Recruiters Putting the Social into Networking

The topic I had planned to blog about today has been put back a week.  So now I’m like a desperate press industry hack scrabbling around for inspiration with some portly, cigar-smoking, sociopathic editor breathing down my neck.  Except in this instance that editor is you my dear reader.  Damn you.

Fortunately inspiration swiftly arrived in the form of a fine LinkedIn meme.  Normally these types of things turn my stomach.  You know the ones: quotes from Richard Branson, Gandhi, The Dalai Lama, Kim Kardashian and other such luminaries, framed within some black and white wistfulness.

But hats off to this chap:

There’s obviously no doubting the rise of social media in the way people network and communicate with each other nowadays.  But what I’m less convinced by are the people who replace the word “rise” for the word “impact”.  SEEK presented some of their upcoming products and ideas to a group of recruitment leaders earlier this week and the stats they produced (even acknowledging the clear bias) showed that the impact of things like Facebook and Twitter, even LinkedIn, hasn’t been as great on the jobseeker market as many HR tech vendors and “thought leaders” will lead you to believe.

The fact is most people still get jobs via job boards.

Boring perhaps, disappointing, for some of you, but it’s a reality.  Which is why, whilst social media has its place in the overall recruitment matrix, its importance shouldn’t be overplayed.  Good recruiters are good networkers and there really is no substitute for talking shop with people in person.  Especially over a cold beverage or two.  There will be more and more money ploughed into attempts to disrupt the HR and Recruitment industries, so we will keep getting seduced by more and more new products.  SEEK also told us about the recent HR Tech conference in Las Vegas, and that $1.5 billion has already been invested into HR Tech in just the first half of 2015.  A huge increase on just two or three years ago.

But whatever they come up with, make sure you don’t lose the ability to meet people, engage, interact, network, share ideas and just make business happen.  That’s what makes good recruiters irreplaceable.  Which is why it was heartening to see a good crowd out at both the Auckland and Wellington Recruitment MeetUps running concurrently last night.

And if you subscribe to my sentiments, but missed out last night, you’re in luck as you have a chance to redeem yourself.  Next Thursday is the last #RicePowWow of 2015 and, as Christmas is approaching, we are replacing a speaker with a musician, and we will be serving up your first Christmas Ham of the season too.  We have a few spots left, so click on the image below to visit our event page and RSVP, and I look forward to swapping notes on digital vs real-world recruiting next week…