The other day I came across an article in the Sunday Times talking about social networking and recruitment.
And what amazed me is the fact that recruiters were all saying that Social networks are really useful but it is not that great.
” Linkedin is a great networking tool and research tool. However it is not a panacea.” Toby Fowlston, Robert Walters
“Linkedin isn’t the phone book and even if it was, who would want to look through the entire phone book to find the right candidate?” Eamon Collins Michael Page
Why do you think they do that?
They do that to minimize the impact of social networks on recruitment…because they are afraid of losing more clients using Linkedin in an increasingly part of their recruitment process.
SAB Miller (brewer) used Linkedin to recruit 120 managers around the world and saved 1.2 million £.
John Campagnigno, head of Recruitment at Accenture, said that he plans to make as many as 40% of his hires in the next few years through social media. It is cheaper and faster.
Social networks are a clear threat to the number of assignments that rec agencies/consultancies can get, so their aim is to say “yes it is a good networking tool but it is not enough”.
What they are missing is that the sourcing part of recruitment is a huge part…and if companies can get candidates faster and cheaper with not so many resources, what do you think they are going to do?
Why more and more companies will use linkedin or other social networks to recruit:
- It is cheaper, it almost costs nothing and internal recruiters can leverage their own connections
- It is faster, you can get in touch with people quickly and can carry out a reference check online. You can search using keywords, location, and many different criteria
- CVs online are more accurate than written CVs (like I explained here) as people show their profile to everybody
- Even when you post a job, the level of the candidate is better than using other job boards: you have less candidate applying but the average level is better
- Candidates update their own profile so the accuracy of the information is much better
- It is good for an employer brand to show that the company is up-to-date and a leading example in her industry in terms of recruitment processes
Agreed that you still need to meet people face to face, and that recruitment is a time consuming activity…but these tools are changing the landscape and even if recruitment consultancies are not happy with that, companies will use it more and more.
