Recruiting has evolved through three generations that cover the 50-plus years from the end of World War II to the present. Within this period, there are no demarcation lines marking the end of one generation and the beginning of another. Generation B Generation B is characterized by transactions. During this generation's brightest days, recruiters kept the chairs filled and staffing firms thrived because the labor market was filled with candidates who competed for the opportunity to be employed. As a result, recruiters implemented practices and procedures that made recruiting a transaction between buyers and sellers of labor.
Recruiters are buyers, and their job is to acquire sellers as quickly and cheaply as possible.
Those operating in this generation view employment advertising as simply a public notification of an open job. They spend little time writing the notice or selling the position and employer that it describes. To these recruiters, personalization and customer service are nice, but only essential when recruiting at the most senior levels. Generation-B recruiters don't acknowledge the resumes they receive or communicate with anyone other than the most qualified candidates they find. Long-term relationships with candidates are nice to talk about, but the real recruiting gets done in real time on the telephone.