Microsoft saved thousands of pounds recruiting technical
staff through LinkedIn rather than hiring a headhunter. KPMG found
its recruits through Second Life.
Social networking has meant that databases of potential job
applicants, once the prize possessions of recruitment companies,
are now public property.
Microsoft recruiter Declan Fitzgerald used that fact to his
advantage when he was asked to find nine workers with niche IT
skills to work on a security project.
"Finding nine techies with skills in the rare Assembly and X86
software languages is not that easy and traditional methods would
not work," says Fitzgerald.
By
using social networking site LinkedIn he was able to find
suitable people and saved about £60,000 in recruitment company
fees.
Indian IT supplier HCL claims to have saved £300,000 in
recruitment fees in a year, while brewer SAB Miller saved £1.2m in
recruitment fees in a year by employing 120 people directly from
LinkedIn.
KPMG held a 48-hour virtual world
jobs fair in Second Life in Septemberlast year.
Experienced professionals, recent and prospective college
graduates, and others interested in career opportunities with the
KPMG network took part. More than 10,000 applicants registered for
the online event through KPMG's global website.
David Bloxham, director of recruitment services at recruitment
firm GCS, says social media will change recruitment. "I do not
think the recruitment industry will stop, but it will have to
change."
He says with social media the candidate database in effect
becomes public, and recruitment firms will have to add value to
survive.
"We will have to provide referenced candidates. We can become
experts in using social networking technology and we will have to
find candidates that are passive and not actually looking for work,
through sites such as LinkedIn," he says.
But social media is unlikely to have as big an impact on the
recruitment industry as the recession, he says.
William Scott-Jackson of Oxford Strategic Consulting, who
specialises in human resources, says LinkedIn and other social
media platforms are useful for finding a small number of people
with niche skills.
"This has always been the case in areas where skills are short,
such as certain IT roles," he says. "But if you have thousands of
people with similar skills it is better to go through recruitment
firms."
Consolidation is inevitable in the recruitment sector, driven by
social media and the economic downturn. Recruitment firms that
harness social media and add value to it will be in a better
position to prosper.