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Online Recruiting 2.0

Just as the richly imagined supercomputer HAL in Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey redefined the relationship between man and machine, by the year 2001 millions of computers on the Internet redefined recruiting for the 21st century. By then, online job board use was well established and several talent management vendors had launched web-based versions of their products.

The next few years, 2002 through 2005, were years of retrenchment for the online recruiting industry. In 2006, though, we’ve begun to see the emergence of what I call Online Recruiting 2.0.

Online Recruiting 2.0 brings five key changes to recruiting:

• The “Who do you know?” question becomes “Who do you trust?”
• Recruiting process optimization becomes the norm.
• Recruiters focus on developing business acumen.
• HR product integration becomes a reality.
• Online candidate predictive assessment goes mainstream.

Here’s my take on the various forces that will shape the online recruiting industry over the next several years and also some specific actions you can take to get ahead of industry trends.

"Who do you know?" becomes "Who do you trust?"
Résumé databases of U.S. workers are growing much faster than the U.S. workforce, which means that employers will soon be able to reach out to almost every prospective employee. This kind of direct contact will render irrelevant the traditional sourcing question, “Who do you know?” Recruiters will no longer see candidate identification as their biggest sourcing challenge. Instead, the ability to establish long-term relationships based on mutual trust will be a key differentiator in recruiting top talent.

Action: Establish long-term relationships with top candidates so that they will contact you first when they are ready to change jobs. Several HR vendors are bringing to market customer relationship management (CRM) recruiting applications that will support this effort.

Recruiting process optimization becomes the norm.
HR recruiters have recognized the value of standards and best practices and have begun to apply them in earnest. This trend can also be seen in the activities of corporate recruiting departments and recruitment process outsourcing firms.

Action: Join industry organizations where participants are willing to share their recruiting process models. Don’t reinvent the wheel! Adopt best practices so you can maximize your productivity.

Recruiters focus on developing business acumen competencies.
For the past few years, Sales Skills, Client Management, and Technology Fluency have been the three key recruiting competencies. Now there’s a fourth: Business Acumen. Recruiting professionals who can define job opportunities from a leader’s point of view will have a clear advantage. How can recruiters get this perspective? By taking a line role outside of HR.

Action: Provide your recruiting team with opportunities to rotate into line roles so they can learn how your organization really works.

HR product integration becomes a reality.
At a recent Monster customer summit, we asked customers a simple question: “How many passwords do your recruiters use to do their jobs?” The consensus was 8-10 passwords. Clearly the promise of HR technology remains unfulfilled, but that may change quickly. As I scan the HR technology marketplace, I see four forces that will drive HR product integration.

• Customer pressure
• Emergence of integration standards
• Vendor consolidation
• Industry leadership

CUSTOMER PRESSURE
The renewed focus on talent management as a competitive advantage is putting HR front and center. One result is that HR leaders are pressuring technology vendors to provide additional value by means of seamless product integration. Customers are voting with their wallets and selecting products that work well with other vendor products. This market pressure is pushing vendors toward integration.

EMERGENCE OF INTEGRATION STANDARDS
Independent organizations like the HR-XML Consortium (www.hr-xml.org) are working with leading vendors to establish technology integration standards. Industry-wide adoption of these standards will accelerate vendor integration efforts.

VENDOR CONSOLIDATION
The rapid pace of HR software vendor mergers and acquisitions is likely to continue. There are currently more than 150 different applicant tracking vendors offering almost identical products and services. This category will consolidate much like the HRIS and job board categories.

INDUSTRY LEADERSHIP
Some of the leading providers of ERP, job boards, performance management systems, and assessment are achieving breakthroughs in product integration. Once these pioneers show the financial benefits of their integrated solutions, other vendors will follow. Nothing moves vendors more quickly than the threat of competition!

Action: Look for vendors who are leading the way in product integration. Use their services to provide a competitive advantage to your HR group and position yourself for the future.

Online candidate predictive assessment goes mainstream.
Progressive companies have moved from paper-based assessments to online assessments over the last 10 years. The next wave will be middle-market acceptance of online assessments. This acceptance will be accelerated by the need for recruiters to focus quickly on the best candidates in a tight labor market, and the introduction of increasingly integrated sourcing-assessing-tracking solutions by HR vendors.

Action: Seek opportunities to leverage online assessments as price/value ratios become more attractive. You’ll get an immediate productivity advantage.

An Excellent Opportunity
As the recruiting industry’s toolset changes, recruiters will have to re-evaluate and update their own knowledge, skills, and abilities. Though change is always challenging, the trend toward deeper integration of powerful technologies presents an excellent opportunity for companies to become more effective recruiters of top talent.

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