Activision Blizzard says interviewing diverse candidates for every opening "unworkable"

If you know me then you know how much I love video games. Activision Blizzard has made some pretty dope games that I have played in the past and I am glad they are still around today making titles we love, so it's very disheartening when you see these kinds of headlines that make you automatically assume that whatever they are saying is a load of shit. 

Apparently there is a proposal for Activision Blizzard which would require them to interview at least one diverse candidate for each job opening and Activision's argument is that if they do that it will impact their ability to compete for top talent in a fast moving market. 

Staffing is what some people would say is my professional expertise, not that I would ever be happy about such a ridiculous thing, but anyway, since college I have worked in the staffing industry and I can say that there argument isn't without merit but the reason they make the argument is the entire reason I hate the staffing industry in the first place and I'll explain. 

My Experience

Alright so I don't like talking about my professional career because I loath the fact the I ever fell into staffing but here's my. My first full-cycle recruiting job was working with Xerox, now Conduent, and my job was to staff for their call centers. During our busiest time of the year I would have to schedule anywhere from 150-200 interviews a week in order to make sure we had a minimum of 45-50 hires per week. My next job was working for a staffing company and I would have about 10-15 jobs to work on and each week I have to submit at 10 candidates to be reviewed to job opportunities. 

At this job I was staffing for anything from light industrial work to lab automation scientists. I even worked on some jobs where I had to find people with a Top Secret Security Clearance to work with some three letter agencies. After that I worked for Regional Sale's coordinator running the HR side of insurance sales business. After that I moved into construction staffing and then I was laid off last April. 

I was successful the job but I hated and I kept finding myself in a position where I was disposable or I needed more money. So now that you know I know what I am talking about I'll explain the rest. 

Fast Moving Environment

A lot of people don't really understand how the hiring process works these days because they don't realize that some of the jobs they are applying for are with staffing companies and not the actual client. The reason large companies use staffing companies is because staffing companies are supposed to guarantee a quicker turnaround time on candidates. 

For instance, when I was working at one of my prior companies if we got a job order in they wanted it filled within 48-72 hours because we weren't the only company working on that job. Some of our clients had a short list of vendors the company I was with was at the top but that didn't mean we had exclusive rights to their jobs. They would give us all the job and say whoever finds the best candidate first gets the commission. 

I can't tell you how many times I have gotten a job first thing in the morning and I spend half the day finding candidates just for them to tell me that the job has been filled. Sometimes I'll even have candidates ready to be submitted and then I have to turn around and tell them that they filled the job. It's a very fast paced environment and I can't say whether they use staffing companies or not but that doesn't change the fact that people are constantly applying for jobs and everyone is out there looking for the next rock star. 

All I am trying to say here is that there is some merit to the argument, but that being said it's an argument that I hate as well. 

They want someone quickly but they won't relocate them

I am an outside of the box thinker which is why I hate the staffing industry because most clients aren't flexible and most situations you just have to throw spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks. Like I said earlier, these companies all want someone right now but when I suggest looking out of state for certain candidates and working with the real talent to relocate it's always a no and they still want someone ASAP. 

I never understood that. If I can find you someone willing to work remotely for less money than you asked and the job can be done remotely without impacting the success of the business why wouldn't you do that? I had a client once that was looking for some top tier IT big wig and he had to have experience with hardware, software, and had to have experience being a c-level executive somewhere. 

Found a guy that lived out of state but was perfect for the job AND he wanted $20-30k less than what the company expected. I thought for sure I was going to land this opportunity but no. They didn't want to work with him on relocation. Apparently they were willing to pay the guy $190k but they weren't willing to pay him $160k and pay maybe $15k moving his ass to town. 

See why I hate it? It's maddening. There is a whole country outside of this one little state and I hate when I am looking for candidates and I have to pass on one who would be a good fit because the company won't make the investment and then when I see companies like Wells Fargo say stuff like there aren't enough qualified people of color on the job market I just know they mean in their immediate area. 

Now I know NOT all jobs and companies can afford to just relocate people but to say that they don't have enough time to interview more diverse candidates because the market moves fast is ridiculous because there are plenty of qualified people out there from all walks of life the real problem is that companies aren't willing to do what it really takes to find qualified and diverse talent they just want to cling to the way it's done now because it's cheap and convenient like McDonalds.