Twittering threat to job agencies

Sunday Business Post - Recruitment - Aug 30 2009

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The use of social network ing websites by professionals is driving fund a mental changes in the Irish recruitment industry, according to Declan Fitzgerald, global sourcing manager with Microsoft.

‘‘The Irish recruitment industry is in a state of huge change at the moment, and social media and the internet are driving a lot of this change,” said Fitzgerald. ‘‘We are seeing the arrival of the ‘internet recruiter’ who knows how to deploy a variety of different technologies, tools and techniques to source particular candidates. The smart recruiters now understand how to harness these technologies.”

Ronan Colleran, managing director of Accreate Executive Search & Interim, said the recession was prompting recruiters in Ireland to use social networking sites to save time and money.

‘‘The rate of increased awareness of the potential of social networking amongst the Irish recruitment community has been significant over the past six months in particular,” said Colleran. ‘‘With the downturn in the economy, people have started thinking of fresh ways to approach their work; maybe they are working a little harder than in a buoyant employment market.”

The sheer number of people using social networking websites is an obvious draw for recruiters. LinkedIn has more than 44 million members in over 200 countries. The number of Irish users signed up to Facebook has more than doubled to over 900,000 since the start of the year, and Twitter is also fast gaining ground among business users.

‘‘It started very much with younger people exploring these social networks, but the vast majority of people joining Twitter and Facebook in the last six months are over 35,” said Fitzgerald. ‘‘There is quite a large number of directors and chief executives at large multinationals with a presence on these sites. They may not be active users, but they are there.”

Fitzgerald, who runs his own LinkedIn recruitment group and blog, said Microsoft was among the first companies in Ireland to use social networking for recruitment purposes.

‘‘We’ve been using LinkedIn successfully for three years to recruit, and now have hundreds of recruiters using it,” he said. ‘‘I run two-day training courses internally, where we teach people how to use LinkedIn, Facebook and the internet generally, to search for company information, see conversations that people are having, and thereby approach them using various communication techniques.”

In February, LinkedIn launched its Talent Advantage suite of solutions, allowing recruiters to actively target candidates on the site.

‘‘LinkedIn’s recruiter product allows you to send mass emails to LinkedIn profiles, which is an excellent way for you to send out your job description and get people’s attention,” said Fitzgerald. ‘‘You can expand your network, and get access to their millions of users. You are also able to send more mails and contact more people.”

Microsoft has used social networking to find overseas candidates with niche skills.

‘‘We were hiring people for our malware engineering virus response team in the last year. We looked in the Irish market and there were very few people with that specialisation,” said Fitzgerald. ‘‘Using LinkedIn, we were able to type in certain keywords or technologies and find profiles of engineers around the world with the right experience. We then targeted two countries in particular - Romania and Finland - and contacted candidates to see if they were interested. There were no agency fees, very little costs involved, and it was very quick.”

Accreate has also used LinkedIn to find high-level candidates with specialised skills.

‘‘We used social networking to source a candidate who was based in Korea for a European client with operations in Ireland. This required a specific and specialised skillset in the financial services area,” said Colleran. ‘‘Given the locations involved, it would have been difficult to source this particular candidate without using social recruiting as part of our research process.”

Despite these advantages, the sheer size of the social networking ‘net’ can sometimes create as many problems as it solves for recruiters.

‘‘The sites increase the reach for research teams but they do not lessen the workload,” said Colleran. ‘‘As more candidates sign up, more sifting needs to be done to ensure the most relevant candidates are sourced for a given role.”

Communications consultant Damien Mulley advised recruiters to use professional networking sites carefully, and with long-term goals in mind.

‘‘Some recruiters are playing the short game and putting a wide spread in their sights and targeting everyone, as it is easy to do digitally. These networks offer the opportunity to build a relationship over a period of months and even years,” said Mulley. ‘‘It would be great if you only get approached by a recruiter when the ideal position pops up - a bit like an art dealer that knows what you like and only contacts you when they have something they know you will like and they know they can sell.”

Mulley believes that social networking poses a serious threat to the traditional industry, as it offers a cheaper and easy-to-use alternative to employers.

‘‘I think we will see more people Twitter, blog and Facebook about new jobs in their company and those ads spreading through networks of friends and trusted sources,” he said.

As work practices become more flexible and dispersed, Mulley said social networking could play a central role in complex recruitment and human resource processes.

‘‘I think recruiters and employers might become hubs of hiring activity, connectors of talent and facilitators of information, he said. ‘‘With a workforce that is going to move away from nine-to-five work and not working in the office, it will be up to HR and employers to keep these different networks of people working well.”

Colleran advised recruitment companies to make sure their own staff had the skills to make the best possible use of social networking sites.

‘‘As the popularity of social recruiting grows, there will be an increased onus on individual consultants and researchers to embrace the sites. As some are more web savvy than others, in-house training could be used to address any issues in this regard,” he said.

Colleran said that recruiters who failed to adapt to the trend risked falling behind in an industry facing unprecedented change.

‘‘If firms do not adapt towards using these tools, they will be left behind. Social networking sites are free and, since candidates are embracing this new phenomenon, so too must recruiters,” he said.

Online tools should be used in conjunction with established recruitment practices, Colleran said.

‘‘Companies run the risk of not hiring the best candidate if they rely only on information gleaned from the web. It is important to bear in mind that not all candidates have a presence online. Traditional methods, which have served us well over the years, should not be discarded,” he said.