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.