How The Internet Has Changed Recruiting

Back in the 1980’s when I first started recruiting, the was no internet.  There wasn’t even fax.

We actually spoke to our clients, took job specs verbally and then, when we had lined up candidates, sent a messenger or mailed the résumés.  In the meanwhile, we called our clients and told them about our candidates.  We told them who they were; we explained why we were submitting them and we talked about why we thought they were good for the job.  The personal contact allowed us to establish great client relationships.

Then in the late 1980s, we got a fax machine.  I was one of the first advertising recruiters to have one.

 There was no such thing as a plain paper fax.  Faxes were received on this expensive, shiny paper.  Funny thing was, on our fax cover sheets, we had to put “location” (the recipient’s floor or some descriptor like “Human Resources”) because most companies initially only had one fax, sometime one per floor.  HR, as I recall, had to beg management to get their own faxes, which started happening in the beginning of the 1990s.  Faxing lasted well into the late 1990’s.

But faxing changed everything.  Suddenly, many HR people and hiring managers no longer wanted to discuss candidates (there were a lot of agencies where HR was not involved in screening or interviewing).  “Just fax the résumé and then we will discuss”. We would then get calls telling us who they wanted to see; We no longer had discussions about why..

Our receptionist used to be responsible for faxing résumés to clients.  She also received them from candidates. Our receptionist was busy.  But then, along came emailing.



It started happening gradually in the mid to late 1990’s.  Since everyone had an email address, recruiters did their own résumé submissions and reception.  One day in about 2000, I realized that my receptionist was merely answering calls, but most of the day, she was just sitting there with nothing to do.  That was, sadly, the end of reception for us.

One day in the early 2000 or 2001, I became very depressed because our phone wasn’t ringing.  And then I realized that what used to be a phone call was now an email.  A lot of personal contact was lost.  Today, the emails simply arrive, either through our website or directly.  Almost all our clients now want us to simply send the résumés via email.  Most will review them, then tell us who they want to see, generally by email.  There is little or no discussion – it has become very impersonal.  I still have one or two clients who call me and ask me to describe candidates.  I much prefer that because it allows me to become enthusiastic, to answer tough questions and to be able to tell my candidates what issues, if any, came up during the introduction. The nuances of that conversation are often very revealing.  I often find out things which were not part of the initial job specs, for instance when a client asks me to describe the candidate’s personality and they give me feedback on that.  These small comments and questions greatly helps us to understand the job.

I once ran a post called “Emails are Hurting Us”.  It is true.  Emails have depersonalized much of our communication.  I cannot begin to count the number of candidates I have placed whose résumés did not necessarily match the job spec.  But in a simple call, I could persuade my client to see the candidate.  Not so much anymore.

In the early part of the last decade, the job boards appeared.  For a while they were really important and many ad agencies used them exclusively, especially for junior positions.  Ironically, my clients have had the same experience I have had with them – candidates may list their résumés, but more often than not, do not respond to calls or emails (weird, right?).  The job boards have somewhat fallen out of favor now although they are still sometimes a thorn in my side (a candidate whose resume was downloaded months ago,but never contacted, may be precluded from interviewing because, "We already have their resume."

Then there is LinkedIn, which is easy to mine, good for me, good for companies doing their own recruiting, but I am not sure yet of its long term impact. The problem with LinkedIn is that most of the people on it still don't know how to use it effectively so it provides little relevant information other than name, title, company and tenure.

Just a quick word about Skype.  In the past couple of years I have been using it extensively for out of town interviews.  It is almost as good as an in person interview and is far more personal than a phone interview.  Ironically, there are many companies and recruiters who won’t use Skype.  There are even some candidates  who resist it. 

Not just because I am a recruiter, but because I believe in person-to-person contact, nothing takes the place of a real, person-to-person conversation.