There’s no doubt that blockchain, its properties, and the surrounding cryptocurrencies are not only here to stay, they are here to disrupt.
When you think of anything concerning technology and finance, you may as well consider what industries it will impact. It’s safe to say that blockchain and crypto will impact every industry, including recruitment.
Recruitment has been chasing the technology dream since it began five decades ago as a major industry. Technology brought us the job board, it gave us applicant tracking, talent management, matching technology, aggregation, niche verticals — the list goes on and on. All of these technological breakthroughs have one common denominator; they have all contributed to the improved efficiency and increased productivity of the recruitment market.
I was astounded to learn from the latest IBIS report on the global recruitment market that the industry grew by nearly $200 billion globally from 2014 to 2017. This shows that global companies are consuming more recruitment services than ever before. However, as consumer demand increases, so does the demand for better and more improved services. I believe that technology, and more specifically blockchain, is the solution to this.
In my view, the roll out of blockchain technology in recruitment is here and will provide several advancements that will mature, grow and become the prominent solution in the hiring world. Trust and a recorded ledger is key when it comes to hiring staff. At its base level, blockchain provides a service that dates back to medieval times, whatever you put on it is set in stone. In this instance that could be a recorded ledger of someone’s resume, references, and work history. Statistically, 85% of candidates lie on their resume and/or during the hiring process — imagine a system like blockchain that could keep a recorded ledger of all this activity. This will bring a premium towards accuracy within the recruitment industry. This sort of technology, I can assure you, is coming and will be in the hands of hiring managers within the next 12 months.
Looking into the slightly more distant future, cryptocurrencies may play a vital role in the contract recruitment market. Imagine contractors being paid instantly for their services directly from a company wallet to an employee’s wallet, anywhere in the world? In the IT community, this is already a massively viable solution to paying contractors on time and potentially for people working for organisations to be sure that their employer has the means to pay them.
However, everything I am talking about here is small in comparison to the true future of recruitment, which I truly believe is coming in the next 5–10 years. Blockchain, coupled with other technologies such as matching, video interview, facial recognition and AI could automate the entire hiring process, deeming the traditional recruitment agency obsolete. Sounds far-fetched? Consider that we have the facial recognition technology to identify who someone is. If a candidate is lying, we a have tracked record of their work history securely stored on the blockchain. We can use social data to determine a candidate’s personality, and we can use the referencing from previous employers to ensure that applicants have the work ethic they say they do. We can even profile company culture from one organisation to another to consider whether a certain candidate would be a good fit.
Recruitment is costing companies $638 billion per annum. Such an investment every year leaves room for technology solutions built on the blockchain to offer companies a more efficient automated solution at a fraction of the cost of traditional staffing agencies.
The first adopters of this sort of technology would work in the IT, legal, financial and engineering markets first and then would spread to all other sectors as this method of hiring became more commonly accepted and adopted.
Before I run off into a world of automated AI, lets recap: blockchain is already launching into the recruitment world, and with it comes the possibility of integrating cryptocurrencies as payment methods as well. However, the truly exciting part is how blockchain will stitch together other existing technology in order to potentially remove the costly human element out of the hiring process.
But really what is it about blockchain that has gotten everyone so excited? Perhaps it could be its trust and security, something we crave at every touch point of our lives. When we value something or need to make sure we have complete accuracy on something, blockchain technology is the modern ‘set in stone’ that our ancestors once did if they wanted something to be kept accurate for eternity.
I think that is what I love most about technology; it’s a brand-new way of doing what we have always done. Only better.
Author: Arran Stewart, Co-founder and CVO, Job.com
Original Article Found Here