We are currently living in a world where the recruitment industry is thriving more than ever – contributing nearly £36 billion to the UK economy in 2020. While it’s generating huge sums of cash, it accommodates nearly 40,000 businesses – rising by 6,000 in 2021 alone.
The recruitment industry’s infrastructure has excelled in some form over the years, where some readers may indulge in nostalgia through working as a recruiter over a number of decades.
In the 90s, consultants would be up to their ears in paperwork, receiving CVs in the mail, regularly attending job fairs, and posting job ads to local newspapers – not to forget being on the phones more than they currently are (without the luxury of social media)! Safe to say this was a difficult time to be a recruiter…
Shifting into the 00s was when the recruitment industry boomed, with the introduction of the universally accepted norm of the World Wide Web. Job boards were the new phenomenon and allowed recruiters to post their jobs on different sites to attract attention. LinkedIn was also founded, creating another brilliant avenue for our recruiters. Many agencies began digitalising their own internal databases of candidates, while still spending a lot of time on the phone.
The most recent wave of popularity in the timeline of recruitment is the socially accepted norm of internal databases, social media, Job Boards, video interviewing, and… phone calls. Still lots of phone calls (that won’t be changing any time soon either!).
Now that we understand a bit more about the history of the recruitment industry, what is technology currently providing for the recruitment industry?
What are the currently available technology recruitment resources and strategies?
Automation
Technology is growing at an exponential rate, where automation is becoming an increasing risk for employees in the recruitment sector. Automation is the phenomenon where technology interference reduces the need for human intervention during working processes.
An example of this has been increasingly experienced in the customer service industry. Have you ever been on the receiving end of a chatbot? Yes, I know… it can be a very painful experience! Regardless, I believe these are the first steps of what will one day be a completely automated industry in 50 years. Will this be the case for the recruitment industry though?
Well, AI already has the (limited) capability to identify the “perfect candidate” by recognising the best fit for your jobs. It can analyse and understand data on candidates, where it will provide a score on certain factors to determine whether or not an individual will be a good fit for your job. There is even software developed by Sage, which has the capability to automatically schedule interviews for hiring managers.
While recruitment consultants shouldn’t worry about being put out of work by a machine any time soon, this automated style of recruitment will certainly be an avenue employers will be looking at over the approaching years.
Recruiters will be glad to hear that the tech is still in its early stages. AI software still can’t take a client out for a coffee or negotiate a deal, but it will definitely help speed up the recruitment process overall.
Chatbots
We’ve touched on chatbots briefly, but it’s important to understand the true potential for this tech. Chatbots have the capability to regularly update candidates on their application status, while also assisting with enquiries.
Currently being quite robotic, what is being done to improve the overall interaction with a chatbot?
Innovation from tech companies is looking to improve the overall conversational capabilities of chatbots, where it essentially passes the “Turing Test”. This is the established experimentation of a human interacting with AI without the knowledge that it’s AI, thus, pulling the wool over our eyes and making us believe it is a true human interaction.
Another development new innovators are looking to allow for chatbots is to have advanced translation capabilities, meaning there are no linguistic barriers. This is a clear advantage in favour of AI.
This type of technology is expected to be made more affordable for organisations over the approaching years – making it all the more accessible.
Facial Recognition
Ironically, this software is looking at removing hiring bias and to ensure a diversified approach to hiring. Through using facial recognition AI, the tech can score a candidate’s expressions, which ultimately decides whether the candidate will be a good fit for the job.
It’s argued that recruitment decisions should be based on chemistry, mood and context – rather than skills, suitability for the role or level of emotional intelligence. This technology can essentially remove biases built on seeing the experience of a candidate, and help employers make informed decisions on a candidate’s overall chemistry fit.
Mobile Recruitment
As previously mentioned on the RekkBlog, we’re big advocates of Mobile Recruitment (which may have something to do with Rekkruut being a mobile recruit app…). Along with our vision, this seems like something that is becoming increasingly popular in the recruitment industry.
Candidates are applying for jobs constantly through their mobile phones, which means content and opportunities should be constantly optimised for mobile consumption.
It’s important for recruiters to look at making all their online resources mobile-friendly, as this appears to be the norm for many applicants.
Blockchain
While this concept isn’t mainstream yet, it certainly has the potential to simplify the recruitment process. If you’ve been living under a rock for the last year or so, Blockchain is a system where the incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions can be programmed to record not just financial transactions, but virtually everything of value. So, individual data including education and employment history can be stored and interacted with on a secure, real-time digital ledger.
But how does this impact the recruitment industry? Well, it’s theorised that companies will be able to verify candidate data while keeping it anonymous to adhere to data privacy regulations. This is vital as anonymity in the recruitment world is of the utmost importance, while verification is also just as important. Things like background checks, employment history, educational experiences and other information can be confirmed, while also keeping the identity of the applicant hidden.
Another benefit is that it’s completely fraud-proof and secure. Having data collected across multiple locations and servers prevents extreme events like power outages or hackers from attacking the information. Having a decentralised structure, blockchain also prevents fake entries, where any false info can be automatically rejected. That’s right. We can establish trust!
Virtual Reality
Virtual reality is something which has actually been around for quite some time, with the earliest form deriving back all the way to the 1800s. The commercially accepted version of VR today stems from the Oculus Rift headset – typically used for gaming – which has been around since 2012.
Oculus Rift was bought by Facebook (now known as Meta) in 2014, at a staggering price of $2 billion. In recent years it has been announced that Meta will be pushing a lot of its money into the “Metaverse”, which is essentially the digital, virtual world where individuals can connect with one another with no distance restrictions. It’s a concept which promotes a virtual universe of being, parallel to the real world.
Currently, it appears that the Metaverse is just another way for gamers to get their fix, but could this change in the future? The overall goal of the Metaverse is to allow users to connect with others through a virtual, shared universe.
What does this mean for the recruitment industry? Well, the candidate’s experience can be upscaled tremendously. You could have the capability of giving virtual tours of the workplace before a prospective applicant starts working. You can give “in-person” interviews when you’re not even in the same room as the candidate. The opportunities are endless!
It’s predicted that by 2030, virtual “avatars” will be used for recruiting, where the majority of interactions are completed via a VR world. That’s just around the corner…
Where will recruitment be in 50 years?
Predicting what the world will be like in 50 years is the tough part. Even Back to the Future 2 was way off, where they thought that in 2015 there will be hoverboards, flying cars and outrageous fashion sense (not too far off on the last one).
But, as the world has entered the digital age, what can we expect the recruitment industry to be like in 50 years? Here is my opinion…
Taking all our points into consideration, I firmly believe that the recruitment industry will be very different – as will the rest of the world.
Globalisation will have played a dominant role, where I think there will be little or no restrictions with borders. We can already see that there are UK recruitment agencies who recruit internationally for other countries. As the UK market has gotten very saturated with nearly 40,000 registered agencies, British recruitment businesses are based domestically, while recruiting for businesses in Europe.
Technology will help this concept grow, where a combination of Virtual Reality, AI Translation software, and mobile recruitment can eliminate the need for face-to-face interactions. This elimination promotes the possibility of being able to work with clients and candidates across the globe, thus, creating the opportunity to make more money than they could in their wildest dreams. Imagine interviewing a candidate right in front of you (in the virtual world) who is in India, for a company based in India – when you have never stepped into the country yourself!
This can be beneficial for everyone. Not only does it boost the UK’s exports through international revenue, but it also opens up the market for UK businesses to expand their horizons and make a hell of a lot more money than they would if they were to just operate in the UK. However, it will increase the overall competitive market, with thousands (if not millions) of competitors internationally.
The argument against current online recruitment is that it lacks its personal touch. Where consultants interact with candidates and clients through an online platform through messaging services and video calling. However, if virtual reality reaches a point where it seems just as true as real life, then this argument is made void.
Another true possibility is that a lot of the industry will be automated – where recruitment consultants are replaced with life-like bots existing in the virtual world. While I think this idea may be a bit far-fetched for the next 50 years, I think it’s a possibility that the admin-style roles in recruitment will be made obsolete, where payroll, invoicing, timesheets, CRM and marketing can be automated through AI software.
I do not think that computers will be able to reach the equivalent capabilities of a hard-working, switched-on recruitment consultant in our lifetimes. Even so, I am sure that as industries become automated, there will be an opening for all new different kinds of jobs which don’t even exist yet! Do you really think that a blogger existed 50 years ago?
Hopefully, if I’m still alive in 50 years I’d like to look back and see how close (or far off) this prediction was. If I’m 83 years old and still blogging (rather than having a bot doing it), then my prediction was certainly way off!
What are your predictions?
As we wrap up this RekkBlog post, I’d be interested in hearing some of your opinions as to how recruitment will look in 50 years. Let us know on our LinkedIn or Facebook pages!
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By Leon Simpson – Company Director at Rekkruut
