I remember when….Recruiting in the 90’s
Bradley Savoy May 3, 2007
I’ve been in staffing and HR since 1992, so I may be dating myself here to some of you. I went to dinner with an old friend the other night who started in recruiting back when I did. We talked about the industry today like we always do, but then also started reflecting back….
It was in the early nineties and the internet was still an infant. I remember getting a call from this same friend I had dinner with. He was excited about this new discovery. I think his exact words were, “Dude, you’re not going to believe this, I found this free web site that has resumes of people that are looking for jobs!” Yes, free web site of resumes people, I said this was way back.
He said, “Go this website, www.occ.com” Now as some of you may recall, back then we actually said “www dot” before the url name. I went online, waited 5 minutes for the modem to make a connection, and then gingerly typed in the url.
The Online Career Center sat before me in all its splendid and simplistic glory. Within a couple of weeks I had candidates interviewing for jobs while my peers two cubes down were still making cold calls.
Now back then the whole idea of e-mail was pretty new as well. The company I worked for used voice mail like we use e-mail today. There was no use of “cc” in e-mail, you just created a voice mail that copied everyone in an entire department.
I spent the majority of my time talking to candidates on the phone or in person, no e-mails with candidates at all. Resumes were not stored in an ATS, those didn’t exist back then. Resumes were hard copies, stored in file cabinets, categorized in multicolored folders by department or skill required.
My major source for my hires back then were:
1. Direct Sourcing
2. Print Media
3. Job Fairs
4. Referrals
5. College
I was first and foremost a hunter, then a salesman, then an administrator of the resumes and applicants that I managed. Technology wasn’t there to enable me, or to hold me back either.
Now compare my top 5 sources back in the early nineties to the recent CareerXroads source of hire study:
1. Referrals
2. Company Website
3. Job Boards
4. Print Media
5. Direct Sourcing
Now back in the early nineties, the company website wasn’t a destination of any kind for careers. You just heard me talk about the first experience I had with a job board, so obviously those weren’t big either. Print Media was still a big deal, but I would argue that Print Media shouldn’t be in the top 5 list of sources for anyone in this day and age. Oh, and back then, I received a bonus for every hire I made based on the source of hire, so I was truly incented to drive the most cost effective sources of hire.
What’s interesting is that direct sourcing has moved so far down the list. With the advent of technology I’ve seen this shift to recruiters either being forced into an administrative role, focusing their efforts on shifting through endless amounts of applications from the big boards and their own website. Or the recruiters fall back into laziness. The extent of their sourcing strategy is posting the job to the website, their intranet, a couple of job boards, and waiting. Now there are companies that can teach recruiters some great sourcing techniques, but once the training is over do the recruiters actually use the techniques they’ve learned? If they don’t apply what they’ve learned due to lack of time and laziness, they can always fall back on the 200 applicants sitting in their in box.
It’s often easier to hire the talent that’s available, rather than the best talent out there.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m quite proud of the industry we have today, and the advances that have been made around the technology. Sometimes I just wish I could see recruiters working with free job boards and resume databases, personal interaction with candidates, and being a hunter and a sales man rather than an administrator.
Posted in Human Resources, Recruiting, Sourcing
