The Impact of Talent Acquisition on the US Economy: A Call for Change

How The Social Decorum of Job Seeking Harms Us.

In today’s rapidly evolving job market, the influence of talent acquisition on the US economy is rapidly changing. From being an inhouse department of any business, to being an outsourced unique entity and now — industry, it is undergoing a lightning fast evolution. Yet, the discourse around this critical issue remains in the 1950s when the dynamic of hiring was completely different. This post delves into the implications of this control, highlighting the need for transparency and open dialogue in the hiring process.

The Data-Information Paradox

Daniel Keys Moran said — “You can have data without information, but you cannot have information without data.” With that in mind it begs the question of — what information do we REALLY have on the impact of the current state talent acquisition on the US economy and our hiring market.

Right now 875,000 people control every step of the public discourse of over 81 million career professionals any given time — and it’s all related to that traditional bit of social decorum that says “it’s unprofessional to publicly critique a hiring process.” We need to get real with the opportunity costs of leaving over 99% of the data related to the experience of talent acquisition on the table.

Is talent acquisition a process we track because of the benefit it gives to Microsoft in particular this quarter?

Or because the way U.S. labor force experiences hiring at large has a great big meaningful impact on the U.S. economy at large and businesses relationship with their employers, their productivity and more. Why shouldn’t candidates have a sense of eyeballing salaries AND eyeballing hiring processes to decide where they want to go? Why is it so necessary to keep them in the dark and who does this benefit?

The Power Dynamics in Public Discourse

The evolution of what hiring is has some magnificent implications for job seeker empowerment. If — its not the employer doing the hiring but an outsourced recruiter — then it SHOULD help an applicant be able to ask real questions and make real feedback without falling prey to the age old adage about not biting the hand that might feed you. They were never going to employ you so you should have a chance to give feedback and improve a process that involves you — without danger. I mean — if an industry is making billions by creating processes that require your time and presence, you’d think they’d feel some openly stated obligation to make a product you liked and gather feedback on how to do that.

And yet, instead of embracing this insight, job applicants are faced with a scenario that is even worse than before. Now they are in a situation where people have been used to not hearing from them, encountering novel products related to talent acquisition, with no expectation of need to get insight about the development or design or impact of products that involve them. In the last 5 years they have been even regularly told how job hunts they now go on are filled with hours and hours of meaningless work because a social site offered a free job posting and a billionaire wanted to raise brand awareness. How would it feel to know that all your peers felt comfortable doing that to you and being entitled to your time that way? That your pain at not getting that job, your effort to redo your resume and cover letter for that job, your subscription to a resume analyzer to double check it, it all was knowingly used for no gain and everyone knew and were unconcerned.

Challenging Social Norms

Is it possible that the social decorum around job seeking not only actively harms the US labor force (real live neighbors and friends and family) as well as stunting a whole industry that could easily make improvements with better data?

What innovations are hidden from us by assuming that job seekers should never openly dialogue? Because the old social adage “don’t complain about your hiring experience” when genuinely examined tends to not be about benefiting job seekers, or an industry, but about benefiting the people currently profiting from this current arrangement. Is that what we want?

Conclusion: Embracing the Job Applicant Perspective

It’s time to adopt a new approach — one that values the voices and experiences of all job seekers. By embracing open dialogue, we can drive meaningful improvements in talent acquisition processes and, ultimately, the US economy. Your experience in the talent acquisition process, whether positive or negative, is real and it matters.

Let’s break the silence and share our stories at The Job Applicant Perspective. Together, we can create a more inclusive and effective hiring market.