The Recruitment Game: A Changing Landscape

Social networking service LinkedIn has revolutionized the recruitment landscape, making more information available to businesses than ever before. What this means for the future of the recruitment industry remains to be seen, but what is clear is that the landscape will have to adapt in order to find new ways to be both relevant and useful to businesses.

While companies can certainly source their own talent proactively with LinkedIn and other social media strategies, most HR individuals lack the time or skill to proactively approach these candidates outside of sending a note on LinkedIn and hoping for a response. As a sales professional, a good recruiter will utilize their networks and any means necessary to get in touch with identified talent and ensure they get an opportunity to ‘Pitch’ their client’s story and generate the interest of the candidate.

Traditionally recruitment has followed a transactional business model, which sees relationships maintained with clients for as long as it takes to fill a position. The hope is that if things go well, you'll work together again. Now that LinkedIn is leveling the playing field by offering businesses the opportunity to source potential recruits for themselves, it's become increasingly important for recruiters to identify where their real value is. The establishment of strong, ongoing relationships with their clients is one of the ways that newer firms are asserting their value, which is proving to be, in many cases, a worthwhile investment in ongoing success.

Making the commitment to understand a client's business inside and out helps recruiters become an important asset to its future, vision and direction. With this insider knowledge, recruiters can seek out and identify the kinds of people needed to get the business where it wants to be and ensure candidates that clients are meeting are a great fit from a cultural perspective. The only way a recruiter can truly achieve this is by having an intimate understanding of the client’s business and nuances. Often this level of understanding can only be established through strong partnerships, which may mean committing to one business at the expense of work with competitors. Loyalty of this scale is rare, but given the uncertain future of recruitment, shouldn't be written off as a potential long-term strategy.

Being able to maintain a client's trust is critical, so providing candidates who are a great fit for their business is first priority. It is worth sitting down and brainstorming what can be done outside of normal recruitment processes that encourages clients to see the value in working with a recruitment company. There's a lot to be said for offering incentives to clients around employee training and development. These incentives also extend the relationship with a business beyond the hiring process. Months after hiring, collaboration is still happening between the client, employee and recruitment agency as assessments are made about potential benefits most suitable for the business.

Ultimately, clients have a need and recruiters provide a solution to that need. But with resources like LinkedIn changing the face of the recruitment industry as we know it, that need is changing. Filling a position may no longer be enough. By creating partnerships and thoroughly understanding a client's business, recruiters have the knowledge needed to sell the dream of the employer, allowing them to focus again on what they do best: finding and sparking the interest of the best person for the job.