Why are so many CEOs finally changing their obsolete recruitment strategy?

As long as capitalism is alive, technology will be it’s puppet master. Yet innovation and advancements are always running far behind any industry leader’s long term vision of where their sector is heading, with recruitment being one of the few exceptions, until recently. In 2019 McKinsey reported the AI recruitment software market to be a $2bn global market, projected to grow to $4bn by 2024, a tiny global dent by any comparison to the thriving contingent recruitment model that has dominated the past 30 years.

Unlike almost every other sector, technology has largely played a back seat in recruitment, and transactional sales has been the dominant force in sourcing and hiring the very best talent, an incredibly successful methodology for any organisation willing to pay the piper. However, the world has changed, and even the most unpredictable of pandemics can not be held to account for why CEOs have resisted changing their old hiring strategies until now. As European and American education systems struggle to lack relevance in the forever changing needs of employers, a growing generation of inappropriately skilled individuals emerges and as with all areas of business, supply and demand dominates market value. It has become almost impossible to turn on the news without hearing about a shortage of drivers and labourers, but there is limited mention of the true growing threat to any economy, the shortage of technologists. It will come as no surprise when automation very rapidly replaces drivers and labourers over the next 15 years, but what happens when certain economies do not have sufficient computer scientists to run the programs replacing all these workers?

Of the 2.4 million people in UK higher education in 2018–2019, only 6.6% studied computer science or mathematics-related fields, that is less than 160,000 students, with many being international students that the UK is failing to retain after graduation. As British based businesses struggle to offer attractive opportunities to a generation more focused on making an impact than calling Londons ‘trendy’ boroughs home, the tech talent rejects the allure of paying off a £700k mortgage for a two bed flat in Shoreditch and instead have opted to board a plane to a global competitor offering cheaper living costs, where the idea of buying or renting a decent home isn’t the equivalent of a financial noose around the neck. The UK is in serious trouble and politicians will not acknowledge the reality of what higher taxes compounded by shadow taxes will do to businesses of all sizes, and a significant amount of bigger companies are choosing to simply grow their operations away from the UK.

Many CEOs of SMEs are following suit, but in order to achieve this, companies of all sizes are conscious that they have to change their entire recruitment strategy. Instead of relying on recruitment agencies, companies are investing much more into their own talent acquisition teams and CEOs have started listening to these unsung heroes. Talent teams are on the front line, they see the desperation in agencies scrambling to get their attention on Linkedin, promising they have candidates for all those difficult to fill roles. Internal talent teams are the first voice any candidate hears from a potential future employer, and let’s be honest, tech candidates are so tired of being approached by agency recruiters overselling and underdelivering that they can be initially defensive personalities even when speaking with the hiring companies directly. Like I said, internal recruiters and talent teams are the unsung heroes driving most companies forward by recognising what the solution is to attract the right technologists for their company, and the answer is community, community, community. Companies need to start building their own relevant community of technologists where they can develop and nurture relationships via their brand in exactly the same way sports clubs do with their youth academies. Brands must start building relationships with their future hires. It’s logical.

Any decent computer scientist has their pick of new companies to work for and it is the internal recruiters scouting ability that creates the initial traction but in the future it will be the computer scientists relationship with the companies brand that creates that initial spark. The days of reactive hiring managers saying ‘I need three backend developers by next quarter’ are dead, and instead proactive companies apply proactive strategies where they are building up their own niche community of technologists and I am not referring to a list of names on your companies ATS.

Companies are building relationships with technologists who share their values, passion for their industry and see meaning in the company’s mission. As for those business leaders reading this and perceiving this to be the same as having 10m followers on instagram, you would be mistaken, and your company is at threat of suffering a brain drain. The way in which companies will scale over this decade is by being able to attract tech talent that shares purely in the CEOs long term vision, so it is important that your brand and your internal recruiters can clearly and specifically relay your companies mission.

Raions is simple, make education fair, SpaceX — colonize Mars, Facebook — connect the world. These things are important to technologists, they’ve studied hard, many making personal sacrifices to develop and acquire their unique set of skills. I interview at least 10 hours a week still, and the one thing I hear over and over again from technologists is that they want to work for a company that is making an impact, It is now upon business leaders to understand what that impact actually is and apply a method for the next generation of technologists to achieve a collective goal.

Your company and brand must have a relationship with potential future hires as this is how talent, particularly tech talent will be sourced in the future. The development of niche online communities within deep jobs platforms will make up ecosystems within ecosystems within ecosystems that enable companies to nurture relationships with technologists, even years before they are ripe for picking, and it’s not about having relationships with millions of technologists, unless you are going to hire millions, it’s about nurturing relationships with those that can make an impact for you and your company. In the same way your favourite sports team scouts and develops their youth academy, your company will apply the same methodology on a global scale, if you are planning to stay relevant.