No Shit, Sherlock

Boutique 'Career Management' firm InterExec have come up with something. They reckon social networking is on the up when it comes to recruitment. Really? I had no idea.

In research that seems some way behind the times they reckon that for very senior executives (with salaries above £150k and up to £1m - yes up to £1m) some 18% of them feature themselves on LinkedIn.

I have blogged on this yonks ago. 97% of headhunters surveyed reckoned that senior executives should have publicly accessible career profiles. Well they would say that. It makes LinkedIn and similar the cheapest way to find potential candidates and foregoes the old expensive CV databases they all used to clamour to get a hold of. In a firm I consulted with a few years ago, a very niche headhunting firm was contracted to find senior executives. In a single year period, of the 10 executives they recruited for the company in question, every single one had been originally found and contacted on LinkedIn. And their charge was actually above 33% of their first year remuneration in each case. Easy money?

I use LinkedIn to network and create new business. Up until about 2 years ago, it was the base source of some 40% of all the revenue I had accrued to that time. Since, I have had more from direct prospecting and word of mouth. Still, my LinkedIn profile does gain me several inquiries per month.

However, it is fair to say that firms paying top dollar to headhunters are paying over the odds in most cases as the source for their searches are usually LinkedIn and similar - essentially free or cheap services. Yet they still charge huge fees. LinkedIn is generally the way for executives to advertise their availability and as such are those in search of career change or better opportunities. In my book, such candidates are not the ones I would want my headhunters to prospect - I want those people who are performing well and maybe not looking for a change. I would rather they got sold on a good opportunity than be on the move.

But hey-ho - what do I know. Of the 10 candidates at the company I highlighted earlier, the last of them leaves this month - average tenure was less than 18 months.

Again, what do I know? Whatever they paid the boutique headhunter for recruiting fees was a total waste. That's what I know.


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