During a roundtable held by Time to Hire, the chair asked all the recruiters present why they had come. The answers looked strikingly alike.
"I want to get better at recruitment."
"I want to learn how we can attract more people."
"I am curious how we can fill vacancies faster."
Logical answers. But while I was listening, an uncomfortable feeling crept over me. Because what actually happens if every recruiter in the Netherlands gets better at recruiting?
We are all fishing in the same pond. And that pond is already almost empty.
If you get better at attracting care professionals, that often means that another care organisation loses those very same people.
So I opened the session with a question.
Are you a good recruiter if your success increases the staff shortage of another care organisation?
It went quiet.
Not because anyone did not know the answer.
But because almost nobody ever asks that question.
We measure success by vacancies filled. By a lower time-to-hire. By more applicants. By better conversion rates.
But perhaps we are measuring the wrong things.
What if we are asking ourselves the wrong question?
Perhaps the question is not how we get even better at recruitment.
Perhaps the question is how recruitment can contribute to care that is better organised with the same people.
To be honest, I do not know exactly how either.
In fact, I think nobody has the complete answer today.
But I do feel that we keep optimising the current system, while the system itself is coming under more and more pressure.
We talk constantly about a staff shortage.
More and more often I wonder whether what we mainly have is a shortage of imagination to organise work differently.
Recruiters are the first to see where it chafes
Recruiters speak to people every day.
They see who drops out.
Who very nearly fits.
Which roles have been open for months.
Which managers keep asking for the same profile again and again.
Perhaps that is why recruiters are the first who can see that the problem is not always the candidate.
Sometimes it is the work as we have organised it.
Why do we keep trying to fill the same role all over again?
Why do we not first look at whether the work could be divided differently?
Or whether tasks could be combined more cleverly?
Or whether someone with a different profile might be just as successful?
Those are not HR questions.
Those are organisational questions.
And recruiters are in a unique place to ask them.
Perhaps recruitment does not stop at a signature
Traditionally a recruiter is successful when someone signs a contract.
But why, actually?
At many care organisations the front door is wide open, while the back door is open at least as wide.
Then with every new vacancy we are mainly solving yesterday's outflow.
Perhaps that is why retention belongs to recruitment just as much.
Just like internal mobility.
Just like development.
And perhaps even job crafting.
Not because recruiters suddenly have to become organisational consultants.
But because they see every day where talent and work only just fail to find each other.
AI can help, but changes nothing without people
Of course I believe that AI can play an enormous role in this.
Not because AI replaces the recruiter.
But because AI makes visible the possibilities that we often overlook.
Hidden skills.
Development potential.
Skills gaps.
New career routes.
Tasks that could be combined differently.
AI helps us to look differently.
But the nerve to then actually do something different remains human work.
Perhaps we should dare to be more honest
During the roundtable we also talked about recruitment marketing.
Many organisations mainly try to show how lovely it is to work there.
But perhaps what people long for is honesty.
Yes, the workload is high.
Yes, it is complicated at times.
Yes, we are looking for colleagues.
Not because everything is perfect.
But because we are looking for people who want to organise care better together with us.
I heard about a care organisation that recently won an award with exactly that kind of honest campaign.
That moved me.
Perhaps we are far more attractive when we do not pretend to have all the answers.
From competitors to partners
One thought kept coming back all afternoon. Why do we actually accept that talent goes to waste?
Why should someone who is not hired at organisation A not automatically become visible to organisation B? Why can someone not work at several organisations at the same time.
Why do we keep competing, while we are all working on the same task for society?
I believe that technology, such as AI matching, (regional) talent pools and Talent Exchange Protocols (for exchange that is safe under the AVG, the Dutch GDPR), can play an important role in that.
Not because organisations lose their identity.
But because the responsibility to society is bigger than the organisation we work for.
I also realise how complicated this is
Perhaps this is the most important thing I felt that afternoon.
In your head it all makes sense.
Of course we have to organise differently. Of course we have to work together better. Of course we have to look beyond our own vacancies.
But in the meantime you also simply have targets.
An overcrowded diary. Managers who wanted to hire someone yesterday. Vacancies that have been open for months. And colleagues who are trying just as hard as you are.
So who am I to say that recruiters have to reorganise care as well?
And yet I believe their influence is much greater than they think themselves.
Not because they have to do even more. But because now and then they may ask a different question.
Do we really have to go looking for the same candidate again? Or should we perhaps look again at the work?
Personal leadership begins with a question
Change rarely begins with a big programme. And usually not with a director either.
Change often begins with someone who dares to ask a question in a meeting that has never been asked before.
Not out of criticism. Not out of frustration. But out of curiosity.
Out of connection. Out of the shared wish to make care stronger.
That sometimes calls for discomfort. But that is exactly where personal leadership begins.
Perhaps the future of care begins with the recruiter
Perhaps I am too optimistic. Perhaps I underestimate how complicated this is.
But I sincerely believe that recruiters have far more influence than they think themselves.
Not only on filling vacancies. But on how we organise the care of tomorrow.
Perhaps that change does not begin with the director. Not with HR. Not in Den Haag, the seat of Dutch national government.
Perhaps it simply begins with one recruiter who, during a vacancy meeting, has the courage to ask: "Do we actually need to be looking for the same person as last year?"
Thanks to Time to Hire for the trust in letting me facilitate this roundtable. And for the lovely photos.
Above all I hope that this conversation does not stop at one afternoon.
Because if one thing became clear, it is that nobody has the solution yet.
But I do have the feeling that we are finally beginning to ask the right questions.