Jeanmarie’s Viewpoint
I’ve had many people tell me that they’ve had success hiring new employees or finding great positions via job boards in the past. My response, “that’s great, but things have changed”. A paradigm shift is occurring in the recruiting process. This has happened for a number of reasons.
The Current Landscape of Traditional Job Boards
Traditional job boards have become inundated with candidates looking for roles. Hiring managers that use a job board post open positions, but are inundated with resumes and, some reports suggest, up to 60% unqualified candidates. Database searches help narrow down qualified candidates, but the raw process of filtering candidates that apply to open positions has become a daunting task for employers. The up side for hiring managers is that once you find the perfect candidate — their contact information is easily accessible.
From a candidate point of view, traditional job boards have become ineffective because they are just one resume in a sea of applicants. The job seeker who submits their resume to an open positing is reliant on an individual, typically unqualified to do database searches, to find their resume and call them for an interview. Candidates have taken matters into their own hands and have started using the job boards as “leads” to positions that might be open. That is, they come across the job posting and, instead of submitting their resume to the posting, they cross reference back to their traditional networking or social networking tools to determine who they know within the hiring company, track that person down and ask for their resume to be hand delivered. On top of that, there has been a rise in the number of job boards available. There are now 40,000 active job boards operating in the United States. For a candidate, that means maintaining a profile on at least a few job boards can be viewed as a very painful process. When it comes to “being found”, they are turning to one much more effective tool, LinkedIn.
From an employee point of view, nothing is worse than your HR department discovering your resume on a job board. In fact, many HR departments scan the job boards for people who are currently working at the company, thus, alerting everyone to the fact that the individual is looking for other opportunities outside the company. If you are the employee in this scenario, not such a fun situation. This trend is causing many employed individuals to not post their resume on job boards and therefore can’t be found should a job board be the main sourcing tool for a hiring manager.
The Landscape of LinkedIn
LinkedIn is viewed as a networking site, not a job board. That means that candidates, whether they are looking for new roles or not, post a profile of their skills and achievements for their personal networking purposes. This information is then accessible to a company searching for a new employee. It has literally uncovered what the recruiting industry views as passive candidates (e.g. the ones that you convince with bigger titles, more money, better commutes… but, for the most part, were happy in their current role) as well as active candidates.
From a job seeker’s point of view, LinkedIn allows them to “be found” without alerting their current employer that they are looking for employment outside of the firm. Obviously, this causes most anyone to post their achievements, employers, titles and goals for the world to see – all in the name of networking.
From a hiring manager’s point of view, LinkedIn is obviously appealing, but there are a number of key setbacks. First, the individual that is conducting the search must have a decent sized network if they wish to have a solid set of people in their search results. The reason, LinkedIn only shows you people who are 3 degrees of separation from the people you know – not the entire population of people on LinkedIn. Second, once you’ve found your perfect person, LinkedIn doesn’t list out the individuals contact information unless the individuals are within your first degree (e.g. people that you already know). There are ways to contact individuals, via InMail or asking for an Introduction, but those sources are limited within LinkedIn. You’ll end up paying for a LinkedIn business account to obtain more InMail and then, if you require contacting more than 50 people, you’re out of luck. At that point, more traditional head hunting techniques are put into play.
In Summary
I am definitely a fan of using LinkedIn in the sourcing process. I’m “undecided” as fan of using Facebook or Twitter in the sourcing process. I think the job boards have a purpose, but need some serious integration with social networking sites. The job boards biggest perk — easily accessible contact information. When it comes to social networking sites, contact information is not easily found.
The one thing that everyone must remember is that these tools are only a start to a hiring search. They are great way to jump start the sourcing process. Traditional recruiting is still needed for such things as managing the process, cold calls to find contact information, referral sourcing and uncovering those perfect candidates that don’t invest the time in social networking or job boards so that they can be found.
Articles that Provoked Thought
View the article from Arbita Blog by Don Ramer, The Job Boards are Dead!… Long Live the Job Boards?.
Interesting Quotes from the Article
…Social Networking IS displacing the more “traditional” job board model…
…job boards have some serious catching up to do if they are to keep pace with the evolution of social media and its transformative impact on recruiting…
View the article from Boolean Black Belt by Glen Cathey, Job Boards vs. Social Networking Sites.
Interesting Quotes from the Article
I am going to step out of the crowd and try to figure out where this perspective that job boards = old/bad, social networking = new/good comes from, because to me, some of the reasoning doesn’t add up.
RSS
Recruiting: Social Networking Sites vs Job Boards
Jeanmarie’s Viewpoint
I’ve had many people tell me that they’ve had success hiring new employees or finding great positions via job boards in the past. My response, “that’s great, but things have changed”. A paradigm shift is occurring in the recruiting process. This has happened for a number of reasons.
The Current Landscape of Traditional Job Boards
Traditional job boards have become inundated with candidates looking for roles. Hiring managers that use a job board post open positions, but are inundated with resumes and, some reports suggest, up to 60% unqualified candidates. Database searches help narrow down qualified candidates, but the raw process of filtering candidates that apply to open positions has become a daunting task for employers. The up side for hiring managers is that once you find the perfect candidate — their contact information is easily accessible.
From a candidate point of view, traditional job boards have become ineffective because they are just one resume in a sea of applicants. The job seeker who submits their resume to an open positing is reliant on an individual, typically unqualified to do database searches, to find their resume and call them for an interview. Candidates have taken matters into their own hands and have started using the job boards as “leads” to positions that might be open. That is, they come across the job posting and, instead of submitting their resume to the posting, they cross reference back to their traditional networking or social networking tools to determine who they know within the hiring company, track that person down and ask for their resume to be hand delivered. On top of that, there has been a rise in the number of job boards available. There are now 40,000 active job boards operating in the United States. For a candidate, that means maintaining a profile on at least a few job boards can be viewed as a very painful process. When it comes to “being found”, they are turning to one much more effective tool, LinkedIn.
From an employee point of view, nothing is worse than your HR department discovering your resume on a job board. In fact, many HR departments scan the job boards for people who are currently working at the company, thus, alerting everyone to the fact that the individual is looking for other opportunities outside the company. If you are the employee in this scenario, not such a fun situation. This trend is causing many employed individuals to not post their resume on job boards and therefore can’t be found should a job board be the main sourcing tool for a hiring manager.
The Landscape of LinkedIn
LinkedIn is viewed as a networking site, not a job board. That means that candidates, whether they are looking for new roles or not, post a profile of their skills and achievements for their personal networking purposes. This information is then accessible to a company searching for a new employee. It has literally uncovered what the recruiting industry views as passive candidates (e.g. the ones that you convince with bigger titles, more money, better commutes… but, for the most part, were happy in their current role) as well as active candidates.
From a job seeker’s point of view, LinkedIn allows them to “be found” without alerting their current employer that they are looking for employment outside of the firm. Obviously, this causes most anyone to post their achievements, employers, titles and goals for the world to see – all in the name of networking.
From a hiring manager’s point of view, LinkedIn is obviously appealing, but there are a number of key setbacks. First, the individual that is conducting the search must have a decent sized network if they wish to have a solid set of people in their search results. The reason, LinkedIn only shows you people who are 3 degrees of separation from the people you know – not the entire population of people on LinkedIn. Second, once you’ve found your perfect person, LinkedIn doesn’t list out the individuals contact information unless the individuals are within your first degree (e.g. people that you already know). There are ways to contact individuals, via InMail or asking for an Introduction, but those sources are limited within LinkedIn. You’ll end up paying for a LinkedIn business account to obtain more InMail and then, if you require contacting more than 50 people, you’re out of luck. At that point, more traditional head hunting techniques are put into play.
In Summary
I am definitely a fan of using LinkedIn in the sourcing process. I’m “undecided” as fan of using Facebook or Twitter in the sourcing process. I think the job boards have a purpose, but need some serious integration with social networking sites. The job boards biggest perk — easily accessible contact information. When it comes to social networking sites, contact information is not easily found.
The one thing that everyone must remember is that these tools are only a start to a hiring search. They are great way to jump start the sourcing process. Traditional recruiting is still needed for such things as managing the process, cold calls to find contact information, referral sourcing and uncovering those perfect candidates that don’t invest the time in social networking or job boards so that they can be found.
Articles that Provoked Thought
View the article from Arbita Blog by Don Ramer, The Job Boards are Dead!… Long Live the Job Boards?.
Interesting Quotes from the Article
View the article from Boolean Black Belt by Glen Cathey, Job Boards vs. Social Networking Sites.
Interesting Quotes from the Article