Fintech Awards 2018

6 How Blockchain Will Affect the Recruitment Industry Arran James Stewart is the co-owner of blockchain recruitment platform Job.com. He discusses the issues around blockchain’s effect on the recruitment industry of the future. Thanks to the media buzz surrounding cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, blockchain has become one of technology’s hottest topics. Blockchain, the technology behind Bitcoin, has much more to offer than just new forms of currencies. Security and trust are the major factors influencing a service or system’s success and with this, blockchain is now set to transform every major industry we know today. The recruitment industry has seen many changes over the last five decades especially following the introduction of the internet. Online recruitment platforms, application tracking, and talent management systems revolutionized hiring twenty years ago, expanding both the job and candidate pool far and wide. More recent aggregation, syndication, and consolidated online recruitment solutions have taken the main stage by supporting recruitment agencies in placing candidates into companies. However, instead of making the hiring process more efficient, technology has just added more time, costs, and fraud to the industry. Blockchain technology offers the recruitment industry the opportunity to completely reinvent itself. Communication, certification, and trust are built into the framework of blockchain and are coincidentally key factors for having a successful hire. Communication: The current recruitment process relies heavily on three lines of communication between client, recruiter, and candidate. The recruiter sits in the middle, serving as the intermediary between the candidate and the client. Recruiters introduce candidates and divulge information in a way that is beneficial to them, rather than the client’s best interest. Information may be withheld; poorly suited candidates may be presented all to justify the recruiter’s position. This lengthens the recruitment process and can lead to malpractice, with recruiters purposefully focusing on their commission prospects rather than making a match that’s a good fit for all parties. 1 Blockchain with its decentralized network and open peer-to-peer communication will completely change the recruitment process by allowing candidates and clients to engage directly with one another. This, of course, raises the question of trust. How can an employer or potential employee be sure they’re dealing with the person they believe they are? How can you verify the skills, experience, and achievements listed on their resume? Trust: Recruitment agencies have always been in charge of conducting due diligence on these factors, however, it isn’t a perfect science. Candidates are notorious for falsifying information on resumes; lying about everything from job duration and responsibilities to their references and skills. Since blockchain is a recorded, public ledger of information shared across thousands of machines it be corrupted, changed or tampered with. The ledger is recorded over separate hardware, accessible only by verified users whose every action is recorded in the ledger. Utilizing this property of blockchain, companies will be able to rely on references and records of a candidate’s performance as told by a trustworthy source and recorded on the blockchain. This removes the ability of a candidate to edit, amend or completely change their history; meaning that the information provided in resumes can be researched and supported (or exposed as false). Hiring companies will be able to look to the blockchain for all their reliable reference and documentation needs to ensure their newest hire is exactly who they claim to be. Certification: Certification, or physical proof of skills by practical demonstration – has proved difficult within the recruitment process, especially within the technology space. Blockchain will provide a platform for candidates to demonstrate their capabilities and have this certified by other trusted users, such as former employers, colleagues, or academic institutions.