Is recruitment broken?
No really, is it?
I’m sure you have opinions whether you are looking for a job or you’re looking to fill a vacancy.
“Recruitment is broken”, seems to be the chant of the people these days. Both applicants and hiring teams alike are feeling some kind of pressure. Both feeling like somewhere along the way the process stopped working the way it should.
But does that mean that recruitment is actually broken?
Short answer from me.
No.
People are still getting hired and the world is still spinning. So, it’s doing what it is supposed to do.
Long answer.
Well… it may not be broken but it sure is messy.
From the applicant side, they’re in the dark. They don’t know what goes on behind the scenes.
But from the hiring teams’ side, they are making it so hard on themselves. I don’t know if they do this as some form of masochism or if they are helpless but either way the process needs a clean-up.
The 7 pieces clutter I see in the recruitment process are:
- No recruitment plan
As that old saying goes, failing to plan is planning to fail. This is the number 1 thing. There needs to be a plan of what the recruitment looks like. Before even putting out the message that there is a vacancy, you need to know what the job is, what the budget for it is, when you need it to be filled, when you can do interviews, how many interviews you want to do, how long you want to advertise for and what you need to know from applicants. - Ease of application
Anything “easy apply” needs to go. Sounds great in theory but this is where you get 100s maybe 1000s of empty resumes, literally just blank application forms or someone accidently sending in their dating profile. - Lack of Filtering Applicant Responses
Recruitment teams need to be asking questions of applicants that allow them to easily sift between applicants worth pursuing and those that are not. For example, if you need people to work on Mondays ask “Can you work Mondays? Yes or no?”, then disregard everyone that said no. There is no point getting to a phone interview to only then find out if people can work Mondays. - Number of applications and number of days job ad is open
It may be the typical process to leave a job ad open for 14 days but that is helping no one when you get 5000 applications for 1, ONE role. You can start selecting people for next stage as soon as people start applying. There is no rule that says you must wait 14 days before assessing applicants. You’re better off having less people apply. More applicants doesn’t mean better applicants. - Lack of talent pool
This could be internal or external. Not every vacancy needs to be communicated to the masses. Sometimes the best person for the job is actually one team over from you. Or the friend your colleague. Or they applied to a job 6 months ago, missed the role then but now would be perfect. This saves on advertising costs alone. But also think of the time saved! - Hiring teams don’t know how to interview
This is what slows hiring teams, they don’t know who to hire because they don’t actually know who the best person option is because they asked irrelevant questions. I don’t know what it is but there appears to be a huge rejection of being trained in how to interview. There seems to be this belief that interviewing is really easy and even a donkey could do it. But the reality is, interviewing is a skill. And when people know how to interview properly, they can be more confident in who they select for a job. - Too many people in the mix
It is common for some people to think that their opinion matters in the recruitment process, but they are just a massive hinderance. They absolutely slow the whole thing down and just waste everyone’s time pretending to be important. Let’s tell these people to bugger off because they need to hear it.
So, I do not believe that recruitment is broken but rather it does need to be tidied up. Hiring teams would benefit from taking part in a recruitment review and make changes that make the process easier because not only will they find the experience for themselves so much nicer but the applicants as well will appreciate the experience and if applicants have a good experience, they are more likely to think fondly of the company which then spreads to others. The public image remains positive.
Thoughts?