Social Recruitment - People Source's latest thoughts

May 29, 2012 - PRLog -- The recruitment industry has always embraced change and innovation. When your core business is dealing with something that is ever evolving (i.e. people) then, you have to adapt to survive. If you'd have asked anyone 25 years ago where would technology take us they would have said that we'd have flying cars, robots in every house and perhaps some of them would have thought we'd all have Hover-boards like Marty McFly or talking cars like Kitt (I suppose there are a few talking cars about). None of these things would have particularly impacted on
recruitment.

I don't think that many would have guessed correctly. That we'd all be carrying mobile phones with more than 100x more processing power than our ZX Spectrums or that we'd all have evolved our personal lives, our global commerce and our understanding of the world around a virtual information sharing phenomenon that we now refer to as the internet.

My point is that we've evolved to improve the way we communicate with each other and how we share information, and to come back to the point of this article, this has revolutionised the way businesses source and evaluate talent in their organisations.



Technology has created more business than it has killed, so I find it quite surprising that many people suggest that social media is a threat to recruiters?

Social Media is great for recruitment and the more people that adopt social media and optimise their online presence the better. It means that it's easier to search and identify key skills and it also means that candidates have had to evolve to better describe themselves in order to improve their chances of getting their ideal job- therefore leading to a better fit. The whole process revolves around search and the ability to search and be searched- candidates and consultants now know this.

I've not come across an organisation yet that would hire an individual directly from a social media channel so this is where the human element comes in. In order to assess a person's skill set, cultural fit and core competencies, you need to talk to them. Company decision makers are generally time poor and don't have access to the best recruitment channels. So, there's a reason and a need for working with a good recruiter. A good recruiter is an expert in both offline and online communications. They understand the need for a candidate to have the right values and behaviours as well as the right skills.

Regardless of any enhancements in technology, you'll always need this human touch if you're to find the right one.