Will Social Recruiting Dig the Job Board Plot Next to the "Help Wanted" Grave

I find this whole recruiting train of thought amusing...

With Linked In, Facebook, Twitter, and myriad other avenues of engagement - worrying about where the best site to place a job ad...well, er - it sounds like a discussion from a 100 years ago listening to two buggy whip salesmen chatting about which blacksmith to align themselves with...while Ford, Nash, Olds and Packard were quickly replacing them. Think about it, how hard was it for men to carry something 4,000 pounds for about 20 miles – when it could be done with a Buick on just one gallon of gas. What’s amazing is that it didn’t happen sooner, yet this is the very state we find recruiting in today…where the expectations of the career minded woefully are mismatched with the traditional process of making a career move (yup the latest research says that job boards and job ads still dominate, but it also tells us that candidates hate using them with only about 30% on average finding success that answer the ads…).

Compare the state of transportation before the auto technology explosion with our 90 year old system of placing an ad, hoping someone will see it and having that same person send a resume to alert the company about interview interest for the opening (oh yeah, that resume is only a marketing document prepared by the person applying…). Could there be a more ineffective method - you’d really have to stop and think quite a bit to make it any worse! Like the automobile, we finally have new methods and tools readily available that make this old method seem very outdated. Now we have at our finger tips the ability to find innately interested people, cultivate them for the company and opening and learn pre-interview whether they would be a good fit. Yet just like all those buggy whip makers 100 years ago many of us are failing to see what transformational change the new Social Recruiting Order has brought (and continues to evolve…)

I’ve never seen so many people dig their heels in to protect the status quo since the Stones released Let It Bleed and my Dad gave me the ultimatum to either turn it down, take a bath and get a haircut or find a tent to live in (being that Central Park (NYC) was pretty cold that winter, I turned it down to an 8 and took a bath – for him 2 out of 3 wasn’t too bad so I got to stay…). For many, if they take their preconceived notions and put them aside and evaluate the efficiency improvements and advanced candidate engagement experience, I am convinced that they will wonder what all the fuss was about and begin using these tools right away (their potential candidates will thank them).

Talent Management today, is not about where active candidates can find a job ad, keeping an eye on the “back doors” of internal recruitment or relying on Third Party Recruitment solutions. It’s providing ways to effectively encourage and cultivate specific talent segment interest in the company, and then managing the relationships of those interested people. Once managed effectively through company specific Career Communities or other means where confidentiality of members can be maintained, the other key components of hiring such as pre-interview Assessment, Scheduling, Selection, and Offer Management can be handled much more efficiently.

After many, many years of Talent Management business ownership, it is amazing to see the shifts that are happening. The Talent Management world is changing before our eyes and worrying about who sells that last horse whip will only let the rest of us fill the void as you’re left behind.

To all my friends in the business, I respectively urge them to wake up and not be left holding the wrong end of the horse...

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Comment by James Todd on February 17, 2011 at 1:39pm: KC the benefit of SM to third party recruiters is still unproven. You have hitched your wagon to social media in recruiting in much the same way as the investors of the Chicago Carbon Credit exchange hitched their wagon to global warming. Unfortunately, when it became public that the science used to support the theory was fraudulant, the house of cards came down and the exchange closed. My point is not that global warming does not exist, it may, the point of the story is that it is not a good idea to confuse fact with theory. At least once a month a marketing agency contacts me about helping my company get all in with "Social Media", the day a rep can refer me to another similar sized TPR willing to provide a testimonial of the great ROI he/she received with SM, then I am going to become a convert. Until then, the evangalizing and clairvoyant visions that those of us who don't repent will be going the way of the buggy whip salesman are wasted.

Comment by K.C. on February 17, 2011 at 3:16pm: Hi Todd - I couldn't agree with you more that most TPR's aren't ready yet for Social Recruiting - but they need to find a way to incorporate it as soon as they are able. The reason is that the companies you support ARE making use of Social Recruiting in a BIG way and if you haven't seen it yet in your client pool it might be due to the size of your pool, the niche of business you're in or the need to look more closely.

As with everything, those with the resources have been using it internally for 2-3 years (Microsoft, Staples, Sodexo, etc.) and their learnings have made it out into the mainstream and the next round of SR Evolution is roaring...don't believe it Google, You Tube, Twitter search "social recruitment" and see what you get...(try 39MM hits in Goo, about 1,500 in YT, Active Stream in Twitter).

You mistake me for SR zealot - not so - an ideation pragmatist is more like it, and when I see reports that indicate that 2/3 of the working public are using Social Recruiting tools to mold their careers (not surprising when half the country has a FB page!), I don't have to be led to the water when I'm drowning in it. More importantly, with clients going this route - I found it a much better way to work with them by offering the tools for better Social Recruiting than charging them a fee for each hire I helped thm with (the very thing that they are trying to eliminate with Social Recruiting tools!!). That could be the true "don't be the last one to turn the lights out" moment for many TPR's...

(I can't let you off the hook about your Chicago Carbon Exchange comments, as your assumptions for its failure are not painting a very clear picture...it had nothing to do with Global Warming and everything to do with Cap and Trade failure...when the REC's were essentially shut down by Senate inactivity so was the Exchange that was set up to trade them...)

Comment by K.C. on February 17, 2011 at 3:20pm: I meant - Hi James...sorry bout that!

Comment by James Todd on February 17, 2011 at 3:54pm: KC, your argument to clients is that with an effective social media effort the need for TPR's is reduced, why you chose a blog site dominated by TPR's to promote that pitch escapes me, but I guess that is why I am not in marketing. Similar to your failure to attribute the demise of the CCE to climategate, I think your reasoning for why SM is the solution is equally flawed. The outsourcing requirement and decision by corporations to use TPR's is not simply to get more resumes, contacts, followers or friends, but rather to get more qualified & screened candidates in front of decision makers. My clients with a few exceptions are Fortune 100 companies, they have overworked HR staffs that are innundated daily by resumes from all directions, these company's don't hire me to add to there burden, they hire me to reduce it.

Comment by K.C. on February 17, 2011 at 5:07pm: James - who is promoting a pitch? I find the recruiters on this site are some of the most intelligent and I learn a lot from these exchanges (also I hope that some of what I offer is helpful to others - not everything is done for financial gain...).

I own another company where we provide only Retained Search Services for multinational companies that average $20BB+ in revenue so I certainly understand this part of the business. Many of these clients have staff that is focused on Community based recruitment strategies that they’re using to attract applicants that don’t respond to job ads. If they are getting 15K resumes a month on average – why on earth are they doing this? Its because the general flow does not provide candidate’s for the most important openings (isn’t that why you have a business?). My Social Recruiting company, Clean Journey, offers similar Community based tools to clients in the Clean Energy Technology space. Ours are used by these companies to learn about casual job seekers that rarely apply BEFORE they become candidates - some also use our programs to enhance the candidate experience. Your job I would guess is about delivering 3-4 candidates per opening you are given to work on in hopes that one will be hired - honorable and satisfying work...if a company can eliminate this need by creating an assessed pool of the same talent you draw from for your candidates then they will not need your service. Instead - they'll hire a "closer" to get these folks on-board and save themselves a ton of money (my clients average well in excess of $10MM per year in Agency fees so they have a lot of loot to invest in it - and they are!). No one is going to replace your business model any time soon if you are effective - but with the work of building what amounts to a replica of a "recruiter's rolodex" being accomplished today using Talent Communities and Advanced Networking Tools...well..

Comment by K.C. on February 17, 2011 at 5:08pm: Btw - I won't comment on your percieved notions about Climate Change...wrong venue James...

Comment by Sandra McCartt on February 17, 2011 at 6:30pm: James,

As one old buggy whip salesman to another. Do you remember those snake oil salesmen that came through here a few weeks ago. :)

Comment by James Todd on February 17, 2011 at 7:06pm: Sandra,

I am in a good mood. I sold a buggy whip today to one of the five largest corporations on the planet. Thankfully they have not yet gotten the word that I am an anachronism that can easily be replaced by a talent community. The word probably came in the form of one of those annoying tweets and got deleted along with the latest news on Justin Beiber and Moly Cyrus.

Comment by K.C. on February 17, 2011 at 10:06pm: Good for you James! As for you Ms. McCart - ha ha ha!! ...didn't you know I'm more of a Medicine Man, but my recipe was stolen and revealed earlier this week in Atlanta - no more liquid thunder from me...

...just a thought - you know many of those buggy whip folks took jobs in automotive...hmmm...is there social tech in your future - nahhh the Polar Bears will be hanging around you backyard barbecues before that ever happens...

:)

Comment by Sandra McCartt on February 18, 2011 at 2:56am: Kc I told you that sticking your snoot in the scotch bottle was like hitting yourself on the head with a hammer
Excpt with the hammer it feels better when you quit.

James me too. I have nine clients begging me for buggy whips that cost over250k. Just got an email from one that said, "please don't forget us". I suggested she start a talent community.. True story.. She said is that another fucking gizmo that some goof ball thinks I can't live without. I don't have time to even search our database, if I hear "talent", social media or Twitter one more time I am going to have IT pull the plug on our network so these little darlins will quit licking and liking people they don't know and go to work.

I said, "how about a buggy whip? She said, give me four I want something that does not take any time or technology just gets something done. I am sick of all this stuff that works half the time and reminds me of my ex-husband , smoke, mirrors and does't work.

As to the polar bears. U global warming freaks have convinced everybody they are all dying anyway and who wats to work in an automotive plant.