Recruitment Directory's Blog - Australia's #1 Recruitment Technology Blog!
There may come a time where you are so immersed in social media you become a wanker. You forget about the real world. Real relationships. A world where you pick up the phone to call a candidate or catch-up with a client for a coffee. For all those who know me, I would rather communicate over the phone than correspond via Twitter.
Social media commentators don't understand the Online Recruitment industry. Forget the hype and talking from the overseas markets, the Australian online recruitment market is not quite shifting yet. Yes, I know there are many recruiters who are finding candidates via social media, but overall the majority of hires is coming from other mediums.
Job seekers USE job boards. In fact, job board traffic is at a all time high. Just have a look at the latest Job Board Statistics for November 2009. Job seekers use job boards because they are a one stop shop to conduct a job search. The latest RCSA survey shows that
96% of Recruiters source Candidates through mainstream Job Boards.Social media is not a fad, and it is very important for recruiters to understand each of the different types of social media and how they can be used in the recruitment process - a process where you need to automate as much as possible. If not, you are wasting your time and resources. Maybe
no one wants to follow your recruitment agency on Twitter?If you answer yes to any of these, you may be a social recruitment wanker.
- At every opportunity you get, you retweet or tweet a "thank you" to your followers with a link back to your blog/website
- You have attended more than 1 "social media in recruitment" conferences in the past 12 months
- You attend "tweetups"
- You are a member of a social media club
- Your email signature contains more than 5 contact points - phone, email, web, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook
There are a lot of people who think job boards are dying, and will be replaced by social networking sites. Unfortunately, they tend to forget about the underlying dimension of a job board. It is a type of classifieds - like
Carsales,
Realestate, etc where 2 parties meet - the advertiser and the job seeker.
Last week, Google released the
2009 Year-End Google Zeitgeist for Australia and the 10th most popular search term was SEEK just behind larger more dominant online sites including Facebook, Google and Youtube.
Job boards are already connected with social networking sites. In fact, they are more connected then ever. SEEK was the first to launch a sponsored
Facebook group in November 2007 and CareerOne has powered
MySpace Jobs since January 2008. Statistics I produced last week show that
45% of the job ad links on Twitter click through to SEEK, followed by 15% to the Recruiter/Employers website and ATS. 35% of the job ad links on Facebook have no URL or email address listed, followed by 20% to the Recruiter/Employers website.
So before you go out and cancel your job board subscription for social media. Start small, dip your toes in the water and give it some time to work. The more channels you are on, the harder it is to control. Remember to
measure the ROI and compare the difference.
Article URL: http://www.recruitmentdirectory.com.au/Blog/are-you-a-social-recruitment-wanker-a307.html
Article Tags: social recruiting social recruitment twitter facebook myspace seek job board statistics social recruitment wanker social media club online recruitment online recruitment industry job boards carsales realestate online classifieds future of job boards 
Hide Comments (29)
Back to Menu
We have been measuring all our marketing mediums for the past 12 months and job boards still come out on top for both number of applications and placement ratio.
Always good to read your blog posts Thomas. Keep up the good work
I went to last week’s conference
I attend many social media tweetups for social media club Sydney
I have no life
Please help me.
There is soo much crap coming from the US and UK markets. Job boards rule and social media will not hurt them at all. Social media sites need classifieds as a revenue stream.
W as around in recruitment 30 years ago
A m still learning and have..
N early learnt how to Tweet
K an spell Social Notworking (joke)
E ndeavour to listen to clients and candidates
R ead as much as I can - whether a tweet, a paper or a book
There are a couples of very recent blogs totally backing up your thoughts, the first is mine, the second is Greg Savage
Plus Ca Change http://www.jobblog.co.nz/index.php/archives/269
And Twitter and Facebook are cool but get real
http://gregsavage.com.au/?p=15
Jubal
http://www.recruitermedia.com/
I have to agree with you, most people do not understand the online recruitment industry. Pity, because it is worth a lot of money.
You should add this to your wanker checklist...
- Uses the words "social media" in their profile pages
I wonder if you are asking the right question though? eg:
Are recruiters wa*kers?
Are recruiters who only use LinkedIn wa*kers?
Are the job boards wa*kers?
Are people who post on job boards wa*kers?
Are people who post anonymous comments wa*kers?
Are people who don't spell wa*kers in full wa*kers? etc etc
People visit a car yard to look for a car
People visit job boards to find jobs
People don't trust recruiters?
Who has ever heard of job seekers searching YouTube to find a new job? In my recent dealings with recruiters, I have seen many wankers.
I was laughing to myself about your comment "Your email signature contains more than 5 contact points - phone, email, web, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook" I couldn't think of a worse way of promoting yourself.
What is the point of having the same comments, conversations, content across all the networks. Surley the message looses value each time you post it on every channel?
Good point above re when market picks up, who will have the time....
job boards are ready for their next level....better technology, more focussed advice.
You see for those who understand truly how powerful social media is and can be for your business, you will know that Blog's generate more business traction then any other form. The reason being is that they are informative, personal, engaging the list goes on and on.
So for those who have made a negative comment regarding Social media consultants (which Thomas is one of himself) or saying that it is a limited tool and just all hype you have you are in face the wankers. This is a blog and you have felt compelled to engage with Thomas and his business. You now like him and might even want to work with him moving forward.
Clever Thomas, very clever.
Justin....Traffic from social media sites - Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc to the blog is less than 10%. The main traffic source to the blog is via search engines and our weekly email newsletter.
Can you look into the relationships between job boards and advertising agencies? I reakon you might find a ripper of an article on dodgy business practices.
www.onlineuniversalwork.com
"You attend "tweetups" " - That makes someone a wanker? Knowing your community is networking. Same as any conference, just more human.
You know the company I am talking about. Complete waste of time and resources.
Well done on posting this. It's true, in Australia if your job is not listed on SEEK you will have little chance of finding candidates.
I was interviewed on the subject of social media in recruitment recently. The video is on our blog
What a waste of time and effort and now I realise that as a recent jobseeker my theory that all recruiters are wankers is completely true. I have used many mediums to search for the right position so firstly why limit yourselves in addition I always wandered in this age of technology, why it is not possible to get a simple reply from recruiters or HR departments that my application of which I painstakingly took time to write and adapt for each job had been received. Now I realise the answer, because recruiters instead are spending the time they could send a generic email to applicants arguing on blogs or surfing networking sites.