As I continue to reflect on David Smooke’s question, “What can we do to connect people with opportunity?” I wonder why, in this age of light-speed communication, multitudinous weak-tied tribes, and a bandwagon of technology tools to bring it all together, we even have to ask this question. It should be easy—to find a job, to find qualified people, to make good hires. But, it is not.
When I come in and start working with a client on recruitment processes, the first to embrace me are the overwhelmed HR and recruiting staff. The first to resist me are the hiring managers, because I make them sit down and talk to me. I want to know what is going on in their hiring experience. Then, things start to change. They get excited because they see activity and have hope that jobs that have been open for months will be filled. The resistance recedes. My 16 year old son made the comment one time when I was remarking on this, “They love you, Mom, because you make their lives easier!” Funny, but I’d never looked at it that way.
Facilitation means things easier. Automation makes things faster. Technology should focus on facilitating hiring as opposed to automating recruiting.
In the recruiting process most metrics relate to speed, quantity, cost, and other things that equate to hard work for everyone. We make it hard for applicants to be interviewed. We make it hard for hiring managers to hire. We throw a lot of obstacles in the hiring path to slow things down so that we don’t “mishire,” because then, we will have to figure out how to fire without being sued. We do this in the name of “compliance and fairness,” but what happens to finding great talent?
Without naming names, some of the biggest offenders, with the most arduous hiring processes, are exceptionally well known innovators with thousands of employees and even more thousands of people trying to get their resumes reviewed.
Why is there a problem? What is the problem?
We have focused on automating flawed processes. Our automation serves our need to comply with employment laws but it doesn’t facilitate the hiring process. We have more stuff coming in faster, but the process to hire great people is harder. We need to make it easier, or we will never be able to connect people with opportunity.
It is time to put “ease of hire” at the top of the long list of staffing metrics. In future posts, I will discuss some ways to make things easier for everyone.
Pat Sharp, The Talent Architect blends strategy, technology tools, and assessment 
