Re-Learning Recruitment In The Technology Age

Recruitment technology is changing the way HR managers are working. With the whole online recruitment system, they are becoming more and more active in the space but without the knowledge and direction to do it.

Re-Learning Recruitment In The Technology Age

What Do The Experts Say?

In his Harvard Business Review, Peter Cappelli, Professor of Management at Wharton Business School, expressed his concern something like this.

“Businesses have never done as much hiring as they do today. They’ve never spent as much money doing it. And they’ve never done a worse job of it.”

“American Census data shows, for example, that the majority of people who took a new job last year weren’t searching for one: Somebody came and got them. Companies seek to fill their recruiting funnel with as many candidates as possible, especially “passive candidates,” who aren’t looking to move. Often employers advertise jobs that don’t exist, hoping to find people who might be useful later on or in a different context.”

“The recruiting and hiring function has been eviscerated. The subcontractors scour LinkedIn and social media to find potential candidates. They sometimes contact them directly to see whether they can be persuaded to apply for a position and negotiate the salary they’re willing to accept.”

“At companies that still do their own recruitment and hiring, managers trying to fill open positions are largely left to figure out what the jobs require and what the ads should say. They use voice recognition, body language, clues on social media, and especially machine learning algorithms—everything but tea leaves. Entire publications are devoted to what these vendors are doing.

The big problem with all these new practices is that we don’t know whether they actually produce satisfactory hires. Only about a third of U.S. companies report that they monitor whether their hiring practices lead to good employees; few of them do so carefully, and only a minority even track cost per hire and time to hire.”

What Is The Solution For This HR+Tech Revolution?

Prof. Peter Cappelli suggests the following approaches to deal with the technology age in HR.

  • Don’t post “phantom jobs.” Companies should take ads down when jobs are filled.
  • Design jobs with realistic requirements.
  • Reconsider your focus on passive candidates.
  • Understand the limits of referrals.
  • Persuade fewer people to apply.
  • Test candidates’ standard skills.
  • Be wary of vendors bearing high-tech gifts.
  • Recognize the strengths and weaknesses of machine learning models.

Want to know more about these tips? Grab the expert suggestions here. Hope it works well for you. Let us know your thoughts and experience with these tips in the comments section below.