Bill Humbert, Recruitment Consultant

Remember the 1960s? Well, there are two generations who don’t.

If you were a candidate, there were three primary ways for you to find a job.

1) Complete an application, drop it off with the personnel department, and hope the company called you.

2) Become known as a contributor in your current company and be recruited by a recruiter or someone within another company who knows your impacts.

3) Network with people who could help introduce you to another company – “It’s not what you know. It’s who you know” became a mantra.

If you were the personnel department, you ran a newspaper ad and waited for responses, looked at them, decided if they were a potential fit and either interviewed them or filed their resume in a file drawer.

In 2011, many companies have the same process, only today it is automated. The name “personnel department” has mostly become obsolete. Today, we have human resource departments that have the responsibility for talent acquisition.

How do many of those human resource departments recruit today?

1)    They run an automated newspaper ad on one or more job boards. “Automated newspaper ad?” CareerBuilder was founded by two newspaper publishing companies.

2)    They utilize the services of a third party recruiter.

3)    Or, the candidate may network their way into the company.

Sound familiar?

Today when candidates reply to an online posting, what are they required to do in many companies? Complete a six- to seven-page application prior to any conversation generating mutual interest, and hope they receive a reply from the talent acquisition team. That process is called “posting and praying.”

Companies have conditioned candidates that (for the most part) completing an application prior to a conversation is a waste of time. Certainly you have heard the words “black hole” when candidates discuss corporate (and some third party) recruiting processes, correct?

Today instead of filing the resume in a file drawer, it is filed in an applicant tracking system. (Thank goodness! At least that way you may be able to find the resume in the future!)

The applicant tracking systems that promote that process are partially correct. Clerks should be able to run that process. Unfortunately recruitment is not a clerk process. It is a sales process and successful companies treat it as such.  Wouldn’t your company rather use that computer memory storing more resumes of possibly better qualified candidates than discouraging slightly passive candidates from simply dropping their resume into the applicant tracking system?

Successful corporate recruiting professionals understand the psychology behind recruitment. They understand that candidates do not like to make big, life changing decisions. They help them make little decisions that lead to the obvious conclusion – offer acceptance and starting.

As our economy slowly improves, companies will begin to open new positions for growth and to replace retiring baby boomers. The clerk-based recruiting teams will suffer in that environment as their applications dwindle, and they won’t understand why.

Meanwhile the successful corporate recruiting professionals will have the opportunity to choose and recruit the most promising candidates – who will no longer follow 1960s processes.

It is time to move recruitment to Recruitment Release 2011. Utilize the tools available in the way that attract candidates. Beware of processes that repel candidates.

Companies that understand recruiting is sales create a process that encourages communication with the selected candidates. For instance, the new recruiting process will place the phone screen prior to the application completion requirement. This enables the recruiter to recruit!  When people feel a company is interested in them, they are much more likely to spend the time with the application.

In the future, the enlightened recruiting teams will use technology to leverage their efforts instead of using technology to discourage applications. The recruitment teams that understand that recruitment is a sales process will automate the clerk processes, as the applicant tracking systems currently automate the resume tracking/candidate tracking processes. Newer technologies such as mobile recruiting will be recognized as the advanced sourcing/marketing strategy – not recruiting. True recruiting will continue to be a relationship building process, not an automated paper process.

Beware of people who sing the virtues of technology replacing recruitment, and then charge your company many times the value of their service. Companies that follow recruitment fundamentals well will be very successful in the recruitment of top talent because they are building relationships.

Bill Humbert is an expert nationally based Recruitment Consultant and the author of “RecruiterGuy’s Guide to Finding a Job.” His business, RecruiterGuy.com, specializes in recruitment continuous process improvement, employment branding, creative candidate sourcing, interview training, and how these tie together to attract Impact Performers.