I find myself in the rather odd position of being an early and (genuinely) keen adopter of many aspects of social media and yet feeling that I need to write a piece reining in on what I feel are the vastly excessive claims of various social media pundits and “gurus”.
I think that the final catalyst was reading a blog yesterday entitled “You’re Either Social Networking or Social ‘Not’ Working” (actually I thought that the content of that blog was far more measured than the title). And of course there is a mini industry emerging around the recruitment world of advice about social media in recruitment.
So what’s my issue? I’m in business and my business is to find the absolutely best and most appropriate people (candidates) for my clients (property & construction employers). If the way to do that most effectively were to spend 24×7 on Twitter then I’d do it (OK maybe not 24×7 but you know what I mean). But so far the evidence available to me is that wouldn’t be an effective way of delivering what my clients want.
I like simple Venn diagrams and here is my social media in recruitment Venn diagram – I’ll make myself available at £200 / hour to present it in person.
Now I was tempted to say “surely nobody would disagree with the structure of that – it’s only the relative sizes of the sets and intersects that are up for debate” but I guess that some social media evangelists might argue that my grey coloured “Appropriate great candidates” is totally a subset of the blue “Active on Twitter, Linkedin etc”. In other words there are no great candidates who are not actively engaged in at least one major social media channel. But it’s my blog and I’m going to disregard such extreme views.
Are great potential candidates to be found through social media channels? Undoubtedly yes.
Are most potentially great candidates (for the type of roles that we recruit for) to be found through social media channels? – No.
The social media consulting industry is biased towards seeing and thinking about successes through social media channels (and these case studies are a bit thin on the ground at the moment ). But an objective assessment needs to start from a different point – if we could access ALL of the appropriate great talent and ask them how they might be accessed (social media, via friends, give me a call etc) what proportion would be findable via social media? I’ve recently heard a lot of young (20’s and 30’s) very IT savvy professionals say that they will have nothing to do with the social media channels that I’ve mentioned because exposure is viewed by peers and managers as saying “I’m on the market, come and get me”.
So to use an economist’s expression, I believe it comes down to a question of “utility”. If you are considering how to most productively allocate your time in order to find appropriate great candidates what proportion should you allocate to:
- Social media
- “Conventional” methods including calling people to talk, meeting for a coffee, meeting after work, attendance at conferences etc.
That balance will be different for every individual and the area in which they are working. But here’s my bold assertion.
If you are recruiting professionals and are spending today in March 2010, more than 15-20% (max) of your time in virtual relationship building then I really hope that you’ve thought it through and not just bought into the evangelical mantras of the (largely self appointed) social media gurus.
My recipe for success? A mixed economy. Our model is to “let the crowd decide” – a very large number of practitioners in property & construction know best how to find and engage with potential candidates. Some will use social media, some will use more “conventional” approaches. The wisdom of the crowd will naturally find the best solution.
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