Posted on 09/07/2021 5:15:38 AM PDT by Twotone
Automated resume-scanning software that is inflexibly configured and overlooks potentially suitable workers is a major factor contributing to a “broken” hiring system in the United States, according to a new report from Harvard Business School (HBR).
The HBR report (pdf), released Sept. 4, provides insight into America’s labor market dynamics, including the widely reported mismatch between the more than 10 million job openings—a record high—and the more than 8.4 million unemployed actively looking for work.
Business owners have been complaining about not being able to find enough workers and having to raise pay to attract new hires. At the same time, swaths of willing and available workers remain “not visible” to recruiters, who have become increasingly reliant on automated software that is inflexibly configured and filters out large numbers of viable candidates, according to the report.
“Companies are increasingly desperate for workers. As they continue to struggle to find people with the skills they need, their competitiveness and growth prospects are put at risk,” the report’s authors wrote.
“At the same time, an enormous and growing group of people are unemployed or underemployed, eager to get a job or increase their working hours. However, they remain effectively ‘hidden’ from most businesses that would benefit from hiring them by the very processes those companies use to find talent.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theepochtimes.com ...
I remember when the Dallas Cowboys used a computer to make their draft picks back in the 80’s. It didn’t work out at all.
That's how I've always worked -- always customize the resume you send in, to show that you meet each and every item in the requirements. Otherwise your resume won't make it past the first filter.
HR exists to keep candidates from taking up employees time.
As such they are doing their job when you can't get past them. They don't work for you. They do what the company wants.
Went to Lowes recently and all the registers were self-serve and credit card only. I tracked down someone way in the back of the store and told them I wanted to pay cash so they had a ‘manager’ come and open a cash register. As I was paying I suggested they hire more people and she said they had been trying but, despite good starting pay, not many people are interested in working and of them, very few applicants pass the drug test.
A few months ago I applied for a job I was reasonably-well qualified for, and got a rejection e-mail literally two minutes after I hit “Submit” on the application.
Took me ten times as long to complete the application as it did for them to say “No”.
HR is not in the business of hiring good people.
HR is in the business of presenting a hiring process which protects the company from discrimination lawsuits, which these days is far more costly to the company than hiring a few turkeys, or failing to hire people who could have been stars.
The rush to hand-off tasks, decisions and responsibilities to computers is always a mistake.
This has been the case for a long time. HR is an impediment. They just look for people who fit a cookie cutter description they are given for each job. They take what should be guidelines and turn them into hard and fast rules. Thus missing out on a lot of good candidates who don’t fit the exact traditional standard description they are given.
It took me a while to learn to play the game. Nobody tells you this in college or in business school. Read over job descriptions similar to what you want to get. Repeat those key phrases in the descriptions of your previous roles. Nobody can or does really check what you actually did in other jobs. Just make sure you are 100% accurate about degrees and certifications you claim to have and make sure the dates of employment in your previous roles is accurate. They can and do check that.
PS be sure to read up on the terms you put in your job descriptions so you can BS your way through an interview. Once you get your foot in the door and are actually in a job you want, you can figure out how to do it if you have even moderate intelligence. It’s not that difficult. Really.
At my company, they converted to all external and internal resume scans, only.
Correct, this is exactly what happens.
Stupid people in HR do stupid things.
LOL, I always think of this classic from the IT Crowd...
Jen’s Interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5NANrVnqLc
About 20 years ago, an insider at Cox Communications told me they got approximately 20,000 applications a month—a month.
The number of applications companies get each month make it impossible to manually look at each resume, hence electronic systems.
You need to learn to play the game if you are going to win it. There is a system to beating the electronic filtering systems.
Exactly. Get around HR. They are nothing but a roadblock. Get to the decision maker. They will then order HR to do what they want.
In the tech sector, the Indians have taken over the recruiting process. And for the most part, they will not hire Americans. They will not present American resumes to American employers. Blue Cross and Blue Shield computer systems are almost completely managed by Indian citizens. Same with many American government agencies. The TVA was almost overtaken by Indians, if it wasn’t for Trump. If Americans were taking over Indian information systems, there would be a huge outcry. You will be called a racist if you point this out.
I never understood why any company would use an automated system to process applications for positions that are specialized enough to require a resume. When I was in a corporate managerial role I always wanted to get a paper resume and cover letter instead of electronic ones. That immediately narrowed the candidate pool down to those who were willing to pay for a stamp and take the time to mail something. Then, after I found the candidate I wanted for the position, I’d have that person post his/her resume on our stupid HR job site.
Back in the day working local bands would try to get out of doing the hard tedious work of replacing a band member by specifying experience so exactingly that they’d guarantee getting someone who had been floating around and failing for years. It was no surprise that successful pro bands sat and listened to every hopeful and wannabe until they hit paydirt.
Our local full service car wash (workers vacuum and wipe down your car after it goes thru the wash tunnel) has a big sign ‘self service only, we can’t find workers’. I doubt their ‘resume scanning software’ is rejecting resumes lol.
HR “professionals” showing that they are cream of the crop.
My advice to job seekers — and I’ve advised more than a few — is to bypass the automated systems entirely. Network. Use LinkedIn. Research the hiring managers and reach out directly, first by email, then by phone. Use your contacts to reach other contacts and work your way through the system. This is especially important for those missing checkbox items like college degrees (which actually are useless for most positions).
It’s not gaming the system. It’s working the system.
All that said, recruitment software systems should be banned and avoided by companies all together. They do not help firms hire the right people. They simply help firms fill in the blanks in the programs. All one needs to do is look at academia or our government to see that hiring by checkbox does not mean hiring qualified, capable employees.
That may still be true today -- I am in no position to say it is not true.
But a common story today is that no one wants to work. Companies can't hire people. Companies are desperate.
And if that is the case today, such companies are pretty foolish to rely on computers to filter through the (apparently) meager number of resumes that people are dribbling in these days.
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