Technology Is Definitely Reshaping Recruitment
Over the past decade we have seen a dramatic shift in the recruitment process. In an extremely competitive global setting where there is always someone else doing something faster, better, and/or more innovative, the competition for talent has been transformed with the help of technology.
In this week’s blog post we share a few growing trends in technology, their impacts on the recruitment process and what you can do in order to embrace these tools effectively rather than get lost in the evolution.
Here are just a few trends in technology impacting recruitment today:
Despite cost cutting in some areas of HR, we are seeing a substantial spike in technology spending including HR data and analytics, and integrated talent management systems. No longer is HR limited to being a series of isolated silos focusing on staffing, training, compensation and succession. Companies are starting to master the data part of HR and are much better able to select the right candidates, which is the most important thing to do in HR – hire people.
Social media to attract and engage a wider range of quality candidates (with more and more applicants spending increasing amounts of their online time using social media, HR will use technology to help them use the social space to find great candidates)
On-line eligibility and suitability assessments can screen and rank candidates efficiently and effectively screen and short list prior to interviewing.
Video interviewing, whether live or recorded, can reduce costs and travel time as well as improve overall interview effectiveness. Online video will be embraced as a better way to get to know candidates faster and more personally than the traditional phone screen.
Globalisation. Rapid advances in technology are altering our concepts of time and location, work and workplace, and the boundaries between organisations, markets, and the environment. The evolution of true worldwide telecommuting is quickly becoming a reality (for example an Australian programmer living in Hong Kong but employed in London)
Some tips dealing with these trends:
With the growing trend of investing in data management and analytics, remember that information is only as good as the minds that are using it. According to Richards Carpenter (1994), "Line managers could make immense use of HR data if they were taught what to look for and how to interpret what they see." For example, when a line manager develops a strategic objective to "increase sales in the Southeast region by 25%," she will review data not only on regional sales by product line, market share, delivery times, and returns but on salesperson turnover, sales-per-salesperson, the number of new salespeople needed, offer-to-acceptance ratios, time to train, comprehensive performance measures, and factors that characterize the most successful salespeople.
The trick with social media is to not go overboard, and to remember to have a relationship with potential clients. Social media doesn't mean that you don't have to talk to candidates, or that you should be only making tweets or status updates on jobs alone. Social recruiting has its own set of best practices, much like the recruiting process itself.
In a global job market, be open and prepared to offer video and webcam interviews to candidates to speed up the recruitment process.
Technology has an important place in recruiting, but it cannot entirely replace human interaction. Technology will continue to enable quick and cost-effective recruiting through applicant tracking, screening, evaluating, and communicating. You can use technology to your benefit, but recognise that there is still a need for in-person meetings and phone calls to discover who the person behind the screen is – not just another candidate file or number.
We’ve seen how much technology has evolved in the past decade, can you imagine how much faster the changes would be in the next decade?
Moving forward technology is predicted to play a bigger role in recruitment and can also be leveraged to help with building relationships with talent pools.
Has technology already greatly impacted the way you recruit? How? Share your tips with us and our other readers.
