It's Getting Hard Out Here For A Pimp

Will Automation Kill Recruiting?

Dear Significant Members of the Recruitosphere.

You have been chosen to participate in a survey being conducted by The Recruiting Animal.

QUESTION: Will automation kill recruiting?

Systematic HR recently posted a warning that automation rather than China will vaporize American jobs.

So, will a huge expansion of online databases like LinkedIn spell the end of sourcing? Would that limit recruiting to an attempt by sales people to cajole publicly listed candidates into seeing the value of a new job? The Recruiting Animal wants to know.

Naturally, not everyone will want to participate and that's just fine. But if you do comment no vague, wordy answers are desired. Make your case clear and hard. That means evidence.

A simple "I don't know" is fine, too. A bunch of meaningless gobbledy-gook isn't (unless of course, it's really funny).

Your answers will be published under your name. Email me here. Or, if you can't wait, answer below.

TITLE SONG.

Comments

[Double Dubs]

I suppose I'll comment on this one. While I didn't address the effects of technology on recruiters in my post, one might be lead to believe that the scenario is applicable to the staffing industry. While automation has most definitely removed jobs from the workplace, I'd argue that so far, recruiting technology has served to enhance the way we recruit, but it has not yet removed those jobs. You point out Linked-in as a possible technology - but wherever that technology is headed, I don't think it replaces the act of recruitment. It's just another tool used to network, but you still need recruiters to create the newtork.

Seah Rehder, Donald Taylor and I (http://systematichr.com/?p=658) recently had a discussion about quantifying talent and how that could simplify the identification of competencies. However, even that is still just another tool. As easy as we can make it to identify the right candidates and put them through a series of assessment tests, there is so far no replacement for the intuitive nature of a good interviewer.

In a future dated post, I'll be talking about how offshoring, outsourcing and automation will remove jobs from the U.S. and other industrialized nations. However, the challenge for these countries will be to transform their workforce into the qualitative creative designers and innovators of the world - not the quantitative engineers and producers of the world. As it is, the qualitative nature of recruiting is can't be automated.

[Shannon, PowerHires.com]

Historically, automation kills jobs.

HOWEVER, it replaces them with higher skilled, better paying jobs. Less than 1% of the US workforce are now farmers; as a result, we had more people available for manufacturing, and then more recently, for service jobs.

If you're still reading all your resumes, and recruiting by posting your email address in job postings, you're wasting effort.. you should look at a service like PowerHires.com, which will automate many of those menial, low-value tasks.

In return, you'll be able to spend your time in higher value activities, like interviewing, networking, et cetera.

(Full disclosure: Yes, I am affiliated with them :))