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The FUNDAMENTAL issues in TA

The FUNDAMENTAL issues in TA

The definition for “root-cause” is “the fundamental reason for the occurrence of a problem.”

So, 3 questions:

1. Do you have any of the problems ChatGPT mentions?

2. Have you identified what the root-cause (as opposed to symptoms) of those problems actually are?

3. Have you evaluated solutions that fundamentally solve the root-cause instead of symptoms?

When is the last time you have OBJECTIVELY looked at your entire systems and processes?

High TA Turnover… What gives?

High TA Turnover… What gives?

Multiple sources of data, including the Zippia article this graphic data came from, show that talent acquisition and HR have some of the highest turnover out of any department, especially over the past few years.

While we could speculate all day about reasons, let’s just look at some additional data points first.

According to some recent data by Aptitude Research:

Activities that take up recruiters’ time (in order):
1. Reviewing applicants
2. Finding applicants
3. Scheduling interviews
4. Screening applicants
5. Communicating

Resources that recruiters need (in order):
1. Better tools to automate processes
2. More time to engage candidates
3. Simple technology
4. Less time doing admin work
5. Data to drive decisions

And, “1-in-2 recruiters would leave their current role for better technology.”

So what does that all mean?

Recruiters spend A LOT of their time on manual and tedious tasks that SHOULD be automated, and they know it. Recruiters need (not want) innovative technology to help them do their job better.

TA and HR leaders are solely responsible for making their teams happier, more fulfilled, and removing barriers to their success. “We don’t have the budget” is just not an acceptable excuse.
Why?
Turnover is EXTREMELY expensive, and that alone justifies the additional cost. Leaders owe it to their teams to make the business case for better technology.

And by the way, we’re not talking about replacing a “traditional ATS” with a “newer traditional ATS” because that will probably only help with some of the symptoms rather than the root cause. We’re talking about transformative and disruptive technology that solves the root causes of the biggest problems in talent acquisition. Leaders need to stop following what everyone else is doing and start leading!

? If your company is talking about an “innovative” plan to improve the hiring process by getting AI to read resumes for you… Run.

What is that telling potential applicants? What are you really selecting for? Unless you’re hiring for a professional resume writer, this is not the answer.

On the flip side, how do you know you haven’t missed out on a great candidate because they’re not an excellent resume writer?

Spoiler: AI can certainly read resumes quicker and find you those keywords but it doesn’t solve any real problems.

A truly innovative idea?
– Allow candidates to be compared apples to apples
– Screen 100% of applicants (give ’em all a fair shot)
– Ditch the resume and get rid of unconscious bias with it

With or without SmartRank

With or without SmartRank

100+ applicants to a job within a day?

Yep. We’re starting to see it. How do you screen everyone?

The answer is: you’re probably not able to review every single applicant. If you are, you might have to close your posting quickly because you get so many applicants and it is overwhelming.

But what if the best applicant applies last?

Hundreds of applicants don’t need to make it harder to find the right fit. There is another way…

Maybe a better title for this post would have been “waste your time focused on manual & tedious tasks looking at surface-level information that ultimately decreases hiring manager engagement and DE&I” or “the opposite of that”

Is there a more inefficient way to review/screen applicants than going through them one-by-one in an ATS?

Are there not more effective ways to review/screen applicants than matching keywords between résumés and job descriptions?

There are definitely some parts of the hiring process that are really tricky to “automate.” But the screening & selection process for deciding which applicants you want to interview, is NOT one of those. It’s simple, it makes perfect sense, and it will 100% be automated in coming years.

Talent acquisition is arguably more challenging now than it ever has been in the past. Not automating the screening process is like trying to tread water with a weight belt on. You can either use your arms/hands to try and stay above the surface of the water with the weight belt dragging you down, or allow yourself to sink below the surface of the water for a couple seconds so you can use your arms/hands to get the weight belt off and then swim back up to the surface of the water. If you fell in the water with a weight belt, which option would you choose?

Keep your head above water (without the weight belt) with SmartRank!!

Wading through a tsunami of applicants?

Wading through a tsunami of applicants?

It’s all over the news…layoffs are happening, unemployment is rising, and now increasing inflation and uncertainty in the job market are causing people that were part of the “great resignation” to rethink their decision in what is being called the “Great Remorse” (great article in Fortune about this here: Click here).

So what does all this mean?

Over the past year, companies have been struggling with not getting enough applicants to apply. Talent acquisition teams would be thrilled to have more applicants, right? However, we may very likely see the pendulum swing harder than expected from having too few applicants to having too many applicants. While this seems like a great problem to have, it actually creates a whole new set of problems:

1. Many talent acquisition teams were recently reduced in size, which means now they have to process 3x, 5x, or maybe 10x the amount of applicants with a smaller team

2. Exacerbated by problem number one above, most talent acquisition teams are still using the same old tools of reviewing résumés one-by-one in a traditional ATS, that takes up a lot of time

3. Applicants are going to be more desperate to get a job, which means recruiters and hiring managers need to screen job applicants with even more precision or they risk missing important qualifications and ultimately hiring the wrong person. In fact, “over half (51%) of seekers agree that, as it stands, they would take any job offer that comes along”

4. Hiring applicants based on “hoping” rather than “knowing” they have the exact qualifications for a role can lead to bigger long-term repercussions such as higher turnover, lower productivity, and higher costs

Without proper automation tools, talent acquisition teams are going to get burned out for different reasons. Companies should really be focusing, RIGHT NOW, on what technology and process changes they can implement to head off the impending tsunami of applicants and prepare for when the market recovers and hiring goes through the roof again.