As recruiters, we say and believe that human capital is a company’s greatest asset. But the common approach to hiring often ignores this principle. One veteran head hunter says it’s gotten so bad that our country’s employment system is broken.
Nick Corcodillo doesn’t mince words. He says, “recruiting and hiring in America are a disaster of epic proportions.” He says database driven job boards, algorithms and keywords that can’t really capture a person’s character and “middlemen” sites like LinkedIn and CareerBuilder have been using automation to replace invaluable human interaction.
The fundamental issue, says Corcodillo, is that there needs to be a complete shift in mindset; Human Resource managers need to see that the job is less important than the people you hire.
As a recruiter with a firm that constantly strives to find the best fit for each job candidate and company we work with, I could not agree more with this assessment. While we can’t ignore job boards, we work our personal networks and other sources we’ve cultivated over the years, just as intensively. We struggle sometimes with clients who want to take the more typical, narrow approach. They want us to find the right person for the job, focusing on the job. But setting out with a prescribed, limiting list of skills and requirements, trying to find “the round peg to fill the empty hole” is the wrong approach and can result in missed opportunities. Empty implies a vacancy, when a job opening should really be an opportunity for new ideas and innovation.
We say that the X Factor stands for a combination of science, experience and insight that helps us find great matches that make sense. That’s why they last. Yes, it is our clients who pay us, but it is the employees we place in the job that is the ultimate reason the clients pay us. I believe the employees are the asset. The employees are so important to our own livelihood. They are our “product,” so to speak.
It is also about employees we place on contract with clients that sometimes become clients in the future. Again, that starts with fostering the relationship with the employee. The results speak for themselves. We know that over 86% of the people we’ve placed over the past five years are still working for the same companies.
By Merrit Bachman, Experience Factor Recruiter
Read more of Nick Corcodillo’s blog “Why America’s Employment System is so Broken”.