Dean Owen

7年前 · 2分钟。 阅读时间 · ~10 ·

博客
>
Dean的博客
>
An Open Letter to the Recruitment Industry – Don’t Dismiss Technology

An Open Letter to the Recruitment Industry – Don’t Dismiss Technology



I very much doubt those that know me would classify me as a geek, but here is a clue; - “Resistance is Futile”.

As a brief introduction, I am not a recruitment industry veteran. I left a lucrative two decade long career in Financial Markets back in 2013 after I discovered how desperate times were for college graduates looking for jobs that are not plainly visible. I had read an article in Forbes magazine that a full 80% of jobs are not advertised. Some have, probably rightly, gone on to dispute this claim, but a quick look at the U.S. and as many of you know, in July of 2015, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a record high 5.67 million unfilled jobs. As of September 2015 the number had tapered off to 5.53 million. At the same time, unemployment in the U.S. stood at 5%, or roughly 7.9 million. Tapping into my background in economics, this gap in job openings vs unemployment is referred to as the Beveridge Curve named after British economist William Beveridge. Regardless, these numbers indicate to me the huge inefficiencies that exist in the U.S. labor market, a market that can lay claim to having the most sophisticated recruitment industry.

What strikes me as odd is the amount of negativity toward change I see and hear from established industry veterans. As an example let’s take Liz Ryan, CEO and Founder of Human Workplace, described on their website as “the world’s most widely-read and well-respected workplace visionary and thought leader”. Now don’t get me wrong, I truly admire that she has helped an unimaginable number of people with some truly invaluable advice. But when she writes:

“You can’t convey your background and your talents through a keyword-matching system. I can’t wait to see automated recruiting systems slide into the dustbin of history, but in the meantime, if you’re frustrated lobbing applications into Black Hole recruiting portals only to hear nothing back, you’re not alone!”

(Forbes Oct 2015, “Five Job-Search Activities That Don’t Work”)

I can’t quite believe how short sighted this is. In my mind, anyone involved in helping match candidates to jobs is doing a great job. But we have a problem here in that real people are unemployed and desperate for a paycheck just to make ends meet. Whilst I wholeheartedly agree “there will always be a place for humans” (I quote a Michael Page executive at a recent HR industry awards dinner), it is technology that is required to bridge the gap.

I have lived through disruption, having seen trading of stocks and bonds, foreign exchange and derivatives move from trading through microphone and speaker into pits of screaming brokers, to screen trading, and eventually to seeing computers replace humans in the actual trading. Many of those that started out with me in the early 90’s did not survive the financial industry very long. The ones that did, learnt to adapt.

Now I put it to you that any service orientated industry is all about making connections happen, be it connecting buyers to sellers, learners to knowledge, or as in our case, job seekers to jobs. Every service industry has the potential to be disrupted by more efficient technologies that cater to the “Everybody”. We have seen it in the travel space with Airbnb, in transportation with Uber, and we are seeing it happen gradually in education with the proliferation of MOOC’s. To some extent we have seen it take place in recruitment from when Monster.com pioneered online job boards back in the mid-90’s. These days there are a whole host of tools available to us ranging from social media sites like LinkedIn, to information rich sites like Glassdoor, to predictive analytics, SaaS recruitment software, HRIS, HRMS, WBT, CMS, ATS, the list is endless.

I assume we all got into this industry for the same reason, to help match candidates to jobs. This is where it gets interesting: -

Imagine a world where in order to find a quality hire, all you need is your finger. We are way beyond keyboards, Email, Google search, social media here. Imagine a display where you can point and click on menu items that will expand, and you select criteria with a simple point and drag. Select degree type, location, certification, work experience, full time, part time, any criteria you can think of within the legal boundaries of what are, and are not classified as engaging in discriminatory practices. Imagine a results list appear before you, point at a profile, perform a background check, point to see references, point to validate certification, point to view video profile, point to connect, chat, schedule a video interview, point and drag to share profile, discard profile, point to see candidates located in your village, town, city, who are available to interview in the next 10 minutes. You see where I am heading here? Imagine that you can source and screen talent just using your finger, and best of all it cost you nothing but an afternoon. We are not there yet, but this is the not too distant future. It is a future where open jobs are filled within days. Where youth unemployment in Spain at 49% is a thing of the past.

How can we not want that?

We cannot wholly blame government on unemployment. Our industry requires a technological revolution. There are already a few players working toward such a future. I am glad to see more and more established agencies making moves.

There will always be room for humans to add value to the hiring process, especially at the top end, Executive Search. But I ask you to not dismiss technology. As an industry we cannot be thinking of an intermediary role filling one job at a time or we will never have a significant impact on reducing unemployment. The role of the intermediary will diminish, guaranteed.

As an industry, we need to be working toward a single goal, full employment.


Dean Owen is the Co-Founder of Quimojo, a revolutionary new concept in Global Campus Recruitment. Search, Connect, Chat and Video Interview candidates, all from within a single platform. 


This article was originally published on LinkedIn on 12th January, 2016

"
评论

Dean Owen

7年前 #2

@William Harrison, thanks for taking the time to read the article and for the comment. I am a huge proponent of video interview technology, and can't quite understand why the big guns in online recruitment have yet to implement it. Video interview is a really efficient way to screen a large number of candidates in a very short time since with a face to face, you are almost obliged to grant the candidate one hour. With video interview, you can set the length at 15 minutes, and extend if necessary, and then follow up with a face to face. Anyway, glad to be one of the first platforms with video interview technology built into a searchable candidate database.

Dean Owen

7年前 #1

Brian McKenzie - I hear you Brian. Whether using traditional methods of recruitment, or the latest ATS, good talent will always slip through the cracks. What concerns and motivates me is the fact that we have millions of people out of work and desperate for a job, and at the same time millions of job vacancies. The industry needs to focus on improving the discovery process to match candidates to vacancies. Candidate selection will always be done by humans. What we are building at Quimojo is a system that enables small businesses to fill positions fast. Ultimately, if you want to fill a position, you log on, specify degree type, linguals skills, desired industry, candidates in your area etc, and get an immediate results list of available candidates who you can video interview on the spot. We believe our system is ideal for fresh graduates with little work experience, and that is our focus. For experienced hires, existing technology may not be sufficiently advanced right now, which explains the frustration with current ATS, but it will get there. Thanks for commenting.

来自Dean Owen的文章

查看博客
6年前 · 3分钟。 阅读时间

Jenny, Natalie, Ashley · I was a teenager once. And like you guys, music was an essential part of m ...

7年前 · 2分钟。 阅读时间

In the Spring of 2014, a wave of nostalgia swept the nation upon the announcement that production of ...

7年前 · 4分钟。 阅读时间

I am not a social media guru. I am however an old hand at beBee having made beBee my primary platfor ...

你可能对这些工作感兴趣

  • ABB

    Sales & Portfolio manager - Consumer Industry

    发现在: beBee S2 CN - 5天前


    ABB Shanghai, 中国 OTHER

    Sales & Portfolio manager - Consumer Industry · Take your next career step at ABB with a global team that is energizing the transformation of society and industry to achieve a more productive, sustainable future. · At ABB, we have the clear goal of driving diversity and inclusion ...

  • Danaher Corporation

    Senior National Sales Manager

    发现在: beBee S2 CN - 3天前


    Danaher Corporation Shanghai, 中国 Paid Work

    Be part of something altogether life-changing · Working at Cytiva means being at the forefront of providing new solutions to transform human health. Our incredible customers undertake life-saving activities ranging from fundamental biological research to developing innovative va ...

  • AstraZeneca

    Director, Regulatory Affairs

    发现在: Talent CN S2 - 1天前


    AstraZeneca Jing'An, 中国 全职

    RA Associate Director is responsible for managing multiple brands/compounds, to obtain regulatory approval to support various development, manufacturing, sales and marketing activities for the designated product group; support TA head to develop a highly reliable and professional ...