Social Media's Impact on the Recruitment Industry

Is it time to dump your database and focus your energies on social media sites?

This is a question that Digital Personnel put to recruiters involved in the digital media recruitment space recently. Surprisingly most thought this was a ridiculous idea, taking the stance that an agency database is the ultimate USP and to remove it would be similar to cutting your telephone wires. In fairness it was a leading question as it would indeed be rather silly to remove your matured database of contacts and it will always be the primary tool for documenting feedback.

The point was actually based around the ability these days to network vacancies across social sites such as LinkedIn,

Twitter and Facebook and not find it necessary to utilise your own database. It is important these days to build communities on social sites and target specialist audiences. These captive audiences can then help you by either directly showing interest in opportunities, or by passing your vacancies to their own network of contacts. In many cases at Digital Personnel the business is able to network opportunities to groups of specialists within the digital space and identify fully qualified candidates eager to pursue vacancies without so much as even thinking about a search on a private database.

Candidates from social and business networking sites usually appear with a full career history, a record of their interactions with blogs and notable websites and a comprehensive list of recommendations. This could actually be construed as a dream come true for the recruitment industry! This is not new news of course but what will require further thought is how to engage these audiences of potential candidates and what strategies need to be implemented to grow appropriate and rewarding communities. Are recruitment agencies ready to build themselves a brand and communicate daily with their associates? It will be interesting to see how this develops over time.

There are also rewards to be found from clients. By building a stronger online presence, recruitment agencies can further their reach for potential business partners and if credible engagement with audiences is evident, an employer would be wise to make the first move. The canvass calls will not stop of course (utopia for many employers!) but this is potentially another route to increased revenue streams.

Social media is an unstoppable force that will engulf the recruitment industry, and has already become the lead medium in some market sectors. A recruiters' unique database is no longer a selling point, the ability to tap into the unlimited talent across the web and capitalise on this is how agencies will ultimately be judged.

Digital Personnel specialize in Digital Media Jobs, SEO jobs and Online Marketing Jobs.

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