Social recruiting is something of a hot topic and has become one of the buzzwords of 2011. It can, however, be difficult to know where to start or how to make sure that you get the most benefit from using web and networking sites. There is no right or wrong way to use social recruiting, however. It is a concept rather than a prescriptive way of doing things and as such, employers in many different fields are able to draw on the aspects of social recruiting that work for them.

Social recruiting is essentially a means of identifying and communicating with potential employees and building relationships with them. It is an additional tool rather than a replacement to traditional recruitment methods. It encompasses the basic elements that are required for any recruitment process, using new media as a means of attracting and carrying out preliminary vetting of potential candidates.

The web as a marketing tool
One of the simplest ways to embrace social recruiting is to use the web effectively as a marketing tool. By advertising online on websites that are relevant to the industry or field that you work in, you are able to target a much wider pool of people than by only using traditional methods. Twitter and Facebook can be a great way to advertise jobs, particularly if you work in an industry that is IT or media savvy.

For a more proactive approach to recruitment, it is possible to directly source potential candidates for roles that you are looking to fill. The website, LinkedIn is the largest user-generated database of individuals and holds information on employment history and skills as well as identifying whether the individual is open to approaches. This can be an invaluable way of identifying candidates with a background in areas that are important to you.

It is possible to take proactivity further and fully utilise resources that are already available to you. Many companies regard their employees as their greatest asset yet fail to tap into their knowledge and contacts when looking to recruit. Peer to peer recruitment can be an excellent method of identifying potential candidates. By using employees' social networks, it is often possible to identify candidates with similar values to those already employed. Additionally, such candidates often have a good understanding of the company culture from their existing relationships with your employee.

Degree of caution
This all sounds great but, as with anything, there are some drawbacks and a degree of caution needs to be exercised. Using social recruitment to attract candidates will only ever be successful if your target pool of candidates uses social media themselves. This can depend to a degree upon the industry you operate in. Unless you are employing in an area where aptitude for using social media is essential, it is important to ensure that you don't miss out on attracting excellent candidates. Continuing to use traditional recruitment methods is, therefore, important.

Additionally, whilst using social recruitment gives access to a much wider pool of people than traditional methods, it does not mean that any of them will be suitable for the role that you are looking to recruit for. It is, therefore, also important to have good search and screening criteria in place to ensure that your time is spent concentrating on candidates who have the potential to be right for the role you are looking to fill rather than sizeable numbers of those who aren't.

Notwithstanding these caveats, social recruiting is becoming an increasingly important part of any company's recruitment tools. Whether it is by advertising on social network sites such as Twitter or Facebook, targeting individuals via sites such as LinkedIn or by using employees' social networks, most companies will find that some element of social recruitment is beneficial to their own recruitment process.

Photo by The Next Web

The chief executive of Etsio.com, a company which co-ordinates arrangements in which interns sometimes pay employers to do work experience, has said that he wants to build a network of recruitment agencies across the UK.

According to the Recruiter, interns can pay as much as £200 for a day of work experience as part of the scheme.

Etsio.com chief executive Kit Sadgrove told the Recruiter: “I would hope we would have an agency in every city and large town in the UK that would allow people to find out what working in a recruitment agency is like.

“It opens up the opportunity of working with recruitment consultancies because it [hiring staff] is a hassle for them, and it makes it worthwhile if they get some money in return.”

Picture by Images_of_Money

According to the Daily Mail, a top recruitment executive has been forced to quit his job after he mistakenly sent an expletive-filled rejection email to 4,000 people.

The email was sent by Gary Chaplin as a reply to a mass-mailed enquiry from Manos Katsampoukas, who was looking for a job.

Mr Chaplin, who was earning £200,000 per year at Manchester firm Stark Brooks, accidentally replied to the 4,000 employment leads that Katsampoukas had contacted as opposed to just him.

The incident begun when Katsampoukas sent an email to thousands of job recruitment firms looking for a job in the banking or marketing sector. His email is said to have been polite and formal, however in his reply, Chaplin criticised him for not taking the time to send an individual email to each recipient.

Chaplin then wrote a scathing email in response to Katsampoukas which was packed with expletives and offensive words and insulted the intelligence of its recipient. However when Chaplin hit reply he inadvertently selected the ‘reply to all’ function and his message was sent to thousands of people in the recruitment sector.

His reply told Mr Katsampoukas: 'I think I speak for all 4000 people you have emailed when I say, "Thanks for your CV" – it's nice to know you are taking this seriously.'

Mr Chaplin has had to resign over the matter and told the Daily Mail: 'I am mortified by what I did … It was a moment of idiocy.'

'I am now looking for a job just a few days before Christmas. If I could turn back the clock I would. I will regret this forever.'

Photo by ideagirlmedia

2e2, the ICT services company, released figures today which show the need for UK business to alter traditional working practices in order to boost employee productivity.

A survey conducted on nearly 2000 office workers showed that 63 percent said they feel restrained by the traditional nine to five working day and felt they would be more productive if there was more flexibility around the hours they worked.

Also, 55 percent admitted to being more productive when working from home as opposed to being in the office environment, while 73 percent said that technology was no longer a barrier to working from home.

2e2 Director, Mike Hockey, said: “Employers often don’t realise the impact of working culture on productivity. Different people have different working patterns and the traditional 9 to 5 way of working doesn’t suit everyone.

“It’s clear that often employees would be more productive if they had flexible hours or could work from home.

“However, an organisation’s culture can often mean that this isn’t possible or, if people do work in this way, they are seen as slackers. Bosses need to change this: they need to make it clear that working from home isn’t a perk and that it’s productivity and effectiveness that they care about, not hours behind a desk.”

Research also revealed however, that nearly one in two workers felt modern working practices, including the increased use of technology and remote working, has led to the loss of valuable human interaction with work colleagues.

According to UK recruitment firm Astbury Marsden, there was five qualified applicants applying for each job in London’s main financial district in November.

This figure shows a sharp increase in the amount of job competition as it was measured at just 1.7 applicants per job at the beginning of 2011.

The ratio is now at its highest since December 2008 as the number of investment bankers seeking employment rose significantly. New vacancies at financial-services companies fell 16 percent to 2,670 in November from a month earlier as banks battle a faltering economy and a euro crisis, the London-based company said.

Mark Cameron, Chief Operating Officer at Astbury Marsden, said: “For those City staff who are looking for a new job it means they are being pitted against more intense competition then they may have faced for years.

“For many it will mean more interviews and more rejections before they find the right job.”

The Agency Workers Regulations come into effect on 1 October 2011, effectively giving equal rights to agency workers and full time staff after 12 weeks in a role.

Recruitment agencies need to take note of the changes to the law, because they carry a lot of responsibility when it comes to compliance, however the responsibility is shared by the employer hiring temp workers through agencies.

The hiring company needs to give the agency the correct information about the conditions of the role in order for the two to work together in ensuring the regulations are followed.

Agency workers will have some rights straight off the bat, such as the right to accessing shared facilities and amenities accessed by full time workers in comparable roles and access to job vacancies. Other rights, such as basic pay, annual leave, rest breaks and performance bonuses must kick in after 12 weeks.

If an agency worker changes roles for a hiring employer after the 12 week period, the worker will retain the rights they gained at week 12, unless the roles are substantially different.

It is clearly very important to get to grips with the changes brought about by the new regulations, and with only a few days left until the regulations come into effect, it is imperative that action is taken now.

To learn more about the Agency Workers Regulations, click here.

A while ago LinkedIn launched a plug in allowing candidates to apply for jobs through LinkedIn. If you were to believe the hype behind this move you’d probably think any recruitment process outside of LinkedIn was doomed to die a miserable death.

However, social network sites are still falling short of the mark in supplying sufficient quality candidates for employers to consider for their vacancies. They are a great additional tool for job seekers and employers alike, but they need to be used as a supplementary tool, not necessarily as the primary tool.

For one thing, as far as advertising vacancies in recruitment is concerned, the price of posting a job on LinkedIn needs to be compared to posting a vacancy on a reputable job board in the recruitment industry. Careers in Recruitment only charges £95 for a starting level job post (at the time of writing this blog post).

Our recruitment site has great vacancies from the top employers in the field, and we complement our job board with a lively LinkedIn group where candidates and currently employed recruitment consultants can chat about industry news, events and opportunities. Advertising a vacancy on Careers in Recruitment will therefore get you exposure to an active LinkedIn group for the industry and a large volume of traffic through search engines.

LinkedIn is a great career tool, but it needs to be used in conjunction with specialist recruiters who have the tried and tested skills and expertise needed for effective recruitment.

Its is still about four months to go until Christmas, but Argos are launching an annual Christmas recruitment campaign which needs to source 12,000 Christmas workers for their stores. The recruitement is being done in partnership with Tyi UK and Job Centre Plus. Terry Duddy, Argos Managing Director said, "Argos is a fun, interesting and busy place to be over Christmas so we are excited about finding passionate and enthusiastic staff that can join the team. "With over 70 million customers passing through our doors over the period, the new recruits will really help us deliver great customer service this Christmas." Recruiting for seasonal workers is a skill in itself and will see a busy period for many recruitment agencies.

More people are being placed into jobs by recruitment agencies, according to the Recruitment and employment Confederation (REC). Engineering and construction, as well as IT workers are the most in demand. Hospitality and healthcare sectors are not hiring as much though. Kevin Green is the chief executive of the REC. He said, "Employment is just 1% off its pre-recession peak but the economy is still struggling at 4% down in comparison with 2007/2008 figures. The UK's flexible labour market is a key reason why employment is continuing to grow. Employers are using large numbers of temporary workers which, with the Agency Workers Regulations less than two months away from implementation, shows that businesses continue to see the value of using a flexible workforce."

2011’s graduates have money at the centre of their job seeking concerns. The Hay Group is a management consultancy who believes there is good news for the graduates. They expect average graduate salaries to be higher than students are expecting. Recruitment consultancies may be able to pleasantly surprise graduates with the job offers out there. The reward information consultant at Hay Group, Christopher Smith, said, “The economic climate is clearly influencing graduates' career decisions. Acutely aware of the difficult labour market and rising living costs, they are looking for a career path that makes financial sense first and foremost. Idealistic factors barely come into consideration.” Smith also said, “Confronted by an uncertain outlook, graduates have lowered their remuneration expectations well below what they can expect to earn in the main functions of the UK's largest graduate employers.” Data on salaries was put together looking at 10,000 graduate wages in more than 600 mid to large size private sector employers in the UK.