My article Recruiting BS and How to Get Rid of It inspired some controversy. Many people thought that I intended it to be nothing more that incendiary. Honestly, I meant every word, and I still do. But let’s look at some of the complaints I heard and address them. Today I’ll start with the first part of the response, and then move to others in the days ahead.
Reqs are a Reality – There were some people who were frustrated by my comments about reqs being a waste of time and shareholder value. They insisted that because I no longer lived in the world of recruiting that I was suffering from the same malady that many other pundits exhibit: they don’t have to live with changing the problem, so they make broad claims that sound good in theory but that are almost always impossible to implement successfully. While I understood their point of view, they seemed to miss the fact that I am just three weeks out of the job, and that in my old job reqs were a constant and ongoing problem that I had to deal with (and solve for) on a daily basis. So when I say reqs are bogus, I am not talking theory. I am talking about the pain that I, and thousands like me, suffer through needlessly because of this largely unexamined organizational habit called “staffing requisitions.”
Yes, reqs are a daily reality in most corporate recruiting organizations. Yes, getting rid of them would be very difficult. And yes, now that I am not sitting strictly in the Talent Department it seems more than a little convenient that I should be on the outside throwing stones in. I can’t deny any of that. But you still have to ask the question: “Why?”
Let’s say that reqs are part of your daily life because you need to prevent hiring managers from wasting your time and think that having a req (and its approval process) in place reduces the likelihood you will have to deal with those kinds of problems. Why? Do you have any data to support this? Have you ever had a req cancelled because the hiring manager changed their mind? Have you ever fulfilled an “opportunity hire”? My guess the answer to both is “yes.” So reqs don’t prevent stupid requests and they don’t ensure that you limit your work to planned activities. You may be making a case that reqs decrease the probability of spinning your wheels, but I still have yet to meet anybody who has actually taken the risk of performing a statistically valid test to prove this assertion.
Reqs are a reality because reqs are a reality. That is the certain statement you can make about reqs. Everything else is just defending the status quo or making generalizations based on limited data. So, if you can’t prove that reqs increase the value you create for shareholders, and if there is plenty of data to show that they don’t create value for shareholders (lost time negotiating approvals, wasted time with candidates who applied against a job description that really doesn’t meet the hiring manager’s needs, etc.) then why do we keep sticking up for them?
Habit? Fear? You name it. Do we use reqs where I work? You bet. Have we made attempts to get rid of them? Yes. Have those attempts worked. Not yet. But we have recently put into place what I call an “opportunity” based strategy. I believe this strategy will effectively do away with reqs in one year, and provide all the reporting, control and analysis elements that reqs are purported to have, without any of the downside. So the efforts haven’t taken hold yet, but I am confident they will.
Regardless of any of that, reqs are guilty of all the sins I have enumerated so many times before: the are a risk control document that means more to the CFO than the talent, they lead you to measure yourselves by speed instead of value, and they drive clients to see you as a cost / risk problem in the organization instead of a critical business value add. None of that is in dispute. I still haven’t had anyone give me a rejoinder that would make me believe that I had any of my facts wrong.
I understand that people think I was throwing theory bombs into a glass house, but the reality is that reqs are an organizational impediment that, as long as they exist, will continually undue your success to move from being a tactical cost center to a strategic business value. We have to get beyond the argument about the reality of reqs and move to a better way (I’ll let you know how the opportunity structure works out for us). Think of it this way: getting diagnosed with a life threatening disease means that the disease is a reality, that it will be hard to get rid of and that your life will be consumed by it as long as it exists. That doesn’t mean you don’t look for a cure.
