Recruiters, what technology invention has changed your job?
We all love a great “tops” list. Top 100 songs of all time. The 100 best movies. The highest rated athletes. And we can agree to disagree on almost every entry on each ranked list. Likewise, determining which technological invention has had the most influence on our lives can ignite heated debates concerning the “chicken before the egg” so to speak as to how tech evolved, building off each predecessor, to what it is today (or at least to this nanosecond).
Top Tech Lists
The staple mentions make every list but it is generally subjective which ones take top prize - the Telephone? the Personal Computer? the Internet? Electricity? the Smartphone? (It’s the Internet, definitely the Internet). But beyond those headlines, there are new technologies emerging every single day – or better yet even the slightest tweaks to existing technologies – that create magnificent change in our daily work and lifestyles. For instance, how does a smartphone know 1) to show the user an ad and 2) send a promotional email about the item a user was searching for on Amazon, last night, from their home computer? Mind-boggling. And amplified by the fact that the email included a timely discount to purchase said item. That is certainly technological convenience at the highest level, driven of course by advanced digital marketing thinking that occurs with a few data points and the click of a button (and maybe just a smidgen of mind control…)
Aside from the life conveniences we universally enjoy every day, the technological changes to entire industries are exciting, daunting, necessary and yet not always welcomed at the same time. Can you imagine the life of a graphic designer before Adobe (insert software here)? An architectural firm without CAD, or a delivery service without GPS? The arsenal of rubber cement and x-acto knives, graph paper and street maps gave way to these revolutionary tech advancements and more; and practically every industry can pinpoint when similar changes occurred relative to how they worked, whether they welcomed them or not.
When Recruiting Got Tech-y
It’s the same experience for the recruiting industry – whether you’re the recruit-ee searching for opportunity or the recruit-er searching for the right hire – the way the process traditionally unfolded is no longer. A trip down memory lane reveals the moment when a resume printed on crisp, linen paper promptly mailed (then faxed) was replaced by a keyword-parsing ATS that simply scans your upload – and the hope that someone actually sees it. Or from the time our furiously circle classified ads evolved into receiving a text alert about a job for which we might be a good fit, even though we might not have been necessarily looking for a new position. How did they find you anyway?
Tech has certainly redefined the actions of a recruiter. There is access to an abundance of information about job applicants available through a number of entry points. With so many data options, you might not even know who or what you might be missing. Luckily for recruiters, even with technology moving so fast, there are tools available right now to help you hire faster and better, with data-driven decisions. And yes, there will be more choices tomorrow.
So, what’s next on the horizon?
If you are immersed in the industry of people and work, and bridging them together, what technology has been the boon, or bane, of your professional existence?
What do you envision can help, not hinder, you, as a recruiter and HR professional, in the future?
Our pursuit at QuantumWork is to build tools to connect amazing people to organizations and opportunities. And those tools are borne from what we learn about what is or isn’t working from those who share in our pursuit. We’d love to hear from you.