This was written in response to a comment posted by Michael Hawkins on Linkedin advising companies to read. My 

response follows. http://www.businessinsider.com/job-recruiters-need-to-be-more-effic...

Dear Michael Hawkins,

Hi Michael. This article reads more like a self-serving advertisement. “Recruiters Need To Be Way More Efficient Than They Are Now” appearing on BusinessInsider.com You may as well continue the title to say “Recruiters Need To Be Way More Efficient Than They Are Now. They Will Be By Purchasing Our Pre-Screen Proprietary Software Algorithm”.

I think what many people fail to understand, or try to short cut with more process is that you’re trying to hire a human being. No amount of gadgetry, social media, pre-screening algorithms etc. will ever break you away from one essential truth. Hiring is a people business.

After reading this article and the subsequent comments I am bolstered in my enthusiasm for the career choice I've made, recruiting.

What makes recruiting so valuable and necessary is that companies don’t want to hire the best available. They want to hire the best, period. They want the “star player”, they want the “purple squirrel”. Those purple squirrels aren't pouring over social media channels looking at opportunities. They’re not posting their resumes on Monster, Dice etc. They’re busy doing their job and enhancing their purple-ness.

A competent and qualified recruiter can (for this one position) streamline the hiring process by building a strategic alliance with HR and employing good communications with the hiring manager. No one on the planet will know better or have a better understanding than the hiring manager what that next, right hire should look like. With all the projects that the hiring manager is working on and with all the other various duties HR professionals are engaged in, no one is better suited to go hunting for purple squirrels more than the competent, qualified recruiter. No one.

In my humble opinion, the phone remains the single most important device in my profession. Being better on my calls, and continuing to learn people skills will no doubt do more to improve my efficiency. Employing proprietary algorithms will do little more than create another barrier to employment for the right candidate.

Companies, in general would do a much better job of hiring if they employed one single tactic. Want to know what it is? Buy my book! Just kidding. The one thing is discovering reasons to “rule in” rather than to “rule out”. It’s certainly a much more positive approach. The competent, qualified recruiter knows this.

How many times have you seen this, “The candidate must have 5-7 years’ experience in C# development” Why? Wouldn’t it make sense to consider a candidate that has, say four years of much richer experience, an individual that is passionate about development coding for hours in the evening after work as a hobby, for the pure love and enjoyment of it? Of course!

That’s why recruiters have a place and will continue to. They are able to bridge the needs of the hiring manager to the career desires of the individual. They act as an agent of the client company, indeed as the hiring manager looking out for and qualifying the best candidate while also acting as advocate for the perspective new hire. Also, it’s worth noting that no one has more skin in the game than the hiring manager and the recruiter, period.

People are more than the sum of their resumes, more than the sum of their pre-screening questionnaires, more than the sum of their social media preferences. Do all of these components play a part? Absolutely. Are they essential? I know one piece that is absolutely essential and that is the human element. That one on one interaction you have goes much further than any questionnaire ever will. I know rather brilliant jackasses. I know rather unintelligent, wonderful people. The human being is too complex to ascertain with a prescreening questionnaire.

Now I’m sure the author has a great product and I’m sure it has its place. Unless it teaches me to be more human or dials those ten digits faster than I already can, it will not make me any more efficient. Of this I am absolutely certain.