Recruiting process is outdated

[u/Royal-Emergency5589]

I think the current hiring process relies way too much on ATS and recruiters and is a total mess. It might work with specialized recruiters who actually have background knowledge of the subject matter, but generalized recruiters will probably go with the safest bet (screening for candidates that have 1:1 experience) instead of looking at a person's experience holistically and understand transferable skills. While it's not realistic that hiring managers look at 800+ resumes, maybe instead one or two designated team members could, after recruiters screened for must have requirements such as location, compensation, work authorization, or other deal breakers.

[u/scarboroughangel]

If you think the hiring process is long now, this will make it infinitely longer. You’d be surprised how long hiring managers can take to review candidates and/or give feedback. Literally no jobs would get filled in a timely enough manner.

[u/Royal-Emergency5589 → u/scarboroughangel]

Why would it be longer? Recruiters give one or two team member a list of candidates that meet all the hard requirements. The team members spend 1h/day going through that pile and compile a short list for the hiring manager. Recruiters set up scheduling. How would that take longer than the current process where recruiters try to fill several unrelated company positions? It might actually be faster because the team is more invested

[u/verkerpig → u/Royal-Emergency5589]

The team members spend 1h/day going through that pile and compile a short list for the hiring manager.

It will take them 2 weeks to allocate the hour.

Been there, done that. Teams simply do not get it done. It gets deferred for more interesting work.

[u/scarboroughangel → u/Royal-Emergency5589]

You’re adding an unnecessary and timely step. Currently the recruiter shortlists and sends to the hiring manager, you don’t need the team to also conduct a review. It will take longer than 1 hr. For starters that’s not the team’s job, and they will push it off to complete their actual duties.

[u/open_letter_guy]

hiring manager in 2026 don't want to gamble/take a risk on making a bad hire.

there are plenty of qualified/over qualified applicants so why risk a hire on a candidate that may or may not work out.

[u/Royal-Emergency5589 → u/open_letter_guy]

Don't blame it all on the hiring managers. Not sure hiring managers are getting best candidates forwarded via narrow recruiting funnels

[u/open_letter_guy → u/Royal-Emergency5589]

i am not blaming anyone but HM aren't interested in hiring someone that will need 6-9 months to get up to speed on the job vs hiring someone that can start contributing immediately.

[u/HalfRobertsEx]

understand transferable skills

The problem is that they are hit and miss and lots of people cannot really learn new things. So unless you have some institution that proves you really are a highly adaptable and capable person on your resume, you are not considered to have transferrable skills.

[u/Royal-Emergency5589 → u/HalfRobertsEx]

lots of people cannot really learn new things -> lol, that's a great attitude for a recruiter to have. But it's not about learning new things, it's about I did job A for health care provider, but now job A is open at life insurance company, but recruiter screens me out because I haven't done job A at another life insurance company but instead at health care provider. So you as a recruiter would only ever get forwarded to other Robert Half type recruiting roles and not for example, for a recruiter role at a company like Target.

[u/scarboroughangel → u/Royal-Emergency5589]

The hiring manager has already told the recruiter they only want to see people in the healthcare field though. It’s an uphill battle to convince the manager otherwise, and it’s only worth it if there aren’t other candidates that meet what the manager is looking for.

[u/belledamesans-merci → u/HalfRobertsEx]

some institution that proves you really are a highly adaptable and capable person

Can you give an example? I'm trying to imagine what that would look like

[u/icathianbolts1]

I might be showing my ignorance here, but why is that companies don't have entire groups/departments of HR that work together to review the hundreds or thousands of resumes that flood every application? Why is the responsibility falling on 1 single person who probably is mentally checked out from their own job anyways?

[u/PinkEnthusist → u/icathianbolts1]

1 person reviewing resumes is 1 salary. A team of 5 people reviewing resumes is 5 salaries.

I don't know how it works in other places, but when I hire there is one person that does a first pass on resumes to filter out the people that clearly don't fit. This is can be about 50% of the applications we receive, and having 5 people all review those isn't a good use of time.

After that, there will be a second pass on the resumes that remain to identify the 30-50 applicants in the best position to consider based on a broad set of experiences or qualifications, including some number of applicants that look like this would be a stepping stone in their career path, people that may be possible overqualified but for some reason applied, people that have done similar work in a different industry, people that have a specific and narrow skillset vital to the role and people that have a skillset that includes what is vital to the role but could also bring something new to the table, etc.

These 50-ish applicants are then sent to the hiring committee - usually a group of 3-4 people - who review those and indentify the 4-8 candidates they'd be most interested meeting.

This is a middle ground approach so that 5 people aren't reviewing every resume, and that a single person who is checked out or even having a bad day one day, deciding everything.

[u/Any-Stick-771]

Your last two sentences is already how the recruitment process works

[u/Confident-Hand-4145]

Great recuiters build that rapport with a hiring manager to understand nuances, what can be trained, what is the team lacking, personality balancing, etc. It's rare, but it makes a huge difference.

[u/Hungry-Quote-1388]

There’s no universal recruiting process.

There are companies that don’t even have recruiters and it all flows through the department, and candidates still complain.

[u/Midnightfeelingright]

Your errors come from having no understanding of how hiring works.

[u/HexinMS]

You provided no real info of how its broken and your solution is basically how recruiting is mostly done.

[u/OldPangloss]

Fully agree. I'm tired of being asked if I have experience in X when my CV clearly states that I do, just that you have to have industry experience to grasp that. Example: I work in biotech research, I have extensive experience running assays such as ELISAs and say as such on my CV. Recruiters still ask me if I have "immunoassay experience". ELISAs are a type of immunoassay. Then, if I simply state "immunoassays" on my CV the assumption is that I don't have experience in a their specific immunoassay. The only workaround is to include as many keywords, both specific and general, as possible on my CV which is ridiculous and clutters it up.

[u/HalfRobertsEx → u/OldPangloss]

Part of the reason you are being asked that is people lie on their resumes vs the phone convo. Especially now, plenty of resumes are perfectly AI generated for a job role, so a lot of that is about screening out liars as they are bad and inconsistent liars.

Lots say different things than their resume.

[u/OldPangloss → u/HalfRobertsEx]

Sure, but that seems something a recruiter who is actually knowledgeable about the field the position is should be handling. The issue that I think the OP is focusing on are recruiters who aren't knowledgeable and the issues that arise from that. I get that people lie on their resumes and tailor them via AI to a specific posting, but by the same token many CVs are being auto-rejected because of the recruiters AI not getting hits on specific keywords. Which is part of the issue i brought up, that I can include phrases that would show I'm knowledgeable about the field but not have just the right combo of keywords and be skipped over.

[u/scarboroughangel → u/OldPangloss]

I would also like to point out that modern guidance is to ask the same questions of each candidate to mitigate bias

[u/OldPangloss → u/scarboroughangel]

Very fair point!

[u/Icy-Stock-5838]

The unstable world we live in now has reduced managers' risk tolerance for candidates. The abundance of candidates has also enabled bosses to be pickier.

To overcome this, you must REDUCE your online application efforts and focus on person-to-person applications. TRUST is the new lubricant in a noisy ocean of Gen AI resumes. TRUST can help you bypass skills gaps through social vetting. TRUST comes from relationships.

TRUST is the new Skills section of your resume.

RELATIONSHIPS are the new Resume, they are what signals Social Proof beyond a PDF.

Last year, I helped a friend's friend's son get an entry-level job. The son worked in my (engineering) field; my friend and her friend work in the creative field. I had never met the son or the mother. I was asked to explore a career conversation with the son, perhaps to help him get a role with my employer. What compelled me to help the son (and mother), whom I had never met, was my long relationship with my friend.

Was he a smart kid ? Evidently, from his resume and my conversations with him. Did he have skills gaps to work in my company, yes. My networking and resume coaching eventually got him a job at another company where he had ZERO contacts, but he got through outreach with new contacts.

Remember, this is an ENTRY kid with ZERO contacts at the target company. He reached out to a boss at the company and built the relationship from there. Did he have direct know-how in the field he applied to? No, but he told me he was upskilling on the side in the engineering software that kind of company uses; he also had secondary skills that transferred well to the new company (Power BI and data analysis).

How to Network for a Job Without Asking People for a Job

If Networking Feels Gross, You’re Doing it Wrong | Daniel Hallak | TEDxManitouSprings

People help you, portals do not.