- Jamey Jeff, CEO, RemarkableHire
Jamey Jeff is the Co-Founder and CEO of RemarkableHire, a talent sourcing and assessment platform that uses social evidence to help recruiters and hiring managers find and evaluate the best technology job candidates. Prior to RemarkableHire, Jeff was a VP at Discovery Communications and began his career at Accenture where he started as a software engineer and rose to lead North American Portal & Content Management consulting services for the Communications, High Tech, Media & Entertainment industries.
He is currently a member of the 2013 class of MindShare, the invitation only program for CEOs of high-growth companies in the Greater Washington, D.C. Metropolitan region. Jeff shared with WashingtonExec his expertise on what characterisitics attract top talent, current trends in recruiting, advice for jobseekers, whether technology helps or hurts the recruiting process.
WashingtonExec: What are some of the current trends and challenges in recruiting?
Jamey Jeff: With the continued growth of LinkedIn and broad adoption of social media, simply finding potential candidates is increasingly becoming commoditized. LinkedIn alone has provided recruiters with the world’s largest, most complete Rolodex. With scale though comes other challenges. Recruiters now are challenged with a sea of data that can be hard to navigate, and because of the massive volume of positions and applications, a lot of the personal touch in the process has been lost, leavingrecruiters feeling overwhelmed and candidates feeling lost.Furthermore, LinkedIn has done little to innovate around the primary artifact of recruiting and job seeking: the resume. LinkedIn profiles, like resumes, are static documents written by biased authors.
WashingtonExec: How far can you scale RemarkableHire? What’s the “end” vision look like?
Jamey Jeff: We believe that what we’re doing now, assessing the hard skills of tech professionals and tapping into feedback on performance, is just the tip of the iceberg. Ultimately we aim to precisely pinpoint the right candidate, with the right skills, who is a cultural match, at the right time in their careers to make a move.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“The companies that really rise above are very thoughtful about their brand as an employer, and the experience that candidates have when engaging with a potential employer”
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
WashingtonExec: What gives companies an edge in trying to find and attract top talent?
Jamey Jeff: The companies that really rise above are very thoughtful about their brand as an employer, and the experience that candidates have when engaging with a potential employer. They consider the candidate as a person from the very start of the process. When someone is considering taking a new job, they are making a very personal, life-changing decision. It’s a decision that most individuals only make a handful of times in a career. Companies that appreciate this realize that treating candidates with respect makes a huge
difference in both the short and long term. Candidates who have a bad experience interviewing with a company talk with their friends, share it on social media, etc.
WashingtonExec: How can technology help (or hurt) the recruiting process?
Jamey Jeff: Recruiting is a massive industry, somewhere around $400 billion globally. That sort of market attracts a lot of entrants, so recruiters and HR executives are continually being pitched new products and services. There is a lot of great innovation in this space, but what often fails to keep up with the technical innovation is the process innovation and associated training and learning. The best recruiting departments are very thoughtful about how to use the new products they adopt. As a simple example, pursuing active job seekers who are ready to make a move is a much different process than pursuing passive job seekers who must be coaxed into leaving their current gig. The most effective recruiters put thought into whom they are recruiting, how to engage with them, and how their arsenal of tools is most effectively used.
WashingtonExec: What can job seekers do to position themselves as favorably as possible in the job search?
Jamey Jeff: Realize that while you may not be actively looking for a new job, you never know when a great opportunity may come your way, so be ready for it. Recruiters are looking for new talent 24 hours a day, so be sure that you are findable, that you are presenting yourself in a professional manner online, and maintain your professional networks. The best job (and best hires) often come by way of referral. That means you should also be open: take a call or a meeting to learn more even if you’re not actively seeking a new role.
WashingtonExec: How do you expect recruiting to change in the future?
Jamey Jeff: I think that there are two concurrent, yet distinct trends that will likely converge. First, as more data is shared online, and the workforce further adopts social technologies to collaborate online, the volume of professional data that’s available will make it increasingly possible tovery specifically identify talent that would be a perfect fit for companies’ hiring needs. Second, I believe the process will reach an inflection point where you’ll see the most successful companies making their recruiting processes increasingly personal and personalizing their interactions with candidates. Recruiting then will evolve from a few touch points to longer-running relationships that are grown over months and years.
