Although Bitcoin has become the focus of attention when it comes to the use of blockchain technology, we are seeing a wave of innovation as the technology’s potential effect on businesses is better understood. Many companies and governments around the world are already using blockchain based recruitment is one such sector with a lot of promise.

After nearly a decade of recruiting, I’ve seen an increase in dissatisfaction and a steady decline in confidence in the processes used to gather references. References may be easily manipulated and misused due to outdated systems. Over the course of eight years, the number of references received by recruiters has dropped by two-thirds.

References used to be the gold standard for evaluating an employee’s expertise and experience, but a CareerBuilder study found that 75% of hiring managers have caught a resume lie. Employers and recruiters instead make decisions based on CVs and ‘personal branding’ sites such as LinkedIn. That, in my view, is a weak foundation on which to make such a significant decision, and it is also unfair to a large number of professional workers who elude the recruiter’s net.

Although conventional background checks can be costly, time-consuming, and unreliable, there is no easier way to assess a candidate’s potential than to check their references. Blockchain is a safe and stable way to store data and a great way to ensure validated worker qualifications as a ledger of the continuously increasing list of records exchanged by any computer in a network.

With reference confidence, reputation, and reliability on the decline, I saw an opportunity for blockchain technology to revolutionise referencing by eliminating many of the inefficiencies that come with hiring.

Blockchain based recruitment

Zinc’s automated referencing, reviews, and appraisal platform is a first of its kind, allowing recruiters to collect screening information with a single click. Before the interviewing process starts, recruiters have access to this information on day one of the hiring process. Zinc accelerates and simplifies the process by eliminating the need to replicate such tasks such as psychometric assessments, references, and team fit analysis, which takes an average of 12 weeks to fill in the UK.

There is a pressing need to speed things up, with an estimated 2 million technology jobs available at any given time and a growing move towards the gig economy. Zinc ‘open sources’ the interview process by gathering and securely storing a candidate’s complete job history, aptitude, and personality, as well as softer checks including psychometric tests.

Workers in the technology field will, for the first time, have complete ownership and control of their professional reputation and identity, as well as how they want to share that knowledge. Jobs will be more reliably matched based on their full profile using their validated digital job passport before ever having an interview.

According to anecdotal evidence, a typical technology worker receives upwards of 50 unwanted approaches per week from famous recruitment platforms. The repetition of evaluations and exams is also a source of annoyance. According to a Zinc study, 79% of respondents agreed that sharing references earlier in the recruiting process would result in further interviews. Our goal is to allow employees to reclaim control and ownership of their professional reputation and identity.

Blockchain based recruitment and Human Resources

Blockchain-verified credentials open up the recruiting process to a whole new level of automation and confidence. Individuals would have a wealth of knowledge stored on a blockchain throughout the coming years, like academic qualifications and job histories, I believe. They would have complete influence of who this knowledge is shared with.

Digital and checked records would eventually become the norm in every industry. It’s a system that makes perfect sense and solves one of the most persistent problems on the internet today: identity authentication. There is a tremendous opportunity to ‘improve’ what already exists today by using readily available technologies. We’re working with applicants, recruiters, and employers to reintroduce confidence into the recruiting process where it belongs: at the middle.

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