I know, I know, that’s a rather hefty headline.
But recently we have seen a lot of discussions about the future.
We had ‘Back to the Future’ day a good couple of weeks back and got a whole slew of articles like this - From hoverboards to self-tying shoes: Predictions that Back to the Future II got right. And at this year’s Paris Games Week, Sony showcased Playstation VR. So now seems as good a time as any to talk about the future.
Whenever I hear that word I automatically think flying cars and floating cities – Clearly I’ve watched far too much science fiction.
But to me it is also a very rousing word. No one knows exactly what the future holds, and that is what makes it so exciting. It is a word that encourages debate. And with the possible outcomes being almost endless, not everyone’s opinion will turn out to be true. In fact, attempting to predict the future could easily be classified as a foolish endeavour, but an ever so fun one.
As a result, I am going to reveal what I believe the future holds for the world of recruitment.
A few lines back, I mentioned about the possible outcomes being almost endless. So in order to keep this article from spiralling into a tedious bloated mess, I am only going to focus on two major predictions.
The first of which is the dominance of digital.
This prediction has already arrived. I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve had to produce a ‘real’ paper copy of my CV. Every job I’ve had, started with me submitting a copy of my CV online. I am typing these words right now, in order for them to appear online. We are online, all day every day and that is not going to change any time soon. It is only going to get more entwined with day-to-day reality as time moves on. This brings me onto to the following example.
Now I am more than aware that this was a flippant campaign from Old Spice. No ‘serious’ recruiter would hire a talking wolf to help hire potential employees. Although I have to admit, if they did, I would pack-up and leave everything behind to work for the talking dog. What that says about me, I don’t know. Anyway, the campaign may have been a bit of fun, but the agency behind the idea used online tools to help ‘hire’ a new personal assistant for the Wolfdog. It doesn’t get any less surreal to read ‘Wolfdog’ as a type, but please bear with me.
The Wolfdog conducted interviews via Google Hangouts – Yes; people were talking to a Wolfdog. But any recruiter could set up a Google Hangout and interview applicants. They could set them tasks to complete on social media, just like the Wolfdog. They could even create helpful tip-videos, just like the Wolfdog.
This in turn helps lead me nicely into the second prediction – The rise of the video.
Again, I am cheating here, as this too has also come to fruition. Things like video CV’s exist and have done for some time, but they are not prevalent. In say ten to twenty years I don’t think that will be the case. By no means am I saying that everyone and their pet Wolfdog will have a video CV, far from it. What I am saying though is that bit-sized bursts of video will be used by both potential employees and potential employers to stand out. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if we started having six second interviews on Vine.
…Then again, maybe not.
Grant Morrison, Marketing Executive (Creative), Nine Twenty