The Evolution Recruitment
If we look at the evolution of industry over the ages there are some phenomenal examples of growth, innovation, development and a constant desire to improve. The T-Ford to the Teslar, the brick mobile phone to the I-phone, the ENIAC to your laptop, Apps that make life easier for travellers or simply bus times. All of these products and industries strive to change the user experience with their products, and add features that make life easier for the customer.
My question is what and how has the recruitment industry strived to do this? Or has it even tried…
Hiring someone has to be the single most important exercise in any management teams job function. Getting it right and ensuring the person performs their duties is essential, and equally for the employee; one of the most important decisions they make and yet, the recruitment industry it seems to me has changed little over time.
Has recruitment evolved at the same pace as innovation in the last 30 years? I think not. The most advancement we have achieved is the jobs boards and by way of extension, LinkedIn. The evolution of social media and apps may well accelerate and potentially transform the development of the industry. AI is due to revolutionise the way recruitment will function in the future; that leads to two questions: can it be innovated? And has anyone tried?
There is a mountain of money in the investor community that is looking for investment in technology and tech start-ups, there are all the encouraging signs from the government, so I am looking for the day that the recruitment disrupter is designed and rolled out. Why because I am intrigued as to what it would do and what it would disrupt. We as a venture capitalist review over 50 new investment opportunities per month, of which 5% would fall into the tech space. The majority of these opportunities are focused on the back end of the recruitment service, time sheets, referencing, testing etc. no one seems to have cracked the front end.
So, what constitutes the front end in recruitment? I am talking about the interaction between a recruiter and the client on the business development, account management side, and the building of trust between the candidate and the recruiter. Can this be disrupted by technology? I am probably the last person to come up with the idea but will be the first to embrace it!
Written by Abid Hamid, CEO | Recruitment Entrepeneur.
