Recently I was on the Chad & Cheese podcast and Chad said he’d blow up the ATS et al and start again, whereas I was a bit more considered in a less gung-ho British way.

But although recruitment isn’t broken, it’s been totally screwed up by so many things - particularly in the UK when you add Brexit to the mix - so it does need to be modernised somewhat.

Time to change

First of all, pretty much everything a recruiter does today was designed by previous generations when the demands on a recruiter were very different.

• Hiring managers dictated who and what they wanted (and more).
• Unconscious bias was never considered (or discussed).
• Woke was just a verb (not an adjective).
• Technology only did very basic things (albeit quite well).
• Only Captain Kirk and Spock talked to a computer (and not for shopping).

Technology

My goal would be to help the candidate find jobs that interest them, see how well they match, help them fill any skills gaps, select an interview slot and hopefully get hired. I wouldn’t have any intention of talking to them until the interview. In fact, I might not even talk to them at the interview stage either, it may be the line that talks to them first, maybe not even the manager but one of the team. I might only talk to them once the manager has decided they want to make an offer so my role would be to make sure all the boring HR bits were in place.

I would be a facilitator and concierge.

I would make a job application the same as buying something from Amazon, everything I need to help me find, choose and buy my item all there in front of me, no human intervention required.

And I’d be able to reduce my people costs significantly and use this money to pay for the technology to do the transactional part of their job.

The jobs

I’d redesign the career site and make it like Amazon or Wiggle or Alpkit, make it experience and product-focused, make it more personal because a lot of candidates will look once and not come back. The nearest I’ve seen to this is from Before You Apply which is pretty much what I mean.

But many will not know about your company or apply immediately so use social media to attract and remarket/nurture.

A bit of Adway.ai instead of last decade transactional job board malarkey. Get your brand onto Facebook, Instagram and/or LinkedIn because that’s where all the people are.

Even events such as The Spine Race (Britain’s most brutal ultra-marathon) go straight to their social media channels because in amongst the 1000’s of followers there will be people who are potential candidates.

The basic job search process is fine but the recommendations and matching piece has to be better. But it actually already is and believe it or not it’s from a unicorn, Eightfold.ai and they’re doing a very good job. I’ve used it in real life, as a test, and I was genuinely impressed. The machine actually recognised my skills and matched me to jobs that I had not initially found in my search.

Would I have a chatbot? Maybe, but keep it simple. Simple FAQ’s, simple application processes, don’t try and replicate an entire application process in a bot as it just feels too clunky and forced. And bots are not clever so don’t try and make out yours is really smart when it's not.

But who made your bot stupid 🤔

Use video to let the candidate find out more but most importantly, see the work environment and meet some of the team and the manager. Before the pandemic we were generally “cameras off” whereas now we are far more comfortable with video so make the most of this. Get managers to do short introduction videos and track the results so you can show the naysayers how those that do hire (with video vs. those that don’t and how they end up with open positions for longer than anyone else.

In the same way I can choose my delivery date and cost on Amazon, let candidates choose their own interview slot. Use a calendar API such as Cronofy to make sure the interview slots are updated in real-time so there’s no need for human intervention and back and forth when dates have to change. Don’t rely on an ATS that has poor calendar integration, bypass it if you have to, don’t let interview booking remain your nemesis.

Interview to hire

There are so many additional steps that take place from the first interview to offer stage but if you’re going to make the first phase of the process self-service don’t screw up the process from this point onwards. That would be like making the sales process really slick but being let down by the delivery company resulting in the customer cancelling their order.

Don’t let the human be the problem in the process!

Ultimately my goal would be to hire far more effectively, have recruiters managing the process not “doing” the process, and make sure managers are hiring the people they have (at interview) vs. the people they (think) they want (who haven’t even applied).

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