How Candidate Access Has Transformed HR & Recruiting

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

In the old days, candidates went into the interview process blindly. The companies hiring were the keepers of the information. We blindly accepted their job offer. Took their word in most cases and used our friends, family and the grapevine to help us vet the company and the job opportunity.

The Internet particularly a job seeker’s use of mobile has transformed not just how we look for a job but absolutely everything. Using the performance of now candidates, job seekers and employees have real time access to information literally at their fingertips to make a decision on which job offer they will be accepting.

The job market has been fundamentally changed. We’ve shifted from a buyer’s market where candidates are educated through online and Internet resources either distributed by the company as part of their employment branding efforts but through candidate reviews and feedback using that same technology.

This candidate access has fundamentally transformed HR as well as recruiting. Companies must assume every aspect of their hiring process and company culture is being broadcasted, tweeted and blogged about for all prospective candidates, stockholders and employees to see.

The recruiting professional is no longer in charge. Sure, they make the ultimate decision, but the talent pool is diverse and strong. In most cases a candidates is being vetted by not only your company, but your company’s top five competitors. In order to attract these candidates’ these professionals need to understand every aspect of their brand because it’s now accessible across the web.

How transparent are you as a company? 

Candidates have access to information that you might not think.

Did you not put the salary portion in your job req? To the candidate, it’s better to be transparent so time isn’t wasted on both yourself and the company. Information like this is almost always accessible, more accessible if you’re a state employee, but with sites like Glassdoor and Payscale there is generally an acceptable range of pay that candidates are looking for and it’s backed by large amounts of data.

Did you try and push employee issues under the rug? If you did, you should rethink that strategy. The talented job seeker will know to go to places, again, like Glassdoor to see reviews of current and former employees about their company. When a company wrongs an employee it tends to go viral on the web as we’ve seen in so many cases involving firings via social media.

Instead, be upfront and honest about your company culture. It will cost you more in the long run to hire someone with a false sense of what your culture is like then it is being upfront with candidates. If you have a bad company culture…fix it.

Being up front and honest is the new normal for recruiting and HR professionals. In the beginning when the Internet wasn’t filled with employee/employer issues and the amount of information accessible to the job seeker wasn’t existent, sweeping issues and paying unfairly was easier. As the market evolves and candidates have unlimited access to almost everything at their fingertips it’s important to be honest first and build a culture that you’d be proud to work at. This is the key to hiring great, long-lasting candidates.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s is the Chief Blogger & Founder of Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @jmillermerrell.