The Future of Recruitment?

Welcome to Discuss HR, the HR blog written by Human Resources UK. 

I won’t wax lyrical  about today’s writer as it is me! My last post was about how you could improve your chances of finding a role by networking.  This post is about how you can vastly improve you ability t hire into your organisation.  (Ed Scrivener)

The Future of Recruitment?

The technophiles amongst you will not have missed the recent announcement to much fanfare of the latest phone from Samsung which will be controlled by movement of your eye.  However, what is surprising is that another device utilising the same principal has gone completely under the radar, which has the potential to revolutionise the recruitment industry and vastly improve retention rates.

The FES2 is a unique device that could have come straight from Q’s laboratory in James Bond, which measures the accuracy of candidates’ answers when interviewing.  I first came across this several months ago at a recruitment exhibition and I am aware of a number of my contemporaries that use it, however, I have struggled to find any mention of it in anything other than the most obscure trade publications.

In the short period I have been using the FES2 my accuracy in interviews has vastly improved as it easily highlights to me the questions I need to delve deeper with.  However, the real benefits will be long term as the idea of the FES2 is to ensure you’re making the right decision first time.

I appreciate I have been slightly aloof with describing it so far and that is partially because I wanted to express the benefits of it before describing exactly what it does, as this could cause potential ethical concerns.  The FES2 works on the principal of measuring eye movement during questioning and therefore candidates need to be closely scrutinised during interview via video equipment with real time results fed back to what is in essence a tablet.  The basic premise is that the movement of the eye when answering questions will indicate whether the answer is truthful or made up, or somewhere in between.  The natural response of the eye is to look to the right when recalling the truth and to the left when creating an answer – or lying!  Of course where the FES2 comes into its own is that it picks up the microscopic movements of the eye that you wouldn’t see without the aid of technology. 

I made a quip about it being used by Q, but I understand the origin of the machine was used by the military, so in essence the FES2 is an advanced interrogation device.  This in turn creates the ethical concern I alluded to earlier.  You do need to have a candidate sign a waiver before undertaking the interview, but so far less than 5% of the people I have invited to interview have declined the opportunity.  Playing Devil’s advocate you could argue that 95% of people have agreed to be interviewed in this manner due to the economic climate and the lack of opportunities, however, I feel in general this will benefit businesses immensely by ensuring they get the right hire every time – which will hugely reduce the average cost per hire.

I am conscious that this could almost be construed as an advert for the FES2 and I am very much independent of the manufacturer, however, I feel it is just too good not to shout from the roof tops about.  The creator Cal Lightman has stated he intends to develop further versions that will monitor heart rates and body temperature to truly give a fool proof system.  While this may sound like an elaborate interrogation or akin to an episode of Jeremy Kyle, I firmly believe in the long run it will truly revolutionise the way we hire talent into a business despite the potential ethical drawbacks.

You can find further information about the FES2 here.

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Discuss HR is the HR blog written by members of Human Resources UK, the 10,000 member strong LinkedIn group dedicated to the HR professionals in the UK.  Discuss HR is published twice weekly and looks to take an insightful, informative and sometimes irreverent view on the world of HR – all with the purpose of generating a discussion.

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