August 14, 2013
I have recently started with immediate future as Head of Talent, recruiting the best talent in social media and keeping the great staff we have already happy in their workplace! On that note, if you work in social media marketing – at any level, or want to – we offer a great internship scheme – send me your CV, indiana.pearce@immediatefuture.co.uk
Personally, I have never used big sites like Reed or Monster – I can’t stand them, I find them impersonal and non-targeted. I have always recruited for the media industry and have always used niche sites –the biggest being GuardianJobs. Response varies in quantity and quality dependant on jobsite used and (of course) salary of the job. There have been some jobs that, no matter how much database mining or referral schemes I increase, I cannot find the right person. That is, of course, until I used LinkedIn – properly.
I previously used LinkedIn half-heartedly and it was great for networking. With a free account, you can get to a good, sizeable database, especially with 500+ or 1000+ connections, but what you need as an effective recruiter is a Linkedin recruiter account and the basics of Boolean search. I swear by it! I can search for the right candidate in as little or as much detail as I choose, I can save searches, LinkedIn will update me when someone new matches my search criteria and so, so much more. In fact, I do not use any other website to recruit. And as I work for a social media consultancy, if someone is not on LinkedIn, do we want them to work here anyway?
Social media has revolutionised recruitment, with the increase in businesses bringing recruitment in-house, LinkedIn is a powerful tool, and using other social sites like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram to create a recruitment branding strategy, it’s all to play for in the social media recruitment space! So, can LinkedIn keep up with the demand of recruiters expecting a higher ROI? They’re currently increasing their student and university engagement, but my concern is that this could create a skills gap. There will be a group of people who are not joining as new users while they target students, so in a few years there will be a gap in the market for those using Linkedin to recruit.
And why are they not pushing LinkedIn Student Jobs? I have not met one person (student, recent graduate, academic or otherwise who has actually heard of this jobsite… I will investigate, so watch out for my next post and share your experiences of LinkedIn with me by leaving a comment!