AI in Hiring, Artificial Intelligence, ATS, Candidate Experience, Candidate Qualification Screening, Change Management, Company Updates, Data Analytics & Reporting, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DE&I), Hiring Assessments, Hiring Manager Engagement, Job Descriptions, Leadership, Managing Costs, Resumes, Talent Acquisition Problems
Talent acquisition teams have many priorities, and it’s hard to balance them all. What’s interesting is that many of the same priorities show up on the top initiatives list year-after-year.
If you are looking to make significant progress in any or all of these areas, then you need a solution that can PROVE they address all of these initiatives with practical examples.
With SmartRank:
Productivity – you could give your recruiters back 30% – 70% of their time back in their day
DE&I – you could have zero unconscious bias in your screening process
Hiring Manager Engagement – simply give them applicants that are EXACTLY what they want
Compliance & Legal – no bias data + 100% inclusive and objective screening = no calls from the EEOC and/or OFCCP
Data Analytics – remove assumption and opinion driven anecdotal conversations with data driven conversations
Applicant Experience – something actually new, different, better, and ultimately benefits the applicant
We can show how we specifically address each of these initiatives in less than 5 minutes each. If you are curious, schedule time with us to learn more (https://lnkd.in/gpyUcDF2)!
AI in Hiring, Artificial Intelligence, ATS, Candidate Qualification Screening, Change Management, Data Analytics & Reporting, Job Descriptions, Managing Costs, Resumes, Talent Acquisition Problems
Research and survey data consistently tell us that “reviewing & screening” applicants is the most time consuming task a recruiter has. The time spent on this task ranges anywhere between 30% – 70% per day. This is staggering and highly inefficient.
One has to immediately ask, what process on earth could create this level of inefficiency? The answer is easy when you look at how most recruiters review and screen applicants, manually and tediously. Opening each applicant in a traditional ATS one-by-one, matching keywords on a résumé to keywords on a job description is going to take a long time. What’s worse…it’s not very effective. It is definitely what most recruiters do, but it is definitely not efficient or effective.
What other manual and tedious tasks do recruiters have?
* Sending applicants to hiring managers and following up for feedback
* Following up on feedback after an interview
* Working through the rest of the applicants one-by-one, either inviting them to interviews, dispositioning, etc.
So the big question is really WHY do we do this? Short answer…because this is how we’ve always done it. These problems with recruiters never having enough time, which ultimately leads to burnout, are not going away until we stop doing it the same way we’ve always done it.
One last thing to consider. If your risk tolerance only allows you to try a “slight evolution” then it will likely produce a “slight improvement.” Maybe you go from 50% to 48.5% time spent on screening. Or you can look at a “revolution” which could take you from 50% to 5% of your time being spent on screening/reviewing applicants. It’s all about how motivated you are to solve that problem.
Change Management, Leadership
Nobody wants to talk to salespeople, I get it. They can be annoying, relentless, pushy, and downright rude at times. And many times salespeople don’t know their space or products very well.
With the proliferation of sales tools, it has become WAY TOO noisy. We get hit up on email, social media, texts, phone calls, and at some point we just turn off any and all receptors to anything that even smells like a sales call.
If that’s not bad enough, 90% of the crap we’re being sold we either don’t need, don’t want, solves zero problems, and/or has zero competitive differentiation from every other product in their market.
BUT…every once in a while…there is a very competent salesperson with an amazing product/service. A product or service that companies absolutely NEED, solves major problems, and is truly innovative in their respective market.
So what’s the point? Have a screen door instead of a vault. You have to filter out a lot of sales nonsense, but don’t shut yourself off all together or you might miss something that could give you that promotion or make your life 10x easier!
ATS, Change Management, Data Analytics & Reporting, Hiring Manager Engagement, Job Descriptions, Leadership, Resumes, Talent Acquisition Problems
If you are a recruiter that feels burned out, you should check out this article that my good friend Anna Peters sent me AND seriously consider what you want the next 10 years of your career to look like.
4 things this article mentioned as burnout symptoms that SmartRank addresses in one way or another:
Exhaustion – we minimize so many of the manual tasks (e.g., reviewing résumés) associated with recruiting which enables recruiters to accomplish more in an 8 hour day than they would in a 14 hour day
Cynicism and Pessimism – this talks about conflict at work. HMs and recruiters ALWAYS have conflict, even if it’s not overt. SmartRank helps to bridge this gap that that exists at most companies because our solution pulls both parties on the same page and accountability is shared amongst all parties involved in the hiring process
Reduced productivity – reviewing resumes and all the other tasks a recruiter must do are SO manual in nature and therefore their productivity plummets. Automate the tasks that can be automated and you increase productivity, which is exactly what SmartRank does
Feeling of stagnation – of course…the basic recruiting process hasn’t changed in 25-years, and industry experts talk about this ALL the time. SmartRank fundamentally approaches recruiting in a better and different way
The only part of the article where they lost me is when they talk about solutions for overcoming burnout. “Setting goals” “maintaining work-life balance” and “getting adequate sleep” are nice, but those solutions alone are not going to massively reduce burnout because they are not tangible enough.
If you want to reduce burnout, then you need to:
1. Objectively look at your TA tools and processes (hint: if you are still manually looking and managing every applicant one-by-one, and you’re still sending résumés to hiring managers, then you need to ask yourself why)
2. Make some fundamental changes in the technology you’re using (hint: if you’re not reducing your manual tasks by 30% – 50%, then you’re not even trying)
3. Introduce technology and processes that are actually NEW (hint: updating job descriptions and trying to have better intake meetings are not even scratching the surface)
If you are a TA and/or HR leader that truly wants to reduce burnout on your team, then it’s time for less talk and more action with SmartRank!!
AI in Hiring, Artificial Intelligence, Candidate Experience, Candidate Qualification Screening, Change Management, Hiring Assessments, Leadership, Resumes, Talent Acquisition Problems
“92% of companies view skills-based hiring as more effective than using a traditional CV (curriculum vitae), another word for résumé.” YOU THINK? Of course skills-based is more effective, but there are nuances to getting skills-based hiring right.
Are we finally at a point where we can stop using résumés to screen talent? We all hope so, because it’s highly inefficient, ineffective, and biased. You can find tons of research to back this up, or just go to LinkedIn and read the posts and comments from job applicants, recruiters, and even hiring managers lamenting about how bad the current hiring process is working today. I would argue the root causes for that dysfunction are the tools (e.g., résumés, job descriptions, legacy ATSs, etc.) we use in recruiting, and the processes those tools dictate we use.
There is so much talk in companies about “Skills Gaps” and “Improving Retention” and “Improving Productivity.” You fix those problems by hiring the best possible people you can. And you are NOT going to hire the best possible people you can by using résumés. In the same way there is so much talk within talent acquisition about “Improving Efficiency” and “Quality-of-Hire” and “Improving DE&I.” Guess what? You are NOT going to solve those problems by using a résumé either. In fact, you are likely to only exacerbate them.
There are smart, practical, highly-effective, and easy solutions that completely automate the screening process without using/needing a résumé, and I’m not talking about some ineffective biased AI algorithm. I know these solutions exist because I’m a founder of one of them!
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!
