In 1997, I started writing a column about the recruitment technology industry for The Wall Street Journal. In the 30 years since then, I watched the industry not just survive but prosper through three near-death crises: the bursting of the dot.com bubble, the Great Recession and the Covid pandemic. Despite wild swings in corporate hiring, despite layoffs and rehiring and layoffs again, despite “doing more with less” and other business bromides, recruitment technology companies both multiplied and prospered.
It is an extraordinary track record, and yet, there is now a rising chorus of voices opining that yet another crisis has arrived, one that at least a segment of the industry will not survive. This claim isn’t new, of course, but the size of the chorus espousing it has grown significantly. Their incessant forecast of extinction may focus on one segment – job boards – but its cumulative effect is to cast a shadow of uncertainty over the entire industry.
Inciting gloom and doom is a popular pastime these days, but in this case, the charge won’t stick. Why? Because recruitment technology companies – next generation employment sites (NGEs, the future in job boards) as well as talent technology companies and AI-powered TA solutions – are on the cusp of a Golden Age.
The War for Talent is over. Employers lost. While thousands of CEOs went on CNBC and solemnly proclaimed that workers were their most important asset, they continued to staff and budget their recruiting operation exactly as they did in the 1950s. They ignored a simple but profound truth: You can’t manage the human resources you don’t have. It makes no sense – to their Boards of Directors or their shareholders – to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in HR technology if you haven’t got the talent with which to use it. And, they don’t.
Today’s talent market competition isn’t a 20th century War for Talent, it’s a 21st century War for AI-ready Talent Hegemony. Whether you believe artificial intelligence will reshape 20% of all professions, crafts and trades or 50% or 90% of every occupation on the talent – wherever you come out on that scale – the fact remains: There isn’t enough AI-ready talent to go around, and there won’t be for at least another generation.
In a hegemonic market there are only two kinds of organizations: Winners and Losers. And, where an organization comes out will be determined by recruitment technology. It is the tip of the spear. Only NGEs, talent technology companies and AI-powered TA solutions can position an employer to capture an unfair share of the AI-ready in the market. That’s the definition of success in today’s and tomorrow’s talent market, and it’s that reality which creates the condition for a Golden Age in recruitment technology.
Being on the cusp of a Golden Age and actually enjoying its full power and promise are two very different things, however. Getting from Point A to Point B will require the industry to measure up to more than a few challenges. These are not crises, but summons to change for success. I’ll describe several of them in my next post.
Thanks for Reading,
Peter
Peter Weddle is the Founder & CEO of TAtech: The Network for Talent Technology Solutions. The author or editor of over two dozen books, he has also been a columnist for The Wall Street Journal and chaired major human-machine and leadership studies for select Federal Boards.
