Advancing Your Career - Take my Survey

If you receive my newsletter - this month's article will be on Advancing Your Career. (If you would like to receive my newsletter, send an e-mail to mark@bobsearch.com).

Help your fellow readers get good results by taking my survey on LinkedIN.

Thanks!

More About Automation and the Human Touch

Yesterday I wrote about the need for the Human Touch in recruiting. Today’s LA Times has an interview with Leonard Kleinrock, one of the fathers of the internet. While Kleinrock is mostly positive about the impact of the medium on society, he does point out a pitfall that aligns with what I was saying yesterday: That today’s kids are un-learning the basic human skill of reading another human being in person. Kleinrock’s quote: "It [internet] gives them a larger reach, [but] they're not getting out in the sun, playing with other kids and looking in their eyes and watching their body language as much as they used to, which I think is a shame and can create a kind of indifference in the way in which you deal with your peers. Excesses include things like notifying your significant other [by computer] that you're no longer significant to them."

As a society, I think it is worth maintaining this skill of being able to size up what another person means, just by looking at them, and listening to how they express themselves. Parents will have to model this at home, and, in the workplace, I think companies will ultimately have to teach this skill to millennials who would rather text than talk!

The Human Touch in Recruiting

Lately more and more of our contact with candidates and even with clients (employers) is electronic. “Conversations” occur by e-mail and text, and even through neutral sites like LinkedIn. It should come as no surprise that there are even robot interviewers where you record your questions, and the candidate records his/her answers. One company providing this service advertises that you can turn a stack of resumes into the perfect candidate "while you sleep."

However…. Once the candidates get to the hiring manager, chemistry, personal presentations and all the human factors come into play. So, how can a professional recruiter, whether internal or external, adequately evaluate a candidate without knowing what the candidate is like, how the candidate expresses him/herself, etc.? I would say you can’t. Perhaps my age is showing, but I think that one of the primary skills a recruiter must have is knowing who is or isn’t a fit, and why, based on their personality.

If you’ve read my stuff before, you know that I preach using a Performance Based approach, determining if a candidate can produce critical results. Can you use a recording to determine that? Not sure. I think I hear results in tone, inflection, confidence, etc., as much as I hear from the words.

If you have an opinion on automation in recruiting, please let me know. I think this is evolving, and it will be interesting to see where it all goes.

Evidence of Recovery in Staffing Plans

I’ve been writing in my company newsletter for months that I think the economic recovery will be led by a very dynamic hiring environment. Not necessarily lots of new job creation, but lots of changes and movement at the executive level. (E-mail me for a copy of my latest take on this).

Recently, other news reports and hiring experts have been echoing these thoughts. Here’s some key examples with links:

Wall Street Hiring
Google Hiring
Retailers Hiring
Hiring Guru Lou Adler on expected hiring pace in recovery (due to current dissatisfaction)
TalentRise Survey on employer expectations

The “A” players are now overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated! If all of “us” hiring experts are right, now is the time to make plans to ensure you get the people you need, before other companies grab them first.