Recruiting and linkedin.com

So one of the things that kept me busy before going on holiday was finishing off yet another round of recruitment. Since we're not a very large organisation we don't have an HR department to facilitate the process. Department managers handle most of the recruitment themselves. I like to take the 'shotgun' approach on getting the best candidates. This usually means (online) classifieds and getting candidates in from external recruitment agencies. This year added to the ammo something new: linkedin.

Most of you probably have heard of linkedin, the social network that allows you to set up connections to colleagues, ex-colleagues and re-unite with friends from university (if you haven't, visit www.linkedin.com). I have, as most users, infrequently maintained my profile for the last few years (click the linkedin profile on my blog to see my public profile), without really taking much advantage of the social network capabilities (other than keeping updated on what my old friends are busy with). So after reading Guy Kawasaki's praise to linkedin I decided to experiment with posting one of our job openings. I must say that I didn't expect much response, Bergen with it's 150.000 inhabitants isn't exactly Silicon Valley.

A few minutes after i posted the job opening I received three applications. Over the next couple of weeks more kept coming in. Unfortunately all of them where from places that would require significant relocation cost, not to mention the cost with just interviewing somebody from South America. But then suddenly: a Job application from someone actually living on the west-coast of Norway! To make a long story short, he got the job.

A job classified in the newspaper costs somewhere along the line of 3-5000$. A traditional online ad - 900$. Recruitment agency - 10.000$. Linkedin? 100$.

I know what you might be thinking and what my contacts in the recruitment agency will say; 'It's just a cheap classified ad, a full recruitment process will give you much more'. Wrong. Linkedin is a social network. Recruitment happens through your extended network and gives you the same possibilities and advantages as traditional recruitment through your network - but the effect and the scale of the network is enhanced ('on steroids') by using modern social software techniques.

Will I still use recruitment agencies? Yes. As a growing company we need the best candidates regardless of the source. But they will now hopefully be under some competition from linkedin.com...