Have you ever heard the term,
“transactional recruiting”? It refers to
how a recruiter simply posts to the job boards any role requisition written and
forwarded by any manager with an opening. This is still widely done without any
thought to who is targeted for the job, without identifying where those active
and passive candidates may be lurking, without considering freelancers on a
trial basis, without incenting existing employees to find good candidates and
so on. Just copy and post.
Today, the corporate recruiting machine is so broken
that the time to fill positions keeps getting longer and longer. Meanwhile, like my job space, the rate that
those positions are changing keeps accelerating. No low unemployment rate is going to fix this
gulf, but you can fix it for yourself.
First, understand some harsh corporate recruiting
realities that your credentials will face:
1.
an automated application
tracking software that will filter hundreds of resumes through a keyword search
looking mostly at academic degree, work history and skills and without all or
most of the desired three, you get bumped for consideration by the algorithm
2.
young recruiters unable to
evaluate both job descriptions and candidate credentials due to their very own
inexperience and low business acumen, thereby diminishing your chances
3.
written job descriptions that
literally seek a superhero to fulfill “kitchen sink” requirements that not even
the internal team quite knows what is truly needed, so they cast a wide net,
trolling for everything with the view, " let's see what we catch" so you
are in the tangle with a bunch of other less qualified candidates
3. this very process then sucks
recruiter time, energy and focus as they struggle to sift through, the
resulting cacophony of disparate responses, resulting in unexplained delays for
you
4. talent recruiter employees
require genuine sales, " hunter" and consulting skills both to
understand the job openings and to find good candidates, but organizations hand
the responsibilities of recruitment to conventional generalists, HR type
resources, then slap on an annual quota for candidates placed, without proper
development of their own recruiters so another reason that you risk never being
found
5. internal recruiters tend to
be risk adverse so they happily insulate themselves from the increasing
pressures by hiding within the so called "technology enabled"
processes, job platforms, algorithms, word filters, etc. and then wonder WHY
they can't find the right candidates
6. ubiquitous age discrimination practices are
ignored therefore losing some of the best skilled, willing and available
resources untapped (more for workers over age 50 HERE)
7. external recruiting firms also feed the transactional process
with aggressive tactics to meet “candidates found” and “positions filled”
quotas and for matching people with zero allegiance to the job or the company , so using recruiters may inhibit your overall happiness with the
job
