You wrote: “An example is the introduction of the typewriter. In the early days of the typewriter a manager would dictate to a stenographer who would take shorthand and then use the typewriter to create a document. This took two people and three steps. It took decades before we got to the point of eliminating the stenographer by having the manager learn to type and enter the document directly. But when this occurred, the profession of stenographer disappeared (as did shorthand), efficiency went up, and the number of people an office needed went down”.

I understand your point, but I really do question whether manager’s being their own secretaries truly represents an increase in productivity. As the owner of a small business, I am amazed at all the things I can do faster and more ‘efficiently’ than ever…but I am dismayed at how little time it leaves me to think about where the future is headed and run my business proactively rather than reactively.

From this perspective, I would question whether recruiters need more relationship management TOOLS or whether they need to put away some of these tools and least some of the time and just try to have better, smarter and more ‘real’ relationships.

Your comment “RPOs and agencies have been working on these things for at least a decade and are about to reap its benefits.” is way off the mark I think, from my experience in the UK anyway.

Third party agencies, in the main are laggard businesses that have refused to challenge their own business model in over 40 years, which is why you are accurate when you say an old school recruiter would be comfortable today. And, a significant amount of them are ‘quick buck’ thinkers. Hence, the very short term nature of the industry in regards to improvement and investment. The whole industry is built this way and in my opinion the shift is too great to make any significant changes.

And, apologies, but RPO’s are no better. Apart from a handful of good ones – there are very few – the rest were born out of traditional recruitment companies who were only looking to put in place a service that protected their traditional business via ‘vendor neutral’ type agreements etc (That phrase makes me laugh every time!)

Currently, very few of the solutions out there address the real critical issue – time to hire. The lead times have not really changed over the years yet this is where the real savings, both in time, energy and cost are. Instead, we have been obsessed with cost of hire and this is wrong.

I would also say that the candidate experience, at the hands of all three – third party recruiters, RPO’s and Corporate recruiting departments – leaves a lot to be desired.

All of these issues stem from one root cause – the way organisations consider recruitment as an operational rather than strategic activity. Of course, many would say that recruitment, or talent management/acquisition is strategic but its not. A fancy title does not change anything.

As an example, compare ‘strategic customer marketing’ activity and investment in an organisation with ‘strategic candidate acquisition’ and the difference is marked. Both in terms of investment and experience.

Things are changing of course, and the maturity of online technology especially is creating some opportunity for change but its very very slow.

Recruiting will always involve developing & maintaining human relationships on the hiring side, which takes time. What is ripe for the largest returns from innovation is the sourcing side of the equation.

Let’s look at recruiting from an operation management standpoint: It’s hard to make the company’s internal hiring process more efficient if it’s outside of your control. It is within your control to become more effective/efficient in sourcing quality candidates in a shorter period of time and get them interviewing ahead of other candidates.

From an OM perspective, that’s where recruiters can make the biggest improvements to their transaction ‘cycle-time’ and spend the time saved to develop & foster new client relationships. Those who don’t will end up having to work longer and harder to make placements as the front-runners put sustainable automated processes in place to locate qualified candidates from the mass of data that is the internet.

Matthew
MyJobReferrals.com

Recruiting will always involve developing & maintaining human relationships on the hiring side, which takes time. What is ripe for the largest returns from innovation is the sourcing side of the equation.

Let’s look at recruiting from an operation management standpoint: It’s hard to be more efficient with the company’s internal hiring process if it’s outside of your control. It is within your control to become more effective/efficient in sourcing quality candidates in a shorter period of time and get them interviewing ahead of other candidates.

From an OM perspective, that’s where recruiters can make the biggest improvements to their transaction ‘cycle-time’ and spend the time saved in developing & fostering new client relationships. Those who don’t will end up having to work longer and harder to make placements as the front-runners put sustainable automated processes in place to locate qualified candidates from the mass of data that is the internet.

Matthew
MyJobReferrals.com

There is a new website, 1stGig.com, that uses a technology that I believe is going to dramatically improve college graduate recruiting programs. 1stGig.com uses a precision matching system that streamlines the college graduate recruiting process. It saves time, reduces costs and increases the probability of a long-term placement of early career professionals.

A new technology that I believe is going to dramatically improve college graduate recruiting programs is 1stGig.com. 1stGig.com is a revolutionary tool that streamlines the college graduate recruiting process. It uses a precision matching system that saves time, reduces costs and increases the probability of a long-term placement of early career professionals.

1stGig.com is a new, revolutionary tool that dramatically streamlines the process of sourcing college graduates and early career professionals. 1stGig.com uses a precision matching tool to identify talent within this sector. It reduces costs and only presents candidates that are serious and qualified. No more weeding through hundred and hundreds of resumes. Its a great tool that I believe will change college recruiting programs for the better.

There will be a time when I need outsourcing help in the future and I won’t hesitate to pick up the phone when it does. But they better have a firm understanding of my industry and be somewhat knowledgable of my business and operations. Anything less than that will be a waste of my time and hurt my bottom line.

-kh

I found this on a corporate website (with modifications)

“Any resumes sent to us which can be found using the following Job Boards: CareerBuilder, Craig’s List, DICE, HotJobs, or Monster, the following Search Engines: Ask, Google, Vivissimo, or Yahoo will be considered your company’s gift to us and may be forwarded to our recruiters for their attention.”

Good article and the follow up comments have covered a diverse array of perspectives within the recruiting community.

I have been an executive recruiter for twenty years focusing on financial services, mostly here in NYC, and can safely state that corporate recruiting has impacted the search landscape. Quite frankly, I am surprised it took so long for the financial institutions to bring recruiting in-house. However, I must add that corporate recruiting can never completely replace third party executive recruiters, (sorry Stephanie!) but can provide a strong complement to their efforts.

An experienced third party recruiter with an established candidate and client base has a much stronger reach within the industry, especially towards those passive candidates that have not posted their information on any of the social media sites, or have not expressed any interest in leaving their firms. They have developed the trust and respect among their contacts to be able to extract information that a corporate recruiter often cannot.

A corporate recruiter typically does not have the time available to truly drill down into what makes a specific candidate tick, and where that candidate really wants to be. They are often handcuffed by whatever ATS system they are asked to use, and by other substitutes to a face to face meeting or in-depth phone conversation.

Throughout my career a large percentage of my placements have developed from candidates that never would have made it through the intricate network of filters that corporate recruiters often use via the various ATSs, job boards and search engines that Keith H references above.

With that said, I also agree with Ken F that many roles should and will be filled with either corporate recruiters or RPOs. My perspective as a third party search provider is that I am “marketing” a diverse array of positions and companies to my candidate base, whereas the RPO and corporate recruiter is limited to marketing positions within their firm only. My ability to provide that menu of possible job opportunities is a major reason that candidates will continue to maintain a strong relationship with their favorite one or two executive search professionals in the face of the ever-expanding footprint of RPOs and corporate recruiters.

Cheers,

Mark Moyer

mmoyer@peakorg.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/1markmoyer

Kirk Abraham
EASTeam@mrindianapolis.com

I apologize to anyone offended by my “age” remarks. My point, though poorly made, was that age does matter and that the older we are the more likely we are to reject emerging technologies as fads. Individual cases may be quite different. I agree this was a generalization and I, myself, am well into the Baby Boomer years but tweet, Facebook and do other social media.

I would also like to stress that I do think people matter a great deal and that relationships are the core of any successful recruiting instance. My point is that relationships can occur in LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media. There is no need for a face-to-face presence to have a relationship.

Technology combined with appropriate processes and focused around people are the elements of a winning formula. If this did not come across in the article, I apologize.