Striking a balance: Modern vs traditional recruitment skills

Sarah Duncan has recently joined Harvey Lawrence, further strengthening our team. With 12 years' recruitment experience, here she discusses blending social media with the fundamentals of traditional recruitment. Today, there is undeniably an emphasis on social media and networking. Recruiters are expected to optimise their presence on a variety of platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. This is an important element of the role today and can be a challenging one, particularly when you are aspiring to be an excellent social networker. Fully leveraging these channels means understanding your objectives in using social media for recruitment, following trends, engaging meaningfully and converting online engagements to offline business.However, it is my belief that many recruiters simply over rely on social media and jobs boards to find candidates and the fundamentals of good recruitment methods has been lost. All too often, a role is posted to a job board and the recruiter simply sifts through CVs and then forwards them to the client. For me, there is far more to recruitment than purely being a desk-bound digital administrator and the danger is that new recruiters fail to learn and mirror the 'traditional' skills needed to excel in recruitment. Digital marketing should enhance but not replace good recruitment strategies.There is a great deal of comment out there about never replacing the value of relationships but it still seems that recruitment is becoming even more faceless. The candidate audience is increasingly disengaging with recruiters whether they be external agency or internal recruiters. I think job seekers are quickly catching on to social media bombardment in the same way as clients have long become immune to cv bombardment. Job seekers are wanting to talk to people whom they have ideally met and can demonstrate a detailed market understanding and fully understand their aspirations.Returning to recruitment with 12 years’ experience, I’m determined to bring my passion for building trusted face to face relationships and professionalism to the forefront of what I do. This sits well with Harvey Lawrence's brand where the traditional fundamentals of good recruitment still hold true. I believe that it is these values, supported by market knowledge and credibility, that make us stand out from the crowd. Afterall, operating in a spirit of mutual trust and respect is really the only way to deliver quality service and results. Join in the conversation with Harvey Lawrence over on our social channels! Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn or contact us now to discuss your next career move.