WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE HIRING JOURNEY AT THE START OF 2025?

I see a huge amount of time being wasted on both sides of the hiring process at the moment. I understand clients appear to be struggling to get technology to do the job of recruiting. But recruiting is a human function, it’s about people, not a data bucket. Clients are spending a huge amount of cash and effort so they can save money on recruiting, but they are getting so many mis-hires and bad hires. Put people back in the process.

Everyone should be speaking to each other, & hiring on skills, experience and behaviour

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What Clients are doing

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·???????? Getting Chat GPT to write the ‘Job Advert’.

·???????? Getting Chat GPT to rewrite the Job Description.

·???????? Dropping all the people who apply into an ATS system or an AI engine.

·???????? Asking the ATS system or AI engine for a short list of potential candidates (based on specific criteria, location, skills & experience). Then asking again and again because it keeps getting it wrong.

·???????? Making it hard for dormant candidates to even enter or engage in the process (often the best people).

·???????? Not using recruiters to do the heavy lifting & identifying the best people with the right behaviour, its not just about skills and experience and behaviour is not a skill.

·???????? Wasting a huge amount of time doing what a good recruiter does in their sleep.

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What Candidates want

·???????? A clear understanding of the role & what’s on the table (base, OTE, team).

·???????? Someone to speak with (real person – ideally recruiter or hiring manager).

·???????? What do they need to do to achieve success in the role.

·???????? Elevator pitch – what does good look like- ideal person (skills, experience & behaviour).

·???????? Who they will be working for.

·???????? The team - who will they be working with.

·???????? What are career opportunities.

·???????? The company (stable, growing steadily, or in hypergrowth).

·???????? The proposition - how achievable is success, access to someone who has done it.

·???????? The process, how many stages.

·???????? Are they a potential fit?

·???????? DID I MISS ANYTHING?

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It shouldn’t be ‘rocket science’, good recruiters’ have been doing it for years, they build networks of the best people with the right skills, experience and the right fit personality as well as the right behaviour. But relying on AI to find, select and screen the right people is ‘nuts’. It already has a bunch of built in BIAS, ingrained and it will take time to educate it as to what GOOD LOOKS LIKE.

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About the Author

Howard Longstaff has over 30 years of experience delivering people within the talent acquisition arena, working extensively across the UK, Europe, USA, and Canada. Specialising in building ‘Sales Teams’, and back filling roles in the Leadership Team, (the C-Suite), helping to get the balance right.

‘Getting it right first time’ is never easy, Howard is one of the few executive search consultants who is willing to guarantee the work he does, offering a 12-month free replacement. ‘No one is perfect, but a team can be’, working with SaaS startups, SEM’s and Mid-Market clients who are scaling up, working on an exclusive or retained basis.

Repeatedly building teams across three continents, he has a good breadth of knowledge across the talent acquisition and enterprise software arenas.

Over the last 20 years he has also coached 1000’s of people, staff, clients and candidates, either career coaching or general life coaching. Now as a ‘Full-Stack People Consultant he spends his time coaching and placing people.

[email protected]? +44 (0) 7710 907 988