Where do you see yourself in 20 years?
If you’re wondering about what the future landscape of recruiting will look like then, I have three words for you:

I don’t know. 🤷🏼‍♂️

However, I can illustrate how technology, innovation, and a purposeful mission statement have defined my recruiting career over the last two decades.

These are several pivotal dates in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when technology and innovation profoundly influenced our current recruiting landscape:

1️⃣9️⃣9️⃣8️⃣: The early implementation of the ATS (Applicant Tracking Software), which eventually replaced the need for recruiters to use fax machines, file cabinets, and Rolodexes.

1️⃣9️⃣9️⃣9️⃣: Monster.com emerged as the premier online job search platform, rendering newspaper job listings obsolete, but also sparking concerns about its potential to replace recruiters.

2️⃣0️⃣0️⃣0️⃣: The rise of Corporate Recruiters became evident. Telecom and .com companies pioneered creating in-house talent teams, leading to the coining of the term “corporate recruiters.”

2️⃣0️⃣0️⃣3️⃣: LinkedIn was launched in May, and eventually gained traction around 2006, revolutionizing recruiting practices and empowering innovative recruiters.

2️⃣0️⃣0️⃣4️⃣: Vendor Management Systems (VMS) were introduced to offer HR teams comprehensive control and transparency over their external staffing agency vendors and their processes.

2️⃣0️⃣0️⃣5️⃣: Recruiting Process Outsourcing (RPO) gained popularity, mirroring the trend of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) that began to take off earlier that decade.

A purposeful mission statement:
🎯 “Strive for excellence through serving others”.
For the first 7 years of my recruiting career, I worked for the largest technical staffing firm in the U.S., and this was the mission statement that was rolled out by the then-president of the Company.

👊 While no one can predict the exact future of recruiting, I don’t see a future where the values of “striving for excellence” and “serving others” don’t play a significant role.  I mean, who wouldn’t want to work with recruiters (or whatever fancy title they come up with) who live by these principles, right?

💪 Abraham Lincoln wisely said, “The best way to predict the future is to build it.” For those starting their recruiting careers, I encourage you to look to technology, innovation, and your core values as tools to shape your future. Don’t let the buzz about AI taking over jobs scare you. Maybe, just maybe, this challenge is your very own Monster.com moment – a chance to transform and shape the future. Ready to build it? Let’s do this! 🚀