A looong time ago I used to work at Lateral where we had the Levi’s account, which was run on the client side by Helene. Helene now works at Lego and there is a job on offer there. So Helene has emailed a stack of her old contacts and they have then done things like put it on their blogs (like this one), forwarded the email to other friends and in some cases put it into their email newsletters, which Justin Kirby did in the latest VBMA network newsletter. Which all just seems to tell me that (in some sectors) the role of the recruiter has got to be properly threatened by social recruitment; as who you know becomes increasingly more useful than what, in terms of both finding staff and jobs. Yes I know it was ever the case but surely this is just accelerating the ‘who you know’ factor? By the way the Lego job is an “Online Experience Manager to lead the online part of LEGO Factory, LEGO’s acclaimed customization service and an interesting, challenging, envelope-pushing project!”. Oh yes, and Ryan MacMillan is still hiring.
Insight, inspiration and expertise in social media
I was having an off-line discussion with Janine Hall, (http://j9hq.com/) recruiter for the creative industries who naturally had some thoughts on this;
Hi Leo….
…in reply to your story on recruitment:
Online recruiting in the manner you describe can be very effective. Helene could end up with a mass of introductions from well meaning individuals wanting to help their friends. We’ve often found that an introduction of a friend from a highly creative/experienced individual doesn’t guarantee the same quality of skills and experience in the person they have introduced.
The manner in which people are garnered is not focused and the resulting mass of applicants have to be looked through to find the few that may be suitable for the role, short listed and interviewed to check that they have the appropriate skills and experience for the role. Most companies are looking for quality but are usually overwhelmed by the quantity.
Some companies find that in the end having to wade through the resulting random CVs is not cost effective and although they will always wish to reduce their recruitment costs, working closely with a good recruitment agency should help them find the best person for the role and (funnily enough) reduce these costs. Time is money….how much non billable time does Helene have to spare for recruitment?
Turning it round to the candidates view. The more senior/good people do not see approaching Companies direct to be very professional and will want to be represented. A good recruiter will be able to help those people in how they present themselves, their work and their experience starting from the reasons why they are leaving a company, where they want to be in the future and how they get there. For us, it’s about looking after an individual over a period of time and finding what is best for them.
Finding the right people for a great job is not a simple matter and
in a market where candidates can pick and choose where they go Companies
need to remember that they are being interviewed too. Candidates need to remember that the market will change (sooner than they think) so be careful not to bite the hand that feeds them.
…and to answer your comment ‘it’s who you know’ we would say….It’s not just about who you know. It’s about who we know……and if we don’t know them… at J9>HQ we’ll go and find them.
….Oh…and by the way I’m looking for a good project manager (-:
J9
And I think this raises a couple good points about the quality of the connections on our social networks and the risks associated with relaying on the unfiltered quality of the results. At the end of the day its a risk reward calculation; if I am relying on my trusted work colleagues and old college friends what is the risk that they will send me a lot of rubbish? Hopefully low. But if I madly add friends to my facebook profile like a mad thing regardless of who they are and then ask all 1,500 of them for suggestions I’d reckon the risk of rubbish is high.