Shits and Giggles with HR Episode #1

What is Right About the Recruitment Industry Could Be Written on a Stamp!

Join Lisa Haggar and Katrina Collier to discuss what is wrong with the recruitment industry. The horror stories of people going through 6 rounds to get a job and then getting no reply, or how people receiving job offers then leave their job, only to be told that the job they applied for & won, has been made redundant before they even start!

Sharing Resources Mentioned By Katrina in the Podcast

Katrina's Website

The Robot-Proof Recruiter

Getting back to people:

https://circlebackinitiative.com/

https://end-ghosting.com/

Places to feedback:

https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/interview/

https://indeed.com

https://www.kununu.com/

https://www.reddit.com/r/recruitinghell

You Can Read the Shits and Giggles with HR Episode #1: What is Right About the Recruitment Industry Could Be Written on a Stamp! Transcript Below:

What is wrong with the recruitment industry?

 

Darren A. Smith:

Let's start. Welcome to the Shitz and Giggles with HR podcast. We're here with Lisa. Haggar, Lisa. Say hello, please.

Lisa Haggar:

Good evening. Hello everybody.

Darren A. Smith:

And we're also here with Katrina Collier. Hello, Katrina.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

Hello.

Darren A. Smith:

Hi I'm your host, Darren Smith. We'll come back to these lovely ladies in a moment. Our topic for tonight and I'm going to blame Lisa for this is what is right about the recruitment industry could be written on a stamp. Katrina, I'm just gonna come to you and ask what's your name in this game? What do you do?

Darren A. Smith:

Let's stop listening.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

So I am best known as the author of the Robot Proof Recruiter that I have been in the recruitment industry for nearly two decades, and I spend most of my time delivering design thinking workshops to fix candidate experience and recruitment. And I also have a coaching and mentoring group that's probably me in a nutshell, but plenty plenty of experience in their recruitment and talent acquisition space.

Darren A. Smith:

Brilliant. Brilliant. But we wanna get into that and ask you what's wrong with this industry. Let me just come to Lisa for first. Lisa, what do you do?

Lisa Haggar:

It's a good question. I tell people I knit Jelly for a living because when you tell them the work in HR, it switches people off quicker than if you're the tax man. So I knit Jelly Darren.

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah.

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah. It's. OK. That's good.

Lisa Haggar:

Or otherwise known as the ******** from HR Queen of HR on LinkedIn, the opinionated small 5 foot blonde who has a lot to say about most things.

Darren A. Smith:

Lovely. And how do you guys know each other?

Katrina Collier (Guest):

LinkedIn.

Lisa Haggar:

Uh, Katrina's fabulous, and I know everybody who's fabulous on LinkedIn. Simple.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

Is it LinkedIn? I don't know how we know each other. That's hilarious. Yeah, LinkedIn.

Lisa Haggar:

It is, yes, yes, I remember. I remember the day we met Katrina. Do you mean you? You can't remember that wonderful time? I don't know.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

Yeah.

Darren A. Smith:

Well, thank you both.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

Menopause.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

Hmm.

Darren A. Smith:

Thank you both for joining us for ***** and Giggles, HR podcast. Katrina, let's start with you. So at the topic is what's wrong with the recruitment industry? What's wrong with it?

Katrina Collier (Guest):

Ohh I thought it was what's right with it that you could write in the back of a postage stamp.

Darren A. Smith:

Ohh, actually let's start the then. See even better what's right with it.

Darren A. Smith:

But.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

Yeah, because that that really, really made me laugh. Because when Lisa sent me that, I just thought Katrina Collier. That'll fit on the back of a postage stamp. And I thought, you arrogant little so and so, which just totally I was actually sent Lisa a voice note because I was laughing so hard at my own joke because I just thought it was so funny and so arrogant all the world into one.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

But you know it.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

That we have lost the human touch. That's what's wrong with recruitment. Somehow we've put all the tools and all of the technology and and even data, everything. We just put everything in the way of human connection because it really is about.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

One human trying to find another human to work with another human. This is complicated as that.

Darren A. Smith:

Yep.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

And we've just, we've just made it.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

So ridiculously complex with all this technology. Hence the book is called the Robot Proof Recruiter because it's all about, let's just clear out the technology that's in the way and use it to create a better human connection. So that's what I think I would be interested to hear what Lisa thinks having been through the recruitment process a few times.

Lisa Haggar:

Uh, yeah. What can I say is we do have technology which I get allows companies to be efficient and I'm using air quotes even though you can't see me to be efficient in dealing with the thousands of people who may respond to a job advert.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

Yeah, like the 50.

Lisa Haggar:

Yeah, right. Yeah, right. The my biggest bug bear. And there's a few. I'll just list them in. No particular order is one they use a, you know, some kind of a TTS system, which from the HR departments point of view we talk about inclusion and yet it's the most inclusive inclusion.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

Umm.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

Hmm.

Lisa Haggar:

It it just doesn't, you know, if you don't write something the right way, it doesn't highlight it put you to the top of the pile. It's not inclusive as in, you know, people who are neurodiverse. They may not have a three page full of word, CV. They might have an infographic CV because it expresses them how they need to be expressed and how they learn and how they need to read things. So it's just not inclusive. And I love the fact that we have automation and yet you'll go onto LinkedIn right now and on the bottom of nearly.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

Hmm.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

Umm.

Lisa Haggar:

Every single job advert says if you haven't heard us back in four days, you haven't made it love. Sorry about that. Move up. And yet it's two clicks of a button on an eighth to reject somebody and I and it just blows my brain. It's just lazy. Recruitment is my view.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

What's? It's not only that as well, it's 86% of applicants.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

If they're ghosted so they don't hear back from the recruiter, become down or depressed.

Darren A. Smith:

Wow.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

Now recruiters complain.

Lisa Haggar:

Yeah, it's the effect you're dealing with another human being. It's disgusting.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

Yeah, well, yeah. But it's, it's that we we we create. We're making people down or depressed. Recruiters get ghosted by candidates all the time. And I think you know what says you're right. Cause you've been ghosting people for like 2 decades. So yeah, paybacks a bit. However, we don't get when we're ghosted. It's just annoying.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

We get irritated, you know? OK, there'll be some recruiters out there who probably like, well, I lose Commission. So I do get a bit upset. It's like, well, yeah, you know, don't bank it until they start, but it's not the same as this poor job seeker who over and over and over is getting ghosted and is feeling down or depressed. And it was actually really interesting writing the 2nd edition.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

Is to put some new examples in and I saw a girl had pasted her spreadsheet of her 32 applications as she put this as a post on LinkedIn and she showed all the times that she was ghosted cause to her just applying for a job and not hearing back was ghosted. And that's really different to what recruiters think as well. So that's certainly a big problem, and Lisa's right you are more than capable of using it to send hopefully a slightly personalized, helpful rejection notice.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

Uh-huh.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

Sure.

Darren A. Smith:

And Katrina, just on that, the the difference in the ghosting there, can you just explain that a bit further so we as humans think that we've been ghosted by the recruitment person, doesn't what what what's happening there?

Katrina Collier (Guest):

Yes. So when somebody applies for a job.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

I don't think a recruiter thinks that if they're not.

Darren A. Smith:

Umm.

Lisa Haggar:

Yeah.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

Saying to them, no, we've gone ahead with other applicants. I don't think they think ohh we are ghosting an applicant whereas the applicant thinks no. You're ghosting me because I haven't heard back. Even if they've never even had a screening call. They've never even had an interview. They're like, well, you ghosted me. You've not come back to me, which is really interesting.

Darren A. Smith:

Hmm.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

So, but it's the the fact is that no, not every single company has an applicant tracking system. I mean, in the startup world, they're probably lucky if they're on anything more than an Excel spreadsheet, but in general, people are more than capable of replying and letting somebody know and. And to be honest, even if they don't have an applicant tracking system.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

As as that fury gave me this tip, she's like, change your e-mail signature to a rejection signature that you can just then use and just quick shoot back an e-mail, change the signature, personalize it a bit, shoot it off.

Lisa Haggar:

Yeah.

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah.

Katrina Collier (Guest):

But Lisa's right.