Every year, someone somewhere will post an article along the lines of:
Recruitment Agencies to die in 2019.
or
2019 will be the death of the Recruitment Industry.
or
Recruitment will be gone in 2019.
Sound familiar? Even if you change ‘2019’ to any other year, it will still sound like you’ve heard it before. That’s because you have. There are always articles predicting recruitment death - every year someone says it’s going to happen – and every year they are wrong.
People make predictions all the time – and more often than not, they are wrong. Remember when people predicted the end of the world in 2012? We’re still here, and so is recruitment. In 2010, people were convinced that with the development of LinkedIn, job boards would die. Yet, nine years later and sites like Monster and Indeed are bigger than ever. Stop predicting the death of recruitment companies and read these four key reasons as to why the Recruitment Industry isn’t going anywhere!
1) Recruitment is about Human Interaction
Artificial Intelligence is a key reason why people believe the recruitment industry will die. It’s true that the development of AI means that candidates can be screened quicker and more efficiently without the need of a human recruiter – but how accurate is it?
The recruitment process is inherently human – a computer can’t tell you how passionate someone is. A computer can’t pick up the phone to screen candidates and hear the joy and excitement in their voice. So yes, while the development of artificial intelligence can quicken the process of hiring; it cannot tell you how much an individual cares for, enjoys and loves a profession. With AI unable to screen candidates for this, companies would miss out on amazing candidates. This is why the recruitment industry isn’t moving anywhere.
Another element, which is vital to recruitment, is a human’s ability to sell a job to a candidate. If a candidate is unsure about a job role, AI will never be able to promote the job to the individual – and this is a vital part to any recruitment process.
The formation of human relationships within recruitment is why agencies will be around for a long time. Through interaction between human and human (rather than computer and human), relationships and friendships can be formed as the agency really understands a candidates needs and wants. A computer may be able to list what you want – but they will never understand you the way that a recruitment consultant will.
2) Recruitment Isn’t Easy
Finding the right candidate for a vacancy is not easy – and this is a key reason why recruitment companies won’t be going anywhere. Companies who need to find the perfect fit to embody their company culture rely on agencies being able to fill their needs.
Large companies may be too busy to deal with the whole recruitment process themselves – which is why recruitment agencies are so vital to companies who need people with the right skills, knowledge and passion for a role. Hiring the wrong person can lead to dreadful mistakes for the business and so companies will always need agencies to do the hard work for them!
3) Recruitment Companies can find Passive Candidates
Companies will always want to attract the best candidates. The problem with this is that the best candidates aren’t necessarily always looking for a new job. Therefore, recruitment companies can do something that direct applications cannot do – they can look for, research and approach individuals who are not actively looking for work. Recruitment companies can source ‘passive’ individuals – those who are not necessarily job searching, but those who would be open to new opportunities if they were a right fit for them. Recruitment companies are valuable for this!
4) Recruitment is a central UK Industry
The UK Recruitment Industry is valued at a staggering 35 billion pounds a year, with that figure growing every year. Does that sound like something that’s about to die? No.
Recruitment wont die, it will evolve – the same way that everything does. Years ago, before the internet, before phones – recruitment agencies would walk door to door registering candidates, placing adds in newspapers and compiling their databases on pen and paper. With the development of technology, recruitment agencies have developed and evolved – and this will continue to happen. The development of artificial intelligence has lead to differences in the way that we recruit, but hasn’t stopped us recruiting. So Recruitment Agencies certainly won’t die in 2019 (or 2020, 2021 or 2022).