Is LinkedIn a PSL Selection Tool

In the newly designed Recruiter magazine there is a new backpage feature (I'm assuming it's a regular feature) called In-House Hannah.  The crux of the "story" is how when vetting recruiters for a PSL she checked them out on LinkedIn .... "Yet some 40% were obviously not networking. I worked out that the 37 PSL contacts were linked directly to less than 1,000 people. I am personally linked to over 5,000! Yet I am being asked to pay money for these people to find me candidates. How does that work? Where is the value to me? Perhaps one of the so called ‘consultants’ could explain to me why I need to pay them when they are obviously taking me for a ride?"
 
I'd like to start out by saying we are big fans of LinkedIn here at UK Recruiter.  We've even got our own group.
 
LinkedIn is fabulously useful in finding out background information about someone.  However, one does have to bear in mind that it's information they have entered themselves and the number of connections they have may have nothing at all to do with how well connected they are. 
 
One of the best recruiters I know has 90 connections on LinkedIn.  She is without doubt superbly networked - just not via LinkedIn. 
 
Often there is no love lost between Agency and In-house recruiters but even so I think this is a cheap shot.
 
How can it make sense to use just one "tool" to determine the worth of any other individual.  So Hannah has crossed most (all?) of these recruiters off her PSL list based on the fact they have less connections than her.  As a recruiter does she base her decision making in the selection process on one element of what she sees; how the candidate dresses, what their hobbies on their CV are, how they came across in a two minute interview booking phone call, a reference from 5 years back? 
 
However, don't get me wrong, all recruiters would do themselves a favour if they did have a great LinkedIn profile with a good solid connection base.  To that end .... (shameless plug) .... check out our LinkedIn Guide for Recruiters!!
 

Comments

[Gary Franklin]

I‘m an in-house recruitment manager, managing a team responsible for delivery across parts of EMEA. The need for an in-house team to maintain a solid network (pipeline) of contacts is essential. The same can be said for agencies and their employees, however they are likely to have a bigger challenge maintaining a network – a vast majority of them are not equipped for this type of social interaction. Many agency sales people sadly lack the personal skills and credibility to do so effectively mainly because of lack of investment and the focus on revenue and achievement.

There are those individuals however that we and many of our peers in other companies use that do add significant value to the corporate recruiting need. This is typically a result of who they really know, rather than how many names they collected in a database.

I agree with Louise in respect to the value of the connections one has on LI. Most who call themselves recruiters will collect LI connections like a merit badges without concern or consideration given to the value or worth of each one or what value they might be to a customer. Nor can anyone determine the demographics of a set of anonymous connections on LI and where a value can be leveled. For example I have over 600 connections. I work in the security and storage markets (typically sales), but less than half of my connections could be considered assets to those two markets. The rest are made up of people I might interact with socially or via any of the groups and other non-work related interests I have. What I am saying is that the number of connections I have is irrelevant to anyone but me.

Anyway networks have to be reasonably small to be very effective, certainly at the 1st level. Effective networking is all about networking with the right people with the right level of consistency and bi-lateral cooperation. It is common sense; you cannot communicate at a conversational level with many people at once and keeping up with and contributing to multiple relationships takes a lot of investment in terms of time. The value of a network is not and should not be determined by the number of people you are connected to, but by who those people actually are, what they know, who they know well and who they are willing to connect you to.

So judging and assessing a PSL simply on the number of connections is not sensible nor is it good business practice. It might be a way of getting through the volume if all you are interested in is a Dickensian supplier/customer one-dimensional type of relationship, however it is not appropriate for establishing and sustaining a collaborative longer term relationship.

[Duncan Elliott]

D'you know, I wouldn't be at all surprised at how many successful recruiters there are who are too busy filling jobs, winning new business, and placing candidates to 'network.'

I wouldn't be surprised because I know a lot of them.

LinkedIn is good and I do use it, but, from a certain point of view, it's a virtual version of those endless, tedious 'networking' breakfasts (breakfast, why??) and other stage-managed events attended by the terminally dull or people with too much time on their hands and the word 'strategic' in their job title.

LinkedIn is about as useful as a PSL selection tool as is a piece of seaweed to predict next week's FTSE. And the phrase, 'anyone who's anyone', please...!

PS Gary - great points well made.

[Tim Latham]

Louise,

Good points. I was moved to write to Recruiter magazine and they published it here: http://www.recruiter.co.uk/dear-in-house-hannah/1002717.article

[Richard Bradley]

Linked in is a great tool and networking is an essential part of recruiting high calibre candidates.

The number of people you have "collected" however is no indication of how good you are at networking. I would question how anyone with a network of 500+ people can do this effectively.

Hannah might also want to take into consideration that you can search peoples public profiles via Google so you can do the hard work behind the scene's and link in to those people who can actually add value to your network.

Linkedin is a fantastic tool but to use it to select a PSL is plain stupid. Hannah you are not helping the reputation of in-house recruiters.