The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

As the proverb goes, “Turbulent changes do not affect reality on a deeper level other than to cement the status quo.” Or, “The only time you are actually growing is when you are uncomfortable.”— T. Harv Eker

In the industry of Talent Acquisition, we’ve seen the rise of the digital job board, the open networking platform, and plenty of claims of artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, it’s a perpetual regurgitation of bad, incomplete data. In the world of machine learning, “dirty data in” usually equates to “dirty data out.” 

I often refer to this problem using the phrase “The Evil Twins”, aka the job description and resume. No matter how you spin it, it’s a reactive approach to building teams. 

There’s a pre-hire industry, then a post-hire industry. Which has always perplexed me because it’s the same human being (candidate becomes employee). It begs, why is the cycle so...broken, segmented, and retroactive? 

Let’s start with First Principles Thinking, which is defined as a basic proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption. Basically the practice of actively questioning every assumption you think you “know” about a given problem or scenario, then creating new knowledge and solutions from scratch. If we apply this to the industry of jobs, talent acquisition, team building, recruitment, and everything associated, we have to “scrap” the status quo which includes methodologies and systems associated. Of course this is very difficult to do. Change an entire industry? Well YES!  That's exactly what needs to be done. Think horse to automobile, wood to steel, analog to digital, physical to virtual, manual to automated. 

Almost every method and system starts with a job description and resume (which by the way are both embellished and missing lots of key information). Now, if we start this way, what do you expect the outcomes to be? They’ll be the same. Of course millions of people have gotten jobs on these platforms, and the platforms have served their purpose, but you can’t continue to use these systems and expect the outcomes to improve. You can’t expect the experiences of candidates and hiring managers to improve. All of these scientific and technological advances in the world over the past twenty-five years have affected many other industries (finance, e-commerce, healthcare, insurance, education, etc.). Basically a mixture of predictive analytics and business intelligence. Unfortunately, it hasn’t happened in the industry of talent acquisition, primarily because these systems are flawed and the methods of discovery, recruiting, screening, and interviewing have been negatively impacted. If we apply the logic of First Principles, then these systems have to go. 

I’ll put it another way. The industry needs a new type of system that redefines profiles (companies/positions and candidates) and uses the advances in technology and science to implement the right data and structure. We can all agree the system is broken, the experience for most isn’t positive, and the methods are reactive. Think about it, isn’t it foolish to have hundreds of people constantly applying to a position? The company sifting through that information while wondering how much is actually accurate? Then narrow it down to the “select” few for an interview? Furthermore, once someone is hired it’s rare for the pre-hire data to be transitioned to post-hire engagement. 

If we sit back and simply look at this madness, it doesn’t take long to realize it’s systemic and problematic to the core. If we redefine what data is needed, how to structure/organize that data in a useful and actionable way, then report that data to the stakeholders (manager and candidate), we can finally start to address the root cause and improve the experience for everyone involved. It’s time, and people deserve a better way to find the best possible fit for their work. Enter Scoutr, where this change is happening right now, and the movement is here!