08-02-2011 @ 18:42

Having a legal background I am always keen to begin with an definition. In order to have a meaningful discussion on the merits of social recruiting we have to decide what we are talking about when we use that term.

I think social recruiting means to reach potential candidates using social media. It is in essence another form of advertising.

I think social recruiting would like to be a new way to reach candidates by personal recommendations and relationships between firms and candidates.

The trouble is most people aren't mates with corporate entities - it is difficult to meet them down the pub or go for a curry you see. And whilst recommendations from friends and family do happen and very well - it cannot be replicated on a massive scale unless of course you have about 50,000 friends.

Even hand picking people via Linkedin which I am sure works is not social recruiting – there is no relationship, you have simply found a new way to filter candidates and send them a personalised advert by searching for a key word in their profile – there is no relationship.

Social means some form of a relationship right?

In one sense we can say that social recruiting has been in existence for many hundreds of years - in fact recruitment started off as social recruiting. When you needed additional labour you would ask around amongst friends and family... a friend tells his brother who tell his friend and so on... This is what many people would like to be able to be do on social networks. I am not saying it does not happen it blatantly does, but not in a commercially viable way.

So nothing has really changed and there hasn't been a revolution. What has changed is that now we have websites that effectively aggregate your social interactions. Such communities have never existed before which means recruiters can potentially target people more specifically than ever before.

Social recruiting works - it always has - and the advent Facebook, Myspace or LinkedIn hasn't changed that; it has just made some of those interactions (between friend, family and colleagues) faster and it has made it easier to target the people you are aiming at. Social media has revolutionised advertising not recruitment - let’s not get confused.