10 days after the two different Agile for Recruiters surveys were launched, one for recruiters and HR people, the other for agile practitioners, an analysis was run of the results so far.

This initial phase had two main questions. Did people feel that recruiters and HR people not understanding agile and its frameworks was a problem, and if so, would people be interested in fixing it? If no-one thought it was a problem, or no-one thought it worth fixing, the project would have stopped there and then.

Interestingly, people did think it was a problem and did seem interested in fixing it. The headline stats are:

• 94% of agile practitioners who responded have used an recruitment consultant or agency at some point to find work in agile, Scrum, Kanban, etc
• However, only 10% of these people were satisfied with the experience. Over a third were dissatisfied and over a quarter were very dissatisfied. That’s nearly two thirds of all respondents being unhappy with their experience of recruitment consultants or agencies when looking for a job in agile.
• 96% of practitioners rated their recruiter’s knowledge of agile and its frameworks as ‘basic’ or ‘none’, compared with 72% of recruiters saying the same about their own knowledge. 29% of recruiters rated their knowledge as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’. In contrast, only 3% of practitioners said their recruiter’s knowledge was good, and none said it was excellent.
• 90% of practitioners who responded said that a lack of knowledge about agile and its frameworks amongst recruiters was a problem.

You can download the full report by clicking / tapping here (pdf, 6MB), or watch a 35 minute detailed presentation of the results in the video below.