LinkedIn coming up on the rails

Posted in Latest News on 9 Jul 2011

Two pieces of digital news came through this week that could have a significant effect on the way the recruitment market develops from the online perspective.

The first came out of the US suggesting that LinkedIn has now passed MySpace to become the second largest social network behind Facebook. The sceptics will point to the fact that these statistics do not show active users, are based on the US, do not show what users are doing on LinkedIn and similar; however as a headline, that is not an insignificant statement.

It shows that LinkedIn now has a defined purpose and pattern of user behaviour, with arguably one of those developed user behaviours surrounding it being used as a recruiting tool. More and more recruiters are starting to see tangible benefits from gaining leads and candidates from LinkedIn and this is happening around the world, not just in the US.

All of which makes this week's second item of news equally, if not more, significant.

LinkedIn have announced that they are implementing a universal "Apply with LinkedIn button". This is known in the industry as a social sign-in, and put simply it will allow any website to place this button on their page and automatically take your details from LinkedIn and make a job application using your LinkedIn profile on your behalf. It's the social media equivalent of 1-click ordering on Amazon.

These two pieces of news combined could have a profound effect on the recruitment industry as a whole. Companies will instantly have a direct, standardised method of receiving candidate details that they can manage online. Provided their websites are accurately indexed in search engines, the role of the job board will become marginalised as jobs will now be able to be discovered simply via Google.

For recruiters, the emphasis returns to the development of relationships. This should always be a key skill for any recruiter, but if candidates and clients are being given the tools to make it easier for them to interact directly, the value that a recruiter will be able to add will lie in their knowledge of the industry, the people in the industry and being able to connect the right people together pro-actively.

Social and digital media has already changed the way the recruitment industry works; these developments will ensure that as an industry we will have to continue to evolve to make sure we are able to add value to our candidates and clients.

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