Internet revolution

The Death of a Recruiter

I had a flash thought the other day that recruitment is a dying profession. Or maybe it is not the profession but the professionals themselves. I have a doubt.The world has gone through many changes. From the industrial revolution to the technological revolution, these changes have affected all industries including the recruitment industry.

Recruitment started in an era where people were employing people they knew through their family and connections. Recruitment companies offered a greater range of people and skills to feel the roles, especially for female employees who had started entering the work force when the men we’re still at war.

With the Internet, it changes the way people look for jobs. Recruitment companies could gather more candidates in their database and forward relevant resumes to employers. Companies no longer need to rely on distant relations and connections to hire. It also meant that recruiters spend more time managing resumes and responses.

It is this transformation that I thought recruiters had succumbed to the temptation of “mass attack”. Instead of careful selection and hand picking the right candidate, it may seem easier to just send a mass of suitable resumes to the hiring party or send a good resume to a mass of companies who may recruit. It seemed to have worked for a while particularly for more junior positions. The art of client and candidate intimacy was lost in the passage of time that transformed the practice.

However, the complexities of work has also increased. A rose by any other name is no longer a rose. The variety of jobs has changed to such an extent that few professions are homogenous even if they are called the same. 2 accountants in the same company could be performing very different tasks. So can an accountant in 2 different companies. In addition, education may not have evolved at the same paced of work place transformation. Both trends meant that the likelihood of finding someone with the exact fit to the job is low. In such a climate, it is even more important for recruiters to understand the requirements and demands of the job and find the person most likely to succeed by extrapolating their competences and knowledge into the future.

Does this mean that sourcing is dead? I imagine it is more alive than ever with heightened selection. It can no longer satisfy a client with extensive databases and extravagant sourcing methodologies. The client expects that. What may blow them away is the knowledge in the field and communicating a convincing argument why a talent whilst not having the exact profile can do the job and be very good at it. And on top of it, they don’t have to pay a higher salary to attract them from a close competitor and risk losing them a few months later to another competitor.

It is a dying breed of recruiters who would spend time with job seekers, understanding them and advising them. The whole candidate experience is very different when he/she is talking to a recruiter who knows what they are talking about and add value to them to another who is just a “cv pusher”. The correlation of loyalty to time invested is a linear one. Many of my friends who had been introduced to good recruiters will always return to them for their job change or when they are in the position to hire.

It will be a mistake to say that recruiters do not understand this concept. Many do. Then why are there so few doing it or seem to do it well? We need to look no further than the people in-charge. If the performance indicators and reward systems do not encourage it, the the message is “do what you can to get money”. A crude but understandably common message in times of crisis.
Contrary to belief that crunch time is doom time, it is rather the best time to save the death of recruiters. When clients and candidates become more and more selective as they prowl over every decision that has a monetary impact, it is survival of the fittest. In hay times, the mediocre can ride on the wave of growth. In a tempest, recruiters will have to review their profession and be better at what they do. There is incentive to be more knowledgeable, hold on to a lead stronger and be more resourceful.

Every good recruiter I know has said this, nothing rewards more than the thrill of finding the right person for a difficult role and have both the candidate and client congratulate them for a great match.

That is also why recruitment will always run in my blood. Let us not be the dying race.