"That's probably an overarching theme – we all together have to work harder, moving away from 'the person has done it before' to 'the person is likely to be able to perform really well in this role because I see enough indications of underlying skill sets, the right attitude, the right core capabilities'," Seek strategy director Florian Dehne told an RCSA breakfast event last week.
Asked about the risks and benefits of using software to match CVs against job descriptions and selection criteria, Dehne said there is a better approach recruiters can take: to look the historical data of people who have previously worked in that role.
"If that's being done at scale, that information can be used to say 'this is a good fit, even though I'm not able to see it explicitly by comparing the two documents'," he said.
The capability to go beyond matching CVs to job descriptions is necessary in a new norm of constant skills shortages, which Dehne said Seek's data suggests will only increase with time.
Comparisons of its job ad volume against the unemployment rate has historically revealed a negative correlated, he said.
"If the unemployment rate went up, the Seek ad volume went down, and vice versa."
But three or four years ago, when the unemployment rate went up, Seek's ad volume rose. "And we said, 'isn't this [negative correlation] a universal truth? How can this be happening?'"
Digging deeper, Seek found that over time skills shortages have become continuous in some areas while an excess of candidate supply is present in others.
Shortlists article on Monday 1st August