Stop working so hard 🦺👷🈺

For tech talent PR, find Evan White at TA Week in San Diego, or use this Calendly link: https://calendly.com/yourfriendevan

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Recruiters work really hard.

Recruiting/TA leadership works really, really hard.

You know the saying, “If you want something done, ask a busy person”? It’s based on the assumption that work is a function of overcoming inertia, that someone already working hard will be more able to do your work, too.

And that model has gotten recruiters into trouble.

Part of the issue is that it is really difficult to measure recruiting. Both the outcomes and the individual doing the work. It is way easier to measure inputs: How many outbound messages got sent, how many people were contacted, how many applications were generated, how many requisitions were managed or filled, etc.

Consider two recruiters. One who works 12-hour days and another who usually does all their work in 6 hours a day.

We all know that the one doing 12-hour days is the one who gets promoted, gets noticed, gets recognition, even if they don’t achieve any more than the “lazier” recruiter.

Compare that to development: it is well-established that the best programmers are “clever, but lazy.” That is, they find ways to do the least amount of work to complete the task. They are rewarded for simple fixes and doing the least amount of work. They are teased for “over-coding” or “over-engineering” solutions.

Recruiters are addicted to being busy.

Stop it.

I challenge every recruiting team to pick a single day in February and NOT recruit.

Get in a room and give yourself this challenge:

In one year, no one in TA will be allowed to work more than 8 hours a day. The budget will not increase. Headcount will not increase. With these constraints in place, how will you continue to provide a steady flow of candidates to your hiring managers?

Consider the following ideas:

• You can’t badger or spam people into wanting to work there.

• Anyone you want to hire is already besieged by recruiters

• Choosing a new job is not a transaction. It is a life-changing decision and might require some kind of relationship to be developed first.

• Changing your conversion rate from 1% to 2% is the same as talking to twice as many people. Changing it from 1% to 3% is like hiring support staff.

• It is easier to get people interested in working there if you can offer them something they can’t get anywhere else. Where would they learn that?

You can’t busy yourself (or your team) into achieving these kinds of results. You can only start by thinking about your approach differently.

So what I’m saying is that you have long ago reached the limits of what working harder will get you. It’s time to start getting serious about what it takes to become more effective.

🧮 Are we seeing the end of workplace loyalty? And if so, does that mean our brand and value propositions need to become more transactional to reflect this change? »

🧮 Write a better company description for your job posts »

🧮 Yes, even your “thanks but no thanks” should embody your brand. So stop letting lawyers and vendors write those automated emails for you. »

🧮 Everyone online is “creating.” Who are the creators who are supporting your recruiting and employer branding? »

🧮 I agree with all the ideas in the article about how learning will help resolve “The Great Work Reset,” I just worry that companies still think of “learning” as “classes we throw at people in bulk” because it’s easy rather than thinking about how people actually WANT to learn »

🧮 The more we “carry someone else’s water” and repeat their words, the less people respect what we say and do. So if you want that seat at the table, stop speaking for others »

🧮 How can leaders make change happen? »

🧮 5 reasons people get laid off (P.s. I love how HBR wrote their headline to suggest that workers are at fault, as if it’s not the company doing the firing) »

🧮 I highly endorse the idea that we need more (productive and respectful) arguing at work »

🧠🔌 AI Idea of the Week: 5 ways employer branders should be using ChatGPT

🧠🔌 You can also download this ebook with 6 real-word prompts and how to use them.

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***This Newsletter Contains No ChatGPT***

-James Ellis [LinkedIn] [Website]

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