Technology and HR: Not So Fast Or So Good After All!

And you thought technology, particularly the web, was going to radically change HR, especially recruitment and hiring? Apparently, it ain’t so! Contrary to what I envisioned in a 1999 article, the impact of the Internet on HR activities seems much slower. A recent article in Erexchange.com paints a somewhat gloomy picture. Specifically,

Lou Adler argues here that:

this industry has little direction. My hope for a technology solution to make hiring top talent a systematic process is not progressing as rapidly as necessary

While he offers two good examples of recent innovations using the Internet to facilitate recruitment and hiring, these innovations hardly seem earthshattering. For example, one company has created software system enables job candidates to automatically schedule their own interviews without recruiter involvement. He notes that most Applicant Tracking System (ATS) companies are quite small (revenues of $50 million or less) and that the industry is highly fragmented.

In some ways, however, these conclusions are similar to what Charles Handler has written elsewhere. Specifically, Charles began his 2004 summary of on-line recruitment and hiring trends with the statement that:

“Changes will be slow.”

It doesn’t seem as though this has changed as we near the end of 2004. The good news is that there is much room for improvement!

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