Recruitment; -when demand outstrip supply; rethinking the model/approach, and in parallel removing chances of bias

5 mins read.

This article was originally written in July of 2020, but updated as of November 2021 to reflect a changing labour supply market.

Objective of this article is to illustrate how the current mind-set, structure, solutions for being the facilitation between those looking for a job/employment, and those who have may jobs/employment to offer simply isn't fit for purpose in light of a job market where we have extraordinary demand vs supply.

It is an attempt to show via a model named 5+10, that there is in fact another way of carrying out this facilitation for vast majority of roles in companies and organisations, - one which is effective/efficient and show the necessary respect and understanding for both sides of the table.

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-?truth is as hard as it may be to believe that the world of recruitment and companies/organisations since 2008 have barely invested any time and effort nor technology solutions to deal with subject of what serving a candidate supply challenged markets.

With a career spanning 20 years in recruitment, - having worked on roles across the globe, at all levels and extent of complexities I can with true hand on heart say that not ONE single role could not be filled/hired for beyond a simple yet effective methodology of 5 + 10 assessment model as shown below.?

For every single role, whether a job description short 5 liner or 5 pages there is always some key criteria which must be fulfilled, those without a job applicant simply not a match.?

When as a recruiter sitting with a manager looking to hire, those criteria are among the 3 main pillars of what matters, and what form the core of any candidate/job applicant identification or search.?

Fulfil those criteria and we are a significant step further.?

Ask anyone in recruitment who know their craft and they will say the same, get the core criteria identified and one is on the road to a match.?

The 5+10 (20, 30) model - a possible solution

Recruitment or talent acquisition is fundamentally from a company’s side about a ‘supply chain exercise’ (we need an individual to come and carry out X tasks/duties or cover X needs) whereas for the candidate/job applicant it is a deeply personal subject, often being life dependent.

As such and in meeting the needs for both sides it is about:

-???????From company’s perspective to efficiently, effectively obtain access to the candidate/job-applicant meeting a set level of criteria.

-???????From a candidate/job-applicant’s side about having their skills and abilities shown to the company/organisation, while as fast and as accurately as possible obtain knowledge whether chances of a match with vacancy for peace of mind.??

The 5 + 10 assessment model is in all it’s simplicity about ensuring basis questions/criteria met, as well as those skills and abilities required for the role and tasks to be carried out.

?Under ‘5’ sit the absolute minimum must have elements, be it educational level/attainment, location (if applicable) Salary expectations, Date of availability to start a role etc. In short the threshold elements for even being taken to below process step.

In ‘10’ it is about the core skills/abilities of the role, either be hard quantifiable or they can be more ‘elastic’??

Point is as with ‘5’ to have an understanding as to whether job applicant/candidate possessing the elements deemed important/necessary for the role.??In the instants where 10 questions not sufficient, additional questions can be answered hence the ’20, 30’

Of importance here is that all in the 5+10 (20,30) model is done through job applicant/candidate?selecting from a multiple choice menu?with a maximum of 4-5 choices per question/criteria.

In recruitment we use the term?BAU?(Business As Usual) for the roles which fundamentally required to keep a business or company running, those forming the ‘back-bone’ and of which there often will be several of the same (or to a varying degree) or roles which become repeated on a regular basis due to attrition, internal promotion or expansion.?

Any company of more than 400-500 employees will have a stable of these accounting for typically 50-60% of any vacancies a company or organisation may have.?

Examples of roles could be machine/equipment operators, drivers, technicians, production line personnel, entry to mid-level back office employees.?

Characteristic for BAU roles is that they will only rarely vary beyond their core, meaning easy to provide selection criteria for.

To illustrate how a 5+10 model could look like below example for a role which I had responsibility hiring for (a Field Service Engineer in area of laboratory test/measurement equipment in Germany), 15 times during a 12 month period, - only difference being locations, nature/art of equipment and level of expertise (entry to advanced)?

What subsequently possible was to build a job-family?selection criteria?structure?upon which selection could be made.

Example of ‘5’ basic ‘must have criteria’

Example of ‘10’ skills/abilities criteria

With this ‘a real life experience/role’ I actually worked on several times (as recurring need) and all dependent on level of role (grading from entry to advanced) answers 2, 3 and 4 would qualify a candidate/job applicant in , answer 1 would disqualify them, I know the exact results of making use of such an approach.

Not one single job applicant left out, everybody given EQUAL and FAIR chance and OPPORTUNITY.

As it may all be well and good to state something on paper, - a theory, acid test is how it may work in real life.

Faced with a situation in 2018 of candidate scarcity in a particular area of focus, and regions, I put the model to the test, used it extensively and can report that:?

30% more suitable candidates found, and all metrics/Key Performance Indicators for Time to Hire, Quality of Hire and Cost per Hire improved with 50%.

Although above 5+10 model in my example applied manually, there is no reason why this could not be done electronically, with a system or chat-bot managing the send out of questionnaire and collecting, scoring (as shown above against minimum threshold) and communicating result back to candidates, - and all in a matter of hours !

-and rather than doing this on basis of traditional submittal of a CV/resume, let this process commence the instant a job-applicant/candidate become aware of the job through a ‘click here’ function meaning being taken straight to questionnaire,

- no names, no personal details just and until questionnaire completed and scored an anonymous job-applicant/candidate.??

With for Europe stringent GDPR rules this would avoid any kind of collision and compliance issues arising as a result of this.?

The advantages should be easy to see:?

-???????Company/organisation purely having those meeting desired criteria filtered through, everybody else instantly informed of being a no match.

-???????For candidates/job-applicants instant notification and knowledge that not meeting needs/wants of the role, - and able to move on with pursuing other roles.

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This article first appeared on 19th July 2020 in my Facebook group ''Recruitment Evolution' - a forum counting 3000+ members globally and all about the wider?DISCUSSION, DEBATE, UNDERSTANDING and KNOWLEDGE?about ALL matters relating to?FUTURE and EVOLUTION of recruitment,?be it channels, tools, products, processes or solutions:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1483767261921376/

About me Jacob, see my LinkedIn profile: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/jacobsmadsen/??