The recruitment database is far from dead....

As the largest recruitment agency in Ireland we place over 4,000 permanent jobs every year. As a snapshot my IT Director took the last 20 professional placements by salary level and analysed where we had found the candidates:I understand this is not a representative sample but here is where we sourced them from:

Only one applied through a job board

Two came from a cv database such as monster

3 came from our own Cpl website

2 were found on Linkedin

12 were by referral or internally found by the recruiter on our database.

So before we all go "social" lets understand the importance of the data we possess as recruitment agencies and the candidate information we have if we choose to mine this information. Yes, it can be less clean than Linkedin and less current than a jobsite application but these "passive" candidates if you can call them that may be exclusive to you and more likely to listen to the opportunity. Don't get me wrong I would continue to use all forms of candidate sourcing but it is important to remind yourself of the data and the facts....our professional/ executive roles are being filled by candidates who know us or know our brand.

I will sleep well tonight knowing that no technology can replace the recruiter's ability to network a role and ask for referrals and no external database such as Linkedin can ever have the richness (albeit messy at times) of data than you have at your disposal if you understand how to use your own database.

Comment by Amber on November 23, 2011 at 12:52pm: Thanks Peter, thought it was nice to see some "real life" information! Question - is there any statistics kept on where the candidates in your database originally came from?

Comment by Stephen Harrington on November 28, 2011 at 11:09am: I would think that even if you took a larger sample you would still find more than enough evidence to back up your headline statement. While LinkedIn is an "essential tool" it is still used best in addition to your talent
database.

Secondly,while your competitors also have access to LinkedIn, only your organisation has
access to your own Database!

Comment by Martin H.Snyder on November 28, 2011 at 11:55am: Music to my ears....

Comment by Brian Keith on November 28, 2011 at 12:47pm: FACT! Regardless of the enabling technology or tools, reaching great candidates is largely a manual task.

Comment by Bill Schultz on November 28, 2011 at 1:47pm: I agree with everything you said except about Linkedin. It pretty much nails the recruiting workflow and if you know how to use it, and your candidates are professionals, you really don't need an internal database.

Comment by Dorothy Wong on November 28, 2011 at 2:42pm: Thanks for sharing your data.

I personally consider internal databases and social recruitment go hand in hand. For a database to function properly, new information needs to be added periodically to keep the the database up-to-date. Social recruitment tools help recruiters to source candidates, interact, and learn about their most recent projects and skill sets.

I am sure there are ways for recruiters to update their databases as well. But social recruitment tools allow recruiters to have a further reach to candidates outside of their current network. Social recruitment tools help expand your reach to more job candidates. Going back to Peter's point, there is no silver bullet in recruitment. Instead of using only one type of recruitment tool, recruiters should incorporate the newer social recruitment tools into their existing solutions for the best result. Please share your experience with me.

To learn more about grow your online community/ database register for free webinars How to Recruit on Facebook , Social Recruitment101

Comment by Sylvia Dahlby on November 28, 2011 at 4:16pm: THANK YOU - as a vendor of an ATS it's refreshing to see a post about the value of building and WORKING one's internal database for referrals and sourcing. We keep hearing that that job board is "dead" and the resume is "dead" - but the truth is recruiting requires the right MIX of tools, media, and resources - building a database for CRM (C for Candidates and Clients) has been and ALWAYS will be the number one resource for sales and recruiting.

Comment by Kenneth Peck on November 29, 2011 at 1:16pm: As an recruiting software vendor I like this article. I believe it makes a valid point. To paraphrase Mark Twain once said. ‘The stories of the death internal databases and referrals have been greatly exaggerated’.

This is the “Achilles Heel” of media hype.

Comment