The Future of Work—Recruiting
"Ring ring"
"Hello"
"Yes, this is John Doe from XYZ Technologies. Is Nay-thin available?"
"Yes, how may I help you?"
20 minutes of discussion that the recruiter clearly did not understand later...
"What is your rate?... Oh, that's too high."
Spend time negotiating and still end up at the exact same price every time.
Sound familiar? Post a half decent resume on any job board and watch your email, text messages etc. blow up with meaningless interactions like this.
This is the state of scaled recruiting today. Yes, today.
Over the last several months, as we brought KTA to market, we followed this exact process and without fail got to the same place every time.
Doing the math, one can easily see why recruiting is so expensive. The time spent paying for access to resumes, followed by awkward automation of one of perhaps the most vital interactions an employee has with a company and no wonder there's a labor problem.
If history has taught us anything, it’s that if success is determined by an applicant’s ability to manage a wildly disjointed process rather than their ability to do the job or their work quality, then failure is all almost always inevitable. No wonder good resources are hard to find!
Once upon a time I was a young man and applying for a job was a big deal. You prepared a crisp resume on the right paper and if nothing else, expected a polite "no".
The dotcom era of course changed all that and left us with this mess. But how does this impact you?
Imagine you are a $100 million company with big growth on the horizon. You know you need people like scaled program managers whom you may have never needed before, and you do your best to hire the best. However, you have to compete with larger names who suck resumes in and can pay an attractive package including benefits and possibly stock.
How do you compete?
You turned to technology like what I described above and inadvertently created a bigger problem than the one you set out to solve.
The good news is that the market is responding with new options. For example, the rise of gig economy and digital staffing agencies bring together superb talent with salespeople who understand what clients do. Salespeople are critical liaisons that understand how the right mix of skillset and personality can solve an immediate need. This more hands-on approach provides flexibility for finding the right person when it counts.
As technologies like our own KTA integrate with other work automation solutions like CRM and HRIS products, I believe a powerful infrastructure will form to bring this hot mess into more predictable stability. I have referred to this more plug and play way of working as JiTS or Just in Time Staffing and capacity solutions are helping organizations solve this problem at scale today. These Kinetic Work Lane, or KWL, solutions provide scale because they help automate rote work while centralizing key data for posterity and decision making.
New digital talent marketplaces, technology and better approaches to people management will inevitably lead to longer term success at scale.
This powerful combination can not only help dramatically reduce HR costs but also provide more options for creating the team that will help you beat the 70% challenge.
There's obviously a lot more here to be said about recruiting technology and I'd be happy to chat about it offline. For now, here are a few tips you can use to identify opportunities to reduce recruiting costs at scale while finding the right, happy employees:
If you need to recruit at scale, cheaper might not be better. Figure out the roles you need and work with specialists who can help you find a solution.
Be careful what you automate lest you pay a bad decision forward. Never miss a chance to make first impressions meaningful.
If you do automate, be sure to create quick "off ramps" for candidates that may not fit the mold. Your next rockstar may not be who you think so don't eliminate them before they become an option.
Always remember, recruiting is about people, process and technology working in harmony. An investment in how you recruit can not only immediately save money but also prime what could be your future hero for action.
- Nathan
About Simpel and Associates
Simpel and Associates provides product development and complex change program solutions that helps leading organizations cut through the noise and bring winning ideas to life. Our Kinetic Transformation Accelerator (KTA) family of products is a suite of out-of-the-box solutions that use a proprietary algorithm to deliver scale and expertise for Product Masters and Program Leaders as they stand at the helm of the large programs that drive their organizations forward.
To learn more or see a demonstration of KTA, click here.
