Today, looking for a job is sometimes as simple as pouring over pages of listings on the internet and, in turn, recruiters looking for qualified candidates must wade through a mountain of resumes to find the perfect fit. The history of recruiting has significantly changed over the years thanks to advancements in technology. Just 10 years ago, recruiting was simply waiting for a candidate to submit an application for an open position, but today there is so much more that goes into matching talent with an organization.
The history of recruiting spans nearly the entirety of the human race, though in the beginning, it wasn’t a voluntary thing. In ancient civilizations, leaders would “recruit” people to serve in military capacities or to build large-scale structures without their consent. Throughout time the workforce began to demand a right to choose their own work and privately-owned businesses fueled this. Once the Industrial Revolution hit, recruitment began happening at a local level. But as the revolution began to roll, factories found themselves at a need for specially trained workers with specific skills. When companies couldn’t find qualified workers within their local markets, they began going to other areas and recruiting workers to move near their operations to work.
Recruiting as it is today didn’t truly form until World War II. When vast swaths of the working population were called to war, recruiting agencies began to develop to fill the need for qualified workers. These agencies took out ads in the newspaper to find workers that couldn’t serve in the war but were still able to work. When they first started, recruiting agencies worked for job seekers primarily instead of companies seeking to fill positions. The economic growth of the 1970s saw companies beginning to outsource their hiring to recruiting agencies, which turned the tide of how they were run. During the 1980s, the main place to find employment was through searching the classified ads where recruiters put out a call for skilled workers.
Today, with the advent of the internet, classified ads have been replaced. Those seeking new opportunities and companies looking for the perfect fit have so much more access to each other. However, this wealth of information makes finding the right person or right company for a worker even more difficult. Recruiting firms serve an even more integral part in the job market of today. With a strong job market, and unemployment rates so low, a lot more effort goes into finding just one candidate. If you’re on the hunt for a new opportunity or you’re an organization looking to fill an open position, let the professionals at MSB Resources help you.