So there’s a bit of a fuss online with recruiters that took offense to Peter Weddle’s recent article that social media within the realm of recruiting is just a scam. Some said he was wrong and others outright demanded an apology . I’m a fan of Weddle and have been for some time – so I’m just going to throw out something to think about and see how things pan out.
I’ll keep it simple – social networks for recruiting are rapidly becoming a staple. And if you’re a recruiter that’s using them effectively you will no doubt have your favorites. For this RecruiterGuy I’m finding that Twitter and LinkedIn continue to be powerhouses with Facebook and various niche communities not far behind. Of course this wasn’t the case a few years ago. But wait… that means things are changing, right?
Quit frankly, the recruiting and staffing industry is evolving and at only a slightly slower pace than we see the technology driving the evolution of online communities and rapid fire communication channels. Think about it… 5 years ago you wouldn’t have found many companies with corporate “pages” on Facebook. You wouldn’t have found career portals with social media buttons throughout. You wouldn’t have found over 1,000 recruiters on an “instant messaging” micro-blog platform.
You also wouldn’t have found me – telling you – that it works when done right.
Flash back to the migration from fax to email. Slowly move forward from email to internet pages to portals to wikis. Slide just a bit more up the time line until you hit mobile phones for recruitment and marketing (hey wait, that’s today!)
Each new phase of technology has it’s naysayers. Whether they’re resistant because they don’t understand the new change or because they’ve some sort of personal investment in the practice that’s being passed by… ultimately they’ll come around, however.
I’ll be speaking at the Social Recruiting Summit on the Google campus in just a few weeks with my partner in crime, Michael Marlatt. We’ll be addressing a few myths that surround mobile marketing for recruiting and why some of the hesitation is just silly, if not solely based on resistance to change.
My recommendation to Mr. Weddle is that he consider the evolution of our industry – parts of which even he was an advocate of early on – and ask himself if his interpretation of this “social” thing as just a fad or a scam is because he just hasn’t figured out how to make it work. Should the latter be the case then I think he’s in luck. I can think of a few online communities and very social recruiters that might be willing to return the favor of his many years of contribution by helping him along.
