Social Media has been hailed as the next revolution in recruitment, but is the hype really justified? Toby Conibear, European Business Development Director, Bond International Software investigates …
The truth is that Social Media is clearly playing a significant role in modern recruitment, in terms of sourcing talent. Recruiters have seen the rise of Social Media and have been able to utilise these channels, in particular LinkedIn, to source candidates with specific skills, requirements and experience and contact them directly with relevant placements.
Social Media can also be a very useful tool in terms of advertising vacancies, with recruiters being able to update their profiles with the latest jobs. This provides guaranteed exposure to an audience who may be actively job seeking, or may not be looking for a new role but discover an ideal position is being publicised.
However, as it is still a relatively new tool to the industry, it is too early to extract compelling evidence which supports the exact nature of the effect of Social Media and its future direction.
In order to begin to gauge the industry impact, it is important to analyse what these networks actually provide in terms of value to the resourcing world outside of a simple sourcing tool.
New concepts to aid and verify candidate credentials – such as endorsements of skills and references sites such as LinkedIn, a visible work history/ online CV and even the ability to link the individual’s contacts to past roles – all add to the credibility of the candidate. But the question remains, do these features add real value to the recruitment process or do they provide a method for candidates to misrepresent their true potential?
The jury is still out but one thing is for sure, with ever increasing amounts of people signing up to these networks, they are here to stay and it will be up to the recruitment industry to utilise the benefits they provide, but also to tread carefully in unchartered territory.
www.bondinternationalsoftware.com
