Written by Lauren Mackelden, Features Editor, Onrec
Graham Oates is the Chief Executive of Norrie Johnston Recruitment. In his opinion executive recruitment is a network business par excellence. “The essence of the business is finding the right candidates with the right skills and experience and the right cultural fit to best meet an organisation’s recruitment needs. Any developments that facilitate this process, improve cost-effectiveness or deliver enhanced value will be utilised.”
Oates recognises the power of LinkedIn but also is aware of its weaknesses: “LinkedIn is undoubtedly the most developed and used application in this respect. The figures speak for themselves. In 2014 LinkedIn had over 347 million members in over 200 countries and territories – equal to 1/3 of all professionals on the planet. It had 3 million active job listings on the platform, almost a 10-fold increase on the previous year. LinkedIn usage is especially high among the educated and high earners (i.e. earning more than $75,000 pa) and is the only social networking site that shows higher usage among 50-64 year olds than among those aged 18-29. So, applications like LinkedIn are obviously a rich source of global information for search firms and in-house recruiters alike.” Earlier this year Norrie Johnston Recruitment carried out a study of the impact of LinkedIn on Executive Recruitment and unsurprisingly found mixed messages. Although a significant number of organisations surveyed used LinkedIn to check out candidates (46 per cent), actively head hunt for people (31 per cent) and advertise posts (31 per cent) not many (only 6 per cent) use the services of specialist LinkedIn experts. Having said that, 1 in 5 organisations surveyed assumed that their executive recruiters used LinkedIn and 45 per cent said that their internal recruitment teams used it.
The most commonly perceived key drawbacks to LinkedIn were the veracity of information and the sheer magnitude of the LinkedIn database, says Oates. “Almost half of the organisations that we surveyed said that endorsements are not reliable; they are too easily generated and cannot be fully trusted. A further third argued that recommendations are often simply swapped with a friend or colleague and 29 per cent said that profiles might be less honest than a proper CV. On the volume side, almost half of the organisations that we questioned stated that simply accessing a massive free pool of candidates isn’t enough and 19 per cent argued that senior, highly technical roles require specialist recruitment skills that internal teams simply using LinkedIn may lack.”
Oates concludes : “So whilst global networks like LinkedIn have made, and are making, a huge difference to the world of executive recruitment, the key priority for most HR Directors is that they can be sure that they will get a shortlist of qualified, well-matched candidates in a predictable timeframe and this is the single thing that is most valued from conventional recruitment and search firms.”
Key trends
Oates considers that there have been a number of key trends in the last 12 months, which will continue to grow and develop in the future. He has picked out two in particular:
“The first is the growth of social networking and social media as a key engine for recruitment. We have already discussed the importance of LinkedIn in this space as the social network most focused on recruitment and career development. The key benefit of social networks is that they give both hiring organisations and candidates the opportunity to display their needs and their skills to each other through company LinkedIn sites and job advertising. In Norrie Johnston Recruitment’s recent study of the impact of LinkedIn on Executive Recruitment it was revealed that there were 3 million active job listings on the platform, almost a 10-fold increase on the previous year. And yet only around 1/3 of organisations questioned were using paid advertisements. There are reasons for this not least the fact that advertising is rarely the most effective route particularly when seeking to fill senior roles. But this is clearly a big trend and one with some way to go. Despite the noise about the efficacy and importance of other social networking sites there is little hard evidence to show that Facebook and Twitter are getting anything like the same traction as LinkedIn. In our recent LinkedIn study we asked organisations to what extent they had used these sites for advertising roles and the results were: Facebook 2 per cent and Twitter 5 per cent.
The second trend in the last 12 months has been the rush to mobilise technologies and applications in the recruitment space. It is easy to see why when such a large proportion of the population live their life on the go. The growth of Apple and Android product sets, which promise the same functionality and look and feel across an array of devices such as desktop, laptop, tablet, phone and watch have raised individuals’ expectations and radically changed the way in which people work and interact with each other. With people spending an increasing proportion of their time browsing the internet on mobile devices it is vital that all the stakeholders in recruitment: companies, job boards, social networks, recruiters etc should ensure that their shop windows are optimised for the mobile experience.”
Predictions
Previously we addressed key recent trends, in particular the growth in the importance of social networking in recruitment and mobilisation of the technology. Oates believes these two trends will clearly continue in the future, not least because both are responding to changes in the way in which people live and work, saying: “It is clear that many employers are aware of the difficulties of acquiring and retaining top talent and that this will become an increasing problem with changing demographics and different expectations regarding work/life balance in the younger generations.”
In a recent survey by LinkedIn of 4,125 talent recruiting decision makers across 31 countries the three most essential and long-lasting trends in recruiting were seen as: Social and Professional Networks (37 per cent), Upgrading Employer Branding (33 per cent) and Sourcing Passive Candidates (26 per cent). There is a clear theme that runs through all of these priorities, which is the increasing need for employers to reach out and sell themselves to their potential and/or future recruits. In this context Social Networks are not just databases to be scoured for the best candidates but they become shop windows for candidates and employers alike. Whilst many employers talk about the importance of Employer Branding for successful recruitment – and there are a number of good case studies around where this has been done successfully – this requires a major and sustained effort on behalf of companies and one that will involve an increasing fusion of marketing and recruitment skills. Achieving this will also require a much more integrated approach to the use of all key Social Networks where LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter will all have a role to play.
Oates concludes that in all this the key priority of identifying and attracting passive candidates, who tend to be the most important group for senior hires, will remain. “Developments in employer branding may activate the interest of passive candidates but more likely they will make it easier to sell opportunities to passive candidates once they have been identified and matched to an opportunity.”