Recruiting: Applied Art or Technology?
What types of recruitment exist? What will help you find the people to propel your business? Large corporations often tend to use technology to do their recruiting, whether that be inhouse or through a list of recruitment firms that competed to be added to a coveted master supplier list. Yet those same organizations do not utilize that list of firms or practices when it comes to hiring an executive. They are directed by a board to reach out to an executive search firm to “headhunt” the people need, exclusively. Why is that? Is it because that role is more critical to the board of directors? You be the best judge of the criticality of the role you need filled.
I am a strong believer that recruiting is an applied art. I went to a post secondary institution of Applied Arts and Technology and learned the skills and principals of Accounting. Today I am apply skills and learnings to my recruiting trade. I deal with people needing people. Any recruiter will tell you that they will have a higher success rate when they can speak with and ask questions to understand the position, with the hiring manager. Sometimes that is mimicked by allowing a Q&A session online with the entire list of competitive firms working to fill the position. That and the artificial imposition of a time restraint produces “the best candidate we have” (at the time) given the details and time limit. Introduce a position to a dozen firms and from the onset they have an 8% chance of success. That mandates a technology-based search. Matching 2 to 5 key words, do a brief qualifying screen call to check availability and confirm compensation is in line with their needs and get them over to the hiring manager (or often a screening team) for consideration. It is like a baking competition… everyone scrambles for the same ingredients without proper recipes under tight time constraints and the results are what you get. Maybe a delicious masterpiece or an awful disaster, but not likely the best result that could be attained.
If the position on your team is a critical role, and not likely just one of dozens of the same, then you will get a much better result partnering with a firm (or couple of firms) you trust and give them the opportunity to seek out the best person for the role. The technology-based method does not let professional recruiters hone their craft. It also produces some of the highest turnover rates of any industry because they really can not get better at what they do, just aspire to be faster than the competition and that is frustrating and leads to giving up on the industry. There are hiring situations where the person needed for the job may not be as critical. It maybe a simple short-term role to get in do the unskilled job and get out. In those cases, whether you utilize technology yourself or accept that method from recruiters, it can produce the outcome you need.
Personally I prefer to practice a people-to-people solution in a B2B world and recruiters that apply the art of recruitment would agree with me. Clients and Candidates also tend to agree that the process yields a far greater result and a win-win-win can be achieved.