AI in Hiring, Artificial Intelligence, ATS, Candidate Experience, Candidate Qualification Screening, Change Management, Hiring Assessments, Hiring Manager Engagement, Leadership, Resumes, Talent Acquisition Problems
Almost exactly one year ago I posted about a coming tsunami of applicants hitting the market (link in comments). Since that post, tech companies alone have laid off over 244,000 people (link in comments), and that’s not including smaller startups. To put that number in perspective, those same tech companies “only” laid off 80,000 at the height of the COVID pandemic from March – December of 2020, and only 15,000 layoffs total in 2021.
And that is just the tech industry. According to a recent Randstad Risesmart study (link in comments), 96% of companies took some sort of downsizing action over the past 12 months, and 94% anticipate taking further action in 2024.
You can see this tsunami of applicants playing out by just looking at some of the jobs posted on LinkedIn. They’ll be posted for hours and get hundreds of applicants.
In my post a year ago, I wrote about how talent acquisition (TA) teams were going to get downsized. With a lack of innovative tools, recruiters (or even TA leaders) would find themselves drowning in a wave of applicants. Unfortunately that is exactly what is playing out.
I probably don’t need to enumerate all the challenges that come as a result of having too many applicants and no way of efficiently and effectively screening all of them.
What does all this have to do with a lion and gazelle running?
Well, unfortunately many TA teams didn’t fundamentally change their tools or processes to handle this wave of applicants, and as a result they are dealing with those consequences.
In 2024 TA teams are either going to be hiring, albeit with an even smaller team, which means an even higher ratio of applicants to recruiters. Or, they are not going to hire in hopes the market returns in 2025.
Whether you are hiring (i.e., lion) in 2024 or not (i.e., gazelle), you should be implementing innovative technology NOW (i.e., running) as opposed to waiting until the problem is out of control, as I wrote about in a different post (link in comments).
You can’t control the market. You can’t control the hiring your company wants to do. But you CAN control the technology you use to manage those hiring peaks and valleys. If you don’t plan to put solutions in place in early 2024 to solve the coming problems in 2025, by the time you realize you have a problem…it’s going to be too late!
AI in Hiring, Artificial Intelligence, ATS, Candidate Qualification Screening, Change Management, Data Analytics & Reporting, Hiring Manager Engagement, Job Descriptions, Leadership, Managing Costs, Resumes, Talent Acquisition Problems
I was reading through a recent study named “Recruitment & Retention: Two Sides of the Same Coin” conducted by Aptitude Research which had some great data.
One data point in particular jumped out at me, “84% of recruiters…stated they do not have the tools they need to do their job well.” This statistic makes perfect sense. While the business world continues to change exponentially, HR and Talent Acquisition (TA) teams struggle to make the necessary changes to evolve at the same pace. Unfortunately these decisions impact everyone, not just the HR or TA teams.
This point above is specifically called out in the study and is probably the biggest challenge of all for HR and TA teams to overcome. The study states, “One reason that recruiters have not embraced this modern role is that they do not understand what it is or what they need to do. Most companies do not train, incentivize, or motivate recruiters to manage modern tasks. Yet, recruiters and recruiting departments tend to fall into the same patterns and routines, even when those routines are not bringing results.”
Sales doesn’t sell, marketing doesn’t market, and product development doesn’t develop the exact same way they did 25 years ago. If they did, their competition would crush them. I would even argue that business functions don’t do things the same way they did 5 years ago. And AI is changing the way we’ll be doing business 1-2 years from now.
If HR and TA leaders don’t immediately start breaking these patterns and routines in very significant and impactful ways (e.g., NOT introducing some new way of writing job descriptions), they will likely find themselves being replaced by people or technology that will.
As Leon C. Megginson once wrote in reference to Darwin’s Origin of Species, “It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.” In maybe no other function of business is this quote more relevant right now than HR and TA.
Candidate Qualification Screening, Change Management, Hiring Assessments, Hiring Manager Engagement, Job Descriptions, Resumes, Talent Acquisition Problems
Do recruiters and hiring managers align on what qualifications are needed for job roles? Usually not. What is considered “alignment” usually amounts to updating a job description and a high-level conversation. Inevitably the hiring process breaks down and both parties end up blaming the other. Who’s fault is it? Well both of course, but let’s examine both positions.
Recruiter arguments:
* I’m not a SME (Subject Matter Expert) for your role, to think otherwise is an unfair and unrealistic expectation. This is totally valid and anyone that thinks differently is living in a fantasy world. One of the disconnects here is that being a “SME” is a subjective term. The only thing more dangerous than a non-SME, is someone that thinks they are a SME, but are not even close to being one.
* Hiring managers don’t know exactly what they want or need. This can be true or false depending on the people involved, but I would argue that the real problem here are that these detailed conversations are NOT happening, and even if they were, what would the recruiter do with all that detailed information? As the recruiter, if you let hiring managers off the hook by providing you with vague qualifications, then you don’t have what you need to do your job, it will likely not end up well, and the hiring manager will probably blame you in the end.
Hiring manager arguments:
* These job descriptions and intake meetings are a waste of time, and aren’t even scratching the surface of what qualifications are needed for this role. But I don’t have enough time to make the recruiter a SME, and even if I spent the time, chances are that I’ll be working with a new recruiter and will have to start all over again. This is true. Getting “years of experience” in something or a list of all the things they need “experience” or “familiarity” with is a start, but not even close to a destination. That’s like asking, “where should I meet you?” and the other person says, “West.”
* I’m busy and you (the recruiter) are supposed to be the expert, so I’ll give you what you ask for, but that’s it. If you ask for an updated JD and a 30-minute surface-level conversation about what is needed for this role, then that’s what I’ll give you. This happens, but it’s not good. Hiring managers have been trained to give surface-level answers to surface-level questions. As long as that remains acceptable, nothing will change.
Great Keith, most of us already knew this…so what is the solution?
Simple, you just need a way to generate extremely detailed questions & answer options that are at a SME level, have the hiring manager verify that information, then have a system that automates the task of asking 100% of the applicants those SME-related questions, score all their answers, and then stack-rank and filter those applicants based on those scores.
Yeah right, all of that does not sound simple! But it is. Send me a message and I’ll show you!
ATS, Change Management, Company Updates, Talent Acquisition Problems
SmartRank was honored to be recognized as an HR Tech Award Winner for Talent Acquisition Best Innovative or Emerging Tech Solution.
On behalf of our entire team here at SmartRank, we wanted to say thank you to Ben Eubanks, George Rogers, and the entire team at Lighthouse Research & Advisory for this opportunity and recognition.
AI in Hiring, Artificial Intelligence, ATS, Change Management, Data Analytics & Reporting, Hiring Manager Engagement, Leadership, Talent Acquisition Problems
Software should make our lives easier, not harder.
There is a concept called “opinionated” vs. “unopinionated” software. Here’s the very high-level definitions for both:
Unopinionated software – highly configurable but generally more manual task management because you make the decision for every single last thing that needs to happen within the system. In other words, there is not really any automation happening, you’re the one that has to do everything.
Example: Old email systems without spam filters. They are not going to filter anything because you have to make the decision on every single email as to whether it’s spam or not.
Opinionated software – less configurable but essentially involves more automation with tasks because it can assume the next logical step based on some assumptions. In other words, it automates much of the work for you, but you have to be comfortable with the assumptions it makes.
Example: Gmail spam filters. They make logical assumptions about what email is spam and what is not. They are not 100% correct all the time, but they’re pretty darn close.
Both types of software naturally have pros and cons. Which one is right for you really depends on preference. In the email spam filter examples above, you have to ask yourself whether it’s worth it to you to save the time with Gmail filtering out spam emails for you under some assumptions, realizing they won’t get it perfect 100% of the time. Or, maybe you are okay with your inbox being bombarded with every single email because you want to decide which emails are spam and which are not, but you’re going to waste a lot of your time filtering emails.
ATSs work in the same way. Generally speaking, unopinionated ATSs (which are most of them) create a lot of manual tasks and clicks for every single thing you want to happen. If you don’t take action, it won’t happen, and that can waste A LOT of your time. In other words, you end up working for your ATS.
SmartRank is more opinionated which creates automation. This saves time and reduces frustration. Your ATS ends up working for you.
If you want to see opinionated and therefore massive time-saving software in action, send us a note!
