Another loudmouth ‘recruiter-hater’ falls from grace

I take zero pleasure when someone fails in business.

I know too well the risk, stress and hard work it takes to start and build a business, and admire anyone who tries, regardless of the outcome.

However it’s always important to be humble as you go about your work, focusing on what you can do better, and never, ever bagging your competition. That’s ugly, and can so often come back to haunt you.

And so it was that I cringed a few years ago when Gen George, the 22-year-old founder of online job marketplace OneShift, in a moment of early success and embarrassing hubris said the following;

“The recruitment industry is broken. It’s completely exploitative, and is responsible for huge amounts of dissatisfaction on both sides of the employment equation – jobseekers and employers.

If you’re still using big recruiters to find your talent, you’re relying on an outdated, needlessly expensive and ineffective process. Stop wasting your money.”

This outburst was covered in detail by Ross Clennett.

When she offered those opinions, Ms. George had just received a $5 M injection from Programmed for 27.5% of her company, a move that would have delighted her no doubt, but bemused me, as I could see nothing about One Shift that solved any problem that needed solving.

It partially prompted this post from me, which pointed out why so many hysterical HR tech startups were destined to fail, and indeed, have done so in many cases, including this one.

So it came as no surprise to me this week when the news leaked out that Gen George has been stood down as CEO of her own company (circumstances are not clear, but this does not happen when things are going well), and even more tellingly, Programmed have had to assume 100% ownership of OneShift, while at the same time writing down the value of its investment in One Shift with an impairment charge of 2.1 M.

The One Shift development follows hard on the news that Search Party Group managing director and chief executive officer, Ben Hutt has resigned. As recently as October 2016, Search Party predicted ‘accelerating growth’, and forecast annual gross revenue to reach $450 million ‘within 2 to 3 years’. Search Party  subsequently announced in April 2017, that they have ‘suspended any marketing and customer focused activities, and any further revenue is expected to be minimal for the foreseeable future’. Newly appointed Interim CEO Josh Rogers admitted that The Search Party ‘tried to do everything for everyone‘, and has not been sufficiently clear on the areas where it can add value for the relevant stakeholders. According to Shortlist, the bio of Ben Hutt on the company website advises that Hutt raised more than $14.7m in investments throughout his tenure. This money is presumably lost or at best the value severely denuded. ( I could not find this bio on the site, which is unsurprising as he has now left).

Meanwhile, pretty much every large recruitment company, required to report financial results, are declaring significant growth in revenue and profits, a trend reflected in the accounts of just about every one of the 14 small to medium sized recruitment companies where I have a seat on the Advisory Board.

The global agency recruitment industry is now worth almost USD $ 500 Billion and is growing at 6.8% a year (Source: Staffing Industry Analysts and Ciett). I see no reason to adjust my feeling about the industry that was backed up by hard data here.

I am sure technology will impact recruitment significantly and soon. Sourcing, screening, matching, candidate assessment will all be fundamentally changed by big data and AI. And we can expect chatbots to reinvent the candidate experience too.

A ‘ big bang’ that disrupts recruitment entirely however, is harder to envisage anytime soon.

Gen George will no doubt learn from this experience, and hopefully go on to great success in some other arena, treading carefully, and respectfully, as she goes.

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Image courtesy of Joe the Goat Farmer