Forget 2017, The Future of Recruitment Is Here. Now

 

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At what point do you stop believing job data? Every single day in the press, online, on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn there is a new study about the state of talent somewhere in the world. Granted it is an important subject – in fact a crucial subject to some global industries at the moment. But is anyone actually paying attention to the thought that if some of these surveys are even 50% correct, we have really serious issues ahead in recruitment?

Next week I will be in New Zealand talking about this. But from my perspective and what I will be covering in my keynote at the Recruiter Hub Conference in Auckland, is that the future of recruitment is not in 2017 or beyond, it is here now – today. The technology is here … now. The problem is that many recruiters are looking at solving the talent shortages they way they always have, instead of taking a different approach.

This article (as an example) states that the UK is in need of three-quarters of a million digitally skilled workers by 2017. Really? Talk to any digital recruitment agency and they would probably tell you it feels like that at the moment, as they are continually struggling to get suitably experienced digitally skilled workers now! 

Are any recruiters now starting to plan ahead and figure out that the recruitment landscape is changing fast?  (Enter your two letter answer here……!!)

With the demand for certain areas of talent such as – IT, Digital, Data Specialists (yes I mean that), Engineers, Oil & Gas, how are you as a recruiter, going to solve your client needs (internally or externally, depending on where you sit) – have you even given it any consideration? 

If you haven’t then I can tell you that technology companies already have! They are a serious threat to all the ‘average’ and non-specialised recruiters out there, who are not taking the time to understand the changing recruitment landscape ahead. Be under no illusions – they ARE going after the same £$€ recruitment budgets you are after! Here are just three ways tech companies are doing this NOW:

  • Companies like TalentBin, Dice OpenWeb and Entelo etc have been building very clever sourcing engines, to meet the sourcing demand for these skills. Corporate AND Agency access.
  • CRM, ATS and online recruitment vendors are building intelligent social searches into their products and ‘automating’ a large element of the candidate search. They won’t replace a good sourcer, but they will probably pick up 80% of the same candidates. Corporate AND Agency access.
  • Vendors are now creating semantic tools and algorithms that will help you create better job adverts, by suggesting better performing synonyms for the job advert content. They will improve advert efficiency immediately. Corporate AND Agency access

These are all significant products and they are available to both corporates and recruitment agencies, and there will be more coming ‘down the pipe’ every week (seemingly anyway) to take advantage of the ‘need for talent’.

So what are you going to do about this? With your clients (agency recruiters) being able to access the same talent databases as you, where does that leave you? Are these clients still going to be willing to pay all or even some of your fees? Direct sourcing is only just going to increase with technology.
You need to be adding some real value to the recruitment solution you are able to offer your clients. You will need to have access to all the candidates that are not sitting on LinkedIn, or the other social networks the tools that I have mentioned above will be searching on. And yes there are plenty that are a) not on the social networks or b) have moved away from mainstream networks because of recruiters continually chasing them, or c) they are too busy to even give a damn about the social world!
Finding these people is just the start – whether it is via deep sourcing, name gathering, networking or even speaking to people! But I just want you to look at this problem from the other side –  the candidate side. Why would these ‘in-demand’ candidates want to speak to you? Why would they be happy to be part of your ‘network’/community?

  1. Are you a specialist? 
  2. Do you know a sector/industry and all the relevant individuals in that sector? 
  3. Can you prove it?
  4. Do you add value to your specialist sector?
  5. Do you regularly share interesting relevant content?
  6. Are your insights on your niche blog recognised as thought leading? (You do write a blog?
  7. Are you a recognised connector within your specialism?
  8. Do you happily provide introductions to others in your specialist network?
  9. Are you seen as a person who knows people to talk to in your field?
  10. Do you have a ‘community’ where you facilitate all of the above?
  11. Do you have continual and transparent engagement with your audience?
  12. Are you present and active where your audience are? 
  13. If someone landed on your profile (wherever that is) would they immediately recognise your for what you are –  an industry specialist?
  14. Do you know where the new young talent is entering the industry from?
  15. Apprenticeships?
  16. Which university courses, which universities, which countries?
  17. Graduate ‘feeder’ schemes?
  18. Do your clients know you know 1-8? When was the last time you told them?
  19. When was the last time you were asked to speak at one of the industry events (large or small) in your specialist sector?
  20. These are recruitment differentiators in the rise of the recruitment technologies of the future. Now is this going to happen tomorrow or next week? Probably not even though the technology is already here, now. The speed of adoption in recruitment is painfully slow – but don’t be taking things for granted over the next 12-18 months – the technology companies aren’t, their ‘tech robots’ are coming for you are your candidates!

     

     

    Contactus2 I work with recruitment agencies and corporates to help them understand and leverage the different social media networks to improve their recruitment strategy, recruitment process, candidate attraction, employer branding and content marketing strategy.

    If you require guidance, advice or social recruiting training, get in touch today.

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We consult, train, tweet, blog, text, post, speak, share, read, update, photograph, video and talk about recruitment. At Sirona Consulting we work with companies, recruitment agencies, RPO’s HR & recruitment technology vendors and conference / event organisers, helping them understand and integrate social media into their recruitment strategies. We have have been doing this now for twelve years, working with many companies along the way, from small independent recruiters right through to large international companies. We are honest, ethical and have experience of working across a range of different industry sectors delivering success in the UK, Europe, Middle East, APAC and the United States.

Website: http://sironaconsulting.com

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