This month I have dusted off my crystal ball and had a quick peek into the future of recruitment.
This is what I have seen…
Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/petercastleton/4012318688/
No more CV’s
LinkedIn profiles are now more in-depth than some CVs and can provide extras such as recommendations providing better information than formal referencing, which usually just confirms employment dates.
For the more nostalgic LinkedIn Labs can auto-generate a CV from your profile in seconds, you even get to choose from a number of styles and layouts! http://resume.linkedinlabs.com/
Headhunting standard for any experienced hire
There is an argument that all recruitment is basically headhunting but we still associate the term with the yuppie culture of the eighties.
A better way of communicating this concept is ‘targeted’, by this I mean ‘search spiders’ that will look for keywords across our social networking, internet searches, etc to identify if we are suitable candidates and assess our propensity to be interested in moving jobs.
Leading the charge on this front is Bullhorn Reach which has just come out of Beta and is now a live product, and a useful one too – www.bullhornreach.com
No more adverts
Once upon a time people use to see printed adverts and post their CVs to apply. In the late eighties the fax machine was key and the nineties saw the electronic revolution with people browsing for adverts on the net and applying immediately by email. This decade is about having your own public profile and cherry picking the opportunities which come your way.
End of recruitment databases
A database is only as good as the data it holds and its accessibility.
LinkedIn currently has over 100 million users and these profiles can be searched as easily as any recruitment database – www.linkedin.com
Rise of LinkedIn Super Networkers as recruitment ‘fixers’
Trainee recruitment consultants have the luxury of access to their firms CV database, advertising quota and job board databases. In the future, with more reliance on social media recruitment, those with the largest networks and connections will have the greatest advantage through their access to potential candidates. This will create obvious hurdles for those starting a career in recruitment.
Nick Duncombe
ReThink Analytics
nduncombe@rethink-recruitment.com
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/nickduncombe
www.rethink-recruitment.com
