Modern recruiters face a bevy of challenges that weren't commonplace twenty, or even ten, years ago. Job recruiting is fraught with both legal and technical obstacles these days. When you're ready to look for new applicants for your company, it may seem that a minefield of human resource problems await your every step. Three major difficulties face every recruiter, and these issues may be even more pronounced if you haven't done job recruiting recently.
Changing laws are the first major challenge facing you when you're ready to start job recruiting. Seemingly innocuous questions that may once have posed no human resource problems during an interview may now create legitimate legal difficulties. Questions that seem even remotely related to age, gender, or marital status can land you in hot water, as can posing hypothetical situations commonly used to weed out inexperienced candidates. Even asking about hobbies and organizations can infringe on the rights of the jobseeker. It's best to keep questions as apolitical as possible and avoid anything that you wouldn't ask the candidate if you didn't know his or her age, gender, race, or background beyond what's on the application or résumé.
It would seem that job recruiting might be easier with higher unemployment rates, but many modern recruiters find themselves swamped with underqualified applicants desperate for work. It has become even more difficult to weed out clients at job fairs and recruiting events, where you may receive hundreds of applications and handshakes instead of having time to properly interview and network with potential applicants. Modern recruiters must learn to set requirements very clearly in ads or on printed materials for recruiting events. These thresholds make it easier to sift through résumés and focus more clearly on the applicants with the education or experience required for the job.
Changing technology is an additional obstacle that many human resources professionals engaged in job recruiting must address. Rachel Emma Silverman and Lauren Weber noted in a recent Wall Street Journal article that many jobseekers are turning to Twitter with 140-character résumés designed to attract recruiters at large. Social media and video résumés are becoming more commonplace, and many applicants expect responses in short order. The flip side to this phenomenon is that those engaged in heavy social media use may have made it easier to verify their employment and educational history, though recruiters should be careful not to violate privacy rights if they go searching for more information on a candidate through online venues.
Changes in laws, technology, and the marketplace have introduced new challenges for human resources professionals. When you're ready to begin job recruiting for your company, remember to keep questions apolitical and unbiased. Focus on qualified candidates and address exactly how technology should be used in the recruitment process. These steps can save you many headaches and prevent confusion during your recruitment efforts.
(photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net)
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