Yesteryear and Today's Candidate Experience
While reading Jason Warner's meritocracy blog this morning, I was reminded of an era seemingly long gone. Jason described the difference between pre-internet job hunting and today's heavily digitized efforts. Essentially, he makes a case that economics are not working well in favor of job seekers because whereas prior to the internet's ease of application, job seekers would hunt for a smaller number of jobs well-suited to their talents and interests. They would work hard to learn about the prospective company and find creative ways to start a conversation. I personally remember landing almost every single job I found in the newspaper back in yesteryear -- and yes, I did focus hard on the search and only applied to perhaps a few or a handful at any one time. Today, with the omnipresence of jobs across the world, all available at the touch of mouse click, those same job seekers now apply to countless more positions many of which they are not completely qualified for nor terribly interested in. Why? Well, to increase their odds, of course! Or, so the thinking goes.
But as Jason points out, this newly adapted behavior to the ease of online application just clogs the corporate recruiting arteries and does not enhance the job seeker's chance of landing a quick job. Or any job, for that matter. Recruiters have to sift through more resumes to find those few who are really qualified and suited for the position. But nonetheless, and this is quintessential "Jason speak," the Google recruiting guru concludes his piece by saying "companies that are able to scale while preserving an authentic connection with the talent marketplace will win." And this is where it really gets interesting for those of us dealing in candidate experience. Jason knows I am a fan of what I would call a core value for him--his insistence on authenticity. I imagine he would also guess that I completely agree with him that people tend to, shall we say, unselectively overapply for positions.
And so the dance and charade continue with one behavior reinforcing the other. Companies need top talent to competitively compete today and so continue to advertise their openings across the internet. Their resume portal size increases as more and more people stick up their hands as possible candidates. And sometimes due to a generically written job description, many candidates really do believe themselves to be qualified for the job and thus are at least somewhat interested. Sometimes, people become desperate to get a job in order to pay bills and feel it takes too long to navigate the bureaucratic world of hiring these days. And so, driven by sheer need, they keep applying to ever more positions trying to land their next paycheck. And they get more frustrated because there is little or no communication that takes place once a company has acknowledged receipt of their resume. Of course, what is also happening on the other side is some poor recruiting staff is trying valiantly to get to the bottom of that stack of submitted resumes to find the few gems. And dang it, it's taking a while. Nonetheless, from the job seeker's perspective, the "black hole" syndrome is alive and well, and so technology has not made "being authentic" very easy for a company.
And that gap is precisely the area we at Improved Experience are trying to fill--to get the dialogue going again between companies and job seekers. To allow each party to be more authentic by first helping companies to invite candidate feedback. And then allowing job seekers to express themselves about their experiences of interacting with companies as they pursue their job search. We think it's a good start. And one that will benefit both parties. Because yesteryear's lack of technology in some ways was so much more.... well, civilized.
Technorati tags: recruiting, authenticity, candidate experience
Recent Comments