LinkedIn Request from Recruiters to HR - I'm Done Saying No...

In the beginning, there was Monster and life was good.  The people posted their jobs, the candidates came and the leaders picked the best people from a digital crop of hundreds.  Print ads and the administration required to process paper was dead and the people were happy and fat, even if they did little to distinguish themselves from the crowd or live by the creed.

Then, the skies darkened.  The attention span of the harvest was fragmented by a plague called "social media".  The people continued to go to Monster for the yield they expected, only to find the vine increasingly barren. Like the nomads who had come before them, the flock was forced to move to various lands, some of which were named "LinkedIn", "Facebook" and a loose confederation of states known only as "niche job boards".

One tribe of people committed resources to tilling the land within the state known as LinkedIn.  Initial harvests were positive, then as it always does, evil appeared.  The evil brought an invitation. Weary of invitations from sources of evil, the people quickly passed the word across the tribe: "Don't accept invitations from the evil". 

In the end, the call to avoid invitations from evil fell on deaf ears, since one member of the tribe was weak (isn't there always at least one, if not more?) and evil now had access to the entire flock, like a virus being passed via your company doorknob.  And the leaders were resigned to shepherding their flock with evil among them.

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Legend:

The People: Companies who need talent

Leaders: HR pros responsible for recruiting and candidate flow

the Creed: the pledge to build a better company for employees, resulting in a recruiting edge via a strong employment brand

Evil: 3rd Party Recruiters who seek to develop candidate flow via LinkedIn, and could take your employees via a connection with you on LinkedIn

the Invitation: an invite from a 3rd party recruiter to an HR pro.  The HR pro happens to be connected to all employees in the company.

the weak member of the tribe: Any employee in your company (HR or otherwise) with a large LinkedIn network, who connects to the 3rd party recruiter, resulting in the recruiter having access to the names.  You can't stop it.

FOOTNOTE: Most smart HR pros were and are weary of connecting with 3rd party recruiters who might steal their talent via LinkedIn.  After all, it's like your digital Rolodex you're giving them access to.  Me? I'm over it and have been for awhile.  All it takes is for one heavily connected employee inside your company to accept that invitation, and the access to a smart recruiter via 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree connections is granted.  Whether you grant them access or not really doesn't matter.  So I accept most of them these days, and you might as well, too.  Put your resources into the Creed. 

PS - If you're a 3rd party recruiter and you block me from viewing your connections, you're still categorized as evil.

Comments

[puff_momma]

Gee...But the 3rd party recruiters are offering you access to THEIR networks as well. Doesn't that benefit you?

[Kris Dunn]

Puff Momma -

True, unless they fall under the PS of the post: "If you're a 3rd party recruiter and you block me from viewing your connections, you're still categorized as evil."

My experience is the national 3rd party folks have pretty built up LI networks and provide access, while the local folks do not....

KD

[twitter.com/havrilla]

You hit the nail on the head -- The People and Leaders should be focusing our energy and resources into the 'Creed'! Frankly most recruiters - internal or external - learned long ago how to identify employees from target companies in LinkedIn without accessing "the weak member of the tribe's" network. Great post... as always!!

[AWM]

Evil is such a strong word...

[pasmuz]

There is still a variety of fear over Social Media in the workplace. There are many detractors with that fear in hand who don’t see, or don't want anyone to see the benefits: the collaboration, the strength in knowledge & openness to new ideas.

Debating these detractors is difficult. Your reasoning for not fearing 3rd party recruiters is a welcome and needed counterpoint in this debate.

I say on high, “drop the fear and ye shall reap the benefit!”

[Kristi_Merritt]

Speaking of reaping the benefits, it works both ways. If I link with a 3rd party recruiter, I gain access to their talent!

On the other hand, if they have don't have that many connections, there is no way I'd connect. Gotta compare gain vs risk ratio.

[tlcolson]

No one can steal an employee, just like you can't steal a spouse. And you never know when you might need that recruiter connection. So I say "go for it" and if you are treating your people right, they'll be ignoring that evil eye.

Great post. True originality.

[mick]

I requested from LinkedIn that they add "I won't share" reciprocity. I generally share my network, but if you won't share with me, I don't want to share mine with you. Can't do this today. Hopefully they'll implement this feature in the future.