Does Twitter do anything for Recruiters?

I don’t have much time for it and I’m no expert but I do get that others see personal and commercial value in it. The very fact that people may be talking about you or your business on it means you need to adopt some sort of position - don’t you?

As far as Recruitment Consultants are concerned I see no value in it directly. Will you attract candidates? Will you attract Clients? Will you shape your brand? Is anyone listening? Probably not!

However there are a number of interesting services for Recruiters that use Twitter to deliver. www.twitjobsearch.com . This may have some value for you?

Twitter propagates messages fast and people can say anything about anyone. However it’s the bigger names that are talked about most so if you’re a 2 man Agency from Doncaster and you don’t kill your candidates the chances are no-one is going to care or talk about you.

As most of the recruitment sector is made up of small agencies this is the problem with Twitter if you’re looking for a commercial channel. The only time it requires your attention is if you’re a mega agency or you join a twitter job board or you overcome the fact that you have a very low profile by forming/joining something bigger.

Otherwise it's a waste of time.

Comment by C. B. Stalling!! on September 15, 2011 at 11:14am: It might it is a tool, but nothing beats the phone

Comment by Helen Burbank (Appleby) on September 15, 2011 at 11:28am: Wow that is a really cool site. I agree that nothing beats the phone when dealing with partners, but to reach out to potential candidates this is an interesting way to manipulate twitter.

Comment by Tim Spagnola on September 15, 2011 at 11:32am: I agree Helen & C.B. phone is end all for me as well, but the guys a TwitJobSearch do have a nifty little tool. The mind behind the tool is also the creator of the Social CV- another very cool tool.

Comment by Jon Terry on September 15, 2011 at 2:12pm: I think it may work well for people involved with mass recruitment whose target audience might be engaged by twitter.

I have serious doubts that my client base (senior level HR professionals) are really using twitter to find themselves a job.

It has its uses but it is just one of many tools available to me as a recruiter.

Comment by Tim Spagnola on September 15, 2011 at 7:49pm: I agree with you Jon. I shared a few more thoughts on Twitter on jeffreytmoore's post from last week. I have not made a placement from a tweet, but at times it still serves it's purpose.

Comment by Ron Kubitz on September 16, 2011 at 11:16am: I agree that it is one tool amongst many! That being said I regularly tweet my jobs (link to company website) and have had two hires this year as a result of a job first being seen on Twitter. One was a direct follower who saw the tweet and another was from a candidate who saw a "retweet" from another party who followed me!

It is all about exposure and driving traffic to your website and Twitter certainly helps in that effort!

Comment by jeffreytmoore on September 16, 2011 at 11:39am: Twitter is great for learning and networking in my experience. Definitely nothing beats the phone but I've had a lot of success meeting new people via Twitter and then using more standard networking/recruiting strategies once I "meet" someone via Twitter

Comment by Sandra McCartt on September 16, 2011 at 2:47pm: Twitter just notified me that there is a major fire near downtown with rail cars of gas on one end and cars full of anhydrous ammonia on the other end. Hazmat is on the way all the way from Ft Worth and lots of folks are being evacuated from the center of city. As to recruiting , not in my world unless one of clients or candidates gets blown up. I don't lose many that way but it could happen.