Recruiting is an industry that has survived multiple pivots and disruptions to date.
There is evidence that recruitment has been around since 55BC, but it wasn’t until 1950 that the first agency was formed. At that time, recruitment was a slow process, the primary form of recruitment was advertising in newspapers, and it was not until 1994 that the first internet Job Board was available as a tool for both candidates and recruiters to connect.
The internet changed recruitment
Internet job boards paved the way for the introduction of LinkedIn in the early 2000s, which merged the internet job board with social media. Today, a typical recruiter uses a mixture of LinkedIn, Job boards like Indeed, and internal databases to track the recruitment process.
Recruitment Industry Growth
The need for recruitment services is continuing to grow. The industry as a whole is growing 10% annually.
As baby boomers across the US begin to retire, and as more boomers are deciding not to rejoin the workforce after leaving the job market due to the pandemic, a massive divide is beginning to form between upper and mid-management positions.
The talent available to fill these upper-management positions is lagging behind, causing the demand for recruitment services to reach new heights.
Due to the increased demand for recruitment services, the industry is ripe for disruption. Here are a few ways that the recruitment industry could be disrupted.
1) Shortening of the value chain
The recruitment industry has been disrupted in the past through the shortening of the value chain.
Currently, companies like swipejobs.com are introducing ERP/CRM systems that cut out the recruiter middleman by introducing a Business 2 Consumer App experience, which also happens to connect peers.
The App allows businesses to post positions and candidates to upload their skills and work experience. Candidates can then apply to positions they are interested in by swiping right, just like using a dating App like Tinder.
In doing so, they are shortening the value chain by removing the “recruiter” middleman, and connecting peers directly with one another, which reduces the overall cost of talent acquisition for the hiring company.
2) Artificial Inteligence
The need for a recruiter is not going to go away. Businesses still need recruiters to do certain activities to gauge candidates’ interest in the position they are recruiting on.
However, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is currently being developed to help recruiters to make better choices along the way.
Valley Voices of Forbes explains, “studies have shown that humans are notoriously bad at picking the right applicant and a meta-analysis illustrated that algorithms can outperform human experts in hiring”.
As a result, the role of the recruiter could be minimized once again shortening the value chain.
The Pandemic has made this even more of a possibility. Rising technologies have a greater chance of taking some of these lost jobs as the economy beings to recover.
AI recruitment programs will likely help recruiters find more talent at faster rates to fill the remaining voided positions.
It is important to note that the need for recruiters will still be there, but the actual work that a recruiter performs will drastically change as a result.
Conclusion
These are just a few examples of how the recruitment industry can be disrupted in the near future.
We at Grassroots Digital Marketing Studio can see a bunch of other ways the industry can be disrupted. What are some of the ways you think the recruitment industry can be disrupted in the future? What other technologies could be implemented?
