RCEuro Member Blogs

Now that the hype about social media heralding the end of the recruitment trade has died down, and the industry has adopted social networks faster than any other, the race is on to establish how they can be maximised to identify jobseekers, assess their suitability for open vacancies and make contact with them.

But perhaps the biggest relatively unexplored benefit of social networks, is the unprecedented access they provide to skilled professionals who may not be actively seeking a new role . LinkedIn has traditionally led the way on this front, as candidates' profiles which display information on their work history, their education and their skill sets, can be mined for data on vacancy suitability, and subtle indications that they're ready to explore new employment possibilities. The result is that searching for the best talent on LinkedIn has become more streamlined, effective and intuitive.

However, this more efficient sourcing of passive candidates is no longer limited to the confines of your LinkedIn account. New tools are emerging that enable recruiters to tap into other networks such as Facebook and Twitter, in order to identify when an employee might be ready to make that next career move and to help them through the process.

Our latest innovation, Bullhorn Reach does just that. It automatically collects and organises candidates' noteworthy social network updates and behavioural data, turning jumbled and unintelligible social data into reliable and predictive business intelligence. It also assesses usage patterns on LinkedIn and Facebook to identify professionals at the right level who might be ready to move, often long before they've begun the search process.

21st century recruitment is about so much more than accessing job board responses. There are swathes of potential candidates, open to new opportunities, but scared of jeopardising current job security. This desire often vents itself all over the social media spectrum and leaves obvious clues for the social-media-savvy recruiter to pick up on. You just need to make sure you've got the right tools for the trade.

Peter Linas