The LinkedIn social network has dramatically changed the way companies connect with talent. It has given them access to a huge number of both active and passive job seekers. It was, however, not a beneficial change, but a disastrous one.
This is the main argument of an article by Maury Hanigan entitled How LinkedIn Fundamentally Ruined Recruitment which sparked a big discussion on Entrepreneur.com. Hanigan, who has more than 20 years of experience in the field of recruitment consulting, thinks that LinkedIn significantly reduced the effectiveness of recruitment by making it more difficult for companies to find true talent.
Frustration on the part of companies and candidates
Employers use LinkedIn primarily to look for candidates for middle and senior management positions. In the past, this service was largely provided by headhunters and recruitment agencies that had developed sophisticated work procedures and databases of pre-selected candidates. With the advent of LinkedIn, the data on these databases became accessible to all, but lost their detailed sorting and targeting. Employers have become subject to the impression that they it will be better and cheaper if they hire internal recruiters and pay for them to have unlimited access to LinkedIn's services.
"What good are thousands of potential candidates if they don’t respond, are uninterested in the position or turn out to be unqualified?" asks Maury Hanigan. Moreover, she finds the candidates' are equally frustrated by their experience. They are being forced to communicate with significantly more recruiters than ever before and are bombarded with more and more job offers that do not correspond to their skills, interests and expectations.
Personal contact must remain
Recruiting in the era of LinkedIn lacks personal contact and a better understanding of the candidates' needs. According to Maury Hanigan, it is therefore necessary to re-start the conversation between companies and candidates. Instead of sending plain text job offers, recruiters should start creating a more complex content that will engage potential employees. That involves not only text, but also photos and videos that will show real life in the company. Potential candidates must see whether the job is interesting to them and whether they can fit into the company.
It is also necessary to stop mass emailing to all the LinkedIn users who drop out of the search engine after entering the keyword "manager". You should search for targeted candidates who are most likely to respond. As in the past, the human touch still plays a crucial role, no matter how advanced the technologies have become. Recruiting must remain personal.
What do you think - has LinkedIn facilitated recruitment, or made it more difficult?
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