For the sake of 2017, let’s look differently at Interims & CVs

Author: Bhumika Zhaveri

We have been talking a lot about the digital age and its impact on HR and Recruitment; especially Talent acquisition and management in 2016. The truth is that although we are seeing newer processes, platforms and systems the change is still slow which is exciting for us at InteriMarket as we see the potential in helping educate employers, recruiters and individuals embrace this change.

New Year as always brings with it hope. And my hope this year is with recruiters to establish Newer and Better ways to assess interim professionals. CVs were invented a long time ago, as duly noted in one of my interviews from 2016. Just to remind: they are as old as 1482, and yes not all old systems need to be discarded — but some most obviously do.

Now the question I get asked a lot is “so what do I use to assess applications if there is no CV”, the answer is simple: A CV is a document that outlines and emphasises an individual’s professional, academic and similar details useful for recruiters and employers to make a call on their suitability; Now wait for the AHA moment…

Wait coming up…. here it is!! Online profiles like LinkedIn for all professionals, InteriMarket for contractors and interim professionals, plus a few other specialists — do that same job but most recruiters still do not accept these, they still want the damned CV.

“Speaking from experience I ran a little experiment in Q3 last year I sent my LinkedIn profile to recruiters qualifying a 100% for some of their interim roles and I did not hear back, not a word and not even a thank you for your interest email.”

So, for recruiters in 2017 consider this:

• Job seekers are your commodity: you earn good commissions out of these job seekers. In 2017 please have the courtesy to at least respond to your candidates and job seekers. There are plenty of sleek ways to sort / manage your time in order to achieve this.
• When assessing, you need to know if they can do the job: Stop looking for excuses to reject and start looking for reasons to shortlist especially when it comes to Interims because they have huge experience in different industries and companies which enables them to be very efficient from day one in any new gig.
• Remove your job posts: If you are no longer looking remember to update the job posts or delete them — you are misleading candidates in trying to obtain a pool. You are effectively wasting someone’s time, energy and efforts when they could be focusing on “real” jobs.
• And please start considering other forms of online profiles: Stop only wanting CVs, because there are online profiles mentioned above, and there are better ways of assessing candidates than a piece of paper in your 30 seconds.

It is imperative to understand that this change is inevitable whether adopted gracefully or kicking and screaming i.e. more and more candidates are approaching employers directly and employers are cutting the middle men through help of platforms like InteriMarket, LinkedIn, Fiverr, Upwork and many more.

Hence, only the recruiters considered adding “value” to candidates and employers in true sense will survive in the coming years, because people work with people and they don’t forget how they are treated especially when they need help and / or support.

Let’s hope to see this long-awaited change in 2017, Happy New Year to all on behalf of InteriMarket team.

Originally published at interimarket.com.