Embracing Change

One of my favorite quotes is from George Bernard Shaw;

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

In my inaugural blog I referenced the need for immediate change in corporate recruiting. Why you ask? Because in the 17+ years I’ve been in recruiting, we haven’t changed it. Sure, we’ve added technology, we’ve invented new and creative ways to find the people we are tasked with locating (admit it, Recruiters were the first people to “Google” anybody!) and we’ve created an entirely new industry around “sourcing.” However, the fundamentals of Corporate Recruiting – defined as those of us who choose to be on the inside instead of where the money and fame is – have not changed in over 20 years.

Earlier this year I presented a webinar for the HCI Talent Acquisition – Re-Engineering Recruitment Community where I pointed out this lack of change. I also mentioned that we in corporate recruiting wrongly define our “competition” as those companies in our industry with talent we want. Our greatest competition in Corporate Recruiting is Recruiting Agencies and RPO firms. These organizations base their value proposition on being able to do our jobs better, faster and at lower costs than we do.

To compete in today’s employment landscape, Corporate Recruiters have to:

1. Specialize within Recruiting to add significant levels of efficiency to the department.
2. Utilize tools that level the playing field with Recruitment Agencies and their different business model.
3. Adopt “rapid cycle” innovation to change in the Recruiting Department, mirroring the rapid market adjustments corporations make to acquire new customers.

I’ll leave you with another “change” quote;

“like an umbrella, a mind is only useful if it’s open!”