When it Comes to Hiring, the Internet is the Problem, not the Solution

I’d like to use this post to make the case that the Internet in general, and the job boards, in particular, are a primary cause of many of the unemployment problems we’re facing today. At the end of this post there’s a quick poll (click graph for current results) for you to either agree or disagree with these findings.

But in the beginning things were different …

Almost 25 years ago the job boards made their first appearance. Before then there really was a hidden market for jobs and for people. As a recruiter, I developed a deep Rolodex (see image if this term is new) of the best engineers, accountants and operations people in my area. (Actually, I built mine using Ashton-Tate’s DB IV on a TRS-80.) A good person was either in the file box or one phone call away. The search assignments I worked on, even if they once appeared in the newspaper classified ads for a day or two, were long forgotten a week or two later. Few other recruiters had access to either my candidates or the jobs I worked.

Candidates were different, too, and so was the application process. Of course, there were people who chased jobs, but it was painful then. You couldn’t just push a button. You actually had to work at finding a new job. It was physical. You needed a resume. You actually needed to put a resume into an envelope and mail it to someone. Some job-seekers even went to the library to look up company names and addresses in outdated directories and sent their resume directly to the department head who was no longer there. The waiting was interminable, but since not as many people applied, you usually received some personal acknowledgment.

Corporate recruiters didn’t exist back then, but it was the glory days for all of the independent contingency, agency and retained recruiters who were creating the market for the best jobs. In addition, the gate keepers were few, with hiring done directly by the hiring manager with some support from the HR department. Every manager had their favorite recruiters, and this was an important partnership. Job descriptions were also less formal. Most of the skills and experience requirements could be listed on a few lines of a 3X5 card, with the recruiter expected to know the real job requirements.

For the best fully-employed candidates, changing jobs in those days was a big deal. People didn’t switch jobs unless there was something fundamentally wrong with the one they had. Turnover was frowned upon. Aside from the physical activity involved, the decision to accept an offer was more carefully thought-out with all of the tradeoffs considered.

Ah … the good old days.

Things began to unravel with the emergence of the Internet and job boards in the early 1990s. Soon to follow were applicant tracking systems along with the emergence of the corporate recruiting department. This was the beginning of the end, with the failed promise to corporate America of filling jobs fast and at low cost. Then the government stepped in and created rules for reporting that switched the role of the corporate recruiting department from finding great people to ensuring compliance. Quality of hire was an afterthought, and as a result, the focus shifted further to filling jobs with the best person who applied, not the best person available.

As a result of 24/7 visibility and the promise of better jobs, candidates began to apply in droves. Rather than selecting the best 4-5 jobs to focus their physical efforts on, candidates could spend less time and apply to dozens, even hundreds of jobs, made even easier with the their custom job bots and shopping carts. This was advertised as a good thing.

As the dot com exploded so did salaries and turnover, as the barriers to changing jobs – as well as the stigma – came down. Of course with the explosion of candidates applying, companies were then forced to put up other barriers including more requirements, multi-page job descriptions that no one read, knock-out questions, and impersonal “thank you” templates. “Don’t call us, we’ll call you” was the new message as weeding out the weak, replaced hiring the best as HR’s operational goal.

So are we better off, or not? I’d vote for not. Here’s why:

• The quality of people hired is certainly not any better and the cost is not significantly different. It might even be higher.
• The current hiring process is a hugely expensive, it's admin, system and labor intensive, and it doesn’t work. It is less a job market today and more an impersonal data management process for the masses.
• We’ve created two job markets, one for those who are career-oriented and the other for the rank-and-file. This is the one most people complain about, equivalent to the NFL’s and NBA’s “rent a vet” program. The career-oriented market is largely hidden and serviced by outside recruiters who still work closely with their hiring manager clients.
• The rank-and-file market is transactional, force-fitting candidates into pre-defined roles with compensation and skills being the prime determinants of who gets hired. It’s all about “putting butts in seats,” as one industry leader publicly admitted.
• The career-oriented market is a reminder of things past, more personal, less job-board based, jobs are modified to take advantage of the candidate’s strengths and the focus of making the selection balances the candidate’s and the company’s long- and short-term needs.
• Things aren’t getting better, they’re just different. The best that can be said is that now we do the wrong things faster.

What’s your take on all of this? (Take the poll and comment below.) Are these just the cynical rumblings of an old timer who’s seen the good, the bad, and the good and bad again, or is there something more troubling here that meets the eye?

As for me, I’d rather look through my Rolodex and make a few phone calls.

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Lou Adler (@LouA) is the creator of Performance-based Hiring and the author of the Amazon Top 10 business best-seller, Hire With Your Head (Wiley, 2007). His new book, The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired, (Workbench, 2013) has just been published. Feel free to join Lou's new LinkedIn group or 'like' us on Facebook to discuss all types of hiring issues.