Recruiting and the Internet

One irony of the 'internet revolution' is that it hasn't seemed to really make life much easier. Although more information than I could have imagined a few years ago, is now available at our fingertips, the bar of performance has been forever raised. You are now expected to do more, faster, and cheaper. Because somewhere the competition is. So you do, or you eventually die.

One result is that we are seeing large numbers of what I would call 'enabling' businesses, that are growing out of the internet. Initially everyone seemed to think a new class of internet versions of old line businesses (drugstore.com, homegrocer.com, etc) would replace the old businesses. But now it seems like many of the new businesses are serving the needs of the internet itself -- Google of course, but also SEO's (search engine optimizers, web hosting sites, social networking, video sites, etc).

There are a number of new ones with either most or some of their slant geared towards the impacts of the internet on recruiting.

Networking sites like Linked In, Jigsaw, etc are one example.

Another area in particular caught my eye recently. There's been an explosion in tools and services to help recruiters search the internet. AIRS certifications and training are one... go to a class and get trained on how to use Google. If you are too lazy or inept to do that, pay Zoominfo to catalog some names for you. Broadlook Technologies offers a variety of internet crawling tools that compile lists, for several thousand dollars a pop.

The problem with the automated tools and services is that you seem to get mostly information that is not very difficult to obtain to begin with. Company executive names are often readily available on their websites. Technical names are often mentioned in articles and forums, but without location and contact information, so they can be difficult to track down (although guessing emails is a recruiting art in itself).

The more the tools change, the more the game remains the same. It's the man (or woman) in the middle, the recruiter, who gets the job done. Or doesn't.