The Vanishing Recruiter Problem

The Vanishing Recruiter Problem

The great resignation, ‘War for Talent’ or any other descriptions used to describe the current labour market, are true across all parts of the economy. It is well trailed that HGV drivers, tech professionals and all elements of the hospitality industry are badly affected. Without wanting any of my non recruitment friends to get the violins out… this is a problem. It has been brewing for a few years and we, in the industry have been wilfully blind to it.

There are several reasons for this. It is time to face up to the problems and tackle the root causes. It is a truism that we, in the In-House part of the industry, are cobblers’ children; we never take the advice we give to the businesses we inhabit. In so many ways we suffer from a confidence problem. How many recruitment professionals are making a joke about what we do when talking to a stranger? In so many ways we are almost apologetic about the skills, behaviours and attitudes that make us successful, and this is self-limiting.

I want to start a conversation about tackling our own lack of confidence and ways to address a systemic problem. There are some ideas about what we need to do, but this needs the collective brains of an industry not a sole voice, which is what we often are.

Houston we Have an Image Problem

With all the effort we put in to branding and engagement for our stakeholders, do we invest the same effort into telling compelling stories about the roles, challenges, and opportunities that a career in Resourcing offers? There are so many examples of the differing skills, and attributes needed in teams – yet historically we have relied on the agency world to train folk for us. There is a tendency for the In-House world to look down on these guys – but they are taking the risks for us and have done for years.

Stereotyping – It’s our middle name

The number of adverts I see for recruitment roles that specify an industry experience eg must have worked for a tech start up construction experience required is astonishing. As leaders, we have duty to change this conversation… After all, wouldn’t we say to stakeholders that this limits the market and drives down choice and drives up price. Of course, you need certain skills and knowledge to be an astronaut, but we aren’t rocket scientists – we are so much more ??

Surely, if we can’t manage the expectations of our stakeholders, no one can?

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Nurturing and Developing Talent

How many webinars have I attended, ?( they used to be face to face but either my personal hygiene is a factor or something happened in the world in the last 18 months) on Strategic Workforce Planning? Many is the answer… The one takeaway that is always stark is that we don’t do enough of the ‘build’ element. I don’t want to come across all Boris Johnson, but we need to build something not even ‘back better’.

Assessment

This is a passion of mine so forgive my ranting…Question. How many positions do we use a robust recruitment process? Do we rely on an interview? And I say interview, do we even take our recruiters through a robust interview around behaviours, motivations etc or do we probe more fully their experience and make a judgement on that? ?When do we ever use the tools, we purchase on behalf of our enterprises on the roles we need to fill?

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I have posed a small number of questions, all deliberately charged with opinion, but we need this debate. Below are some suggestions and always open to challenge, debate and advice but y god our industry needs it or we will never solve a systemic issue and if we cant do it now, when can we?

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Image

There are some great examples of individuals and some groups raising the profile – these tend to be around people like me ( I am not complaining but those we want to recruit, want to see and hear from those they can access) How do we leverage successes of those we manage ?( my goodness there must be some or we really are in trouble) Come on leaders lets lose our egos.

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Experience

Simple on here – shall we open up ‘Experienced recruiter’ roles to more than just those with wider experience than just the skill you discipline that has the gap? You never know you may find some gems.

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Development and Nurture

In fairness there are groups RL100, FIRM, IHR are all great sources, however, as an industry are we investing in graduate programmes, apprenticeships, and other entry points? Our agency friends can do it. Their entry points into the industry maybe sales focussed and not for everyone but at least they do it. They can’t afford not to. Maybe we have to adopt that mentality?

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Assessment

This can’t be that hard? Surely as an industry we could agree what makes relevant roles in our team successful and work with our assessment partners to develop tools to assess those with little experience in our industry and help them find a way our world? They will be richly rewarded with a varied career will only become more important.

Surely, if we can do all or some of this, we might get that ‘seat at the table’ we so crave?

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Jonathan Hime

Group CEO - Founder at EQUIIDA

3 年

Thanks for producing this Jon Hull. I can only speak for executive level assessment but at that level industry experience is irrelevant when empowering your recruitment professionals. Diversity of thought is critical as well as the ability to assess purpose, vision, values, beliefs and future leadership behaviours. One other key element remains relatively underinvested; how to integrate and onboard successfully to add long term strategic value? Organisations are only a headline away from a publicly unsuccessful executive appointment that could impact brand, reputation and market value.

Kaye M.

Talent Insights | Strategy | Global Talent Acquisition Delivery | Data & Operations | Process Optimisation | Fixing Things | RPO | Talent Solutions

3 年

Absolutely love this - the minute an organization stops seeing TA as a poor cousin and just an overhead the more inclined to invest they will be. This is why I love some of the global RPOs players as they genuinely invest - but it is their core business. As for sector experience it certainly helps - however for me what’s more important is tenacity, intellectual curiosity, relationships, coping with ambiguity, initiative - let’s hire for potential and develop future leaders

Jennifer Candee

Global Head of TA | CPG, FMGC, Engineering | S&P 500 & FTSE 100 | Talent Intelligence & Global Recruiting Strategy

3 年
Katherine Bell

Head of Workforce Strategy, Talent Acquisition. Strategic Leader. Transformation and Change, Growth Mindset

3 年

Thankyou Jon Hull I think every resourcing professional read your article and thought thankyou for articulating what we are thinking/knowing. An opportunity to collaborate across industry (if not doing so already) and a clear focus on looking for motivation, emotional intelligence and transferable skills in people .... isn't that what Covid has taught us?!

Well done Jon! A brave piece of writing finally addressing the elephant in the room. As recruiters many of us have had the privilege of staring into the recruitment bowels of different organisations and all too often the sight is not a pretty one. Instead of standing on the sidelines and passively observing this Groundhog Day carnage repeat itself we have a responsibility to those who rely on us to bring about positive change from the inside and share our unique experience and invaluable perspective.

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