Mobile....What Happened Recruiting Technology?

In 2010 I wrote an article Recruiting Goes Mobile In 2010 predicting that with so many candidates on mobile, this is where we need to be. I attended SourceCon last week and the topic much of the content was surrounding mobile sourcing. It made me ask the question...Why are we behind always in recruiting technology? Why are we not making it happen BEFORE the trend hits? 2 years ago I was talking about mobile and yet, it is so difficult to get technology to buy into it.

I have had a concept about recruiting technology for about 5 years now that I have spoke to various people about. It is interesting. They think it sounds great, but there has been a lack of understanding of "how it could work". Well, if I tell them how it works then they take the idea, create it and I still sit in the same position, writing a blog about what will come next instead of making it happen and actually being on the front line of creating it so it works for recruiters. Are we sitting on this bubble because the people who are "in charge" of our technology are not sure how to actually apply it to practical use? Probably... Are they skeptical to apply what we need since they are not sure it will last and they will invest money to not net results? Likely...

I am anxiously awaiting the day where we can step away from 4 and 5 systems to get the one that does what we need it to. There are ideas and concepts there. Who is willing to be on the forefront of the development? We will see.

To technologies companies out there, take the time to listen to recruiters of what we need to be successful and what we do and don't like. Candidate Management, Social Integration, Job Distribution, Content Sharing and Candidate Experience are all areas that need to be improved. We have the ideas, but when will you want to hear and listen to them and put SME's in place to help develop them and make it happen?

Comment by Noel Cocca on February 12, 2012 at 10:09pm: Nice post Jenn, while there are more and more technologies coming to market for recruiters it does seem at times that they are being created with little or no recruiters in the room. More to come on this topic for sure!

Comment by Martin H.Snyder on February 13, 2012 at 11:25am: Creating a business that can yield sales and profits is NOT the same as coming up with cool new technology. there is a big lag between invention and getting paid, and once paid, the business has to continue and sustain while other, newer technology rolls out from newer businesses without the technical debt to keep it going for customers. This is the challenge of ALL tech firms; only the best can find that line between sustainability and innovation. Its hardly unique to recruiting; medical advances are often known years or decades before widespread use is possible.

The only area where this breaks down is usually strategic warfare, where any cost is worth an advantage. To develop the Atomic Bomb, no price was too high to gamble on ANY method- so we did three full scale, full industrial build-outs not knowing which of the three would actually work, but it did not matter. Business can't work like that.....

Comment by Jenn Francine on February 13, 2012 at 3:56pm: @Noel agreed. There definitely needs to be the voice of the end user. I see it time and time again.

@Martin true and good points. But, business creation does not have to be there for a recruiting capable system. There are so many subpar systems that if they listen to the end user and also bring people into the fold of development that actually get it, it would make a whole world a difference. Running API's and pulling into systems takes coding, yes, but if you take the moving parts and overlay it in one system....why can't when I enter a job or requisition in my system can it not tell me whose in my network, who's similar in the DB based on boolean I put in, ask me if I want to post the job in one click and when people apply match it to that same boolean and rank while telling me who they are connected to by using a xobni type function? Development, yes. Sustainable, yes. Systems are so segmented and there are many systems you can partner together to make it happen. I'm not saying one person or technology is end all be all by any means. For sustainability each function must do what they do best into an overlay interface. Also, things like mobile...we talk about sustainability, but where is mobile going? I can't envision using telepathy to call anyone. It will advance as a technology as it has, but it will be there for the next 10 years at least anyway. it's time for recruiting technology to step it's game up!

Comment by Chris Russell on February 15, 2012 at 9:57pm: I hear you loud and clear. I already have one app for job distribution called JobSpeek. But I have more products in the pipeline, stay tuned.

http://www.jobspeek.com