Recruiting talent should be more than 6 seconds

I am appalled by how the industry treats talents and the direction companies and HR recruitment take towards attracting talent. I have friends in the area and I do not think the fault lies with them, entirely, it is more systemic. Mindsets and those in charge need to change to thinking of every business as a production line. I blame SAP and their rigid ERP software for molding corporations into unthinking emotionless drones and the schools that teach MBAs to value bean counting over the value a person can share over a lifetime. With technological advancements, our ability to count is still limited by our digits and the inability to see beyond the next quarter. The company with leadership who is not afraid to stand up to shareholders and do the right thing over the long term (Bezos is my idol) will effectively win the talent and subsequently the market.

My idol, Jeff!

Let me just list down my understanding of the process (different companies may do things a tad differently so feel free to comment):

Perspective of applicant

• Think of a company/ function
• Go to their portal
• Look at the job descriptions and requirements and have no idea what they are asking for and probably end up doing something else anyways
• Fill in a ridiculously long and boring form
• Answer a bunch of questions that only aim to cover a company’s arse in case of lawsuits from discrimination
• Click submit
• Receive confirmation (spam)
• Wait (the following assumes you are successful)
• Receive email to set up interview (phone or face to face)
• (Test of intelligence and character. They should test for psychopathy and selfishness and weed those folks out)
• Interview(s) (the number is determined by how prestigious the company is and how much of your time you are willing to waste with them because they are apparently so awesome. Having more interviews and more opinions decreases the risk of hiring the “wrong” fit)
• Offer letter where they state what is expected and what you get in return

Perspective of recruiter (this is purely my guess)

• Sit through boring meetings to figure out what “business wants” (if anyone could predict that, we could just bank on winning the lottery)
• Set up of job descriptions and try to make them sound cool and fun within the limitations of what they are allowed to put down
• Copy and paste some random text about requirements and how the company believes in equal opportunity because this is a directive from headquarters
• Submit onto the portal and pray that no one applies
• Receive deluge of resumes
• Sieve through resumes assigning 6 to 30 seconds scanning for keywords and having no in depth idea of what exactly is going on (the more keywords the better)
• Call/ email the folks to set up interview(s) (while frantically going through the manager(s)’ schedules)
• (Interview the candidate and ask them the most mundane questions like where do you see yourself in 5 years)
• Wait for everyone to confirm the candidate (assume multiple meetings in between just to talk about this)
• Copy and paste random offer letter template and change out the name, compensation and start date
• Call and email successful new working stiff

Ok granted there are also recruitment events such as campus talks and career days in college. And I think this is only the tip of the ice berg of how far recruitment could go.

Campus interactions

I’ve had the opportunity to join a few recruitment talks with a friend at work. So far it’s always been fun and entertaining to see what the potential next generation of leaders would be.

The approach to recruitment talks so far has always been to sell the company and talk about all the good things. The common question I get asked during networking is what are all the bad things. To that, kudos to the students for wanting to understand both sides. And I’ve gotten into trouble so many times that I’m now more or less banned from recruitment talks. My standard answer is always stupid people (I might change this to selfish people but yes, I have had my fair share of dealing with stupidity and I’m sure someone has had their fair share of dealing with stupidity from me as well haha). That being said I am happy where I work just not with some folks (In general I think the average IQ is still decent. Or I am starting to get dumb and need to start doing more mental exercises)

People determine culture
Smart people = less stupid questions = smarter way to work = more productive = happier employees

In general, my common observation is that most folks who head down to the events see it as a one off affair.

• Go there
• Promote the company
• Shake hands
• Leave

I’ve always preferred a different approach.

• Go there
• Sit and look grumpy
• For some strange reason I think my grumpy face still attracts people to talk to me (I do not qualify myself as handsome nor friendly looking however folks just gravitate towards me like I might know something)
• Talk to the students
• Be less grumpy when I find someone I see a lot of potential to become someone awesome
• Get to know them a little
• Hand them my name card and connect with them through a social network of their choice and keep in contact
• Mentor and guide them with their resume
• Mentor and guide them with their interviews (with the company or another company)
• Help them make career decisions by stating the mistakes that I made in the past that they could avoid
• Continue to be friends even if they are unable to join the company

So far I think this has worked out quite well. And I think the personal touch to reach out and get to know the people and help them is much better than shoving a company down their throats.

Going beyond

To really have the right talents, I think it’s important to invest time to be at the beginning of the talent pipeline. Schools. Right now a few of us are thinking of boldly trying out a new concept (new in Singapore anyways. I understand in Germany they adopt a system where students will apprentice with their future employers while still studying)

Go back to schools and be part of shaping the syllabus and equipping students with the correct skill sets that industry is looking for. Universities do work with industry partners to plan roadmaps and create talent pools for supposed talent needs. In Singapore, with a small enough market, the government is able to centralize planning and determine the next big boom areas that students should align themselves to. However as with any plan, not everything always goes according to what was laid out. The previous biotechnology boom went bust with many students with biotech degrees looking outside the industry. Engineering fields tend to face shortage of talents with most graduating engineers heading over to the financial sector where compensation is better (My friends from San Francisco tell me that’s insane but sadly, technical folks are not treated with the same level of respect they are in US or Germany leading to an exodus to a much better paying industry)

The question I’ve been posed is why would I be willing to spend time to train up a talent pool for competitors as well. Personally it would be similar to the concept of open source. Bring the platform up to a much higher playing field first, then start to differentiate and compete. And I am confident that as an instructor and being able to build a bond with the students, it is easier to identify the correct talent not only in terms of skill set but also company cultural fit. Working direct with institutions allows first preview of the best talents and a chance to persuade and cajole the top talents from the shrinking talent pool.

What’s next

Right now I am building out a syllabus with St_Luthien (and some others who do not write on medium) to guide the students to not only think of UX/ design thinking standalone. But more rather how to do things end to end

• Talking to business owners to gather intelligence
• Piecing together the big picture
• Figure out areas to target
• Conduct the interviews
• Conduct the workshops
• Build the prototypes
• Measure the impacts
• Learning from the mistakes
• Iterate to success

The journey has just started and would love to seek the advice and opinion of friends and those who have chanced upon this blog.