For recruiters, it is a great tool for sourcing candidates and for vetting candidates that have applied for a specific roleWhile LinkedIn and other forms of HR technology have completely revolutionised the recruitment industry in recent years, it has emerged that they could be responsible for suppressing hiring.
A recent report by the Wall Street Journal discovered a major hole in our employment market reality. The US-based publication found that while the number of jobs available in July had risen to 5.9 million, only 5.2 million candidates ended up being hired into these positions.
Why are fewer jobs being filled? In its coverage of the findings, the Wall Street Journal pointed to factors such as workers being less skilled than previously or employers simply becoming fussier when it comes to choosing the right person for the job; however, Silicon Valley headhunting guru Nick Corcodilos disagrees.
Corcodilos has worked as a headhunter for close to 40 years and gives insider tips and advice on the industry through his Ask The Headhunter website.
In a blog post for PBS NewsHour, Corcodilos pointed to evidence showing that workers are no less skilled now than they were a decade ago. He also dismisses the theory that employers are pickier today; instead, he talks about the current employment infrastructure that dominates and seemingly suppresses hiring.
According to Corcodilos, the move to a more digital approach to hiring could be to blame. Although Indeed, LinkedIn or HR technology now seem to stand between every job opportunity and job seeker, there is no solid evidence or statistics on how successful these means are as a form of recruitment.
Corcodilos has been vocal in his criticism of HR technology for quite some time, calling it an irresponsible form of recruitment because it invites too many applications from an untargeted pool of candidates. HR technology also often promotes a reductionist matching of application keywords to job keywords through the use of algorithms, which means good candidates may be rejected simply because of the HR technology’s inadequate keyword model.
He also suggests that it is in big online recruitment companies’ interests not to fill jobs. This is because they make no money when a job is filled and only profit when an employer continues to pay them to keep looking.
Similarly, Corcodilos claims LinkedIn’s motivation is to get employers to add lots of criteria to job listings to make it more difficult to match a good hire; furthermore, applicant tracking systems earn huge subscription fees when HR departments struggle to fill jobs.
All in all, Corcodilos’ theory is an interesting one. At the very least, his thoughts may convince us to stop blaming unskilled workers and look at the real problems facing the jobs market.
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