Recruiting in the Age of Machines

In the last several decades, the markets for both recruiting technologies (the outmoded - yet still dominant - ATS) and pre-employment assessment instruments (personality measures, intelligence tests) have exploded.

In reaction to these developments, countermeasures have appeared across the internet, from keyword-stuffing resumes to "fool" Applicant Tracking Systems (borrowing SEO tactics) to answer farms revealing desired response patterns / psychological profiles (hint: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness are good).

These systems and tests have had a measurable impact on the efficiency (in the case of the ATS) and precision (in the case of assessments) of selection decisions.

The problem is that both are blunt instruments, often eliminating good - and even great - candidates along with mediocre ones. They have also resulted in a false sense of security in the accuracy of the process, leading to a neglect of onboarding, expectation-setting and assessment of candidates' motivations (replaced by simple matching / scoring). 

My experience and track record working for six years as a recruiter convinced me that top-notch interviewing and evaluation skills beat lazy surrogates any day for predicting performance. Why would a highly targeted and individualized approach be superior? Pre-employment assessments deal in probability and tend to over-simplify decisions (e.g. "smarter is better" or "let's just select the person with the highest conscientiousness score"), failing to account for the complex interactions between personality, environment, team and culture; while Applicant Tracking Systems' resume parsing features typically yield "lowest common denominator" candidates, independent of their actual achievements or the circumstances surrounding their careers.

Where these tools tend to have the greatest impact is on recruitment departments and processes that lack rigor and validity in the first place. If interviewers are poorly trained, biases and favoritism run rampant, and interviews are conducted haphazardly with little regard for actual position responsibilities or competencies, introducing automation and consistency will, and has, improved the outcomes for many. 

Just don't forget the fundamentals: the best recruiters in the world don't rely on software or psychological assessments to find top talent; they use their hard-won skills and creativity to connect deeply and powerfully with candidates.