A digital recruiting partner? Far from it.

I am currently in the process of finding new team members for our companies. At Parashift, our DeepTech start-up in the document sector, this is now a team effort. Not only, but also because the boss, i.e. me, has messed up a bit in the past.

(This article first appeared on topsoft.ch)

I hired people who sometimes didn’t really fit in with the team and our mission. I was simply too impatient and wanted to fill the position as quickly as possible. More often than not, this led to painful situations where we had to make corrections without the people who were mainly suffering being able to do much about it.

“Team and culture fit” over (almost) everything

There are an incredible number of very good and capable people out there. They all do a great job. Nevertheless, not every person with extensive machine learning experience is in the right place with us. And – even more perfidious – not everyone who has almost no experience with documents is automatically wrong for us.

Over time, I have learned that “cultural compatibility” is one of the most important factors influencing whether a job candidate will become a valuable and contributing team member. Especially in small companies like ours – with just over 40 employees – this is of crucial importance. And as our ambitions as a company grow, the “cultural component” also becomes more important.

“Soft factor match”

This makes it all the more frustrating that we receive a huge number of applications for many positions. Usually 1/3 can be sorted out directly because the skills specified do not meet the advertised requirements. This leaves around 2/3 of the applications that we have to go through. Once we have dealt with these applications, perhaps 3% remain that are really suitable. Unfortunately, it is often 0% at first.

This effort is completely pointless and frustrating for everyone.

A new type of recruiting platform

I think it’s time for that to change. And it is comparatively easy to change. It starts with “rethinking” this process, moving away from “selection” towards a mutual “finding”. What seems almost banal and esoteric is in fact a fundamental rethink.

Of course, the facts about education and experience have to be right, but employers and employees should also be asked about and “matched” with a large number of soft factors. A recruiting platform of the next decade could not simply be a (highly paid) “digital advertising forest”, but a genuine digital recruiting partner that ensures that the right teams and employees come together. This saves a lot of time on unsuitable constellations. And you have more time to get to know each other better.