The first time I heard the term RecOps, I was on a call with the Chief People Officer (CPO) of a fast-growing startup in New York City. She was gearing up to double the size of the company and wanted to make sure her managers were using structured interview guides with professionally written interview questions. Fortunately, the software company that I owned at the time, “HireBar,” did just that.

At the end of the sales call, the CPO said, “I really like this. I’m going to put you in touch with my RecOps manager to finalize the contract and kick off the implementation.”

At this point I had spent roughly fifteen years in the recruiting industry and had never heard the term “RecOps.” Despite feeling really dumb, I had to ask, “RecOps Manager? What is that?”

She answered, “Oh, that’s our fixer. She’s our continuous improvement expert who sits on the Talent Acquisition team. She manages our tech stack, handles reporting, optimizes processes, builds programs, and generally ensures that everything works, and we’re always staying ahead of the curve.”

Huh, I thought. That was my role for the last several years at The Hershey Company. But my title was different. At Hershey, I was called a Manager of Talent Acquisition, Technology, Brand and Analytics. Different title but same duties.

Over the course of the next two years as the CEO of HireBar, I kept bumping into these RecOps professionals when I met with new and prospective clients. They were usually on every sales call and always involved with the implementation. Some of them had the term RecOps in their title but most of them didn’t. They were called Recruiting Innovation Managers, COE Leads, Talent Operations Analysts, Recruiting Operations Managers, and sometimes, just plain Talent Acquisition Managers. But as I got to know some of them, I realized they were all doing mostly the same thing. They were all being charged with actively optimizing and transforming their recruiting function. Here are some common duties they shared:

·      Performing process-improvement projects

·      Designing better experiences for candidates and managers

·      Building and maintaining referral, ambassador, and diversity programs

·      Implementing and managing software systems

·      Developing reports and dashboards

·      Uncovering training and development opportunities for the recruiting team

·      Researching recruiting innovation practices

While this small list of duties seems random, collectively, these activities are critical to achieving operational excellence. For example, one of the things I have always noticed about companies that had a RecOps person in place was that they were significantly easier to work with as clients. They implemented the HireBar software faster, had fewer problems with adoption, and got more out of the tool than companies who didn’t have a resource in charge of ongoing transformation.

This experience was an aha moment for me. All I could think about was the advice that I got years earlier from my executive coach who urged me to create an environment of clarity and a system of transformation. And it motivated me to explore RecOps on a deeper level. Even though I had been doing the equivalent of RecOps for several years, I realized that I could be more deliberate in my approach. And I would say the same about most of the practitioners whom I met. Collectively, we were all building a practice of recruiting optimization, but the projects we took on were often random and disconnected from a clear strategy or any sort of prioritization model. We were essentially playing “whack-a-mole” on problems as they bubbled to the surface. We were “fixers.” I figured there had to be a better way.

Fast forward several years. After studying and experimenting with the craft of RecOps, I found there were some core activities, behaviors, and traits of the RecOps practitioners whom I met. I’ve organized that wisdom into my book in a manner I believe can help any HR or recruiting leader transform their function in a major way.