If Your Recruiting Process Is Broken, Is It Your Fault?

At ERE.net today, Brian Weidner discusses how unfair, and unprofitable, it is that jobseekers have little-to-no opportunity to research companies and positions they’re interested in before applying for a job. He calls it the “cash-register approach” and compares blindly sending in a resume to walking into a car dealership, or a house for sale, with nobody to help you. “Test driving is prohibited. If you want the car, you simply buy it … like a pack of gum.”

Weidner says that many companies insist that a candidate’s first point of contact is to submit a resume online (or enter the company’s ATS), offer no opportunity for applicants to ask questions, and do not “allow for a site visit until a candidate is already at a final interview stage.”

Frustrating for jobseekers, of course. But also a bad recruitment strategy?

We understand why you don’t want to give an opportunity to ask questions and why you don’t want to list a “real person” point of contact. Even before the economy was bad you were getting hundreds of applications for one position and you don’t have time to hand-hold every one of them. Fine. But, Wiedner says, “How can a candidate be genuinely interested in an open position without having an opportunity to fully research your organization? How can you possibly attract top talent if you don’t offer a real person to serve as a recruitment contact?”

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