What has really changed in the Recruiting business in the last 10 years? Headhunters and HR-departments are still using LinkedIn to address candidates today as they did back then. Success is oftentimes mixed at best.

Ever heard of “Eightfold” or “MeetFrank”? There are plenty of other innovative tools out there, but no one has really broken through.

Is this industry somehow resistant to a real digital revolution? What does that even mean in this business? Or is using LinkedIn and other networks to contact candidates as far as it is going to go?

If you are currently working in an HR-department or at a Recruiting agency, a typical day most likely consists of contacting candidates online. This seems like the accepted truth and only way forward to success. What is really coming out of this? What is the rate of success with this? Are 10% or 20% of candidates responding, most likely even much less. This is an issue that every Recruiter is grappling with. Even at very big well-known corporations, this issue clearly persists. Every potential candidate is flooded with messages from all sides…

Maybe it is time to move away from looking at applicants in the traditional way? The word applicant does imply that you are asking for something from the potential employer? What about reversing the whole traditional concept?

What if companies would not just initially apply to the candidates, but become applicants themselves throughout the full process. The whole dynamic would change and a candidate would not feel after the initial approach, that now all of a sudden he is asking for something. But how can you get employers to embrace this concept? This would require a completely new way of thinking and a very clear move away from the traditional recruiting approaches.

Maybe the time is right for a new player in the recruiting market to enter and convince all involved that it is time for a real change to an entrenched system. How this issue is finally approached is certainly still open, but for sure a much more innovative approach is urgently needed. Currently, there is too much time wasted executing an inefficient process.

This post was written by Gunther A. Wuest (Founder & CEO of F.RECRUITING). Please send me your comments & thoughts on this topic to; gunther.wuest@f-recruiting.com

You can also find me on LinkedIn; https://www.linkedin.com/in/gawuest/