What will 2014 bring for HR Technology?
It’s that time of year when soothsayers convene to clog our twitter feeds and block our inboxes with newsletters predicting the ups, downs and developments of the year to come. So I too will take a crystal ball and hurl it from my 5th story office window to see if the shards, like tea leaves, will also offer enlightenment.
So here it is, from the chilled beauty of Prague, a European take on what lies ahead and specifically what lies ahead for the sub-industry of automated video interviewing providers such as my company who are out there hawking their wares and looking to the tipping point that lies tantalisingly on the horizon.
It seems to me that there’s a huge disconnect between the bubble of HR conferences and the everyday reality of the HR function. To listen to the conversations and presentations in the temperature-controlled exhibition caverns of Las Vegas, Amsterdam and Dubai or the plethora of Mobile in Recruitment/Social Media In Graduate Recruitment/Best Practice in Onboarding conferences taking place in rent-by-the-half-day hotel meeting suites across the world, you’d think that automated video interviewing was truly embedded as a recruitment tool in all but the most retrograde of organisations. After all, there’s a piece of research out there that’s been doing the rounds for well over a year now which tells us that 63% of companies are using video interviewing. There you have it. It must be true. It’s a statistic.
The trouble is, like many statistics, it’s been hijacked by many to demonstrate the adoption rate of automated video interviewing. Those researchers weren’t asking specifically about usage of automated – digital – asynchronous – call it what you will video interviewing. Rather, they were investigating the take-up of Skype, Google Hangouts and other real-time interviewing tools as replacement for the telephone interview or other early screening mechanism. Automated video interviewing is still very much the tool of the early adopter.
So what lies ahead for us in 2014? Certainly, the competition will heat up. Which is no bad thing, for with that comes increased awareness and interest. It’ll be good news for conference and exhibition organisers too, as providers will invest significant proportions of their marketing budgets in getting seats on the platform and voices in the room. And while every one of us aspires to global domination, the reality, in the short-term at least, will be a reprioritisation of geographical targeting because, even in this globalised day, customers want to be at least on the same continent as their provider. It’s just the nature of the inherently conservative HR professional. They’re not ready to shop online for this, not in Europe, not yet. So for the next year at least, client and provider will continue to refine the value proposition, for while industry commentators and early adopters see the value of automated video interviewing as a screening tool, there isn’t yet the critical mass to give the late adopters the comfort that they need to sign up.
For some, the jury is still out as to whether automated video interviewing is a stand-alone tool, so expect to see further integrations with ATS and HRIS. Reality check: it’s different strokes for different folks – the big boys will want the big toys; smaller organisations will have less complex requirements.
We’re always being told that Europe is behind the curve, technology-wise, following in the footsteps of the US, and to some extent that’s true. But from the recruiter’s point of view, there are also some very different dynamics at play here. Firstly, with 28 countries in the European Union and a population that has topped 500 million, this open and highly mobile labour market is like none other. Its mobility leaves some countries struggling with the economic (not to mention social) impact of both emigration and immigration and its consequent implications at either end of the recruitment spectrum. That impact was already being felt before the 2008 meltdown and its catastrophic impact. Secondly, the quality of transport infrastructure is hugely varied, with many former Iron Curtain countries still facing decades of catch-up, meaning that accessing the talent pool in traditional ways can be both inefficient and expensive. Thirdly, with 24 official languages, as well as countless unofficial ones and dialects, language and communication skills are key for many jobs. The net result is that few recruiters have begun to access the full talent pool that is available to them. But with a technology infrastructure becoming more sophisticated and integrated by the day, the potential is enormous. From my parochial perch in Central Europe, the next 12 months will see things move forward a bit. But there won’t be a revolution.
This post is part of SilkRoad’s first annual #HRTechTrends Blog Carnival. A recap of all participants will be posted on SilkRoad Ink on December 20, 2013.