Social Wisdom: Digital Strategy Musings

Its not what you know but who you know.  Provocative.  Not entirely true – I’d say its both but ‘who you know’ is on steroids with the advent of social networking hitting the recruiting industry.

The recruiting industry is undergoing profound changes in 2009.  Hiring managers and recruiters are more satisfied with the quality of candidates from employee referrals and social networks  (sns) over job boards.  And social network sites are making finding passive job seekers easier, background checks a snap all the while making the route to placement faster and cheaper.

The better ROI on referrals and social networking use is shaking up the industry.  Major placement firms will need to adjust and develop social media strategies pdq as from what I’ve seen online, in-house hiring managers are exploring how to better leveraging employee referrals and sns.  An easy statement to say in a great recession.

I delivered a course yesterday requested by Tcet – an employment resource centre in Toronto.  As a sign of the times and the need, 85 people registered, 65-70 people turned out for what was anticipated to be a 20 person course.

The audience varied from newcomer to Canada, to boomers, from all industry backgrounds, many of who had been laid off and looking for over three months.

I was advising those with no linkedin, nor facebook to focus on those two medium first.  Not to worry about twitter until the first two are done.   From Dan Schawbel’s excellent blog on personal branding –  of the hr professionals using social media – 76% use linkedin, 67% use search engines, 44% use facebook and 21% use twitter.

I suggested that while the room was full of people trying to understand sns for job search, that the next room was likely recruiters doing the same thing.  Its a wild west world in recruiting.

I look forward to posting my presentation on slideshare.

Laurie

@ldillonschalk