“It is not that the world is too small, it is more that we are ‘big’, and very much networked”
This is what a friend tells me every time we realize how we end up knowing each other in a town of 5 million people, in a country of more than 10 million.“Networking” is the name of the game, and the action which will probably make our globalized future a little more humane. Apart from the fun element involved in the networking sites, there is much more underneath this opportunity to present oneself – formally or more informally – that has to do with the creation and publication of a profile, with data you willingly disclose and make available to ‘significant’ others – those who know you well, those who have studied with you, those who have worked with you, those who might want to work with you in the future…
These networking tools have entered our social and professional life, making it much more simple and direct than one should think…only imagine how many people can see your Linkedin profile, without you needing to send them your CV. How can this, and other technology tools, along with changing communication demands, change the way we recruit candidates?
Going through some expert views on the future of recruitment, we should first mention what was predicted for 2007 and see if this rings any bells in the Greek market and the way we recruit people: a continued growth to online recruiting and an outburst of creative sourcing techniques, coupled with some recruiters testing the social networking waters and the potential of blogging along with other web tolls as means of building an employment brand and attracting candidates. Have you exprienced any of the actions mentioned above? Have you already acted as an agent of these innovative techniques? If yes, you are still some steps ahead for the Greek market standards.
What is discussed at HR conferences and in relevant blogs presently is how companies can develop passive candidate recruiting expertise to meet the challenge of attracting and retaining talent for the next several years. The interest has shifted towards identifying, selecting, reaching out and nurturing potential employees – what is called passive candidate recruiting, and can be explained as attracting those candidates who have never sent their CVs to your company or a recruitment agency. Third party recruiters are expected to act more as marketers as well, to position their firms and their clients favorably in the minds of potential candidates, using newsletters, mass customized mails, and heavy personal contact to keep in touch with candidates and manage their pipelines.
Predictions for 2008 mark the following trends: the internet will still be a major source of information about people – more and more content will be online everyday. Valuable information will still be hidden in unstructured sources – but tools which will be created to organize and make easily accessible this information will be a great support to recruiters in their search for high quality candidates. The process of collecting references will also be enhanced through the social networking sources and internet search technologies. Recruiters are expected to rely less on job postings, and more on direct sourcing and proactive referrals to locate and attract good candidates. They will have to create and nurture a talent pipeline, with better contact management techniques designed into recruitment tools, to help them build on a pool of good candidates without necessarily having an immediate placement in mind – and this will help third party recruiters be faster in their responses to market/client needs at probably reduced fees.
Predictions for 2008 certainly point out that traditional boring job descriptions will not recruit many good people anymore, and that companies need to try new things to attract the best people. Affinity-specific social media applications are expected to make up for traditional job boards inefficiency to provide good recruitment results. As good candidates have high expectations about their career development, companies will also have to commit in a two way communication with them, providing feedback on assessment and adopting new styles of interactive simulation and testing. Third party recruitment will become an art and science, since learning from best practices, white papers and relevant newsletters will enhance their capacity to source and evaluate good candidates. More recruiting blogs are also expected to rise. Predictions also point out that early adopters of social networking tools will not spread out to make this recruiting method a dominant one, but recruiting professionals will retreat to proven resources like online sourcing, direct recruiting and building recruiters’ personal networks.
To make a greenglish comment, ‘network because we are losing each other’, and keep your network profiles updated…As a last but not least comment, we should mention that in fear of sounding pessimist about job ads, there are still some very creative and inspiring ads – both in the Press and in job/career internet sites which are worth our attention – as long as they portray realistic positions with sound content.
[Sources: zoominfo.com, Five Recruiting Gurus’ 2008 Predictions & Insights from PRC Group]
