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The recruitment industry has always had parallels to dating. We have two parties who don't want their time wasted, but want to get together as quickly as possi
by abraae 5y ago
The recruitment industry has always had parallels to dating.
We have two parties who don't want their time wasted, but want to get together as quickly as possible if it's a good match, while maintaining their dignity and their privacy.
The industry is permanently grappling with ways to make this process scalable. The road is littered with the dead hulks of companies that felt like they had cracked the code. Yet still a huge chunk of the industry belongs to plain old middlemen - recruiters - or even to word of mouth and other age old human behaviours. That reflects the fact that so far, no-one has really cracked the code, and there is often still benefit to both parties in having someone in the middle.
All of the questions that you ask are totally valid and can be viewed as just part of the dance of bringing job and talent together.
My personal belief is that the solution is out there, it's just quite complex (human are complex). It probably involves:
- karma of some kind (randos can't arrive and start pushing their friends/colleagues in front of employers without restriction)
- rate limits (if you've put forward 20 people, maybe you need to slow down until some of them have been "processed")
- candidate care limits (employers probably can't access more "candidates" until they have courteously dispatched any existing ones by hiring them or providing a formal rejection, ideally with feedback).
- saving face (graceful ways for candidates to be told their salary is out of whack, for them to push back on referrers who are spamming them out too widely, for employers to make candidate feel they were a good second place, as opposed to a failure, etc. etc., all the social lubrication that makes the world go around.
In short, the whole area of recruitment will always be fraught and fought over because there's no much damn money to be made.
But no one IMO will meaningfully "win" in this area until they deliver a platform that has deep, rich set of human-oriented behaviours and functionality that really dig in deep to what it means to be a candidate, an employer, a referrer, and treat everyone with courtesy and (yes) financial reward as required.
Just as StackOverflow became successful because it catered to the exact question and answer communication patterns that are suited to programmers seeking help, some recruitment platform will succeed because it caters to the communication patterns that are associated with gigs finding talent and talent finding gigs.
Source: many years spent building corporate recruitment systems.
- TimTheTinker 5y ago> My personal belief is that the solution is out there, it's just quite complex (human are complex). It probably involves: [...] I'd say, anything that helps connect people in genuine relationships without getting in the way. ... which is not easy, since relationships aren't easy. Many of the features you mention (karma, rate limits, care limits) seem to be trying to limit the downsides of failing to cultivate genuine relationships.
- amitsy 5y agoThis is awesome! There are so many gems here that even if pick up 50% of it and deliver on it, we would be golden. This is probably the most nuanced advise I have received on the sector/our approach and I would have spoken to 100+ VCs and other people doing recruitment. HN is great
- abraae 5y agoGood luck to you. I realized I wrote "no much money" to be made, whereas I meant the opposite, so go get it.
- vbtemp 5y agoThis is a really interesting and thoughtful read, thank you. I'm curious why solutions that satisfy those bulleted items you mention don't exist? Whether for dating or opportunity-talent-matchmaking. My hunch is that there's some perverse incentives that keep us stuck in a local maxima. I don't use any of the dating apps, but I would think it's fair to say that the popular apps and networks are an extremely soul-sucking, relentless grind.... but yet, they stay popular, and innovative alternatives aren't really taking off en masse. Why? I guess here are a few thoughts: - This reflects the absolutely massive asymmetries and inequalities that infect everything. It sometimes seems like there is no "average" anymore - everything is bi-modal. There are the FAANG total comps, and the total comps of everyone else - with a huge gap between them. Massive wealth gap for people have have been invested in real estate and/or stocks for a while, and those that have not been. And in dating: The massive gap in desirability between young or attractive women - and everyone else (for example, it's not like an attractive 25-year-old woman gets twice as many messages as, say a 25 year old male.. she'll get literally a thousand times more) - In a globalized, massive, and mostly anonymous marketplace, there is little incentive to constrain oneself to cooperate. And this includes preferring free-for-all networks over ones that "enforce" cooperation. For recruiters: I suppose spamming endlessly, while not pleasant, is probably a local maxima. Being a cooperative agent (reducing spam, investing more in each possible connection) just reduces their chances of getting a catch. I'd imagine a similar things for males in a dating market.