The best recruitment article I’ve read in what feels like 150 years
It was back in 2015 when I read the best recruitment article I think I’ve ever read, and nothing has come close since.
It’s called What It Really Takes To Attract Top Talent and it’s been written by Peter Cappelli who is a professor of management at the Wharton School in the USA.
It argues that the majority of companies need to be a lot more realistic about who and what they are if filling their open vacancies is going to become less painful.
Imagine if every recruitment consultant were to challenge clients on that one issue?
But they don’t.
The reality is that the majority of recruitment consultants simply take everything a client says at face value – as if it’s an absolute truth bestowed from a higher power. Or because they’re working contingency, have KPI numbers to hit and don’t want to upset the client by asking potentially awkward questions.
Questions like; “Why would someone doing a similar job for another company quit that job and come and work for you?”
If just that one aspect of recruitment could change – that clients would be routinely challenged on their myopia – I think many of the other things that frustrate both hiring companies and recruitment agencies would disappear overnight.
Things like impossibly narrow briefs, uncommitted clients, uncommitted agencies, job ads that the right people don’t read and meetings where two people lie to each other for an hour – otherwise known as the job interview.
And if that were to happen, the industry would probably improve beyond recognition.
It just needs people to tell the truth instead of playing recruitment bingo.
Please read the article.
It’s also worth noting that it takes an academic like Mr Cappelli to cut through the bullshit that you’d normally read on this subject by hucksters with books to sell and speaking engagements to fill.
So next time you’re writing a recruiting narrative, consider your audience’s level of awareness first. Then position your narratives accordingly (direct or indirect).
When he’s not running copywriter training courses, Mitch can be found on LinkedIn.
