Social Recruiting - let's get some perspective...

Although I like to think of myself as a modern day recruiter, and one who embraces the world of social media (both personally and professionally), I can’t help thinking that there is a huge amount of information and advice for recruiters online that will only help a very small proportion of the industry, and actually have a detrimental effect on the performance of others.

I hold a dual role at Balance Recruitment. I’m an owner/Director of the business and I am therefore jointly responsible for the promotion of our brand, our culture and for ensuring we achieve and maintain a positive reputation with all those we come in to contact with. I also carry out a full 360 recruiter role, representing a niche client base, sourcing candidates and managing all the really easy stuff (ahem) that goes in between.

Whilst wearing both hats, I feel it’s vital to keep abreast of new networks/tools/techniques to utilise the internet for the benefit of the business, but I also need to guard against investment of time in networks that just aren’t ever likely to yield returns. But this is where there’s a problem, because with each new social network online, there seems to be a blog somewhere telling recruiters that they should be using it or risk getting left behind.

So on the one hand, agency and search recruiters are working hard to stay ahead of the competition from in-house recruiters and RPO’s, whilst at the same time they’re being told that they should also be spending an untold amount of time on the development of peripheral social branding even just to keep up?

As I see it, too many recruitment or business focussed social media experts place the readers of their blogs in a position of being behind the curve, without considering how generic and non-targeted the advice they’re providing to a broad recruitment industry audience actually is. So whilst it may well be fair (I assume!) to admonish a specialist online marketing & design recruitment business for not having a Pinterest or Instagram presence, does this also mean an IT recruiter should be scouring the internet for stylish photos of server storage racks too?

Sure, some of the social networks are clearly beneficial to recruiters, whilst others may have great success for specific sectors and career disciplines (online, creative and marketing usually), but there are plenty for which, I suspect, the majority of recruiters will never really see enough return from the investment of time they put in.

LinkedIn's Endorsements feature - users will decide its fate...

I’ve read a number of articles/blogs recently discussing the pros and cons of the Endorsements feature on Linkedin, so I thought I’d throw my opinion in to the ring.

The theory behind its introduction makes sense to me. It’s a quick and easy way to publicly verify the skills and expertise of a contact you’ve worked with or done business with. Not as personal and informative as a written recommendation, but still a testimonial of sorts and one we’re all grateful to receive when it’s from someone we know.

One of the major problems is how the feature is promoted on the site. Linkedin have made it too quick and easy to endorse multiple contacts with one mouse click when prompted.  This significantly dilutes the credibility of the function and actively encourages users to endorse their connections for skills and expertise they may not possess.

Another big argument from the doubters is that they’re receiving endorsements from people they’ve never even met or had business dealings with. In the article:  Why I Think LinkedIn Endorsements Will Be Dead By The End Of The Year the author states that he’s had five endorsements that very day from complete strangers, and as a result feels the feature is doomed to fail.

This is where there seems to be some misguided criticism of the feature in my opinion. Only first tier connections can endorse you, so if you don’t want to give strangers the ability to endorse you, don’t connect with them in the first place. Linkedin can’t be held accountable for being unable to distinguish between your real life connections and the open networkers you connect with on the site to build a bigger network. *I’ve literally just had a notification of an endorsement come through as I typed this (I promise!), and guess what – it’s from a stranger with ‘LION’ in their surname. I assume they’re just hoping for a reciprocal endorsement back, but it’s not going to happen.

So how can it be improved? It’s quite simple – by improving it ourselves. If everyone takes the initiative and some time out to endorse their real life contacts for the specific skills you know they possess, a much more accurate picture of an individuals expertise will eventually be reflected in the data.

The same goes for any site you use with user generated reviews and endorsements. Do you read the reviews on Amazon, ebay and TripAdvisor before making purchases/reservations for example? If you use it, get involved too. Contribute your reviews and experiences also and make it even better for everyone. The same applies to Linkedin Recommendations and Endorsements.