Lucha Libre Tracks Trends in the Recruiting Industry

Seeing as I spend about 75% of my week on the phone with HR professionals, recruiters, and executives, I’m in a prime position to identify trends in the human capital industry. Naturally, through these conversations, I learn what people are interested in, what they think is important.  Next to my keyboard, I have a notepad with a lucha libre on it to keep simple notes, just concepts. Earlier this week, I started going through my notes to identify patterns.  I had some suspicions.

Here is what people are talking about now.



Size doesn’t matter anymore.

Not only has the labor market become increasingly dynamic, but the opening up of once closed networks via resources like LinkedIn, Jigsaw, etc. has fundamentally changed recruiting. It doesn’t matter how big your network is anymore. Every headhunter has access to pretty much the same information these days. Today, recruiting is about processing large amounts of information efficiently and marketing to prospects as effectively as possible.

Employment branding gets a little steak with that sizzle.

Frequently characterized by cheesy videos and faux employee testimonials, employment branding is being reinvented and this time it’s about actually improving job application processes, targeting and engaging micro-communities and promoting communication between employers, employees, and applicants (who are often customers too) to create and reinforce brand identities. In short, employment branding is getting more substantive. Traditional employment branding agencies are facing stiff competition from boutique new media firms and technology companies that operate independently or as partners to create employment branding 2.0.

Job advertising is trying to leave Las Vegas.

I’ve always looked at buying job postings as gambling. They’re a necessary evil in the recruiting world.   Throw some postings online and hope to see some return on investment.  Finally there are some alternatives.  Some job advertising companies are offering pay for performance job posting products and employers are taking notice.

It works like this. Employers set a budget for each job ad. Qualified views cost a few cents each. When the job is filled, employers pay only for the number of qualified views that job ad received. The industry needs more of this now. Indeed.com is a good place to start.  I hope to be able to endorse some others soon.

Automation sees its shadow

Before the recession began in 2008, human capitalists were buzzing about automating HR and recruiting processes. Many argue, including me, that these are the last business processes to be truly optimized in most organizations. As history shows, when a crisis ends the larger trends in place before the crisis usually resume. Automation, or taking what were once manual (paper) processes online, is back in full swing.

“We want to get rid of paper.” These words are being spoken all over corporate American. Whether it’s accepting online employment applications, integrating payroll interfaces or just generally streamlining, employers are making a push for increased productivity by putting processes on the web. It’s about time.

RPO moves the chains.

Direct-hire, executive search and staffing services all of which are more analogous to out-tasking are facing major competition from recruitment outsources that are structured to provide more cost effective, flexible services that compliment their clients overall recruiting processes. Just 5 years ago there were only a handful of national RPO’s servicing employers most of which with on-going, seasonal and generally iterative hiring needs.  Today, there are thousands of RPO’s many of which target high complexity environments ranging from healthcare to cleantech. RPO is the future of recruiting services.

ShareThis