The recruitment function is usually not seen as strategic. While CEOs and other leaders may say how critical recruiting is, their actions do not match their words. Recruiting budgets are barely sufficient, funding for new technology is hard to obtain, and recruiters are the first to be laid off when the market slumps.
This may be because recruiting leaders have not really been leaders. I have watched leaders come and go over the years, and I am always a little surprised that so few have become well-known in the profession and are admired by and sought after by knowledgeable CEOs and headhunters. Most see recruiting as a stepping stone to a bigger role in HR. Their tenure often leaves behind a legacy of half-completed technology implementations, high staff turnover, muddled objectives, and unsatisfied hiring managers.
The highly regarded handful are the leaders who have taken command of a company's recruiting process and have successfully forged a function that competes effectively against other organizations and consistently supplies their organization with quality talent without relying on extraordinary measures. These leaders are visionary, use data to showcase success, are bold, and are willing to experiment.
The best way to improve this is for recruiting leaders to step back and examine what they believe and practice. Here are a few ideas on what leaders should examine in their own behaviors.
Bad Practice 1: Myopic Vision
Perhaps the most dangerous to success is not anticipating the future. I see many new recruiters who are unaware of or refuse to accept the changes that time and the pandemic have created. It is dangerous not to be aware. However, to be aware, you need to network and read widely, understand the direction of your business, and focus on anticipating what changes might occur. Imagine three to five years into the future and create possible scenarios. Imagine vast changes and then think about how you would deal with those changes. What would you need for skills or resources? Who would you want to work with you? What technology would be available? This sort of thinking and practice is what successful people do, and it is how strategies are put into place that help to ensure success.
Bad Practice 2: Arrogance of Practices and Beliefs
Yesterday’s successes will not be repeated using the usual techniques or technologies. Recruiters are incredibly resistant to new approaches. Most still believe in-person interviews are the best way to judge skills and success, even though years of research show this as false. Many recruiters fear any technology that challenges how they have always done things. Tomorrow belongs to recruiters who embrace online assessment, artificial intelligence, social networking, chatbots, and other candidate relationship tools. Labor markets are not confined to single countries; work can increasingly be done anywhere, and recruiting is a virtual, global game. This means recruiters need to learn as much as they can about recruiting tools, read the research on assessment and other aspects of recruiting, talk to experts, and develop objective measures to help them predict which candidates will be successful.
Bad Practice 3: Not Embracing and Becoming Competent with Technology
Technology, automation, and artificial intelligence are the new buzzwords in recruiting. While technology is not perfect and is not a complete replacement for recruiters, the gap is narrowing. Search tools are powerful and can significantly help to find candidates. There are validated tools that provide insight into a candidate’s abilities, assess their skills, and provide objective and comparable data about different candidates. Chatbots can improve candidate engagement. Virtual onboarding tools are well accepted by new hires.
Every recruiter needs to be aware of these tools and be competent in understanding how they work and what they can and cannot do. They need to become competent in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of AI and algorithms and experiment with them as much as possible.
Bad Practice 4: Being a pair of hands, not a strategic resource
Most recruiters are obsessed with filling slots. They have been taught to do that without regard to need or effectiveness. They have a hard time discussing the value of positions with hiring managers who often regard the recruiter as little more than a clerk trusted to filter piles of resumes that are supposed to magically arrive each day because of the organization’s prominence or brand. They are given requisition to fill, and they dutifully go forth and do so – even if it is a poorly defined job or one someone might do with a different skill set.
To break this habit, recruiters need to engage in meaningful conversations with hiring managers and be equipped with knowledge about the organization’s strategic business objectives, the hiring managers' needs, and the talent marketplace. The recruiter needs to present numbers and data and make a case for hiring the competencies and skills that will be most effective. In short, they need to act as a resource and consultant to hiring authorities and show a deep knowledge and understanding of the needs of the business. On top of this, they need to be able to fill the position from a talent community they have built in anticipation of the need.
Bad Practice 5: Dependence on Obsolete Competencies
Many recruiters fail to see that the dominant skills of the profession are changing. It is very easy to rely on the competencies that made us successful and not notice that times change, just as the skills we need do. In fact, over 80% of the skills that made a recruiter successful in 2020 are of less value today. For example, interviewing skills, traditional search, and reviewing and screening resumes are not critical. Even less understandable are the recruiters who are competent at interviewing and who then focus on getting even better at it instead of developing new skills that might be more useful.
Building an online relationship, creating a social network, or enhancing an employment brand are more useful skills. The skills that will make the biggest impact are engaging a candidate in online conversation, influencing a hiring manager, and communicating the value proposition of an offer.
Recruitment leaders must critically evaluate their beliefs and practices. A paradigm shift is necessary—from viewing recruitment as a transactional activity to recognizing it as a strategic function integral to an organization's success. Leaders must evolve with the changing landscape, adopting new skills and leveraging technology to meet the dynamic needs of talent acquisition. Embracing this change is the key to transforming recruitment into a competitive advantage and aligning it with the broader business strategy.
Thank you, Kevin.
If companies are only prepared to pay for and hire low-paid, junior, docile, order-taking recruiters, that is who they will get.