RecOps Starts With Why
One of my favorite questions to ask people, both personally and professionally, is “what is your question word?” Whether you’re conscious of it, you just haven’t thought about it, or you’re a movie buff who liked the opening monologue from Inside Man, your question word is often the underlying theme of the type of work or environment you work best in and gives you the most satisfaction. Personally, like many Recruiting Ops people, my question word is Why.
TL;DR:
Always provide your Recruiting Ops teams with a Why.
What fixes holes (ex. symptoms). Why fixes walls (ex. problems).
Background
Now, before we get into this, was this article inspired by Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Action by Simon Sinek? Not so much. Does his Golden Circle do a fantastic job of visualizing Why? 100%. Here it is and here is a link to his TEDx Talk for more context:
The inspiration here actually comes from my conversations with my contemporaries in the Recruiting Operations space and the stories we tell each other. Nearly all of our stories start with Why in the form of “Why we had to make this change…” or “Why can’t XYZ tool just give me XYZ outcome?”
Why is Why so Important to Recruiting Operations Practitioners?
To diagnose a problem, you have to start with Why. Recruiting Operations exists to solve problems in Recruiting whether that is an issue with process, training, tooling, or data. Unlike What/Where/Who/How understanding the Why helps Recruiting Ops have the framework necessary to maintain consistency and build solutions that stick with the vision and philosophy of an entire Recruiting team. The Why becomes the rallying point and a strong Why provides a North Star, alignment, and empowerment.
Where is Why Helpful?
Data
Arguably every Recruiting Ops Leader has been asked to pull a report (ex. Time to Start, Time to Fill, you name it) and nearly every single one has received a request for more information immediately after or more clarification in the form of “Why are the numbers like this?”. Generally, this happens because the individual requesting the information doesn’t know the story they want to tell yet. In effect, they lack a Why. Many new Recruiting Ops folks try to solve that Why by throwing numbers to the point of overloading the requestor in the hopes, in providing all numbers, they get the right ones.
However, as I discovered early in my career, this is both a time vampire and also ineffective. My perception of this changed however once I started to ask the question every time I got a request, “Why do you need this report and what story are you trying to tell?” Call it the Why You, Why You Now often used by Sales teams but for recruiting metrics. Not only were the answers I received enlightening, as many would uncover improvement areas in the recruiting process (ex. “Jane/John Doe says they have been doing too many interviewers in a week. Is that true?”), but also provided a prioritization, since not all data requests require the same amount of urgency. Additionally, this cut down the approach of throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks to focused and actionable data that solves problems.
Process Improvement
I’ll say this for every hiring manager and recruiter in the back: Recruiting Operations is about efficiency. At our core, we are about making the candidate/interviewer/recruiter experience as frictionless and easy as possible wherever possible. Contrary to popular belief, we do not set out to punish recruiters with things like required steps or put required questions that every interviewer must ask before submitting their interview feedback. We are not the DMV:
Whenever we are brought into conversations about changes to a process, we start with Why (ex. “Why are we changing the process?”, “Why is now the right time to make this change?”, “Why were our systems and processes made like this in the first place and why was that the philosophy of the time?”). A good example of Why guiding a change in my career comes from why I’ve built interview scheduling queues nearly everywhere I have worked. Why have I built them? Because they allowed everything to be organized and recruiting coordinators (RCs) to report on data. Why is that data important? Because perception is often more valued than reality when it comes to quick decisions so these open and centralized systems/processes gave more information than less helping to show each individual's impact.
Tools
Talk to any Recruiting Ops Leader and they will tell you horror stories about the hours they spent researching new tools, doing product evaluations, and negotiating contracts only to have everything halted at the very end. Before starting any evaluation, you must start with Why questions (ex. Why do we need this tool? Why are we spending this money? Why are we adding another tool if this other tool does something similar?). What the tool is can be important but Why this tool now and how it fits into the overall vision is extremely important, especially in lean times.
Conclusion
For all my RecOps people, do you agree that Why is our spaces question word? Feel free to like, comment, and share. Completely open to meaningful dialogue on this topic as it is something that I love.
This article originally appeared on LinkedIn on 11/2/2022.
Disclaimer: The views expressed and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and they do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the analysis are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the author. Since we are critically-thinking human beings, these views are always subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time. Please do not hold them in perpetuity.
