Technology & Social Media: 100 million people in your Digital Rolodex

I’m not sure when it happened, but somewhere along the way finding people became very easy. Over the last 20 years, candidates and companies have been immersed in a mass glut of information. This has completely changed the role of recruiter. In the past, finding people had been a challenge. Indeed, after the rise of the internet and the greatest information revolution in humankind that followed, finding people became quite easy—but recruiting them became much harder.

In his exploration of the first media revolution related to the rise of telephony, radio, and television in the 20th century, communication guru Marshall McLuhan explored the theory of intimate proximity and how these new media allowed people to share intimate experiences even as they were in separate physical locations. I believe that the information-technology revolution of the last twenty years has created the next phase in the evolution which I call “intimate accessibility.”

Today, we are not just in proximity of each other, but we have now become intimately accessible to each other. As a result of the rise of technology and social media, all parties are able to find and truly connect with each other in a way that has never been possible in history. This has greatly impacted the recruitment process and has created both challenges and opportunities. The inclusion of a chapter dedicated to technology and social media is essential in order to show how these events have greatly impacted human capital over the past 20 years.

It started with advancements made in telephony. Hard to imagine but 20 years ago many companies didn’t even have voicemail. This was the first step that enabled recruiters to leave detailed messages with their targets. In many ways, this created private infomercials that allowed the recruiter to provide tailored advertisements that could showcase the opportunity on a freeform setting without interruption.

The next step was the rise and commercialization of the internet. Initially, email made it easier to contact individuals and conduct business in more intimate and private forum. But both email and voicemail were dwarfed by the impact of social media, specifically the rise of networking sites such as LinkedIn. LinkedIn has now empowered recruiters by giving them access to hundreds of millions of global prospects.

Before LinkedIn, search firms built and populated proprietary databases that were based on their own data input and management. The major issue with these systems is they relied on the information gathered and cleansed by the recruiters populating the databases. The strength of social networking sites is that the content is driven and managed by the users and therefore remains more accurate and up to date. People are now able to load their resumes online making them accessible to any potential employers as well as other potential business partners and clients.

The new challenge is based on assessing and then engaging/recruiting from within this sea of information. The skills required to identify talent have changed as many people are able to master the ability to present themselves in a compelling manner. It is therefore up to recruiters to delve deeper into the mass glut and ultimately see parallels and synergies that aren’t visible to most others.

Furthermore, candidates must develop greater facility in networking in order to stay competitive in this market. There is an art to being able to stand out from a crowd of similarly educated and experienced individuals. The key is to resonate with the individual on the other side of the screen even before an initial conversation takes place. There are very specific and subtle ways to accomplish this. I have seen individuals embrace the new wave of social media based self-promotion over the last 5-10 years and look forward to sharing many of these observations.