The middleman is unnecessarily expensive and quite frankly just unnecessary.
The middleman is biased. The hiring process should be transparent. The middleman depends on commission therefore unnecessarily expensive. The hiring process should be affordable. Times should have changed a long time ago in the staffing industry and they just haven’t. Agencies are still doing recruiting the same way they were 20+ years ago. Believe me, I know. I started my first recruiting firm in 2000 after five years in hell with a couple of the largest agencies in the United States. We quickly made Inc. 500 fastest growing companies, best places to work Blah Blah Blah. But we did not change a damn thing or do anything differently than anyone else.
The reality is the industry is broken, antiquated and frankly just doesn’t give a shit. Along with being terrified of change. Think about it, a pit full of commissioned recruiters slinging resumes with their logo on it in hopes you will pay them a 25% fee. For what, running a keyword search on LinkedIn? I know and have interviewed a lot of great talent who are fed up with agency recruiters. They are actually turning their LinkedIn profiles off completely. When asked why? They respond with answers like, “tired of being hit on by agency recruiters” or “recruiter will not even tell me the name company they are recruiting for.”
No kidding, this is a common practice with some agencies. How would anyone show interest in a position without knowing who the client is? Mind boggling, but it happens. Another common dissatisfaction with talent is also that agency recruiters cannot explain the actual job they are recruiting for.
If I am a CPA looking for a job then I would want someone who understands intimately the roles and responsibilities of a CPA. My friends at a large staffing conglomerate headquartered in middle Tennessee come to mind here. If I am a Java developer I would want someone who thoroughly understands the day to day life of a Java developer.
The majority of the time this is not the case when using a staffing agency. Case in point, with my last agency that I sold in 2014 we decided to shake it up a bit. Try and move the needle if you will. You know, try and set a standard in an industry with very little standards, if any.
I hired Jason Hutson, now my CTO and business partner at Fetch. Hutson has over 15 years in the IT world and had served as IT Director for several large companies. He was brought in to bridge the gap between IT talent and recruiter. When he interviewed our talent their reaction was priceless. Many said, “I have never been asked these types of question by a recruiter before” or “man, you really seem to know your stuff, how refreshing.” It worked just as we expected and backed the data that we had gathered. An IT guy interviewing and acting as an agent for IT talent. Certainly makes sense to me and resonated for sure with the talent. Unfortunately, not what happens in the wonderful world of agency recruiting.
To be frank, clearly, I think that we all know that the majority of our so-called recruiting brethren are not liked, trusted, or just downright despised. While I am sure many of you don’t fall into this 70 percent bucket and do add value, to tell you the truth, candidates, and hiring managers, on the whole, are begging for something different. I borrowed with this from a SourceCon article I had read by Rob McIntosh and certainly supports the data we gathered.
We live in a world where technology is changing everything. Think about it, one of the world’s largest cab companies owns no cars. One of the world’s largest hospitality companies owns no property. The process has been automated and with great success. Why has this not be done with success and accuracy in recruiting? Another quote I borrowed, “Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change” —Tony Robbins
At Fetch, the pain of staying the same is much greater and always will be greater than the pain of change. Fetch is a hiring platform with a unique twist; the talent drives the process. That’s right, the talent chooses the next steps. The talent decides whether they want to date you and your company, or not. Yes, match.com meets Tinder for talent.
Fetch believes that the hiring process should be completely transparent and unbiased. We also believe the best way to achieve this is to match talent with employers and let them figure it out. We also believe the talent should initiate and drive the process. We also believe that hiring should be affordable for all.
I began this with talking about the middlemen. They are biased, heavily commissioned and quite frankly, too damn expensive. Not to mention, most of them are not qualified to be recruiting in the industries or on the jobs in which they recruit for. Fetch has automated the hiring process with accuracy and we have eliminated the need for the middle man. Should have been done a long time ago but better late than never. Fetch, the new, efficient, and affordable way to hire.