Monday, March 22nd, 2010
Are you loosing staff because of social networking tools ?
For many years, I scoffed in disgust every time I received another invitation to some new networking site like Linkedin, Reunion, Classmates, Facebook, hi5, MySpace, Ranga Yorz, Ecadamy and Entrepreneur Connect.. *gasp* and they are just the first few… However, LinkedIn is the one I really wanted to focus on here, not to say that the others aren’t as good, (or bad as the case may be), just to say that LinkedIn is possibly the most popular one within my little sub network of networks.
OK – So let me tell you what I do for a crust. I’m a head hunter, recruitment consultant, employment pimp, job shark, body pusher, commercial slave trader, whatever the title you feel appropriate to address me with wont offend me! Having a thick skin in this game is almost as important as having absolutely no regard for rejection. My current employer, Milestone Search Milestone Search Melbourne , Australia is a specialist IT&T recruitment business. Whilst I’d prefer not to get into a long drawn out discussion about my chosen profession and the merits there of, what I would like to point out is that I spend a very great amount of my time day in and day out looking for people. Rare people… People with skills and abilities that few in the country have and my clients want them NOW ! Actually, the term “want” is possibly an understatement of immense proportion, especially when one takes into consideration the old “wants vs’ needs” which is in itself an interesting topic :see Maslows wants v’s needs . Let’s say my clients “NEED” these skills. The projects that they are working on depend on it. The financial position of the organisation they are working for may very well be compromised if they don’t manage to secure the right people with the rare skills required. In fact, their job and very livelihood very possibly depends on getting the skills that they NEED because if they do not get those skills, the project they are working on will very likely fail. This of course will result in some jaded C-Executive seeking revenge by orchestrating a well throughout redundancy or other such event as punishment for the unacceptable failure.
I recall many years ago when I first got into recruitment an old manager of mine telling me that when he first started out in recruitment he used to go to IT user club meetings just to find staff. As soon as the conversation of what he did for a living came up (usually around a cold worn out and over crowded wooden table at coffee time), he’d pull out his bright and shiny silver business card holder to quickly present his prospect with a perfectly pressed business card so that he could slap it into the palm of the poor unsuspecting candidate and give them a sharp and all knowing wink. “If you’re ever looking for another job paying great rates, give me a call” he use to say in a deep throaty tone, followed quickly with a cold wink.
I had the pleasure once of meeting his previous manager. An old recruiter who had retired some 20 years ago who told me the story of how he use to network. “I’d spend all my days at the local watering hole” he told me. “Back then, CICS, COBOL and DB2 guys were so rare that we’d do anything to find them on behalf of our clients!” “There was one pub down the road that they use to go to every Wednesday for lunch.” “I was ALWAYS there, with a beer, and my business cards running around recruiting contractors to come and work for my clients.” “Worse thing”, he went on to say, “I hated beer but had to drink the stuff just so I could fit in…” How terrible, having to drink beer just to fit in….
As I sit here at my desk, typing into this floating browser enabled window, I wonder what it must have been like for those guys many years ago. Note pad and pen, armed with nothing more than a mind which was like a steel trap only slightly compromised by the weekly trips to the local watering hole and a cunning that would see them stop at nothing until they found the ideal resource for their desperate clients. How things have changed. Information it would seem, is much available these days to potential employers and employment consultants like myself. Thanks in part to tools like LinkedIn that make finding resources once almost impossible, today nothing more than a well thought out google search. But it’s to this end, that I see a very serious problem developing. For example, if I sit back and assess the number of candidates that our business has placed from professional networking sites versus employment and job boards, I find that the value the job boards are adding is becoming less and less relevant. For example, let’s propose that a client I am dealing with is seeking a JCAPS Java specialist. Once, I’d put an ad on the internet, wait for candidates to apply and do a large amount of research to try and find where these resources may be located. Then, I’d have to network with employees of that company with the desperate intention of identifying who the people are that work with this technology. Now however, I just perform a simple google search and chances are, even if I’m not connected to the person directly, or indirectly, I can get their details and I’m ready to throw more money at them than they could ever imagine possible. Furthermore, I know straight away which companies have those skills and therefore are far more capable to go straight to the source rather than waiting for a possible stroke of luck to find the right candidates.
But what are the implications of this? Firstly, it means that the value I give to my clients is becoming ever so slightly reduced because, with all due respect, a ‘google’ search is hardly a difficult thing to do. Secondly, the turn around time from receiving a vacancy to actually delivering a resource is substantially increased. But finally, the cost to the business we are head hunting from must be astronomical. For example, they would never have even had to consider replacing that candidate one upon a time. The loss of IP, replacement costs, training costs, and social engineering costs to that business are almost unimaginable. By using LinkedIn, I’ve just managed to lure away a resource that 10 years ago, I most likely never, ever have found. Worse than this. Let’s say for example that I am given a vacancy by a client again for a JCAPS Java resource. I again do a google search on LinkedIn and discover that company A has one developer with that skill. I call that company and run the job past that resource. However, he informs me that he isnt really interested but thanks me all the same for my time. From here, I receive a phone call about half an hour later from another candidate who just so happens to work for the same company. Of course, we all know what’s happened here. But again, had the first candidate not put his profile on LinkedIn, I would never have even managed to get in touch with the candidate who all of a sudden knows about my job. My point? Well simple. At what point does the information contained this candidates profile cease been his information and start been the information of the client? Clearly, if employers wanted to reduce staff turn over, wouldn’t it make more sense for them to do everything possible to ensure that people like me, are unable to get to staff like theirs? Also, the technologies, systems and processes that their employees are working with are all freely available to anyone who happens to do a search for them. However, is this information really the candidates right to share with the entire world?
In the nature of my work, I’ve seen a large number of confidentiality agreements packaged up ever so nicely with standard employment agreements. In my opinion, the legalities of the information that many employees put into their LinkedIn profiles is very possibly in breach of these agreements. However, to date, I am unaware of any employer seeking to prohibit employees from sharing such information with the general public. I can’t help but wonder if the reason for this is because at not stage has anyone in HR ever actually sat down and sought to determine why and how their valuable staff found out about other employment opportunities?
Tags: Australia, Business, immense proportion, job, Linkedin, Melbourne, recruitment, recruitment business, recruitment consultant, Reunion, shark body
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