So. This month I’m thinking about ChatGPT. I’m being bombarded with messages and content about how ChatGPT can fast track my day to day job. I’m a self confessed Luddite so it may come as no surprise that I have no truc with the innovative ways and ‘hacks’ with which it can supposedly help me.
Recruitment is hard work. It’s not rocket science but it demands effort, people skills and a bit of luck. There is no magic candidate tree (Although LinkedIn probably likes to think it is) and building relationships with clients happens over time - proof by example when you can consistently help them to find talent and understand their business. It makes me twitch when I think that it’s truly possible to make short cuts in the business. From experience, I’d say that the recruiters who try to cut corners are the ones who don’t build long-standing relationships with clients or candidates. Typically they’ll be one hit wonders who had a bit of luck to approach a client with a candidate at the right time.
I never used to like the term ‘people person’ but in fact, in recruitment you do need to be interested in people, remember them, to remember conversations, to engage properly and to come across as being authentic with it. People buy people and those relationships cannot be replicated by AI.
I write and circulate a weekly email to my candidates. I’ve done it for over 15 years, every Friday, year in year out. It’s not snazzy or jazzy but it summarises my priority opportunities. For the introduction, I always try to use something interesting, personal, anecdotal - something to remind candidates that I’m a human with a personality. I get a lot of positive feedback from candidates - the introductions are often humorous and on a Friday people are generally receptive to something light hearted.
Last week, I tested ChatGPT with the challenge of writing my introduction. In it’s defence, it wasn’t terrible. But it was bland and corporate. Where my candidates and clients have choice in who they deal with, I need to stand-out as someone they want to do business with. I don’t think my response rates would be anywhere near as good if I come across now if I de-humanised it. Which is basically what AI is doing.
I’m sure there are many other applications that I could use it for. In the past, I remember when lots of bigger recruitment companies used to use ‘Resourcers’. Resources were entry level recruiters who basically did the dirty work. Trawling CVs on jobsites, these days probably stalking people on LinkedIn. They’d have the initial chat with the candidate before they were ‘upgraded’ to talking to an actual recruitment consultant. I never bought into this - I want to do my own resourcing. It’s the memorable part of the job, identifying the candidate, getting to know them, getting them to trust me.
Not everything in life needs to be short cutted (a word?) or sped up or automated. In fact, to me it implies substandard service. Recruitment is still an industry which needs people and real communication, human communication. Every client is different and requires a different personality of individual and the way to do that is getting to know them properly. I’m proud that candidates come back to me time and again so I have placed them multiple times in their careers. I’ve even been to a wedding! I’m not looking for every candidate or client to become a BFF but by getting to know them, there is trust on both sides and the potential for a long term business relationship is much more likely - and enjoyable too. I love my job and over the last 20 years I’ve learned that quality of service and communication is crucial in a successful recruitment business. Recruitment by AI is not for me.