People vs. Technology - Are Recruiters Facing Extinction?

Job boards, like Monster, have given companies access to more candidates that ever before. Because of free sourcing technology, many companies are tempted to skip using a recruiters and perform the job search for themselves.

As a recruiter, what challenges do you face as companies have increased access to job-filling technologies like job boards, VMS systems, and social media?

How do you convince companies that using a recruiter is the better route?

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Paul Alfred on August 23, 2011 at 10:19am

The point I am trying to make Greg is that there is a trend in the Staffing Market place. We need to realize that smart companies with consistent need for talent will work towards looking at cutting costs. As staffing Service providers we will be under pressure to deliver more value and to do so consistently.

The days of sitting back and saying "They need Us" is not going to be enough any more like Tiger saying I have 14 Majors and 81 PGA Tournament Wins - in the end he has to keep or start wining again to be relevant. We need to keep providing value to be necessary when we stop doing that or more scary " When we are "perceived" to stop providing value" is when we should start taking the underlying message of this blog more seriously - I started doing that 4 years ago.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Greg Darmenio on August 23, 2011 at 10:26am

You are correct, but that has been true from the start. Business of all types need to change with the times. A static business model is a tombstone, whether a client company or a recruiting firm.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by bill josephson on August 23, 2011 at 10:36am

I thought Charles' and Paul's comments were salient.

Paul's right in that companies find recruiters internet recruiting savvy, then hire them as internal recruiters and build a team around them at their company. Or they outsource a group located elsewhere to act as their internal recruiters. I find my recruiting parameters/constraints getting tighter all the time.

I see zero benefit to recruiting on the Internet. Any technology available to me is available to my client companies with their technologically adept recruitment staff.

I figure I'll only be out of business if two things happen. One, US companies literally offshore outsource all our professional jobs due to the high cost of business in the US and low cost overseas. Two, internal recruiters are able to access the same passive/invisible gainfully employed prospects I can. My survival, as Maureen Sharib points out, is predicated on the phone. It's what I do better than my clients. Take that away from me, Paul, and I don't see where I survive.

Being on the phone my skills don't today translate to the Internet driven corporate internal recruitment side--least not yet. So I'm always in pursuit of phone work ignoring every single Internet recruiting trick/approach out there.

BTW, I'm definitely not having my "best year ever" and personally know of no recruiters who are. Maybe I'm (we're) doing something wrong and others doing something right.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jody Schwartz on August 23, 2011 at 11:50am

I have to say due to some "luck" AND some good skills I am having the BEST YEAR EVER IN 5 YEARS! I did as I said have some luck and filled an out of state high level position so I did get LUCKY AND I worked with a very very difficult client. I even know of a recruiter who pulled her candidates out of the search because this client was so difficult to work with. But, I still believe it's the "passive" candidates that we go after that will keep us in business. It's not considered the most professional move of an internal corporate recruiter to take from their competitors. We can dangle the bait and say "are you really happy at your current position" and it's considered "ok" but not so for the corporate recruiters.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jessica Lunk on August 24, 2011 at 9:35am

Thanks for contributing to the discussion - read the blog post here. I wrote this a while ago, so didn't get to include everyone's input - but definitely a lot of interesting angles to this debate.