I have been putting a lot of thought of late into recruitment, internal, external, agency, referral, recruitment of all sorts - all this from a person who claims not to enjoy recruitment very much! (I suppose you don't have to love something to be good at it do you?)
What recruitment is has not changed very much; there is a vacancy, an advertisement is listed, and applications come in. It is what happens once you’ve applied that has probably changed more than anything; companies more and more are looking to online systems and software to manage applications and weed out the good from the bad.
In my roles so far, I have not used recruitment software, which means I look at all applications that come through and short list based on the applications.
Recruitment software can;
What recruitment is has not changed very much; there is a vacancy, an advertisement is listed, and applications come in. It is what happens once you’ve applied that has probably changed more than anything; companies more and more are looking to online systems and software to manage applications and weed out the good from the bad.
In my roles so far, I have not used recruitment software, which means I look at all applications that come through and short list based on the applications.
Recruitment software can;
[Not only does Eclipse Recruitment Manager] offer highly advanced searching of records in seconds, but further still, allows users to polish that search for the right candidate by rapidly searching candidate CVs for your choice of keywords and phrases. The speed of searching allows users to search through thousands of CVs and have the best matched handful of CVs ranked in order of suitability in seconds.
For companies dealing with hundreds of applications and resumes to get through this is obviously a great option, but will the reliance on recruitment technology be the death of the underdog?
I landed my first role in HR because my manager was not looking for someone with 3 years of administration experience but someone who was interested in HR and would be interested in using the role as a starting point. This meant that while there were other people with broad administration experience I was chosen for the role because of my interest in HR.
As a candidate, if a position is asking for experience in particular areas but you do not yet have the experience but are looking to step up, it is unlikely key words will be found in your application and you will end up not shortlisted. There is also a tendency now not to include a contact person on an application which makes it even more difficult for someone to get on the radar of the recruiting manager.
What’s more a lot of candidates probably don’t realise how the recruitment systems work and that applications will possibly never be looked at by a human and as a result may not have included the correct key words. This makes applying for positions even harder when you have to change, tweak and tailor your resume so fully for each application.
There will always be managers that are looking for something a bit different, that don’t just want someone that ticks all the boxes, these managers might be a bit more creative with their key word searches and find the underdog candidates.
I have always thought it was a bad thing that I didn’t have access to an e-recruitment system, but after doing a bit more research I’m starting to think it’s a positive. I know for a fact that there were applicants that I put forward for positions which wouldn’t have been picked up in key word searches, who would have been filtered out, and sent a not shortlisted notice.
Instead, I know of at least one of those ‘underdog’ candidates that has now stayed in the role for two years, which shows taking a chance was worth it.
I landed my first role in HR because my manager was not looking for someone with 3 years of administration experience but someone who was interested in HR and would be interested in using the role as a starting point. This meant that while there were other people with broad administration experience I was chosen for the role because of my interest in HR.
As a candidate, if a position is asking for experience in particular areas but you do not yet have the experience but are looking to step up, it is unlikely key words will be found in your application and you will end up not shortlisted. There is also a tendency now not to include a contact person on an application which makes it even more difficult for someone to get on the radar of the recruiting manager.
What’s more a lot of candidates probably don’t realise how the recruitment systems work and that applications will possibly never be looked at by a human and as a result may not have included the correct key words. This makes applying for positions even harder when you have to change, tweak and tailor your resume so fully for each application.
There will always be managers that are looking for something a bit different, that don’t just want someone that ticks all the boxes, these managers might be a bit more creative with their key word searches and find the underdog candidates.
I have always thought it was a bad thing that I didn’t have access to an e-recruitment system, but after doing a bit more research I’m starting to think it’s a positive. I know for a fact that there were applicants that I put forward for positions which wouldn’t have been picked up in key word searches, who would have been filtered out, and sent a not shortlisted notice.
Instead, I know of at least one of those ‘underdog’ candidates that has now stayed in the role for two years, which shows taking a chance was worth it.
There are many recruiters who don't use a recruitment system. Outlook and a spreadsheet can work just fine.
ReplyDeleteTechnology can hinder our perception on candidates if we don't use it correctly.
Yes, it can drastically improve the process/workflow. But can technology replace the ultimate human hiring decision? No.
Absolutely Thomas, I'm of the outlook and spreadsheet group myself. I agree that human interaction will always outweigh a software program.
ReplyDeleteI suppose it is really about finding a middle ground and not becoming lazy in our recruitment practices.
As one of the designers and subsequent trainers of the Technology quoted above, it is often a common misconception that recruitment software is supposed to 'replace' the human in the process. Like any tool for a job, the technology is there to assist the user.
ReplyDeleteWith jobs in certain fields becoming more difficult to come by, recruitment budgets and margins tighter and the number of applications rising it is not always feasible to read every single CV that comes in word by word. These types of tools allow very quick identification of a 'long list' which is workable rather than sifting manually through piles of paper to get to the potential few.
The human cannot be replaced in this process and we always stress this when training users to use the software. As the previous post states, the key is not to become lazy in our processes.
Thanks for your feedback, I did not mean in any way to criticise the software, it was actually that Eclipse had one of the best explanations of any of the tools I could find.
ReplyDeleteI have just sifted through 80 applications today and that was time consuming so I understand that positions that received 100's of applications would require some type of software to save time.
Technology will continue to advance and change the way we do things, it is about adapting to make sure that we keep the good parts of the old with the new.
Thanks again for your comments.