Talking Point: Facing facts
The social media revolution is one that’s crept up on many of us whilst we weren’t looking. Whilst 18 months ago a lot of us sneered at Twitter – we’re now all on it. The same goes for LinkedIn – the Facebook for the professional community. LinkedIn enables recruiters to stay in touch with candidates even more, and allows directories to be updated as people move from job to job, or even if their existing job title has changed. And all of this is free!
These ways of keeping in touch with people have changed my industry beyond all recognition; social media has given recruiters fast access to people in the job market. It has sped up the process of sourcing information on people and companies immeasurably.
However, I’m here to sound a note of caution to the social media revolution. What I’ve seen over recent months is that people are starting to rely on these methods of communication and gathering information. And this applies to major blue chips as well as recruiters. In my opinion, new recruiters are losing the face-to-face skills – meeting the candidates to find out all of the things their CV and online profiles can’t give you.
Because, when it comes down to it, it’s only face-to-face that you can determine a candidate’s real skills – the touchy-feely things that electronic communications just can‘t give you. A skilled interviewer will find out everything about a candidate, increasing their job prospects as the recruiter can sell them harder if they know more about them. These are the people/personality elements that will help them clinch the job if they get to interview stage with their potential employer.
Personality has just as much to do with securing a new role as the qualifications on your CV, and this is where a face-to-face meeting can be priceless. A recruitment consultancy’s client will buy people they like, so I need to match the personality with the client. This simply has to be done face-to-face, not through candidate research undertaken online.
That’s not to say social media is worthless when it comes to recruitment – not at all. LinkedIn will get good results to some extent, but it can never be wholly relied on. A “real life” meeting has to happen if quality is to remain in the recruitment consultant’s process. Social media will give the consultant a good volume of candidates to choose from, but it simply cannot make the shortlist selection on my behalf.
A new generation of recruiters and professionals is coming through, and my concern is centred around what will happen when the inevitable happens and LinkedIn starts charging for its services? Will the world fall apart for some recruiters? At the moment, in my opinion, that would be a real danger for some in the industry.
By all means, the recruitment industry should use LinkedIn to help target potential candidates. Use it and other social mediums, but my advice would be to make hay whilst the sun shines and these things stay free – and always, always keep face-to-face people skills at the forefront of recruitment.
James Calder, director of Macildowie, specialist financial, HR and procurement and supply chain recruitment consultancy.
