Who has got it right? The Futurologist or The Man who is never wrong?

Following on from TruLondon I have a couple more short videos for you. The first is from a Recruiting Futurologist called Matt Alder the author of a thought provoking blog. Now, being a futurologist, you would think he might know where social media might be in recruitment in two years time? Well judge for yourself, but it seems like he has been to a political PR training course - how to answer a question by asking a question, and then not answering the initial question!!
Anyway, see what the newly self-titled Strategic People Connector - you see, Matt has the vision to know where job titles are going in the future, hence his new job title!!

The second video, also recorded at TruLondon, is with Peter Gold, one of the UK’s true experts in online and social recruiting. For those of you who don’t know Peter, he is the one who believes he is a legend in his own lifetime …..no seriously……he does…….he is never wrong about anything he says (yeah right!) !! 🙂
He has, just written a superb book called The Corporate Recruiting Handbook, which is an absolute must if you are a corporate recruiter.

See how Peter answers my question to him, “Where will social media be in recruitment in two years time?”

The question is, (which of course you need to answer in the comments below) is, who is right out of Peter and Matt?

Are either right? Are both right? Are both wrong? You decide!! Feel free to give an opinion!!

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Peter Gold

Andy

Matt can’t be right or wrong as he didn’t say anything 🙂 And of course I’m always right. I’ll ask you the same question on Monday so you can have your turn!!

I think the short video’s work really well IMO.

Peter
Matt Alder

hmmm advantage Peter straight away because he got a nice quiet room to be interviewed in! I suspect some kind of stitch up. I did actually answer the question right at the end but it is somewhat blocked out but the background noise
Andy Headworth

Just for the record, for any of you reading this…….there was no stitch up 🙂

TRULondon was a busy event and it was just a case of grabbing these Matt and Peter when I could!!

And Matt, listen again, because you did answer the qquestion with a HUGE sitting on the fence answer!! Ha ha ha 🙂
BillBoorman

Where will social media be in recruitment in 2 years time? Matt is a futurologist where as Peter is a “here and now’ist”, so it is hard to say who is right. I think it is most likely that lot’s of recruiters will have given social a go for about 15 minutes, not got an instant return and gone back to what they know already i;e: Post and Pray.
I think the channels will continue to link closer, and we will see lot’s more live events like Deloitte’s Grads. I also think that social recruiting will become more integrated as a corporate recruiting tool which will impact on recruiter revenues. As personal barriers on facebook drop in the UK, this will become channel of choice.
just my thoughts,
Bill
Matt Jessop

IMHO both of them are right; Social Media will be an important recruitment channel in most, but not all, sectors.

There are already many examples of successful social media recruitment. However, much like the job board market, most companies will not measure the true effectiveness of individual channels, and the ones that do will want to keep that information to themselves (understandable).

Therefore most companies will find themselves in the position of having enough information to foster the belief that they should be on board with the concept (it brings candidates through the door), and not enough information to contradict that perception (where do my successful candidates really come from?). Thus Social Media becomes and important channel.

To Matt’s point about different sectors, is Social Media likely to be an important channel in finding a new CEO for a FTSE100 company? is Social Media likely to be an important channel for finding a highly specialist skill set? Probably not.
Gareth Jones

Matt J - your comment about “companies having enough info to foster the belief etc” is spot on. Thats the very reason we are why we are with job boards right now - not enough information to contradict perception.

But i cant agree with your last paragraph. Social media is already proving a great asset to hard core resourcers (Real ones i mean, not pretend ones!) looking for highly skilled individuals. But you will probably have to look in the US for evidence of that as the amount of real sourcing in the UK has dropped off dramatically in the last 10 years.

And its only a matter of time - maybe a long time and probably a generational thing - but CEO’s will be found via social media. Indeed, they already are. Executive search is probably the richest ground for social media to make an impact in the coming years.

And i think Bill was pretty accurate in summing up how the majority of recruiters (In the UK at least) will take to social media.
Stephen Turnock

Where will social media be in recruitment in 2 years time?

Futurologists would inevitably take the longer than asked for look – especially world famous ones and I believe Matt did that well. Both “now’ist” and “futurist” are right in this case and not too dissimilar.. [of course both might be wrong or somewhere in between following a trip in the tardis!].

Recruiters using traditional recruiting tools ~ but also experimenting with social network recruiting, will do better in the shorter and medium term [2-5 years]. Whilst social networking is what recruiters have always done [e.g., building a network of like minded talent pipeline by skills etc [albeit on a static crm]], those Gen Xer recruiters will have to go where the candidates are. That might be facebook [or indeed *what’s to come* next!].

However for what my two penneth is worth [..ok I know you didn’t ask], some or most recruiters won’t be *directly* using social network sites in 5 – 10 years but however, will be better integrated with social network sites from *where the recruiter lives* – e.g, the company owned sales / CRM tools [inventing now] The static database will become a live dynamic database fed by inbound marketing of multiple talent pools by niche.

Where current profits are and the extent of investment from those profits into new [integration] experiments [and failures - see https://ff.im/-hfUST ] will determine the speed of transition.

Before job boards there were great profits. After job boards there were still great profits but also came the high numbers of CV’s to handle and lack of ATS and understanding and measurement. Perhaps the candidates got a lesser service too [from some recruiters] and so the next place to which candidates move [perhaps where Gen Yers already live], and where recruiters will follow, will give rise to the candidate regaining control and a better experience and to the recruiter, harnessing this new technology, a better return all round.
Matt Jessop

Gareth, I am familiar with the US sourcing communities as promoted by the likes of AIRS, Jim Stroud, Shally Steckerl and others. With hindsight I agree with your point about finding specialist skill sets via social media. Interestingly your comment made me think about the definition of what channels are encompassed by the loose definition Social Media.
Andy Headworth

Interesting, Bill.

I think you are right about social recruiting - but I don’t believe it will become integrated any time soon!

Will Facebook really drop their barriers? I hope so, but not sure they will oblige just yet! But yes, if and when they do, then it will be sourcing bliss!!

Andy
Andy Headworth

Matt,

True, social recruitment will not be right for everyone. But then neither are job boards for certain forms of recruitment. You go looking in the most appropriate places for the candidates you are looking to find.

Like your reality check on clients not knowing were the hell their candidates come from! They need to get Peter’s candidate tracking tool for their ATS!!

Andy
Andy Headworth

Gareth,

What the hell is a pretend resourcer?

Maybe substitute recruiter for resourcer. Recruiters are very very slow to take up social media channels (even the most obvious LinkedIn), even though there are real benefits to recruiters who do actually source candidates for their roles. The clever ones will have already been using it for a while - I have been using LinkedIn for 5 years, including very senior placements made using it.
Exec search need to address their whole model, and social media channels will (I feel) have the biggest impact on their business over the next few years.
Andy Headworth

Stephen,

Have I got this right? You believe that the in house recruitment databases will rule? (albeit much more customised and interactive as you say)

Interesting.

Everyone is assuming that social networks will rule, but is there anything better than a well managed and up to date self grown recruitment database? Of course that is your own recruitment community/ referral network/ talent pool etc etc - but is that any different to some of the better online communities though?

My final comment is to ask why recruiters should follow candidates, and not lead the way instead?

Great answer - thanks.

Andy
Andy Headworth

Matt,

We are in the early stages of social recruiting, are we not? It will be really interesting to see how these channels get defined.

I watch with anticipation…….

Andy
Stephen Turnock

Social Media will rule OK!

Social media will indeed rule and also, ‘inbound marketing’ as opposed to interupt advertising in the traditional sense. When I mention the old database having any part to play this does tend to hit a nerve but I do not mean the static database but rather the placing of the recruiter ‘data’ base into a hub environment and being fed and interacting with web 2.0 communities [indirectly] at the front end.

Hence recruiters would not sit on linked-in and twitter etc all day, or anything else that comes along such as nibblet, but ‘live’ in the corporate data space which holds other key information developed over years, sales, historical data including back office [eg timesheets, contracts, tracking info] etc. When we search our local database hub this in turn already [now] searches external sources and spidering including social media using API but shortly we will be able to post to subscribed candidates in specific groups [by skill sets, location, availability etc and #tags]. In the longer term this will change as will the use of email diminish but relationships / communications and feedback will improve. This may not be for all recruiters as some will perhaps make the direct leap, but for ourselves, we deal with highly specialised ICT and project management contractors [and perm] and also have direct systems in place within clients for our managed service operations in secure environments [where our recruiters are on the client site] connected to our extranet.

Regarding following candidates, this is to say that candidates shift and wherever they shift to - then we create the tools to connect to that space [eg candidates shifting from job search by JobBoard-list culture to a more self developed central online profile [CV - including video and other workspace info.. presentations, work examples, tests, and anything else the gen yers are doing!] in which they inbound market themselves to be found by the ‘right’ jobs. Our central tools will seek them out and in the most part, already have them on file, but will update their profile [ I should say more appropriately – ‘synchronise profile’ ], but also connect us to and attract inbound fresh new talents as well. Then back to basics, candidates follow recruiters they value. Something like that. IMHO. but working on it still….

PS nibblet does not exist yet. I made that up but is perhaps where rocket scientists will live and define themselves by #rocket channel to inbound market the #rocketjobs.
julia briggs

I think that Matt Alder can’t be right, because as you said he didn’t say anything. And Peter is slightly more right but I don’t think for one moment it will become as mainstream as he thinks in such a short time - it has been around for quite some time and the stats I have seen say about 5% of recruitment is through social media. And it has all the problems of recruitment - volume and no quality control……..

It would make sense for communities to be the way to go as you are dealing with people you get to ‘know’ and you can keep people on board……. I talked about creating one for ‘hot to trot’ potential change and strategy consultants for Yuda Tuval at KPMG in 1997. 1997. Anyone know if they have got one now?