I’m very interested to hear from those that worked in the Talent Acquisition field in the 1980s. I was thinking about how different the workplace is after 30 years and how it different the recruiting function must have been. Let’s take a quick look at how times have changed – minus the big hair and super savvy fashion sense.
Forget the technology that makes life so easy now. There were no iPhones, iPads, no “I”s at all! Internet? No way – it was many, many years into the future before a candidate could simply email a resume or “like” you on a social networking site you had to rely on old media, like newspaper advertisements to attract talent. The first Apple Mac computer went on sale in 1984; 1986 saw the first widespread use of laser printers; the first dot.com business was registered in 1985; the ubiquitous Post-It note arrived on our desks in 1981; and the worldwide web arrived in 1989 - surely the biggest single change to the way we work and recruit.
Forget about building a talent pipeline. Recruiters often listed a P.O Box as the address to send in resumes with no personal name attached of whom to contact so they wouldn’t be “bombarded” with resumes. As someone who wasn’t in the workforce or looking for a job in the 80s it’s hard for me to imagine how you would hire globally. Maybe the answer is you didn’t? Was it just a matter of finding someone that would relocate or hiring onsite? How about a Virtual workforce? Well there wasn’t one. In the late 1980s however we saw the first sustained pool of temporary workers since employers were still nervous after the Stock Market crash of 1987.
Let’s talk about diversity. The office of the '80s was much more male-dominated. According to the National Office of Statistics, in 1985 men filled two million more jobs than women. By June 2005, the ratio was much closer to 50:50. Employers have come a long way in bridging the gender pay gap — but the fact is that it still exists. In 1979, women earned 62% as much as men, again, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The women’s-to-men’s earnings ratio gradually increased through the next two decades, but peaked at 81% in 2005 and 2006 and has stayed relatively flat since then.
Candidates for jobs tended to be taken much more at face value - little was done in the way of background checks, or confirming the validity of CVs. The lack of technology made the recruitment process more personal, however, and staff loyalty was easier to win. Can you imagine nowadays basing your hires on the interview alone? I wonder what the turn over and average performance rates of those employees were….
What development had the biggest impact on recruiting? Was it technology? Was it the increase of women in the workforce? Maybe it was the growing use of contract labor? From September 26-28th we’ll be discussing the best and brightest Talent Management trends of today in Reston Virginia at our 2011 Government Talent Summit! There are still seats left and I hope to see you there.