A pair of luxury Italian shoes can cost many thousands of dollars.   The best ones are handmade, of course. Using old world techniques and custom materials.  

The most expensive cars in the world routinely eclipse the $3M mark.   And they too are not made on a high speed assembly line.  

They’re made one at a time.  By hand.

And yet here we are -- the recruiting industry -- racing to remove hands from an entirely human experience, the hiring process.

We’ve been told that we must automate our low-value, administrative tasks that no one wants to do.

But wait...who told us that?   Candidates?

Did they beg for more automation?  Do they want less human interaction?

Probably not.    

It was the RecTech marketers who convinced us that we needed to automate.  

But consider this. When you optimize for speed and automation (efficiency), you end up attracting the middle (or lowest) part of a market.

The same way you do when you make cars on a high speed assembly line.  Or mass market shoes.

That’s okay if you’re optimizing for the low or middle market of talent.   

But if you’re optimizing for top talent in a highly competitive market, automation can be counterproductive.

By automating, you often remove the personal touch.   And you lose the handmade experience that sets brands apart.  

To stand out and impress the most highly sought after talent, you need to consider offering a differentiated experience.   

The opposite of a chatbot.  

And keep offering that unique experience for the next 12 months.   And then keep doing it for the next 5 years. And then for 10 years after that.  

The longer you offer a custom, human experience, the more novel it will become over time as your competitors opt for a more digital process.  

The same is true for shoes and cars.   A handmade product will always have more value in an increasingly automated world.

So before you hire that “bot”, ask yourself what you’re optimizing for.    

Are you optimizing for efficiency?    Or would a more human experience give you an edge?