Are Recruiters Only Doing Half Their Job?

Is it just me or are a lot of us talking too much about the wrong thing, or am I just following the wrong people? The “it” topic for conversation over recent times appears to be very one-sided and all about sourcing and not about selection.
Try it for yourself.  Spend 5 minutes (or longer if you have it) categorising your recruitment-related twitter posts or even search #recruitment.  What do you find?  Here are the topics on my twitter this morning:

“Social sourcing” … “applicant behaviour”… “candidate journey”, “search”… “employment brand”… “Boolean”… “must have traits of a recruiter”… “recruitment marketing”… “social media recruiting framework”… “apply now”… “job search”… “tips for candidates”… “talent pipeline”… “hiring”… “sales tricks”… “engagement”… and more “hiring now”

 
All great topics, but where is the conversation on “selection”?  I know finding and attracting great people is extremely important but surely selecting the right people once you have done all that hard work is the quintessential skill of a great recruiter. No amount of ‘ninja-boolean-social-marketing-search’ skill is going to guarantee you find the gold nugget.
I wonder why we don’t talk about selection as much as we do sourcing?  Is it because:

  1. Recruiters have lost control of the selection strategy and therefore unable to influence it?
  2. There is an ‘all care and no responsibility’ attitude once a candidate goes company/manager-side?
  3. ‘Selection’ is not sexy or interesting?
  4. We have been swept away by the latest ‘social’ and digital fads on sourcing, marketing, brand and taken our eye off the ball?
  5. It is a competitive advantage that the ones doing it well simply don’t want to share?
  6. We’re not that good at it and we don’t have many new ideas?
  7. I follow the wrong people?

Everyday I am inspired online by the great ideas, challenges and innovations that push our profession onwards.  However, I suggest we are missing a significant part of our contribution to creating great companies by not putting as much thought and energy into innovative, challenging and leading ideas about the selection process.  I have so much to learn and would love to see more topics such as this in my twitter feed:

“data-driven selection”… “rethinking the interview process”… “predictive selection tools”… “gamifying candidate experience”… “automation”… “influencing hiring decisions”… “testing innovations”… “source of selection (not hire)”… “segmented selection strategies” . .  and so on and so on.

 
[Tweet “So, I need to start walking the talk. Next blog = “Re-thinking Candidate Selection”. Feel free to join me.”]

This blog post first appeared on LinkedIn Pulse on November 22, 2015

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3 Responses to “Are Recruiters Only Doing Half Their Job?”

  1. Martin Warren

    Nice post Antony. I agree in part recruiters have lost the control or maybe never had control . People I follow and talk to are sharing innovative ideas whether is sourcing, social recruiting, data driven selection or so on.. It’s great we can all share our thoughts online via places such as ATC Hub and LinkedIn publisher but often what is share by our industry is stuff we already know or rehashed with different name on it.

    Reply
  2. Justin Mills

    Anthony, spot on! The obsession is with sourcing CVs, not finding the right people. To be fair to Contingent Recruiters though, that’s what their clients are paying them for. I suspect they want assessment and selection but the business model isn’t set up to provide that. Don’t forget, contingency is driven around getting the cv to the client the quickest.
    Retained search and selection recruiters DO add value with assessment because the client has paid to engage a business that focussed on delivering a value add result rather than a price driven result.
    Being honest, it’s a lot harder to do selection and assessment. It takes substantial training and experience and most recruiters are not invested in by their employers.
    And it takes time to learn.
    I’ve spent years on this topic and recognise that no matter how much LinkedIn grows, it will not deny my business because saavy clients know the value of s trusted advisor who can articulate their insightful assessment and match to company culture.
    There are some shortcuts however and any agency interested would do well to take a look at http://www.i-intro.com. And yes, I am biased as I have an interest in the business but it is one born out of wanting to see our industry elevate its game and offer better value for all parties in the recruitment process.

    Reply
  3. Justin Mills

    Anthony, spot on! The obsession is with sourcing CVs, not finding the right people. To be fair to Contingent Recruiters though, that’s what their clients are paying them for. I suspect they want assessment and selection but the business model isn’t set up to provide that. Don’t forget, contingency is driven around getting the cv to the client the quickest.
    Retained search and selection recruiters DO add value with assessment because the client has paid to engage a business that focussed on delivering a value add result rather than a price driven result.
    Being honest, it’s a lot harder to do selection and assessment. It takes substantial training and experience and most recruiters are not invested in by their employers.
    And it takes time to learn.
    I’ve spent years on this topic and recognise that no matter how much LinkedIn grows, it will not deny my business because saavy clients know the value of s trusted advisor who can articulate their insightful assessment and match to company culture.
    There are some shortcuts however and any agency interested would do well to take a look at http://www.i-intro.com. And yes, I am biased as I have an interest in the business but it is one born out of wanting to see our industry elevate its game and offer better value for all parties in the recruitment process.

    Reply

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