New tech that hints at the future of recruiting

Like every other sector, recruitment is affected by new thinking and new tech. There are some extraordinary ideas out there. Revolutionary thinking is designed to help recruitment matches more suitable and better targeted than ever. 

So what are some of the latest developments that are being filtered into the recruitment sector?

Think Amazon-style suggestions… but for jobs

‘Suggestions’ are nothing new. Netflix uses a suggestions system to point viewers in the direction of films and TV series they’re likely to enjoy based on their viewing choices. Amazon does a similar thing, suggesting books, music and fast-moving consumer goods based on people’s buying behaviour.

What about recruitment – is there any potential for a similar system? It looks like the answer is ‘yes’.  A handful of start-ups are aiming to replace old-school career fairs and classified ads with sophisticated online alternatives.

Collegefeed – identifying candidates through creative profiling

Take Collegefeed, which has been on the scene since 2013. It was built with recent graduates in mind, creating user profiles that emphasise things like personality and motivation rather than ‘real-world’ experience, something very few recent graduates have gained. Because most professionals are already engaged in creating detailed online profiles through social media, it’s a familiar landscape.

The system’s algorithm uses the information it collects to suggest potential matches between employers and graduates. It means employers can easily connect with graduates everywhere, giving them a much wider pool of talent to choose from. As this type of system becomes more sophisticated, it could easily ‘evolve’ into an alternative to the traditional careers fair.

ZippyApp – matching perfect pay-by-the-hour candidates with employers

There are also rumblings in the pay-by-the-hour sector, with ZippyApp sorting job applicants according to experience, skills, availability and so on before ranking matches for a specific job opportunity. It’s proving remarkably powerful, with a success rate of as much as 80%. Cleverer still, ZippyApp is dynamic, which means it learns how to do a better job, getting more sophisticated every time someone uses it and gives it another shot of data.

Talentral – lets candidates create tailored sales pitches to employers 

Then there’s a service called Talentral, a site specifically for mid-career pros. It goes a step further than LinkedIn by allowing candidates to send different ‘sales pitches’ tailored to different employers.

Of course, these new services are far from perfect. But they’re evolving fast and the speed of their progress could mean that picking the perfect job – and finding the ideal candidate – might soon be as easy as choosing your next TV series on Netflix.

Games help screen the right candidates

According to some experts, it won’t be long before the best candidates for a role will be chosen according to how well they play video games. Starfighter is a new start-up company dedicated to creating games you can only master if you have great programming skills. But it gets even better than that – the system lets people with lesser skills learn as they play, adding an extra dimension.

The idea is this: if you play the game well, an employer knows for a fact that you have the right skills. It’s great news for people who can’t write a cover letter to save their lives or completely fall apart in a job interview situation, something that can be a real career killer if you’re a reserved person.

As Starfighter says: 

“Becoming a top Starfighter player is a direct path to receiving lucrative job offers from the best tech companies in the world because you’ll have proved beyond a shadow of  a doubt that you can do the work these companies need to be done.”

How come it’s so powerful? It lets recruiters search for talented people based on criteria that are a whole lot more relevant and useful than the usual stuff.

Have you got the Knack?

Knack, yet another start-up, is working along much the same lines, creating smartphone games that build up a complex profile of the player as they play, analysing attributes like their leadership abilities, problem-solving and planning skills.

When an employer wants to find someone with high scores for essential traits like these, it’s easy to identify prime candidates. And the respected New York management consultancy Capco agrees – they’re already using the system to identify suitable recruits from the Knack database.

In the meantime…

Again, it’s still early days. The best way to connect the right candidate with the right employee is still the traditional way: a CV, fact-finding interview, professional recommendation and job interview.  It’s something we’ve been doing for years and we’re very good at it.

Test drive us and see.

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David Waddell is the Managing Director at Harvey John.

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