“You harm your bottom line if you don’t look after the people who bring in the people”: A conversation with Katrina Collier

No matter where you look, modern recruitment has its fair share of problems. But, for every problem, there are experts and practitioners working to equip hiring managers and talent acquisition with the information and tools to help them hire better.

Katrina Collier is an author, speaker, and facilitator based in the UK. She’s aiming to resolve the human issues that make talent acquisition clunky and harm candidate experience. We spoke to her about her new book – Reboot Hiring – her tips for using talent assessments fairly and transparently, and the importance of the people who bring in the people. 

AK: You’ve said that The Robot-Proof Recruiter is for recruiters and sourcers and talent acquisition people, but Reboot Hiring is a book for “the other side”. So my first question is: 

What is 'Reboot Hiring' about, who should read it, and what do you hope they get out of it?

KC: It probably helps if I explain The Robot-Proof Recruiter first. That book was written when tech vendors were saying they could replace recruiters with robots back in 2018, and it came out in 2019. It was very much a pushback on the idea that recruiters could be replaced, and about how technology should support a human-first experience instead. But while writing that book, I realized everything comes down to the initial conversation that recruiters have with the hiring manager about the job at the very beginning of the process (I’ve renamed this as the “recruitment alignment meeting”  in Reboot Hiring). What struck me was that, one, I rarely had one of those alignment meetings, and two, everything falls apart if you don’t get the information you need. It leads to bad job descriptions, poor matching, and a host of other problems. So, after leaving recruiters with The Robot Proof Recruiter, I realized I needed to write a book for managers and leaders.

Over the last four years, recruiters—especially internal ones—have been under immense pressure. Companies are trying to cut costs, thinking AI can do it all, and I’m just sitting here, horrified, because I’ve seen companies try this, and it doesn’t work. The real issue is that managers don’t invest enough time at the beginning of the process to clearly articulate who they need to hire and to partner properly with recruiters, and set some goals. If they did that, everything would be so much easier. In Reboot Hiring I expand on this. It also explains what talent acquisition is, what they do, and how, and that these days, if you create a bad candidate experience it ends up on the internet and hampers future hiring. If you create a strong partnership between recruiters and hiring managers from the start, everything else flows. Reboot Hiring demystifies the process for hiring managers and helps them realize they have the power to make things easier. That was a really long answer!

AK: I think it’s a great answer! It’s really interesting to hear about how you view the role of technology. Obviously, TestGorilla is a tech company, and we want to create tech that does good, but technology isn’t necessarily inherently good or bad—it’s all about how you use it and how you interact with it.

KC: Exactly! Technology is often abused. I’ve seen companies send developers straight to a technical test and then insult them when they fail. The arrogance of some companies is shocking. The damage that a bad experience can do is massive, but the internet doesn’t forget. In the example I share of this in Reboot Hiring, the poorly treated developers took revenge!

AK: At this point, it makes sense to ask you about the rising use of talent assessments in hiring. I know you’ve touched on technology and the fact that it can be abused, but more companies are using talent assessments like TestGorilla’s. 

What do you think about the rising use of talent assessments, and what should people consider when using them?

KC: It’s a mixed bag. I know someone in talent acquisition who just got feedback after a grueling 10-week process that included three stages, a case study, and a presentation, only to be told, “We just thought you’d get frustrated working here.” One crappy line after all that effort. And so sometimes it’s about the sheer number of stages. In Reboot Hiring, I ask managers to stop including unnecessary steps and explain why it creates a negative perception that deters future recruits. 

You can’t give someone a day-long test and then give them no feedback. These are human beings. It’s stressful. You need to get it right. If you spend time at the beginning, working out who you want to hire and which skills you need, the process becomes so much clearer and smoother. You waste less time. These are human beings we’re dealing with, and they could be your clients. People remember bad experiences. 

All this is to say, the tests need to be relevant and thought through. I loved talking to Mirae about how TestGorilla creates a good experience because the managers have really thought about who they want to hire, and because you tell them about the salary and the location before you ask them to do a test. Some companies send candidates straight to a test without any context, like salary or location. Asking about salary shouldn’t shed an applicant in a bad light either; people just want to know if they can cover their bills!

It’s about transparency. If you’re not going to be upfront about these things, and you haven’t got a solid job description because you haven’t done a recruitment alignment meeting, then you can’t expect your candidates to be happy committing to tests. It’s not hard—just say, “Look, here’s the location and salary info. We’ve got a quick assessment; it’ll take 40 minutes. You won’t be ruled out if you need some extra time, and you’ll get feedback that’ll help you.” 

AK: Yeah. And your point about relevance is really important because to create a relevant assessment using relevant tests, that alignment meeting needs to happen, and it needs to happen well. Otherwise, everything that follows will fall short of a good candidate experience.

KC: Absolutely. It’s what’s broken in recruitment. Managers are often too busy or haven’t been taught how to recruit properly. They don’t know how to look forward and work out who they need to hire. So you’ve got that problem, and then you have people writing bad resumes, and in-between you have recruiters or technology trying to match candidates to ill-defined roles. It’s broken. The important part to fix is the beginning—the recruitment alignment meeting. If we can get that right, and then give candidates some transparency upfront, everything else changes for the better. 

AK: Let’s focus on that a little bit more. My next question: 

What should the recruitment alignment conversation look like if you’re going to use skills tests?

KC: Too often, what happens is someone resigns, and people panic. They pull out the dusty old job description from three years ago, shake it off, hand it over and say, “Here, we want another one of these.” But people grow, they gain new skills, and the company’s needs evolve. Managers need to look forward and think about what skills are really needed for the future. Only then do you get to the bottom of the skills you need and choose the right tests.

It’s important to balance technical skills with behavioral insights. You can’t just focus on hard skills or you could end up hiring someone with 100% skills and an attitude problem, who then starts and ruins the culture with their toxicity. It’s about looking at the whole person and making sure the tests are relevant and helpful to both the manager and the candidate.

AK: Agreed! At TestGorilla we talk about “Culture Add.” And what about resumes and CVs? What’s your take on them as a tool for hiring?

KC: I mean, they’re not going anywhere. But they are difficult documents to write. I think really they’re a crutch that managers like to hold onto during interviews, but they’re also part of the problem. Bad job descriptions matched against poorly written resumes, with AI-matching tools in the middle – it just feels like a mess.

AK: You included over 60 recruiters' thoughts in Reboot Hiring. I’m curious to know: 

What did you learn from recruiters, and was there anything that surprised you?

KC: One thing that did surprise me, and kind of disappointed me, was how many recruiters didn’t know who their star hires were. Who are the people who make a real impact to the company’s bottom line that you helped hire? I want talent acquisition professionals to know who those stars are so they can say, “This is why our function matters. This is the difference we make.” It’s about advocating for their role and getting the credit they deserve.

What didn’t surprise me was the frustration they feel. I keep hearing the same issue. Recruiters want to partner with their managers, to take recruitment off their plate, but managers are often making it harder for themselves and for TA. Smarter people than me have said “A company’s success is all about the people; a company is its people.” So it’s about the candidates you attract, but it’s also about the people who bring in the people. You harm your bottom line if you don’t look after the people who bring in the people.

AK: I love that. We need to treasure the people who bring in the people. That leads us on to my final question. In light of everything we’ve discussed: 

What’s the one big change you’d love to see in recruitment?

KC: I’d love for managers to purchase and read Reboot Hiring so they stop their self-sabotaging behavior. They’re making recruitment so much harder for themselves, and it’s really not that difficult—it just takes thought. I want managers and company leaders to understand that it’s about investing time at the beginning of the process and partnering equally with their recruiter. It doesn’t matter what your job title is; your recruiter is an expert in recruitment, and you each do your bit and work on the role together. It’s self-sabotage to say you don’t have time to talk to your recruiter, and it costs you time, money, and hassle.

You can order Katrina’s book, Reboot Hiring, here. For more content about hiring and recruitment, check out: 

• Mutual respect: How to build a better company culture

• The ultimate guide to building a talent acquisition strategy

• Posting interview questions online: Should you do it?