Is Recruitment The Definition of Insanity?

As a very wise man once said, insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Does this not sum up the recruitment process?

How many of you recruit in the same way over and over again and complain that you cannot find the right people or that sourcing talent is an arduous process?

How many candidates look for roles and complain about how you are treated yet continue to look for new opportunities in exactly the same way?

I am deeply passionate about changing how we recruit and getting people to stop, think and take responsibility for their part in the recruitment process. 

That word “process” is key.  In most businesses, processes are analysed, understood and improved on a daily basis, yet for some reason, the recruitment process – which can be incredibly complex with lots of bottle necks and risk of failure – does not get the same treatment.

We need to take recruitment from a transactional to a strategic function.  We need to understand the different roles within our businesses and how there is a requirement to alter your recruitment process depending on the scope of the position and how available the talent is.

For candidates the biggest piece of advice I can give you is to take ownership of your job search.  I have noticed a huge rise in negative posts from candidates about recruitment companies and the hiring businesses where they attend interview.  The complaints are varied and many, and include issues such as a lack of feedback, recruiters sending your CV to places without your consent, applying for a job that you feel you are perfect for but never hearing back.  I am all too aware of the negativity surrounding my profession.  Part of the problem lies in the fact that any Tom, Dick or Harry can open a lap top and call themselves a recruitment company.  Contingency service allows poor quality.  That is a fact of life.  I believe that the recruitment industry should become regulated but until this happens, my advice to candidates would be to STOP what you are doing and take stock. 

• Develop a strategy.
• Do you research on recruitment companies before you let them have access to your CV.
• Ask for recommendations from people you trust.
• Select 2 or 3 recruiters to work with
• Go and meet these recruiters so that you feel absolutely confident that you are happy to have them represent you, that they have an appropriate client base, and that you feel they fully understand who you are, what you do and how you do it, and obviously what your drivers are.

I insist on meeting with all candidates I work with because I cannot credibly represent you if we have not met.  If a candidate refuses to come to see me or views it as a waste of time, I question their commitment to their job search and I will not represent them.  Any recruiter worth their salt should operate the same way – particularly in supply chain and purchasing where soft skills really matter.

For those candidates who get frustrated at the hiring companies – I sympathise.  Often recruiters are in the same boat as you and the reason we cannot feed back to you is because we in turn have not received feedback.  I have learned to take quite a pragmatic approach to this over the years and I have to say, in my experience, a business’s external recruitment process very much reflects their internal ways of working.   If a company has a disorganised recruitment process which lacks communication or thought for the candidate, you can bet your bottom dollar there will be internal issues.  I have seen it time and time again.  Do you really want to work for a company like that anyway?  Call it a lucky escape!

I fully recognise that there are issues in our industry, but I think a lot of these can be resolved by each individual taking ownership of their own part of the recruitment process (recruiter included) and also, understanding how their actions (or lack of) affect the other participants.  By doing this at the very least, we should go some way to rectifying issues around communication and feedback. 

There is obviously a huge amount more that we can do to stop recruitment being a dirty word, but I will save this for future blogs!  I would urge you all to stop thinking of recruitment as a transactional function and begin to apply a strategy to it.  This is the fundamental shift that needs to happen if we are going to successfully improve recruitment for all.

This is one in a series of blogs discussing how we can better the recruitment process for everyone involved.  For more entries please visit our website www.jps-supplychain.co.uk/blog