...when you're in a pharmacy, do you have a sudden urge to purchase a shovel? No, of course you don't. But hang on a minute, there's a method to what seem a couple of mad and random questions, and it's this...

Everywhere you look these days there is always someone who is happy to preach about how social recruiting is where it's at. Encourage people to be fans on Facebook they say. Establish an online community for your company where everyone can happily chat to perfect strangers about their career aspirations. Have the pick of the crop as you discover that the elusive workplace genius of your dreams that you've been searching for for years is not only amongst Linkedin's 70m+ members but lives right round the corner from your company - and is interested in being hired!

It all sounds so damned idyllic. What's more, with the exception of Linkedin's premium membership, it comes for free. So what's the catch?

Well, whilst we know Facebook has over 500 million members worldwide, Linkedin 70m+ and that Twitter gets billions of tweets a month, we don't know for certain what every individual's motivation for using social media is, over and above wanting to chat about the minutiae of their lives with close friends and family. We cannot be sure that any approach from a recruiter or a company wouldn't be seen as an unsolicited intrusion at best, and spam at worst.

That's why, despite the gurus shouting it from the rooftops, i remain sceptical about the real and reliable leverage that social media has in recruitment terms. Sure, it has the potential, but as of now it is still relatively unproven in any kind of numbers of success stories freely available out in cyberspace. Or maybe I just haven't seen all the wonderful testimonials that are available from the likes of Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter users? I am happy to be proved wrong but a lot of the hype seems to be about the perceived ROI.

So, do you have a success story to share, or, like me, do you believe that just as people don't go into a grocery store to buy a car neither do a big percentage of them use Linkedin, Facebook or Twitter specifically to find a job?