Comment by Jackye on April 11, 2013 at 12:30pm

 Brandon Labonte - Thank you. (BTW you closed with my favorite Yoda quote) " The "verb" recruit is still an action in ALL talented recruiters who are driven to help people."

Exactly - Talented Recruiters!!! - I love technology but there are some who still don't know how to use the phone. As I stated, use the technology but remember, face to face is making a comeback! Thank you for your insight. 

Comment by Pamela Witzig on April 11, 2013 at 12:37pm

We completely avoid job boards. Always have.

Comment by Jeff Dahlberg on April 11, 2013 at 3:43pm

 These are all great points. I think advancements in technology has done wonders for the recruiting sector of the human resource vertical and has changed the rules of engagement as we once knew it. 
For example we once picked up the phone to do business then technology made it easy for clients to hide behind a host of combined devices called the internet and extract information without feeling pressured to make a purchasing decision. This frustrated many in sales (agency recruiting included) to become obsolete because they could not overcome and adapt to change.

 

This isn’t and never has been unique to recruiting. Take for example multiple major print news organizations who found their companies headed toward bankruptcies due to various websites competing for their advertisers and subscribers. Many went under were acquired by larger organizations, merged to increase their relevance or pool their resources. Then there were the few who realized that change was a healthy part of being in business. Many of the unknown who caught on to this concept soon out ranked their once dominating rivals. The recruiting industry underwent similar changes not too long ago. Websites sprang up like recruitingblogs which armed all recruiters( largest down to the independent recruiter working from home) who cared to better themselves with relevant industry, vertical market and specific job information which was once only marketed to larger organizations. Also came other improvements in technology which assisted the recruiter to conduct searches, vet resumes, pre-screening, eliminate, psychoanalyze, check references, expedite drug screening, pick, pluck and roast  candidates faster, more precisely and at a lower cost. While all these tools are great like any other tool knowing how to properly use them can improve your ROI while not understanding their limitations can be as frustrating as the impossible task as one doctors attempting to due surgery with three tools at the same time and expecting a good result.

 Continuing with the same medical analogies; recruiting tools should come with a warning label: “This recruiting tool should only be used under the supervision of experience recruiters who understands the tool’s potential value yet realizes their possible unintended side effect. These may include: loss of desire to work, increased mood swings, irritability, loss of income or job, tendencies to withdraw and become recluse or hide behind a computer or other technologies, headaches, dizziness, compulsive verbal negative leakage about the industry, and complacency. These tools should not be used by those who are currently taking the “easy pill” as this may become fatal to your employment. Should you feel you may be suffering from any of these symptoms please contact your vendor for the rest of the story or a full refund.

In my own opinion there is nothing wrong with technology, but there is something wrong with a recruiter who uses his or her employer’s money to purchase a tool that gives the illusion it is in the best interest of the company while only serving to take the workload off the employee. If the technology truly improves ROI which takes into account the entire picture (product or service purchase and continued cost, labor cost (including training), effect on liability, effect on other technologies already in place, security, effect on time-to-hire and retention, etc. then it is worth its salt and should be encouraged. If I use Linkedin premium and get no more out of it than a recruiter who uses the basic edition then I may be waiting my employer’s money that could have been used more efficiently. If I use a system to extract resumes from deep space and it returns a host of results and I claim I do not have time to return a candidate’s phone calls because I am too busy, my employer may want to check out my reasoning skills and ability to prioritize my tasks.

Lots has changed in the recruiting world and those who do not learn to adapt will find themselves out of the business. The good news is that it has not changed so much that one could catch up in very short order. So in reality no one who really wants to work in this field should have much of an issue doing so.

 

Businesses have been holding on to their money for several years now and concentrating on retaining profits.  To increase those profits even more companies are soon to hire more and more with visas from overseas using the help of the mega-staffing companies. This is where I think recruiter’s real threat is exist over the next year, not from improved technology.

Knowing what resources are available to you as a recruiter through vendors can greatly improve your ROI and make your life much easier so long as you educate yourself on the subject and not just jump at the first thing that promises to reduce your workload.  

Comment by Brad Cox on April 12, 2013 at 11:58am

I so agree with all the post above.  I spent 10 years in recruiting and like shared above times were eaiser and clients were more loyal than today.  A resume at that time was just part of the evaluation process.  With all the boards and media outlets it seems that the candiates and customer are becoming more educated on how to work the “system” to take short cuts on the process of hiring/placing TRUE qualified candidates.

Today I find that in talking with 100’s of firms that the ROI on hunting qualified candidates are becoming for expensive each and every day.  The newer generation seem to want to just go out and look for new candidates and forget that in several cases they infact already have the candidates in their ATS/CRM system.

All the tools today I believe offer help in this search/candidate placement process, but forget the most important part and that is still the human interaction and just plan gut feeling.  Not trying to pitch our product offerings here, just observation that I see in the general market place.  Why spend all your time in trying to find new when what you have may fit the bill!  My question is does your ATS/CRM system do an excellent job at searching the database and rank the candidates for your open positions?  Are you going to all the media outlets and repeating the same searchs?

By investing your time to learn your current systems better and looking at a better tool set that can offer these could save you considerble time and the old saying time is money……  I would say keep up the great work invest more in learning on what you have before you go and find new candidates and go back to some of the old school methods and I believe you would be more succssful. 

If you wish to discuss or wish to look at options I would say read the following articles at this link: http://csrp-technology.com/Articles_of_Interest.html or call/email me below.

Thank you and have a great day!

Respectfully yours,

 

 

  Brad Cox   

  Regional Sales Director

b.cox@daxtra.com
T:   (770) 755-1688

Comment by bill josephson on April 12, 2013 at 12:25pm

For Corporate In-House recruiters the content of the day are tools/technology.

That's not the banter of the day for most 3rd party Recruiters.  The banter I hear is how easily are you securing quality fillable positions these days?

There is no tool ever created which will enable me to work with companies who can find candidates on their own through technology/tools/social media, don't have a budget to pay fees, have a hiring feeze, laying off, and overrall resistant to working with 3rd Party Recruiters.

Now you can talk all you want about having "a book of contacts," or "I'm so good at what I do companies choose to work with me," or "I can do more things and better than Corporate Recruiters."

Very nice.  You're in a boutique specialty area where your services are still in demand.  But the Earth has shifted for many, including yours truly.  As good as you are, and as good as your clients know you are based on past performance/reputation, sooner or later when your high level best buddy connection tells you they're no longer paying fees able to find candidates on their own you'll join the ranks of the rest of us impacted by technology and globalization/offshore outsourcing/insourcing H1-B's.

So, please, spare me the tools/technology pitch.  I can find candidates, if they actually exist based on the hiring criteria.  The name of the game is fillable job orders.  There's incredible fee resistance and it's growing.  And I guarantee, no matter how immune you happen to think you are, it will find you impacting your business sales as soon as your clients can identify and contact the same once, but no longer, passive invisible candidates you can. 

"Not all candidates are on LinkedIn?"  Through technology, they will in time.

Just my five cents........

Comment by Jeff Dahlberg on April 14, 2013 at 7:06am

To Bill Josephson

You are correct; however, change is good for everyone. Maybe  you don't want to admit it but there will always be a demand for agency recruiters just as their will be for corporate recruiters. The cost of employing corporate recruiters is very costly to any business regardless of size and because most internal recruiters are actually HR generalist they have little time to specialize (hence the name generalist). Finding applicants has never been and issue especially in a poor economy. The problem is finding qualified, affordable candidates. Yes, HI-B's solve the affordability problem but still fail to solve the qualification issues. Many of these so called high-tech graduates were awarded degrees from their own country who has a much more corrupt educational system. If the student is from the right family they are allowed to pass into college and graduate regardless of merit. There is no way for US companies to verify the skills of the worker. This is not the first time this has been attempted and it will fail as it did in the 1990's and early 2000's. Those officers who make those recommendation will find themselves on the street corner along with their non-US citizen H1-B's. You would think they would have learned from those who came before them. Oh, that's right they all covered their tracks and few are left who remember. They were all fired, laid-off or demoted as their companies were down sized., merged or acquired.

Technology will always improve and inexperienced corporate recruiters will be intimidated by agency recruiters and inexperienced agency recruiters will resent the corporate recruiters who gets paid a salary to recruit yet usually has less focused experience.

The real truth is that there is enough business for everyone, you just have to adapt and find it. Maybe you don't have any knowledge of that particular nice but  you can learn it just like your learned the one you are gifted in now. maybe your new focus could be staffing of professional positions since their is a huge increase if staffing. How about not even recruiting at all but managing  your own RPO. RPOs are finally catching on in the USA and with the new technology anyone with $100 a month can do what it use to take hundreds of thousands of dollars  investment to do.

Stop looking for all the reasons to tell yourself why you can't do it and start looking for all the things you can do. What you can't do is useless to you and others. What you can do might change someone else's world and reward  you for doing it.

Comment by bill josephson on April 14, 2013 at 10:07am

Companies can hire contract recruiters keeping them off the payroll limiting their cost to the company, then letting them go when no longer needed.

I don't know what clients you have, however, mine have adept internal recruiters doing exactly what I'm doing, including directly calling recruiting into their competitors.  They're either doing the job, or my contacts are telling me they're happy with them.  They'll "keep me in mind, give them a call in 4 months."  With the technology available explain what function I can perform they can't?

H1-B's are the lesser threat, IMO, unless we start allowing unlimited numbers of them into the country.  Companies can partner with Indian companies on an L-1 Intercompany transfer visa via partnership.  It enables an unlimited number of Indian consultants in a company partnered with an American company for an unspecified amount of time to work in the US for unspecified wages.  But companies accessing the same people we can and fewer jobs as a result of offshore outsourcing are, IMO, the larger threats.

Most Corporate HR are, again, contractors.  That's the trend.  Getting functions off the payroll in the US.

What I find are companies who are savvy able to find people on their own, aren't paying recruiter fees and/or don't have a budget for them, don't have needs,, laying off, and are able to access passive invisible candidates through assorted technology/social media and directly contact doing the exact same functions as I perform.

Phone recruiting into direct competitors to people companies couldn't access in the past, they can access now.

If you're making a lot of money, you either have a boutique niche unaffected by technology still in demand, or clients not technologically/recruiting savvy.

That's not the world I find.

 

 

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