It’s funny to hear talk about recruiters being replaced by online social networking systems in the next few years. It reminds me of the late-1990’s when people thought that accountants would become replaceable with the advent of TurboTax & other tax software packages. Now we know; as long as tax law continues to be complex, there will be a need for good accountants to interpret and apply that information on our tax returns.

But let’s back up to the reason recruiters are brought on board in the first place. In many cases, they are more effective at locating qualified candidates than the company can do on its own. With the advent of new online tools, it’s possible for recruiters to become even more effective if they develop and learn new methods to stay ahead of the curve. There’s no reason  to minimize the situation; A Darwinian process is in effect as we speak, recruiters that adapt and develop ways to be effective within this new environment will be better at locating candidates going forward and therefore have a better chance of succeeding/surviving.

Recruiting online is the first step towards becoming more effective in locating candidates. But the challenge facing recruiters (and the internet as a whole) is the fact that there is TOO MUCH information available, which makes it difficult to locate the right kind of information when it is needed.

Social networking and online media is a treasure trove of many things that can be used by marketers and advertising individuals, but everyone is looking for different things related to their industry/product. The challenge recruiters face going forward is locating the right candidate information at the right time from all the terabytes of data available to them online. [More on that in an upcoming post which will be linked to here once posted.]

As long as there is a need to locate good, qualified candidates from the masses, there will be a need for recruiters to locate them, guide them through the hiring process, and place them.

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