Nick Boulton: Recruitment software will only get you so farPosted over 4 years ago by Nick Boulton

You might have missed this amid the latest palaver from Westminster, but the robots have taken over and they’re gunning for the recruitment industry. That’s if the folks at Recruitee are to be believed.

Apparently, recruitment teams are so hamstrung by admin, they can’t do any honest-to-god hiring, and find themselves kneeling at the altar of agencies begging for help.

"This has an undeniable impact on the scalability of a company’s hiring and cost per hire," they claim.

So, the solution is to automate the bejesus out of resourcing and foist it on other teams, all in the name of collaborative hiring. In short: ‘Don’t spend money on agencies when you can spend money on our software.’

Please, don’t make me laugh.

Recruitment and quality recruitment consultancy is like an art. Well maybe not quite, but I like to think that there’s more to it than just providing a “short list of pre-screened, faceless people that you know nothing about, except, ‘they tick all the right boxes’.” Dealing with people, culture, aspirations, goals and ambitions is so much more than that.

These kind of flash-in-the-pan recruitment options often target start-ups. When you’re starting out, cash is king and anything that promises to slice costs will always pique interest.

But when you’re looking to fill out something as critical as an engineering team, it’s about more than bums on seats. You need to find likeminded kindred spirits, people who are willing to go on a journey through terrific highs and terrifying lows.

How do you find that on an automated platform?

Maybe you are re-engineering or re-architecting an old or out of date system. How are you to know that the person with the “perfect set of skills on the system”, actually is going to be your ninja and not just a fly by night flaky tech warrior, who wants to get in and out and onto the next project, leaving you with god knows what sort of mess?

To give the devil his due, these platforms might prove useful for short-term fixes and specific briefs. Potential applicants then bid for it on a time vs cost basis, with examples of other similar work they have done. The risk there is asking candidates to stump up and use a platform they’re largely unfamiliar with to make your life slightly easier. Who wins there?

Hiring the best technology talent is not a cheap exercise but you pay for what you get.

You don’t walk into The Huntsman on Saville row and then complain about the price of their suits.  If you want cheap, quick, ill-fitting suits there are any number of online off the peg options.

The time and cost saving you will have in the long run by using bespoke recruitment services tailored to you out-strips the expediency of using “off the shelf” options.

You wouldn’t trust an algorithm to fit you your wedding suit. Why trust one to fit out your tech team?

#longliverecruitmentconsultants.

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