There are 11.8 million employees in Australia – and the internet is coming to get them.
Human resources and recruitment is the latest battlefield for digital disruption with a slew of companies formed specifically to host resumes, job ads, conduct online psychometric testing, and ultimately match candidates with roles.
![Mike Haywood, co-founder and growth director of LiveHire.](/web/20161206225329im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/l/5/c/g/s/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gl5boz.png/1448328097366.jpg)
Mike Haywood, co-founder and growth director of LiveHire, which was set up in 2011 and now holds details of about 1.3 million workers, says that technology is now "deconstructing HR". Haywood describes LiveHire as the Airbnb of recruitment in that it provides an interface between talent and employers.
The company has developed algorithms that interpret peoples' resumes, and it pushes forward those people it feels are ready to make a move up toward the top of searches. While organisations can search the LiveHire database directly, candidates can also allow their anonymised profile to be searched from Google, so that if a potential employer searches on "geologist CV Perth" the LiveHire candidates will appear.
![The LiveHire app.](/web/20161206225329im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/l/5/c/h/e/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gl5boz.png/1448328097366.jpg)
"The future of talent will most likely be through Google," said Haywood. If that search leads to an interview, the candidate is approached and if they want an interview LiveHire charges employers $20 for the candidate's contact details.
Alternatively, large enterprises can establish their own LiveHire talent communities when they are ready to hire LiveHire's algorithms to help identify the people most likely to be ready to take on a new role.
It's an approach that has already secured investments from recruitment veterans such as Andrew Banks, Geoff Morgan and Greg Savage, while the technology is being used by around 3000 organisations including Ooh Media, Chander Macleod, EY Advisory and Bupa.
LiveHire is just one of the myriad start-ups that have emerged in the HR and recruitment space along with organisations like Expr3ss! Employment Hero, OneShift, eHarmony offshoot Elevated Careers, and EmployMe.
While Seek and LinkedIn are entrenched in the recruitment market, there are also specialist HR and recruitment services emerging such as AgTasker, which seeks to link farmers with seasonal workers, Revelian, which has used gamification to test job candidates' aptitude, and most recently PeopleSpark, the latest venture of Bigcommerce co-founder Mitchell Harper which brings together staff surveys and performance reviews into an online tool in a bid to boost employee retention and streamline employee-employer communications.
Robert van Stokrom, president of the Recruitment and Consulting Services Association and chief executive officer of DFP Recruitment, does not see this rash of online systems as a threat to the recruitment industry but rather as "enablers to find candidates more easily or get a better more specific fit".
"I don't want to be a dinosaur on this" said von Stokrom, who maintains that "you can't write an algorithm for interviewing, analysing body language – that will always be in demand".
Carolyne Burns, managing director of Expr3ss!, begs to differ. She said that recruiters are often costly and install the wrong people in roles
I don't want to be a dinosaur on this. [But] you can't write an algorithm for interviewing, analysing body language – that will always be in demand".
Recruiter Robert van Stokrom, president of the Recruitment and Consulting Services Association
She said Expr3ss! could easily displace recruiters by harnessing algorithms which identify the best fit between a candidate and opportunity. Once a candidate applies for a role, the Expr3ss! platform asks a series of questions, then analyses them to determine the fit between candidate and job.
"We like to think this is automating the selection," said Burns, claiming that one user, Krispy Kreme, had saved 68 per cent on their job advertisement costs alone.
"It removes the grunt work, it removes the guesswork," she added.
OneShift, established in 2012 to find and place retail and hospitality workers, prides itself on once getting a barista behind a coffee machine 27 minutes after applying for a job two blocks away.
Founder and managing director Gen George said the platform works like Tinder, allowing candidates to be accepted or declined with a single swipe. She said that while some recruitment agencies used the technology to boost efficiency, during the last year the platform had been used directly to fill 150,000 roles that were once the province of labour hire businesses.
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