ART OR SCIENCE?
Effective recruitment is a science that can be raised to an art form. Basic techniques of job analyses, validation and evaluation are all as close as your local university library. They have been around for years and their success is indisputable. The ONLY people who tend to dispute their results are people who tend to ignore them.

PROFESSIONAL OPINION
The field is rife with professional ignorance. The average person believes recruitment is a ‘earn as you learn environment’. (Try selling that idea to any sports-team owner!) As long as practitioners discount the complexity of the field, it will remain bush-league.

WHY THE OBSTACLES?
You might be aware of a behavioral theory called ‘balance of consequences’…basically, people tend to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. How does this play out in the profession?

1) Recruiters seldom live with the consequences of their actions…someone else does…as such, recruiters have little personal incentive to do anything more than acquire somewhat qualified bodies.

2) It takes considerable time and effort to evaluate candidate skills…but the results may never be seen…as such, ‘fill and bill’ accomplishes the short-term headcount goal. Want to change the playing field? Make recruiters responsible for on-the-job candidate skills.

3) Of course, what is measured, gets attention…but measuring human performance among knowledge workers and managers is easier said than done. It is also subject to experimental confounds…You want to make money? Teach organizations how to easily associate money with employee performance. Get their attention and you will get their money.

4) Human performance is a Tower of Babel. Managers, rectuiters and HR have no common langauge of human performance (e.g., trainers, educators, and vendors can’t even agree on a definition of ‘leadership’). Without a common language of performance, how can anything ever be measured?

5) Managers (see #8) want the quick fix and simple solution. Experimental design (i.e., performance measurement) is rigorous, time consuming and indirect….it takes pain to achieve gain.

6) It is poor politics to admit weakness. Hiring mistakes are often shoved under the rug, promoted or transferred.

7)Everyone complains, but no one takes responsibility. There is a HUGE credibility gap between HR, line managers and executives charged with strategic goal. Why? Few are capable of professional management and candidate skills evaluation.

8) 70% to 90% of people holding management positions were promoted based on past performance, not ability to do the job. As such, a majority of people in leadership positions do not have the intelligence, knowledge or skills to manage.

9) Utility analysis has been around for years (a mathematical technique to estimate cost of poor performance). But, it’s complicated. Futhermore, when managers see the magnitude of money lost, they get glassy-eyed and mentally shut down like a Dilbert cartoon character…(see item 8)

CONCLUSION
Why does recruitment ignorance remain rampant?
1) A lack of primary accountability
2) A consummate lack of professional education
3) An embarrassing lack of professional association support and encouragement
4) Few uniform performance metrics
5) Unqualified management

(Thanks for bringing up the points…focus your masters on metrics. You do the measurement, I’ll do the intervention…we’ll make a fortune!)

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I think the board members would do well to read some of the work by Dr. Mike Smith and Dr. Ivan Robertson (UK based academics) who have tries to put some science behind recruitment. but are always left asking the question ‘Why do companies persist in using such poor recruitment / selection methods?’ Most people are aware of the validity and reliability of the methods they use but still persist in using them. Why?

I think I may have an answer as my own research at the moment for my Masters is focusing on the use and utility of metrics in recruitment and selection and much of the literature I have studied shows a distinct lack, and indeed a reluctance on the part of HR professionals to use metrics to manage and improve their recruitment process.
I think Dr. John Sullivan said it best sayinjg ‘If you don’t measure a process how can you hope to manage and improve it?’

Recruiters / HR / Line Management still rely on their ‘gut feel’ when assessing individuals and often fall into the halo effect when making hiring decisions. Interviewing is a natural social process where people still believe that they will know the right person when they meet them. Is there anything we can do to change this view? The art of recruitment still prevails in the main,and while the academics expound the virtues of applying the science, there is a long way to go to convince the masses that there can be a science applied.
At present I can only see metrics providing a solution to this issue as they are not biased or based on preconcieved notions. Cold hard figures lay bare the art and shine on the science of recruitment. But the reluctance of HR or recruiters to look beyond simnple measure of time and cost do not bode well for the profession. Act now before the management accountants take on bord the work of measuring the effectivenness of recruitment or even the whole HR department because ultimatley if they are measuring the process they will eventually get a bigger say on what is done.

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Your ‘dream’ reminds me of an old Catskill humor line: The Doctor says ‘You’ll live to be 60!’ ‘I AM 60!’ ‘See, what did I tell you?’

Some people just have amazing powers of deduction…

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