Developments in technology
For years, the recruitment industry has successfully innovated and mirrored advances in technology. We’ve harnessed significant benefits with the advent of 4G, viral communications and social media. Networking tools also increase dependence on sites such as LinkedIn. Recruiters want to access select groups, and tools have been developed to extend their digital reach. Much has been made of O2’s online game to analyse potential candidates, SHL’s development of 3D simulations to assess graduate applicants and EnRecruit, a video-based interview product.
Seeking out new talent
Keen to recruit a graduate for our business, I advertised via social media and a job board and had a terrific response. But it took a long time to analyse the 72 applications, realise that 61 of them had a grammatical or spelling error, and conclude that six of the 10 I interviewed over the phone could not communicate well enough for the role. I would have relished the luxury of an online tool or digital package to sift through the CVs and point out mistakes, and I suspect the phone interviews could have been replaced by a web-based tool or even a Skype conversation.
How to measure for success
Once I had shortlisted four candidates to meet, I knew nothing could beat personal interaction. Recruitment is successful when you take into account the culture, team environment, skills gap and personalities impacted by the vacant role. Interaction, engagement and stakeholder management can only be measured by a human being. No technological device can tell you if you will like this person, would like to work with them, and they inspire you. We recruited the candidate who wasn’t the strongest on paper, but who was engaging, seemed likely to fit in and made us believe he really wanted to work with us.
Building connected teams
Will digital innovation ever develop a tool to replace this element of the process? I hope not. While technology and particularly social media enables us to identify talent pools and passive job seekers as well as acting as many recruiters’ databases, it should not replace the human factor. Good teams are made of good people who have the ability to work together. It takes great people to understand those dynamics and implement succession plans and recruitment strategies that build such teams