The end of recruitment agencies, again
At this point we’ve had a few decades of “prophets” forecasting the demise of the recruitment / executive search industry.
First it was the proliferation of populated computer databases that helped make it systematically easier for employers to target potential candidates. Then the advent of LinkedIn, followed quickly by broader social media channels, and now AI which have all made it even easier to find prospective candidates. Throughout, the “doom and gloom” experts have been predicting an end to all the 3rd party agents supporting people to find jobs, and companies to find people. The premise being that when all parties can find each other easily and communicate directly, no external assistance is necessary.
However, engagement between people and companies remains an ongoing challenge.
Why?
Because for the foreseeable future anyway, talent in demand wants to be woo-ed by someone they have a personal connection with. And companies simply don’t have the resources to create the many person:person relationships that give insights to ensure the most relevant candidate pools.
Likewise, companies don’t have the resources to connect with every interested prospective candidate and so frequently miss out on great talent due to screening tools that are any combination of inaccurate, irrelevant, impersonal, cumbersome, time consuming (thus dissuading applicants), and assumptions led.
“But hiring is not that complicated” claim the sceptics. Find the contenders with matching skills, experience and leadership attributes, use a interactive AI tool to promote the employer company and convert people to candidates, put them through a series of online assessments including psychometric indicators to check for skills plus potential for culture fit and voila! Leadership talent is identified, assessed, and hired as a result of outwardly faster, fairer, data driven outcomes.
Except. There is no machine learning tool yet able to deliver chemistry (especially to a skeptical stakeholder), let alone replicate human empathy or intuition (aka good old fashioned “gut instinct”). Nor any tool that can sensitively help people who struggle to articulate their decision making. When I think of the number of times a potential candidate has been swung to reconsider a decision to proceed with a hiring process or an employment offer… the number of times a leader has chosen to ignore all the supposedly essential criteria and wound up hiring the “wild card” candidate. These outcomes are only possible because of an interpersonal relationship that has allowed trust to be leveraged, usually by the 3rd party recruiter.
Sure, maybe we’ll get to a point with machine learning where a bot can build a strong and trusted relationship with stakeholders, where personalization and empathy can be learnt and reliably applied, but will those human stakeholders be prepared to risk such significant decisions with a machine that has no accountability? Will the machines ever care, and will stakeholders feel cared for?
Or will we simply reach a point where changing jobs or hiring is so transactional that candidates and employers will be happy to settle for repeatedly “swapping out” because relationships are no longer an important factor?
About the Author
Tracey Thompson is well regarded within the industry for her ability to source and engage high performance HR talent. Over many years she has built a well deserved reputation for her uncanny ability to access proverbial “purple squirrel” HR specialists and as a result, is looked to as a global sourcing subject matter expert.