Red Seat Celebrates 25 Years: How Hiring Has Changed and Our Future Predictions

Happy Birthday to us! 🎉 This year, Red Seat celebrates 25 years of helping clients recruit and hire great employees!

We think you’ll agree that a lot has changed over the past 25 years — in life, and in business! In this blog, we’ll take a stroll down memory lane to look at how Red Seat began, how hiring has changed since then, and our predictions of what the future of hiring will look like.

How Red Seat Got Its Start

Back in 1999, long before Red Seat was Red Seat, it began as a business called “Comprehensive Hire, Inc.” And while Comprehensive Hire still describes what we do, we found there was some confusion over whether we were a temp agency or a contingent or retained recruiter. As we thought about a new name, we wanted one that gave an accurate picture of what we do and also reflected our culture.

When the recession of 2008-09 brought hiring to a halt and we had a lot of time on our hands, our CEO, Talley Flora, decided it was the perfect time to rebrand. She had received a card picturing a series of black chairs surrounding one red seat, and that image resonated with her. As someone working with small businesses, the red seat reflected how important each new hire is for our clients.

When discussing new company names, a business advisor she was working with used the phrase “hot seat.” Talley responded, “Close! But it’s the red seat.” And that’s how Red Seat was reborn!

Today, Red Seat is still a small business working with small and medium-sized companies helping them find the best-fit candidates for each open position. And we wouldn’t have it any other way!

25 Years Later: How Hiring Has Changed

Over the years, a lot has changed in the hiring world. Technology has certainly evolved, as have both employer and employee expectations. Some jobs have gone by the wayside, while others have been created to meet the needs of a changing world.

But in our area of expertise, the aspects we’ve seen the biggest differences in have been job boards, ad placement, and recruiting methods.

25 years ago, local newspapers were the primary place to post “Help Wanted” ads. The job ads we wrote were limited by word count and we faxed in our ads (talk about a shift in technology!). At that time, job boards were just starting to gain traction. There were no resume databases, no Indeed or LinkedIn…needless to say, that landscape has really changed over the years. 

How we go through the process now is actually pretty similar to how we worked back in 1999 — it’s just the technology we use to get the job done that’s changed. 

Today, it’s far easier to post job ads, connect with candidates, and sort through resumes. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easier for businesses to hire. Fluctuations in the job market still exist: some industries experience an influx of great applicants, while others struggle to find any at all.

Remote work is another factor that has changed hiring. And while offering remote roles brings its own set of challenges, it also means that companies who implement a remote option are no longer limited to hiring local candidates. It widens the candidate pool, allowing them to hire across the country or even across the world.

Our Future Predictions for the Hiring Market

Considering the shifts we’ve seen over the past 25 years — and especially those that have taken place over the past few years — we predict the area we’ll see the biggest future advancements in will be in the automation of the hiring process.

Use of AI in the Hiring Process

ChatGPT is already a great resource for assisting in writing ads and developing interview questions, marketing scripts, and messaging. “Assisting” is the operative word here, as we still do our homework to understand our clients, their open positions, and the key criteria needed in a successful candidate.

As AI improves, however, we expect that tools like ChatGPT will produce content that is more usable and will require less oversight.

In addition, while there are already tools to rank resumes or search them for keywords, we look forward to systems where an employer can enter the top candidate parameter they're looking for and the system will accurately recommend and sort resumes by the best match.

New Ways To Speed Up Outbound Recruiting

That theory also applies to researching for and finding prospective candidates for outbound recruiting. We envision that, in the future, a user will be able to enter very specific parameters and receive high-quality results. 

For example, today we might do a resume search or LinkedIn search for an accounting position. As of right now, there are 32,000 people in the Greater Minneapolis area with the word "Accountant" in their LinkedIn profile. It takes hours to sort and re-sort that list to drill down to a workable group of viable accountants for any specific opening. 

We expect that automation will greatly speed up that process in the future.

Automation of the Interviewing Process

Finally, we expect virtual interviewing and other automated interviewing methods to become common. While in-person interviews will still be a core component of the hiring process, early-on screening is already being automated and will likely be automated even more as we look to the future.  

We hope that further automating the hiring process will make for easier, more accurate, and overall better hiring in the future.

As we think back over the past 25 years in business, we are so grateful to each client and candidate we’ve had the pleasure of working with. Here’s to many more years helping businesses hire great employees!

Looking for help hiring for your open position? Contact the team at Red Seat for expert assistance in recruiting and hiring the best-fit candidates for your business.