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Everyone is frustrated that recruiting is hard. The blame goes in every direction.
But do we really know what the problems are?
Nate Guggia had a post yesterday on how HR tech kinda sucks (here.)
It covered the bases: LinkedIn/sourcing tools, Glassdoor, Job boards, Employer branding platforms, Video interview tools, Employee-generated content tools, etc. (He and I did an Employer Content show on this before, seems like forever ago, here).
I agree with half of his takes (you can see my comments there if you really care). But it sparked a bigger discussion.
And for me, a conclusion:
HR tech continues to solve problems that people don’t actually have. Because people don’t really know why they’re struggling.
Let’s talk LinkedIn Recruiter. The sourcing tool, not the world’s most boring social site.
Judging by Nate’s comment mob, it would appear that everyone hates it. It doesn’t get the job done. People are bailing on the platform entirely! And it’s expensive.
But is any of that actually true? (Beside the last part, obviously).
We had an internal discussion at Hirewell about using some of the “new new” sourcing tools. The ones that scrape every damn site social site, combine profiles, give email addresses, and are conveniently priced lower than LinkedIn Recruiter’s sticker value.
Feedback from the team: hell no. People respond to InMails way more than email.
I was kinda shocked tbh. How could that be true? All everyone talks about on LinkedIn (the boring social site) is how they’re sick of getting spammed. How people are bailing.
All anecdotal observations, of course.
Let’s look at some actual data:
And to be fair...I don’t know if there’s any data on people bailing on the platform. Couldn’t find any. If you have it, hit me up.
The net net: LinkedIn, the world largest crowdsourced employee directory, still does what it is supposed to do.
Yet filling jobs is STILL a pain in the ass.
And you can say the same about Glassdoor, job boards, EGC tools, etc.
They’re just widgets that recruiters use. They weren’t designed to solve the full hiring problem.
And maybe - just *maybe* - the lack of success with them is user error. 🤷
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