Recruitment has long involved picking up the telephone, networking outside for candidates and screening the hundreds of CVs that pass recruiters’ desks every month. In recent years, tools such as LinkedIn have enhanced the ability of recruiters to accomplish such tasks—but the ground under their feet is fast-moving.
Filtering out noise
Simon Bradberry, Managing Director—Asia Pacific, Resource Solutions remarked at a recruitment outsourcing briefing in Hong Kong, “Recruitment is changing more now than at any point in the last 20 years.” The reasons why are nothing new. Technology is continually advancing towards an app-based world, Generation Y and Z are generally engaged with this a lot more than generations prior and the reality is that now they make up the vast majority of people firms want to hire.
While many are still asking the question ‘why?’, the real question should be ‘how to deal with it’—and this can be a headache for recruiters. Oliver Harris, CEO, Resource Solutions stated, “People nowadays have a lot of expectations in terms of technology and we try to deliver that to clients. There is a minefield of systems and technologies out there—it is important to filter out what is relevant and will add value from the noise in the background.”
Recruitment minefield
Navigating the recruitment minefield is by no means an easy task—with hundreds of apps and pieces of software out there, it is hard to know where to start—but the process should start with understanding the candidate. Ian Blake, Business Systems Manager—APAC, Resource Solutions pointed out, “Like booking a taxi or if you are just looking for information on Facebook, it should be very easy for people to enter and complete and application process in seconds, on any device.”
In this respect, recruiters should forgo the traditional CV. As Bradberry elaborated, “People start their job searches on a mobile device—and they don’t have their CV there. But they still want to be able to tap, tap, tap and apply.” Application Program Interfaces (APIs) like ‘Apply with LinkedIn’ help as they take information from a candidate’s profile and use it to fill in application forms with ease and speed.
Apps like Blippar go one stage further and bring augmented reality into the recruitment process. Here, scanning everyday objects by candidates then brings up interactive information about your company—a tool that is great for providing an extra ‘wow’ factor when trying to onboard applicants.
Monkeys, games & videos
It is important to use tools that also make life easier for the recruiter. When scouting for candidates, recruiters could use a simple platform like Network Monkey which searches multiple social media websites to come up with a list of likely candidates for a job, but one which also takes into account how likely the candidate is to move roles. This then means that the target list is already prioritised in the most appropriate order for the recruiter thereby saving time and hopefully making the recruiter more productive.
Further down the line, technology is useful for filtering candidates. Gamification technology in tools like Hacker Trail provides problemsolving challenges which is useful for knowing whether a candidate has the right skill-set. Equally, if recruiters are unsure about whether to bring in a candidate for an interview, video
apps like Launchpad allow recruiters to see a short ‘video profile’ of a candidate to help effectively screen them.
Relevance
Talking about five applications alone is enough to blow some recruiters and clients away but the key to innovation in recruitment is firstly to understand your candidates and then your own needs. At the end of the day, it is important for recruiters to individually decide how to enhance their capabilities.
Harris concluded, “It’s not technology for the sake of it, it’s about making it relevant. How does it enhance and improve? Once you have identified what you need, find your technologies and bring them together.”
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
