now! Reduce your cost per hire by 32% and source from the best Did you know- 78% of the generation Y population, state that they are strongly influenced by how innovative a company is when considering employers. LetsMeet gives your HR department that fresh approach when it comes to sourcing talent. The fact that LetsMeet is location agnostic, it allows you to meet with candidates across the globe in an instance. Schedule an interview, shortlist your desired candidates and save these for a face-face interaction instead of meeting everyone personally. Candidates can join the interview from their laptop or mobile device, so virtually everyone is equipped and ready for the conversation. Get that second Opinion "At most companies, people spend 2% of their time recruiting and 75% managing their recruiting mistakes." - (Richard Fairbank, CEO at Capital One) Every HR Manager knows the repercussions of recruiting the wrong candidate. If in doubt why not use LetsMeets recording facility- Simply meet online and have a recorded session, then playback and get that much needed second opinion on whether you should recruit “a” particular candidate or not. This also serves as an excellent tool to monitor recruitment sessions or train new HR personal by getting them to view the interviewing trend within the office. Orientation and Ongoing Training. Multiple offices across the globe, LetsMeet will enable you to connect with new teams to orient into the office. All the onboarding formalities can be conducted online in larger groups with multiple offices across the globe, thereby reducing your onboarding time considerably and eliminating the need for you as HR to repeat the same information over and over to smaller groups. LetsMeet will even enable you to use it as a training tool to deliver information on various topics such as benefits of work, safety, HR procedures and more. ? Call candidates with video from anywhere on any device (mobile phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, etc.). ? Recruiter, Hiring Manager, and candidate can be on one call and one screen. ? Resume can be shared along with the video on a call. ? The entire interview (not just the resume) can be recorded and shared. ? HD-quality video and sound creates an in-person experience. Facial expressions and body language can be seen throughout the interview. ? Videos recordings can be integrated with the HRMS of any other system. ? Interviews can be recorded. Interviewers can watch previous interviews before starting the next round. Where you can meet any one any where across the globe and collaborate with them in real time. LETSMEET is an easy to use solution and it do not requires any downloads on either end, as it a browser based solution. The best part about it, that it can be completely white label as per your needs. For more information on it please do email me on [email protected] Thanks & Regards, Denzil Lobo
Senior marketing leader at McKinsey | 4x LinkedIn Top Voice in marketing & management | Inc. magazine called me "a writer you should start reading today"
9 年Excellent post Heather!
Senior Web Designer/Producer at ClearWeb.io
9 年A tool like Pathbrite makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the reminder Heather.
Business Analyst -IT
9 年Excellent article.!..very true..that recent grads and prospective employers don’t understand how to communicate with each other.? Yes... It’s time to increase connectivity in job searches and job placements..! thanks for sharing..!!