Are we there, yet?

It’s been my honor to work in this industry from the early job board days to today. I’ve seen so many things, helped companies make remarkable strides, and delivered some ground-breaking thinking and doing with customers. It’s been a pretty charmed career. I am proud of the things we’ve done. Even though I rail on how things don’t change, they do, even incremental change is change. But I am sitting here of late wondering, are we ever going to truly evolve?

Where are the new ideas?

Where is the change we keep calling for?

Why aren’t we getting where we need to be from a myriad of fronts?

We keep talking about how DEIB matters, but I don’t see the investment.

We keep talking about how mobility matters, but I don’t see the investment.

We keep talking about the Great <insert any word here, literally>, and we refuse to change.

I keep hearing that the ATS, the resume, the CRM, the job board is dead, but they continue to suck all the oxygen out of the room.

I keep hearing that video is the next thing, chat bots, automation, talent intelligence, the buzzword de jour will make it better, but it doesn’t.

Our industry has the worst case of shiny object syndrome I’ve ever seen. Only our version of it includes demo-ing the shiny object, coming up with 1,000 reasons why it won’t work, never buy it, and then tell me that it didn’t work. You know why it didn’t work, you never tried it.

I fear we have a distinct lack of vision and courage in the space right now.

And it is showing.

Candidate sentiment has not materially changed in 2 years. They don’t like what we’re doing. They’re telling us specifically what they want, and we are refusing to give them the information they want.

We have the ability to make the changes candidates and employees need and want, but we are choosing not to. We are choosing the status quo. We are choosing no action. We are choosing this path.

It’s time we choose a new path.

One where we are introspective enough to really listen to our candidates and employees. One where we choose to invest in things that are going to solve our problems. Not in things that are just going to make us look busier and generate more names, which if you read this, is an unsustainable model.

I know we can do better. I have seen us do better. But now we are paralyzed. This is a turning point. This is our moment. We will need to choose to do better, or we will continue to see our roles, our profession, our industry shrink and become irrelevant.

Your leaders in the c-suite need to know.

And if you’re not telling them there is a better, more effective, more efficient, and cheaper way to attract and retain great talent, I’ll tell them and show them.

You see, I get to work with the rebels in the industry. I get to work with companies who see the better way and find solutions. Solutions that cut turnover in half, solutions that produce more hire-ready talent. Solutions that take guts. Solutions that are easy, but risky. Solutions that pay off.

We need to stop the shiny object syndrome, get back to basics and really understand our audience. Without candidates and employees, we have no job. Without them, this is for naught. They should be our focus.

We need to get creative, or we will likely be obsolete.