How hiring has changed in the last few decades

As the first decade of the 2000s came to a close, looking back makes one realise the significant shift in the hiring trends. Although the fundamental onboarding procedures have remained more or less the same, there has been a significant shift in the approach. The hiring mechanisms may look the same but everything that surrounds the actual talent acquisition procedure has significantly changed for a good.

• Digital and Social Media – The Internet has completely revolutionised the job recruitment and onboarding culture. With the increasing traffic on social media, there is an intense competition growing among companies competing for the attention and that ‘space’. At the start of the 2000s, sharing a JD with a hashtag on Twitter used to be very effective and would lead to a hiring cycle. Now, companies invest in persona-based micro-targeting as well as programmatic recruitment marketing in order to stay afloat the noise to capture attention.

Before social media, the reach of both the recruiters and job seekers was limited. Mostly ads were given in newspapers or trade magazines, unlike today when a large proportion of recruitment is done through social media platforms such as LinkedIn. It has increased the influx of talent but, simultaneously, it has made selection part of the hiring process more complex because only a few candidates from the pool need to or can be onboarded.

• Culture fit – In the 20th century, most job seekers gladly accepted jobs with high salaries, good health benefits, etc. without paying much attention to the culture of the company they would join. Then emerged the concept of ‘Culture Fit’. It majorly concentrates on bringing the attitudes, beliefs and values of an individual in line with the organisation’s core values and culture.

While some enterprises readily adapted the practice, there were other schemes that criticised ‘culture fit’ for being a veiled mechanism, which was used as a tool to cover bias in rejection of qualified candidates during onboarding and the perspective was entirely changed during 2017. Gradually, more and more schemes started to believe the same and as a result, now most of the corporate giants and their team of HR professionals prioritise talents, skills and abilities of job seeker over habits and hobbies.

• New categories of Workers – Various government schemes that were formulated for improving and upgrading employment scenario have encouraged people to come up with innovative ideas, which has further created a novel class of workers. Uber, Grofers, Doordash etc. are creating new categories of workers and their hiring process is a lot more flexible and significantly different from the traditional one.

In addition, the kind of employees the enterprises are hiring today has changed. Along with the key skills, the hiring managers also see to it that the candidates are able to pivot, learn new skills and adapt to changing business environment. With remote work, flexible working hours and other such options, job seekers now expect a lot more.

• Upgraded Technology for Interviewing – The advancement of technology has brought about a significant advantage to the HR professionals and hiring managers in terms of the time they can save in the onboarding and hiring process. Even if applicants have a perfectly stellar resume, employers prefer talking to them personally.

Instead of actually calling them to the place of recruitment, the recruiter can easily arrange a video interview, thereby economising on time as well as money of both the parties. Skype interviews enable them to see and hear what the professional is all about without having to pay for the airfare, hotel costs, etc. Besides, there has been significant improvement in the quality of video and audio over the previous fuzzy videos.

• Scheduling of interviews – Previously, the hiring process involved engaging in a constant back and forth with candidates while deciding a suitable time for GDs and interviews. It was worse for the HR professionals of multi-national schemes. Now with advanced interview scheduling software, a hiring manager is able to better focus on other important tasks such as preparing the right questions for the applicant(s), etc.

• Candidate is the ‘New King’ – At present times, job seeking has become much more tailored to the candidates experience especially when hiring top tier talents. Nowadays most hiring professionals have started focusing on moving through the talent acquisition process as quickly as possible. Also, care is taken that all the applicants are duly informed as they go.

• Earlier job seekers would have to wait for months to hear back from recruiters. Those who would not get through were not even informed of the same. But now, not only are they updated but they are informed about it in a very polite and respectful manner. The level of transparency has also increased between job seekers and recruiters. Now, most interviews are scheduled as per the convenience of potential candidates and not the hiring agency.

• Change in networking platforms – In the decades preceding the internet, networking would happen mostly at stiff post-work events, and if one would miss these events, he/she would then wait for another event to happen. Now with social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter and even Facebook, networking is only a click away.

There has been a prominent shift in the networking pattern. This does not go to say that the structured events have stopped altogether, but with digital networking, the scope has widened and extended beyond the geographical reach.

• Job Posting Websites – The job posting websites such as Aasaanjobs, Glassdoor, Naukri, etc. have drastically changed the job search process by bringing job seekers and recruiters on the same platform wherein they can share their views and experiences. The transparency and scrutiny that these websites offer keep the recruiters at their toes at all times. They have changed the face of job hunting as the job seekers can look up for the job profile that suits them without having to scour the city for the same. These sites are beneficial for both recruiters as well as job seekers as it saves time, energy and money.

With these prominent changes, the hiring process still continues to evolve as technology takes a giant leap forward.