Death Knell of Hiring As we Know It

Take yourself back ten years to the last throws of the Dot.Com Era and compare the difference between the amount of people available for job openings then to what we have today - way too many. When the economy is cooking and there are fewer people seeking work than available jobs, it’s all about finding people to do the work. When you have too many people for the jobs at hand, the real effort lies in making sure you get the right person for the job.

Pity the poor hiring manager that makes a bad hire with so many choices...but it is happening every day.

With hundreds of resumes to paw over for each opening, you’d think making a hire would be easier….think again. Resumes are woefully inadequate for times like these and better assessment methods are needed to uncover the 50 people you get for each job whose resumes all indicate a qualified match. Then consider trying to pick the five or so people out of those to interview for the role. How do you choose? Phone screens? Psychometric tests? Coin flip? Whatever the method, you then need to interview people that are given one chance to make their mark – and one chance for the interviewer, typically within 30 minutes, to make their choice. After 5-6 weeks of time invested (sometimes less), you settle for the best person of the group – I mean how many hiring managers will say all that time was wasted. So, somebody gets the job. That folks is the hiring process for 95% of all jobs…there has to be a better way, right?

There is, well, er…sort of…at least it is somewhat evolving!

I think it is inevitable that the Internet will continue to shape employment initiatives for the better, the way it has since the early 1990’s (OCC, Monster, ATS, Google, etc.), how it evolves will depend on the thought leaders of the employment universe.

For several years now employment focused people have marveled at the opportunity that the Social Web could provide, claiming it as the next frontier of job recruitment. I certainly believe this will happen, but not until human resources and recruitment gives up on the resume as the vehicle for job consideration. A resume does not work at all for Social Networks and goes against the basic doctrine of the Social Web - helping others and genuinely sharing interests, motivations and passions. A resume can never divulge the truest sense of a person. They diminish our skills and demean the complexity of our experiences. Resumes in their simplest context are for screening people out, plain and simple – not much helping or sharing there…

While the employment world comes kicking and screaming to a non resume world (it could take a while…), the Social Web can provide an excellent, world class benefit that hiring authorities can put to great use today. In fact, it has been my prediction that this will help bring the demise of the resume (I’m betting my career on it actually…), and that is providing a career development, training and job hiring process where people actually get into careers that they love, possessing the skills to do the work and getting hired for the right jobs at the companies where they fit in the best.

The last part of the equation is the one that the Social Web offers right now. There is absolutely no reason that a person should get into a job situation where they knew very little about what they were getting themselves into, nor for a hiring manager not to know whether a person they offer a job to has the right interests, motivation, attitude and functional capability to do the job they offer them. The tools at our disposal to evaluate both sides of the hiring equation are available and both parties make a big mistake by not using them. Through the use of Talent Communities, Online Assessments, available Internet data and other Social Media activities – we’ve never had more opportunities available to make the best hiring choice.

I agree that not all companies have availed the public of their employment “brand” and it is a bit more work for a person interested in a company to get a sense of this, but there are plenty of ways to do it (using Linked In to contact a current employee for example, checking Clean Journey’s Career Investment Score, etc.). More importantly, a career minded person has tons of ways to create a Professional Brand and make a Career Investment that will get them noticed and position them to be considered for the work they crave.

For employers with way more resources, there are no excuses. The Social Web provides all the ammunition that is needed to uncover most of what should separate one candidate from another (Twitter, Facebook, Clean Journey, Linked In, Google, etc.). Finding people that have the skill is of course important, but finding people that have the interests and passions to do amazing things with those skills is the key separator to finding the "best" person for the job. The Social Web has and will continue to greatly improve the Quality of Hire for both company and new hire alike, and the benefits that this will provide the overall American Economy should be immense.

A wise person taught me a long time ago that a passionate worker is a hugely productive worker who won’t dream all week about Friday Happy Hour…uncover the passion!

Comment by Alasdair Murray on August 12, 2010 at 1:09pm: Me? Young? Quoting KC & The Sunshine Band? I wish. Na, na, na, na, na, na, na na, na na na, Baby, give it up, give it up, baby give it up. :-)

Comment by K.C. on August 12, 2010 at 2:08pm: Alasdair...coming from an Englishman (and all your sunshine), I'll take that as a complement!

Comment by K.C. on August 12, 2010 at 2:10pm: A silk worm to you (better than a slug...)

Comment by Alasdair Murray on August 12, 2010 at 2:15pm: That's the way (the way, the way) I like it.

Comment by Sandra McCartt on August 12, 2010 at 3:01pm: Silkworms have been domesticated so that they can no longer survive independently in nature, particularly since they have lost the ability to fly. All wild populations are extinct, although presumably old relatives exist in Asia.

Silk worms are dead.

Comment by Jerry Albright on August 12, 2010 at 3:36pm: Something I'll take issue with here is this assumption that for every person there is a giant cache of information on them out here, somewhere, at our disposal.

I recognize a pretty simple fact: A big percentage of the population will never spend much time sharing their entire life story with the entire world. To assume all we need to do is hit a magic internet button - and we are transported immediately to a giant portfolio of career goals, hobbies, favorite foods, professional attributes, etc. for anyone we are considering is lunacy.

Comment by Jerry Albright on August 12, 2010 at 3:49pm: PS. I have always preferred death "nail" - than death knell.......

Comment by K.C. on August 12, 2010 at 7:13pm: I couldn't agree more Jerry - you are spot on with your thoughts...the possible route to take on a smaller scale is for a company to establish a Community of people interested in their brand, products or company and provide interesting, insightful and provacative questions to this group that will uncover the professional attributes, interests and whatnot - and keeping track of what each person thinks...it is difficult to expect this to occur for the general marketplace for some time to come (if ever)...but through societal change it certainly can happen. Who ever thought in 1990 that in 10 years people would be going to work in t-shirts and flip flops, or that 1/2 day Fridays would become the norm or we'd be working from home 1-2 days a week....not many I would guess....

A group aligned with a company, who share a common interest would be able to be "assessed" for these attributes and this is what can happen today (and it is...).

A nail seemed too much of a blunt instrument...wanted to stir the pot a bit, but not get folks mad!
:)

Comment by Alasdair Murray on August 13, 2010 at 3:06am: "a company to establish a Community of people interested in their brand, products or company and provide interesting, insightful and provacative questions to this group that will uncover the professional attributes, interests and whatnot - and keeping track of what each person thinks"

Sorry KC, but that's a very ambitious wish list you've got there. Making a conscious decision to slip on a t shirt and flip flops is a world removed from sharing your innermost thoughts and aspirations with a group of people, some of whom will be after the very same job you hope exists at the end of the rainbow.

I think social media is great. It offers a great opportunity for networking and self-promotion, but some people are suggesting that we are several steps further down the road when it comes to social recruiting when the fact is we're not. As I have said elsewhere many times, it's not how many people are on social networks. it's about what people use social networks for. To put it in day to day terms, if I go into a grocery store, I am not looking to buy a car. Many people use social networks to chat with their friends and family or follow celebs, or both. Sure, Linkedin is the place to be if you want to put yourself in the shop window, but lay your career aspirations bare in front of am group of what are effectively strangers, and strangers that have a common goal? It ain't going to happen in a big way anytime soon, no matter what the gurus and soothsayers say.

Comment by Jerry Albright on August 13, 2010 at 8:09am: Sorry - but I am quite positive there are very few instances where you will find a group of people worshiping a brand/product - which we're now calling a "community" - and to then take that a step further and assume they are your targeted employee pool?

My love for Gibson guitars has nothing to do with my professional interests or ability to work at the company in any fashion. I'm also a big fan of Sea Ray boats. - Doesn't mean I will bare my soul to anyone I find on the internet also interested in Sea Ray.

What I'm getting at here is this: Employer Branding is a joke. A company's product has little to nothing to do with how they treat employees, what it's like to work there or anything else. Just another farce made up by people who need something to convince others they're an expert at something.

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