The social recruiting battlegrounds in 2010

The last decade has, in my opinion, seen one of the biggest seed changes the recruitment industry has seen for many years. While I am referring to social media, I also combine that with the evolution (it took it's time but now has real momentum) that has been online recruitment.

The primary change is that we're no longer just regarding them as recruitment experiements, they are now primary recruitment channels. Online recruitment systems (ATS's), job boards and social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and even Facebook have quickly become established candidate recruitment channels. And for me, this has led to the biggest change of all - increased candidate expectation!

The companies that have not yet embraced social recruiting, via the sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube (not forgetting blogs), will need to take a long hard look at themselves, as these platforms will become the recruiting battlegrounds of 2010.
Companies and recruiters that have been sitting at the head of the curve, have already created successful communities on specific platforms - like the already very successful Mya4e Community site, based on the Tribepad platform - and will they definitely yield recruitment success from these recruitment communities (the caveat being that whatever the platform, they need to be maintained and effectively managed to yield desired results).
Some companies and recruiters are already actively building effective communities, on the likes of LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Many companies towards the end of 2009, finally realised that they need to be in the social recruiting space, and have started to explore it further.

Building your online community - whether it be via Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or a blog - will be absolutely crucial to success in social recruiting. Recruiting is all about relationships - with clients and candidates alike - and using social media tools are fantastic ways to initiate and develop relationships with them. So, by building your own communities (on individual or multiple social channels) with interesting, compelling and relevent content, companies and recruiters will both start to create a social recruiting brand that they will certainly need in the years ahead.

Battlegrounds inevitably have casualties scattered around them. So, if candidate expectation (around using social media in recruiting), continues to increase the way it has in 2009, then be prepared for the consequences, because, if as a company or a recruiter, you choose to ignore social recruiting as a channel for 2010, then you will be watching your competitors take control of the recruiting battleground for good!

Originally posted on my blog, Sirona Says.

Comment by Slouch on January 4, 2010 at 1:48pm: Hi Andy, thanks for posting this here. I would say the part you have in italics is the hard part and the part where most people lose interest and control:

(the caveat being that whatever the platform, they need to be maintained and effectively managed to yield desired results).

Comment by Andy Headworth on January 5, 2010 at 5:02am: Unfortunately you are quite right :-(

But I would like to hope that as they get to understand more about the world of social recruiting and engagement, they start to understand this.

Comment by Slouch on January 5, 2010 at 10:12am: I'm not sure if it's unfortunate. I think it's good that it's not easy. Recruiting is not easy either otherwise I think everyone would be doing it. Either way both recruiting and running or buil;ding or maintaining a social network cannot be done on a part time basis.

The other thing about social networks is that it can't be rushed and if you are in a rush, you should consider the classic buy versus build. I bet this year a lot of part time run social networks for recruiters will go up for sale.

Comment by Kelly Dingee on January 5, 2010 at 11:39am: Nicely done......especially like your turn of phrase "candidate recruitment channels". Many companies are just coming to the table of social recruiting, they tend to start with building their brand, creating presence, and then learn how to source and develop relationships. It'll be interesting to watch this medium continue to evolve and particularly how companies protect these coveted relationships they are developing......

Best wishes in 2010....

Comment by Andy Headworth on January 5, 2010 at 11:39am: Very true. Strong social networks take time to cultivate with the right members/followers.

Cultivation = time = commitment

Maybe there will be some bargains to be had this year then, in the recruiting social networking space?

Comment by Andy Headworth on January 5, 2010 at 12:31pm: Thanks Kelly and Happy New Year.

Many companies are just coming to the table of social recruiting, but over here in the UK, add into that effective online recruitment!
So they are not just playing catch-up with online recruitment, career sites etc but they are also having to factor in the demand for social media channels as well. So it is a bit of a 'double whammy'!!

I am certainly having some interesting conversations with clients, who want to implement online recruiting methods and social recruiting strategies all in one go!

Makes for fun at work, anyway. :-)

Comment by Slouch on January 6, 2010 at 11:22am: Andy, I sold a domain name a while back to Texas Instruments and part of what I think made them interested other than the fact it was a perfect domain name for them was that when I showed them RecruitingBlogs.com and it's 1100 members at the time they were highly interested in building out something like it for the domain name they bought and the engineers that fall into that category. I even offered to help build it for them. That never happened and now the domain name just points to their career section. My point is that it's easy to understand why social recruiting strategies represent something that a lot of people at a lot of companies want and will want to do. It takes full time focus and in most cases a new hire specifically to make it work for that company.

Comment by Martin H.Snyder on January 6, 2010 at 11:27am: I still have problems with the language we are using. "Social" to me has always been the opposite of "Professional" - as in " I know her socially" meaning I dont work with her .

I'm waiting and watching for Facebook to find a way to bifurcate profiles into a social side and a professional side, which may hammer LinkedIN because I think people are getting tired of maintaining multiple channels as individuals....I know I am.....

Also staring down the barrel of a depression tends to blunt the edge sought by employers.....not sure we will see a lot of hardcore innovation until the storm passes.....

Comment by Slouch on January 6, 2010 at 11:30am: It's funny Martin or at least I find it funny that no one says any more I'm going go make a telephone call. It's just a call. Maybe social networking soon will be called networking and social recruiting will be called recruiting.

Comment by Kelly Dingee on January 6, 2010 at 12:14pm: That almost makes it sound like you anticipate social recruiting, social networking to be the way companies will find employees.......not a very diverse approach. And someone better tell the jobseekers. We're only at the tip of the iceberg.

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