Dear Recruiter, The Social Web is Not Your Cookie Jar

Over at AIRS, I noticed a training course for a Certified Social Sourcing Recruiter. Wow. I've got to wonder to whom this course will appeal. If you're already a recruiter who uses social media, you are well aware of how these technologies are enabling you to find and meaningfully engage with talented people. If you're not, I feel like this course description may give a somewhat skewed impression of the principles social media is fundamentally about.

If you read the description, there seems to be this undercurrent of somehow using the social networks to get more "passive" candidates in your hiring pipeline by finding them with Boolean searches, tips, and tricks. You have to really dig down through a lot of language about "name sourcing" and something about creating a "viral funnel of talent" (I get what they are saying, but the phrase sounds disgusting) before they say anything about using these tools to create a favorable employment brand for your company.

Significantly, the course description uses the words "leverage" and "create," but nowhere does it talk about engaging, interacting or contributing.

Isn't social media about building relationships and adding value to the networks? I truly don't mean to give AIRS a bloody nose here--they are a fine company and I only use them as an example--but these tools are not a cookie jar for recruiters. If you're just using the networks in a one-way fashion to source names or leverage networks and are not giving back to the community, then you're sooner or later going to be outed as a leech.

I hope that most recruiters get that by now. I am sure that many do not. On LinkedIn, for example, still a bastion for much recruiting activity, I continue to receive the "stupid recruiter trick" message in my Inbox asking me to send an invite so that the sender can connect. If you're so interested in connecting with me, then why in the world aren't you sending me the invite? This manipulative tactic is employed by individuals who wish to grow their networks but either no longer have invites of their own to send or else they are so close to reaching that limit that they are jealously guarding the few remaining ones they have. (The idea here is that the larger your network is on LinkedIn, the broader your ability to "see" everyone within the user base.)

My other favorite misuse is the recruiter who wishes to connect with me to see my network, but does not open his or her own reciprocally. These behaviors are driven by a fundamental misunderstanding of the how's and why's of social networking and proceed from nothing less than fear.

We have nothing to fear but social media itself...

I had the chance to watch a recent video from Clay Shirky and listened to him talking about how social media has upset institutions like newspapers. During the interview (forward to about 8:30 to hear what he says exactly), Shirky talks about how newspapers have struggled mightily with social media because it has shattered the old cost structures and made it harder to collect money for print advertising.

Sound familiar? I firmly believe that this is precisely what's happening to recruiters and why we're seeing all of these bad behaviors.

Third party recruiters are feeling pressure from fewer and reduced placement fees, a commoditization of the profession that I attribute directly to the democratization of information and cheaper cost structures of social media. Corporate recruiters are worried that their already misunderstood and maligned ability to find talented people for the company will be further denigrated and eroded by hiring managers who believe that they can just as effectively recruit for their own open positions using social media tools. Fear drives strange and desperate actions.

Recruiters can try to pretend (for a little while longer at least) that the social web is just another evolution of the rolodex full of business cards, but ultimately we'll be taken to task for misusing networks by breaking trust with those who are legitimately there to interact and contribute. Unlike a static database, your participation in a social network implies a social contract that you will be present to contribute interesting, helpful ideas to the community for the betterment of all and not simply to fatten your wallet.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against making money from what I do. However, I do care about how hiring professionals represent themselves in the social web. Do we want to keep creating the impression that recruiters are nothing more than sharks milling about the social network waters for fresh meat? There is a better way: participate in online communities and become a trusted advisor to the pool of talent you wish to recruit. But this way requires presence and commitment and contribution and there are no shortcuts.