I am the JITH Lord! OK, maybe a little over stated, but an interesting start to a blog right?  (It's been a while since I've blogged here, surely no one will recognise me)  I'm pretty sure that the JITH's are related to the Sith's depicted in the Star Wars movies (and the cool picture above), taking the Recruiting ninja idea to a whole new level!  The Force v Ninja's, I should call James Cameron now to secure the film rights.

OK, Sorry not really what I wanted to write about today.

I have been reading Glen Cathey's "Just in time Recruiting" series a lot after his inspirational talk an Australasian Talent Conference event last year (click on the link guys, there is another one coming up.. these are the events which changed my Recruiting life)... It would be quite safe to state that Glen's talk at this event instilled a "man crush" from my then boss.  I saw it change his whole philosophy on Recruitment.

Flash forward half a year or so, and wow, it's been an interesting few months.  Going back to an inhouse role.  With Peerlo we looked at numerous Recruiting philosophies, I've tended to morph a few of these into my role now.

In my current position, the majority of the roles we Recruit for fall into one of maybe 2-3 categories.  So, we aren't an agency, and the variety of our roles won't expand apart from the odd "Hail Mary" to help a client out.  So I'm thinking I can do a bit of this "Lean Recruiting" stuff and morph it into my "Just in Time Hiring" (JITH) ideal.

The idea of "If it doesn't add value... it's waste" resonates with me a lot.  This, I think is the backbone of any Consulting business in my eyes.  Glen speaks about the 5 of the 7 wastes that "Lean" aims to eliminate.  Not all of these are "wastes" to me or my company or areas I need to or want to eliminate.  There is probably one section which I would change to have input to JITH

Let's look at them:

Inventory:

Glen mentions: "In recruiting, your candidate pipeline is your inventory. More specifically, your work-in-process (WIP) candidate inventory." further refined as "A group of candidates that a recruiter stays in routine contact to maintain a relationship with, without a specific and current hiring need is essentially a work-in-process (WIP) candidate inventory." ie they are "paused" somewhere in the process.  Glenn argues that the amount of  time and effort that goes into the relationship building.  I tend to agree with this.  "In or out" I think.  I understand timing is not always right, however constant "catch ups", coffees etc without the ability to hire in the forseeable future, is a problem that has to be monitored.

Defects:

Glenn states.  "According to Lean, a “defect” is something that does not conform to specifications or expectations.  When it comes to recruiting, I’m not suggesting that the people themselves are defects. However, candidates that are sourced, contacted, screened, and with whom a relationship is maintained that do not ultimately match the actual hiring need are defects of the recruiting process."

Hard to argue with really.  We had a great example of this recently in a meeting I attended.  We were talking about a potential hire, the plusses and minuses of said candidate.  People were on the fence.  He had been in the "process" for a little while and some people were very Bullish about his potential for the company.  Bottom line, question was asked "Would you hire this person with no reservation to work with you in this company?"  We couldn't get an unreserved "Yes" so therefore the person ended up being a firm "No!"  Cut lose from the hiring process, not taking up anymore time.

Over-processing:

Glenn states "Over-processing occurs any time more work is done than what is required by the customer.  Engaging, screening and building and maintaining relationships with candidates that will never ultimately be submitted to a client/manager in consideration for an interview can be seen as performing more work than necessary and be classified as over-processing." Agreed!  Why bother? What stats/KPIs are you trying to maintain? Why would you invest heavily in people you would not ever realistically think of starting with your company? Not wanting to offend someone? Get a new career!

Waiting:

Glenn states: "Lean defines the waste of waiting as any time that something is held in wait of the next production step.  In recruiting, waiting occurs whenever candidates are not being advanced through the recruiting and hiring process."

Dead on!  The efficiency of one's process will make or break a hire.  Take too long, those hires will disappear, someone else will hire them, or they will grow disinterested in you and your process.  You really need to drive the process.

Overproduction:  (this is the one I disagree with)

"Production ahead of and in excess of demand." This is deemed wasteful for a Recruiter.  Too many job applications, of which no-one gets a real personal response.  Glen states "Traditional proactive candidate pipelining ahead of actual hiring need almost always leads to overproduction."  From my point of view, having too many qualified candidates, all the way through our Recruitment process ready to hire, is a great thing, not a waste.  I like to have candidates ready, willing and able to go, as proper timely workforce planning is not always do-able in our business.  We need to be ready, and try to eliminate the lag in hiring, which would ultimately be there if not prepared.  Our process takes a while, and has a high exclusion rate, getting someone through, with all our ticks means I need this person fully engaged and bought into our brand and message.  I will put work into these people, they deserve it, my company needs it, it's value adding!

To move onto the "Just in time" Recruiting part.  Glenn states that by eliminating these wasteful parts of a normal Recruiting workflow that " Just-In-Time recruiting is a pull-based strategy of providing hiring managers/clients with candidates that exactly match their needs, when they want them, in the amount they want."

What a great idea, concept.  A bit utopian I think.  To start from a zero base, find, attract, process and hire someone in a time efficient manner (and lets face it, most companies need them YESTERDAY!) .  I am unsure this is really possible, but then again, I know I don't have the skills of Glenn. Maybe I see things differently as part of an inhouse team now? But whilst I agree with a fair percentage of this model, I feel the need to change it just a smidge.

I firmly believe that Recruiting is the act of attracting people to your company, your roles, your ideals.  Finding people who will come along for the ride and sharing with them the reasons why they should.  Talking to people about your company, exploring talent channels.  Sorting the wheat from the chaff, making the hard calls on those who would fit and those who wouldn't.  I have probably repeated this ideal ad infinitum of late around my office (driving those around me mental may I add) , "Companies should ALWAYS be Recruiting" (identifying, targeting, vetting, having conversations and coffee with people) "Just not always Hiring" (Hiring is the result of good Recruiting! I'll hire these Recruits as required, knowing that those people identified will not always be available when we need them.  If there is enough of them, I'll live with that)

This is where I corrupted Glenn's "Just in time Recruiting" ideal and (well, you can see what I did with this right?) and started going down the path of Just In Time Hiring.

Still sticking to the ideals of mostly eliminating waste, I agree with this philosophy mostly.  However, in what we as Recruiting professionals do, the "Recruiting" isn't the important thing in what we do.  Sounds weird when you write it down doesn't it.  It's really only the Hiring (and subsequent STARTING) that counts.  Our value add, our purpose for being employed or engaged is to hire!  How many of our stakeholders will care if we have a carefully maintained Talent Pool, great Social Media platforms, 100,000 "Likers on Facebook".  If we don't put the right bums on the right seats at the right times our value diminishes!

Hiring is the all important thing here, not the Recruiting, my job doesn't end if/when a Hiring Manager decides to interview a Candidate.  An interview isn't a win!  The success of my role is based wholly and solely on the Hiring of great talent WHEN the company needs them.  I'll live with the Over Production, I'm actually hoping for Over Production, the more the merrier (of successfully Recruiter, qualified and processed people).

I always need to be Recruiting to achieve this.  If I am ALWAYS Recruiting, I can be a JITH (Just In Time Hiring - incase you missed it) Lord, and that sounds pretty cool to me :)