With the recruitment process being pretty generic and the same as it has been for a while, perhaps it’s time we ditch the dated textbooks and take a more person-based approach.
With the use of dated textbook ideas, the recruitment process from HR is very generic and not very personal at all. It’s time to start applying a person-centered approach to recruitment and hiring people on their individual assets and qualities.
No two people are the same so why would they be in terms of recruitment, everybody has different strengths and weaknesses and people should be assessed on these not simply a checklist fresh from a decade-old textbook.
Human Resources often take the approach of “these are the rules, no deviations”, however, life is not simply just black and white, there is a high level of tolerance and acknowledgement of diversity now.
For example, the outdated view that it is unprofessional to have bright unnatural colored hair is a policy that is present in a lot of Human Resource departments, this view is simply outdated and unnecessary. The color of a person’s hair has no impact on their ability to complete high-quality work, neither does any physical attributes however these are frowned on from a Human Resources point of view.
Society is ever-evolving and developing and whilst there obviously do need to be HR and recruitment rules in place to a certain degree for the safety and protection of employees, a lot of these policies are outdated. Human resources focus on ensuring their recruitment processes are fair and diverse, including a wide variety of demographics, but whilst this is happening it also isolates members of society alienating them. Instead of reading from dated textbooks and following out-of-date policies, there needs to be a rolling evolution into HR policies to ensure they are constantly being updated and kept up to date.
Recruitment processes can be quite ruthless when it comes to whittling down job applications, it can rule out people that would be very good at the job because HR recruitment processes deem them as unsuitable. Instead of expecting everyone to dance to the same tune, it needs to be understood that every single person in this world is different and therefore will not fit into the same parameters. There can be two people applying for a job, one could be “by the book” and one not, the person not by the book could actually be the better, most capable one of the two.
It is widely acknowledged that the current recruitment processes do discriminate against people in the workplace, even if there are specific protocols in place to stop discrimination, it does still happen. There needs to be a focus on true equality within the recruitment process, this won’t happen until the outdated textbooks are tossed out and new approaches are brought into the recruitment process to shake things up a bit and ensure the recruitment process is more versatile.
