There is no Social Recruiting

When most people talk about Social Recruiting they mean searching the database on Linkedin. That's not social. It's a deliberate misuse of the term by bloggers who want to announce revolutionary changes that don't really exist.

I've asked many people on my weekly recruiting radio show about this and I know it's true.The next step for social recruiting is searching the database on Facebook.Not much recruiting happens in actual social activities.

Some people also search the participants on Github but then recruiters have been lurking on IT discussion groups since before the internet became open to the general public in 1993, when there were still only bulletin boards.

Inotherwords, there is no social recruiting. If you disagree come on my show and defend your claim. See http://AnimalShowBasics.com

UPDATE: Social Recruiting is short for Social Media Recruiting which means recruiting on Social Media. There is a lot of recruiting happening online by people searching databases but there is almost no recruiting going on via social media. What is social media? Places people gather for exchanges like this one and get to know eachother.

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Permalink Reply by Will Thomson on February 11, 2014 at 11:58pm

Animal,  this is a better forum to discuss these matters than Recruiters Online with 1700 members whom are well respected in the industry who get a ping every time a remark gets made.  Jeremy Roberts wrote a killer post on this exact topic today.  

Permalink Reply by Matt Charney on February 12, 2014 at 12:02am

I agree, it was a great post - and no doubt inspired by that group. The problem is as great as closed groups can be (and secret groups sometimes even better), it's an echo chamber - not that this isn't, but at least it's out in the open and exposes these ideas to a broader subset than what really amounts to a cool kids club.


Will Thomson said:

Animal,  this is a better forum to discuss these matters than Recruiters Online with 1700 members whom are well respected in the industry who get a ping every time a remark gets made.  Jeremy Roberts wrote a killer post on this exact topic today.  

Permalink Reply by Recruiting Animal on February 12, 2014 at 6:35am

I'm pretty sure I posted here and on RecruitersOnline here at RBC at the same time. Then I got an email about Jeremy's post in the evening. So, there were 3 separate conversations about the same topic on the same day. That's interesting. And Jeremy's post had a screen capture of a Facebook discussion about it last week. So, it must be somewhat interesting.

By the way, RecruitersOnline is not a closed group or a secret group. It's an open group. Anyone can see the contents. That's how Jerry managed to shift most of the chatty members from RecruitersOnline to his group. He started a closed group and marketed it as such to the members of RecruitersOnline and, they responded enthusiastically. I saw people saying "Thank goodness, this group is closed. Now I feel I can discuss my actual work problems freely."

Facebook groups have an advantage over RBC in that everyone seems to be on Facebook and if they join a group it sends the postings straight into their newsfeed. The problem is that you can't sell advertising on Facebook.

That said, most of the chatty members of Jerry's group are refugees from RBC and I've seen them complaining there that RBC doesn't have any good postings so they have cut back on their participation. If you're doing an overhaul of RBC I think it's important for you to see that it's easier to get the content in front of potential viewers on Facebook and also that the real talkers prefer not to be in a group that is visible to the public.

I remember seeing someone say there that he is glad that his clients can't see what he says. But, of course, if his clients are HR Managers they can join any group he joins as well. He just doesn't like to think about that.

From what I can see the content in Jerry's group is not consistent. In December and January there were few good discussions but it has picked up again and if RBC wants to improve its user-generated content it should be targeting those very same people.

You might want to have an RBC group on Facebook that feeds links to members but nothing else so they would have to come here to read them. I don't know if you can block the comments there but you would want to in order to shift the conversation here.

I say all of this is assuming that recruiters chatting about their problems is the basis of a good business model. It might not be. When you sell advertising formal articles might be the way to go.

Permalink Reply by Linda Ferrante on February 12, 2014 at 3:32pm

Back to the original question.....for me social recruiting is what I do when I'm out and about.  Recruiting candidates through social (personal) interaction.  Online recruiting is fb, LI, twitter, job boards, etc.

The term 'social media' for me refers to something online you do for fun, to interact with others.  Social recruiting, in these terms, are the same as online recruiting.  

As far as who posted when and who's article is better, I don't have a thought.  I like this blog and the topics that are covered.  :)

Permalink Reply by Matt Charney on February 12, 2014 at 3:43pm

Back to the group reference, I retract the statement that group is closed - I'm part of a million and a half groups with some variation on that name and got confused. I agree Facebook is a valuable platform, and while I'm a 30 year old Jew who likes hoodies, it's not like I'm competing with Zuck for traffic. I love Facebook and can appreciate the fact that there are some pretty bad ass conversations that happen there - as you know, I've always got it open in a tab and contribute most of my snark to those groups that are to your point not visible to the public.

The problem is (and look at Linda's response for proof) that is limited to people who actually use Facebook for professional purposes or even think to, and only a small set of early adopters do.  The goal of this site is to try to open that conversation up to anyone who wants to make it public, and for some reason, this extends the conversation to that majority of practitioners who aren't early adopters.  Ning is as clunky and outdated as the systems most recruiters use all day, and the fact that it's kind of stuck in 2007 for some reason means that our traffic is predominantly practitioners, so it's really just extending the conversation about recruiting to a site their corporate firewall isn't set up to block.

Matt

Recruiting Animal said:

I'm pretty sure I posted here and on RecruitersOnline here at RBC at the same time. Then I got an email about Jeremy's post in the evening. So, there were 3 separate conversations about the same topic on the same day. That's interesting. And Jeremy's post had a screen capture of a Facebook discussion about it last week. So, it must be somewhat interesting.

By the way, RecruitersOnline is not a closed group or a secret group. It's an open group. Anyone can see the contents. That's how Jerry managed to shift most of the chatty members from RecruitersOnline to his group. He started a closed group and marketed it as such to the members of RecruitersOnline and, they responded enthusiastically. I saw people saying "Thank goodness, this group is closed. Now I feel I can discuss my actual work problems freely."

Facebook groups have an advantage over RBC in that everyone seems to be on Facebook and if they join a group it sends the postings straight into their newsfeed. The problem is that you can't sell advertising on Facebook.

That said, most of the chatty members of Jerry's group are refugees from RBC and I've seen them complaining there that RBC doesn't have any good postings so they have cut back on their participation. If you're doing an overhaul of RBC I think it's important for you to see that it's easier to get the content in front of potential viewers on Facebook and also that the real talkers prefer not to be in a group that is visible to the public.

I remember seeing someone say there that he is glad that his clients can't see what he says. But, of course, if his clients are HR Managers they can join any group he joins as well. He just doesn't like to think about that.

From what I can see the content in Jerry's group is not consistent. In December and January there were few good discussions but it has picked up again and if RBC wants to improve its user-generated content it should be targeting those very same people.

You might want to have an RBC group on Facebook that feeds links to members but nothing else so they would have to come here to read them. I don't know if you can block the comments there but you would want to in order to shift the conversation here.

I say all of this is assuming that recruiters chatting about their problems is the basis of a good business model. It might not be. When you sell advertising formal articles might be the way to go.

Permalink Reply by Jerry Albright on February 13, 2014 at 11:53am

Disclaimer: This reply is also the start of a new discussion on the closed FB Group - RWAMP.  Many of the members there are not members here and vice versa.  

Can we please stop with the worn out "All recruiting is social" BS?  It most certainly is not.  While, to be any good at recruiting one needs to be: professional, cordial, engaging, etc. - "SOCIAL" is not a requirement.  

Recruiting - at it's core - is 90% transactional.  My client needs what you have.  You want want my client has.  I'm in the middle.  I'm going to be friendly, forward, enthusiastic, reliable, professional, ethical and (in the end, hopefully...) valuable in this transaction.  95% of the time, we will most likely only connect a time or two after you start your new job.  Perhaps you'll keep my number and let me know when things get rocky.  Perhaps not.  But since I am being paid to help "attract" you to my customer, you won't be hearing from me with enticing opportunities.....It pretty much ends once you and I conclude our "transaction". 

So, members of our world, please knock off the "all recruiting is social" baloney. You're wrong. It is not.

Permalink Reply by Matt Charney on February 13, 2014 at 11:58am

Jerry: If you have to actually talk to people one way or the other, whether that's the client or the candidate, then you're being social. Just like using a cell to cold call is technically mobile recruiting.  And of course you'll stop socializing once you make a placement most of the time, but once that hire happens you're ostensibly no longer recruiting.  But if that maxim is BS, then you're saying that human interactions are completely removed from the recruiting process, in which case, better brush off that resume because you're about to be automated out of a job.

Permalink Reply by Jerry Albright on February 13, 2014 at 12:05pm

Actually Matty Matt - you're wrong.  Friendly, cordial, professional, yes.  But social?  Nope.  I'm not inviting them to the Ducks Unlimited dinner - or to hang out shooting pool.  THAT is social.  


Talking on the phone?  Nope.  I think you may want to take a quick breeze through Webster's on some of the words you're maligning.  I "socialize" with my friends, not candidates.

Permalink Reply by Recruiting Animal on February 13, 2014 at 12:09pm

Social Recruiting is a short form for Social Media Recruiting. As far as I know, Jerry is very social but he doesn't recruit on social media. He does go out to have dinner with his clients and he will travel long miles to have lunch with a placement but I never see him recruiting candidates on any social media network. (And, again, that is distinct from doing searches on the Linkedin database).

Permalink Reply by Matt Charney on February 13, 2014 at 12:10pm

Jerry: You are absolutely right.  I did take a quick breeze through Websters.

1so·cial

adjective \ˈsō-shəl\: relating to or involving activities in which people spend time talking to each other or doing enjoyable things with each other.

So obviously the latter clause is BS, but the first part there is actually social, according to the Webster's. So, I'm going to go ahead and say that in this one really weird instance, neither of us are wrong, which might be a first.

Permalink Reply by Jerry Albright on February 13, 2014 at 12:12pm

"Doing enjoyable things with each other" is the more significant definition (and dare I say "germane")  to this discussion.  

Permalink Reply by Paul Alfred on February 13, 2014 at 12:13pm

I am with Matt ... I actually "Socialize" with candidates ... If you are not Social you really can't succeed in this business. It's like being in the Real Estate Market.  People do business with who they like -   Perhaps we need to look up of the meaning of being social....

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