Is it time to dump your database and focus your energies on social media sites?
This is a question I put to fellow recruiters recently on one of the many group discussion boards on LinkedIn. Most thought this was a ridiculous idea, taking the stance that your database is your USP and to get rid would be similar to cutting your telephone wires. In fairness it was a leading question as there would be no need to get rid of your database and for documenting feedback it will remain the primary tool for a recruiter.
My point was actually based around the ability these days to network vacancies across social sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook and not find it necessary to address your own database. It is important these days to build communities on social sites and target specialist audiences. These captive audiences can help you by either directly showing interest in opportunities, or by passing your vacancies to their own network of contacts. In many cases at Digital Personnel we are able to network opportunities to groups of specialists within the digital space and have fully qualified candidates eager to pursue vacancies without so much as even thinking about a search on our private database.
Candidates from these sites usually appear with a full career history, a record of their interactions with blogs and notable websites and a comprehensive list of recommendations. This could actually be construed as a dream come true for the recruitment industry! This is not new news but what will require further thought is how to engage these audiences of potential candidates and what strategies need to be implemented to grow appropriate and rewarding communities. Are recruitment agencies ready to build themselves a brand and communicate daily with their associates? It will be interesting to see how this develops over time.
Of course there are also rewards to be found from clients. By building a stronger online presence, recruitment agencies will be able to further their reach to potential business partners and if credible engagement with audiences is evident an employer would be wise to make the first move. I am not suggesting the canvass calls need to stop (utopia for many employers!) but this is potentially another route to further revenue streams.
Social media is an unstoppable force that will engulf the recruitment industry, and has already become the lead medium in some market sectors. A recruiters’ unique database is no longer a selling point, the ability to tap into the unlimited talent across the web and capitalise on this is how agencies will ultimately be judged.
Ashley Seddon
ashley.seddon@digitalpersonnel.co.uk
July 24th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Hi Ashley,
It is indeed obvious that social media is an unstoppable force. Commenting on your words ‘Are recruitment agencies ready to build themselves a brand and communicate daily with their associates?’
I’m not sure that it’s about your brand rather your added value. I mean up until now the recruitment business model is based on:
- finding & placing candidates
- get paid for that single action
But with social media this value cannot be kept, at least not on the long term. Recruiters have many more capabilities through social media to find suitable candidates. I think the recruitment industry has to change their business model into something more enduring and valuable:
- recruitment agencies should become carreer managers, helping their candidates to grow over a longer period of their carreer
- reward should be paid over the whole period, but a lot less
It’s like a manager of a popstar, the goal is to get a long carreer for the star. And with the aging society, talents will be like stars and they’ll jobhop more often as they will want to do projects that are challenging and go to another project.
In doing so recruiters should partner up with training / education centers to offer candidates better development possibilities.
On the tooling side, recruiters can use information from social media to better match the vacancies, the manager, the people, the organization to the development profile their candidate wants to have.
Eventually, ask yourself as a professional – what would you like from a career manager for you to stick with him/her for a longer period.
Good luck in letting social media work for your agency
If you’re more interested about the tooling side of things, feel free to read my company blog about the meaning of social media marketing: ‘be found before you’re searched for’ – http://blog.componence.com/2009/07/15/the-future-of-social-media-social-business-in-social-comfort-zones/
I’m in London quite often, if you’re more interested follow me on Twitter @SimplyH or let’s have a coffee and exchange ideas.
Cheers,
Ha