Recruitment is Broken

Many people will know Greg Savage through his blog, The Savage Truth, or indeed his illustrious career in the recruitment industry. I had the pleasure of hosting a webinar with Greg during which his message to the recruitment industry was a massive wake-up call. While many of us have lamented the inefficiencies of the industry, Gregs professional stature and bluntness of delivery give a one-two punch to every agency recruiter – adapt or die.

According to Greg, ‘the Recruitment Industry is BROKEN’. With language like that there can be no mistaking the call for an urgent and radical review of the fundamental services offered by the industry. There are threats from all sides, corporates hire directly and drive down costs while LinkedIn and other internet giants see the agency recruiter as fair game.

In spite of this I’m still optimistic about the industries future. It is still extremely difficult to recruit staff and, because recruitment technology provides access to many more people, the problem is increasing. This creates an opportunity, as while there are challenges to hire staff, there are markets for good recruiters.

The service provided by the traditional contingency agency is now out of step with needs of the marketplace. Ten years ago, knowledge was everything. The bigger your database the better, and recruitment was simply about selling this valuable resource. In the past number of years this has completely changed. Big databases are freely available and there cannot be many people left who cannot be found on the internet. Even my mother can be found on Google!

So what does the recruiter of the future look like? According to Greg, the core service of placing candidates remains. The method of achieving this will be a combination of the traditional ‘Craft of Recruitment’ combined with the newly developing skills of social and internet recruitment. Does this imply subtle tweets to an existing business model or a root and branch review? For the generalist contingency recruiter, we’re talking radical review, as unfortunately, your days are numbered.

Firstly, No Placement No Fee, means that recruiters don’t take responsibility to fill the role and the client has no loyalty to the recruiter. If there is one thing that gives the industry a bad name it is No Placement No Fee.

Secondly, survival will depend on providing a valuable service. That means doing something clients can’t do themselves. Recruiters must focus on specialist market segments and develop a method of working that gives a clear advantage over the corporate recruiter.

Greg describes the three things that every recruiter needs to do right now.
1. Twitter – Create a professional profile, there are so few recruiters on twitter and even fewer doing it well. Twitter is the way to build an effective community.
2. Use LinkedIn well. Every recruiter should have a full professional profile, it will be core to developing a personal brand.
3. Blog – This will take time to build but is massively effective in building a personal brand and being seen as an authority in your niche.

My next webinar will be on the Thursday the 11th July when I plan to talk about Sourcing Candidates in a Specific Location.

If you would like me to send you a reminder email about my future webinars please subscribe to my mailing list. I publish recordings of all my webinars on my YouTube channel. If you would like a notification when these are available, please subscribe to my channel.

All my webinars are free of charge and there simply to share ideas to the recruitment industry. I am extremely grateful for anyone who can spread the word and share this content. Please share this with any other recruiters you may know.

Shane

Shane McCusker
Intelligence Software
www.intel-sw.com
shane@intel-sw.com

Connect with me:
Twitter: @1ntelligence
Google Plus: Shane McCusker
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/shanemccusker

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel

Google plus is now the second largest Social media site after Facebook with in excess of 359 million active users. Google plus is, to some extent, still the new kid on the bock compared to the other big names of Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. It has certainly learnt from its competitors and to a large extent is a mashup of features from the other top players in the market. This week’s announcement of a raft of changes to the site continue to competitively position Google Plus as an alternative to facebook, however it does have a unique position and is significantly more than just a Facebook copy.

Where Facebook is a place to be with your friends and LinkedIn is the Professional Network, Google plus is the place to meet strangers with common interests. It does not yet have the casual conversations and random thoughts of Twitter but seems to be a place for more crafted content. The variety of tools on offer can make it a confusing place for the newbe. From Circles, Hangouts, Communities, Events and all the new photo sharing options is it something for everyone or a jack of all trades. Many of the features have subtleties that even a professional Social Media marketer will struggle to understand however, the casual user is likely to be happy with its intuitive design and will use it to suit their purpose.

From a Social Recruiters point of view, Google Plus, is a golden opportunity waiting to happen. It contains rich information on hundreds of millions of people, it can be searched and people can be easily contacted at any time. Unfortunately, right now, it still appears to be significantly out-gunned by both LinkedIn and twitter. Interesting as the new developments are it has quite some way to go before the recruitment community embrace it as fully as they potentially could.

It is strange that, of all platforms, Google Plus is not that easy to effectively search. Recruiters want to find people with particular skills or job interests within a geographical area. The Search within Google Plus does not allow searches to specify specific fields to search and so a recruiter is left with random key word searching. Facebooks new Graph Search, wipes the floor with Google Plus, it’s such a pity that Google, of all companies, has dropped the ball with search.

For the specialist recruiter with internet sourcing skills, it is possible to search Google Plus effectively. Ironically the most effective way to search Google Plus is by using Googles normal internet search. In addition to this there are other free tools that have been developed to help search the site. One of these is a search tool I developed myself through my company Intelligence Software which is currently available on my blog page www.intel-sw.com/blog/searching-google-plus

I recently ran a webinar to discuss how Google Plus works and how it can be effectively used by recruiters. The recording of the webinar is available here on my blog page www.intel-sw.com/blog/google-plus-for-recuiters

My next free recruitment webinar is on the 4th of June and I am delighted to be joined by Greg Savage to talk about the Future of Recruitment. It will be streamed live to my blog, please subscribe to my mailing list or connect with me and I will send you full details.

Shane McCusker
Intelligence Software
www.intel-sw.com
shane@intel-sw.com

Connect with me:
Twitter: @1ntelligence
Google Plus: Shane McCusker
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/shanemccusker

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel

I know that x-ray search is not for everyone so inspired by Glens blog and a Google Plus conversation earlier today, I thought there must be a better way. The challenge was to develop a simple tool that allows you to search for people on Google Plus based in a particular location and with particular key words.

It’s Late at night, I’ve just finished writing this so it’s probably full of bugs but please give it a go and let me know what you think.

Please share my blog and connect. My Webinar on Google Plus, like all my recruitment webinars is free and available here.

Shane McCusker(@1ntelligence) (LinkedIn)
shane@intel-sw.com

16th May – Google Plus for Recruiters –
1pm UK & Ireland, which is 2pm in South Africa, 8am EDT, 5am PDT, 10pm Sydney Australia
Click here to see this webinar

4th June – Greg Savage – The Future of Recruitment.
1pm UK & Ireland, which is 2pm in South Africa, 8am EDT, 5am PDT, 10pm Sydney Australia

My recent webinars have looked at the big social recruiting platforms of Twitter and Facebook. To complete the series I’m looking at Google Plus and how recruiters can use this to source and engage with candidates.

For my June Webinar, I’m absolutely delighted to be joined by, recruitment guru, Greg Savage. Greg has built several hugely successful recruitment businesses. His recruitment blog, The Savage Truth, has thousands or readers and is massively insightful of our industry. Greg is highly in demand for his conference speaking and about to run a series of conferences through out South Africa. If you are in SA then I’d recommend checking with APSO if tickets are still available.

All my webinars are completely free to take part in. I stream the video straight to this blog page. There is no need to register simply be here at the time of the webinar. If you’d like me to email you a reminder of these and my other webinars then please subscribe to my mailing list.

Shane

Shane

I’m delighted to be joined by the legendary Katharine Robinson aka @TheSourceress. Katharine is a world class internet sourcer, one of the first sourcers in the UK and former Grandmaster SourceCon champion. Katharine is a goldmine of information and inspiration with regard to internet sourcing of candidates. In todays webinar Katharine is talking about Facebooks new Graph Search and how this can be used by recruiters.

I usually post recording of my webinars here on my blog, so if you’ve missed any you are welcome to watch later. If you like what I do, I’d be very grateful if you let me know and share it on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. I have a mailing list and send out reminders about my up comming webinars, you are welcome to subscribe here www.intel-sw.com/blog/subscribe.

Best regards

Shane

Shane McCusker
Intelligence Software
+447973828811
www.intel-sw.com
www.twitter.com/1ntelligence
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/shanemccusker/

Social recruiting has been a buzz word for some time now but perhaps the time is right for this approach to recruiting to really take hold.

For many Recruiters Social Recruiting extends as far as searching for profiles on LinkedIn. But is this really social recruitment, is it any different to searching a Job Board? In reality Linkedin popularity in the recruitment industry is significantly due to its similarity to a job board. Everyone likes LinkedIn Profiles because they look like the CVs we have been used to for all these years. Unfortunately LinkedIn profiles are not CVs, they are often incomplete, out of date and void of all important contact details.

LinkedIn made a subtle change at the end of last year that heralds a change in this static document. Now at the top of each profile is a section called Updates. This appears to be an attempt by LinkedIn to become more social and try to allow its users to start conversations and properly engage. At the same time Skills were introduced where for the first time your profile can be automatically filled with what other people think of you rather than just what you say about yourself.

For anyone used to other social platforms, Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter etc this will be nothing new. These are platforms designed around the users stream of conscious. Perhaps Twitter demonstrates this idea in its purest form. There are no profile pages, here, just an open conversation with the world.

In my opinion these streams of internet conversations are massively exciting. Where a traditional LinkedIn profile may resemble a CV this constant conversation may be more like an Interview. These streams of consciousness can provide massively useful information not just about prospective candidates but what they do, where they work, who they know and a whole lot more.

My next webinar is on Sourcing and I’m delighted to be joined by Katherine Robinson @TheSourceress. Katherine is a former SourceCon Grand Master and a world class expert in all things Sourcing. The webinar is on Thursday the 11th April more details here www.intel-sw.com/blog

If you would like me to send you a reminder for this webinar please subscribe to my mailing list www.intel-sw.com/blog/subscribe

Thank you

Shane

I’m delighted to be joined by Lisa Jones of Barclay Jones who is talking about using LinkedIn for Stalking, Spying and Infiltrating candidates and clients. In short, a wide range of techniques for recruiters to get more from Linkedin to find people and make contact.

I found this really interesting and learned a lot about Lisa’s ideas to get more from LinkedIn. I ran a webinar recently on Business Development and there are lots of ideas here that fit well in that content.

I mentioned a free tool that I’m still working on to find people who have just left a specific company the link is www.intel-sw.com/SearchLeavers

Thank you Lisa, looking forward to the next one.

Best regards

Shane

For lots more of my videos subscribe to my YouTube channel.