You remember this from the film Men In Black, a neutralizer to wipe the brain. After a few conversations this week, I think it is the only device, tool or application that would convince agency owners to take the risk and let their staff get social.
A few weeks ago I read a blog post that advised getting new starters to sign a contract to say who their contacts were on joining, and to hand over any connections when they left. The lawyers have been filling their boots (and wallets) over this fear. Devising contracts, handbooks and handcuffs to tie down new recruiters. I think it is just rubbish!
How motivating and welcoming is it to start your new job being told how you are going to have to behave when you leave, and that your new employers are already planning your exit and don’t really trust you. It just doesn’t work. You set the scene of distrust, don’t be surprised if your recruiters do the dirty, particularly when you hired them for their contacts.
The simple message is:
YOU CANT OWN DATA ANYMORE
Data is public, it is in the public domain, and the only people who can claim ownership on LinkedIn connections or data is LinkedIn. Here is a revolutionary idea, how about you trust your recruiters, and you build relationships with the contacts in the business. If owners invest time in to the relationships in the business, then who your clients and candidates are connected with on LinkedIn is not important. The revenue is in the relationship not the connection.
We don’t yet have a neutralizer, so you can’t erase what your leavers might know. Exercise some trust and reap the benefit of social recruiting, rather than being paralyzed by fear.
Bill
Related posts:
Agency recruiters and #socialrecruiting
Why agencies don’t (or won’t) do #SocialRecruiting. Fear,Policy And Control.
Sunday Shout Out: Steve Ward: An Agency Recruiter Who “Gets” #SocialRecruiting
Sunday Shout Out: Steve Ward: An Agency Recruiter Who "Gets" #SocialRecruiting
Get Referred: The Big Change In #SocialRecruiting?
Oh Bill – brilliant words. I could comment about this for ever.
It’s a massive challenge for genuinely successful social recruiting adoption by agencies.
Trust versus Paranoia. Paranoia is rife among perfectly mature adults who run recruitment companies, and manage recruitment company offices.
If we trust ourselves to pay a consultant £25-30k and the responsibility of managing a target client list; then we we have to trust them to write a tweet sensibly.
Above all else though – the key is the culture you create. It’s about Social Business. The fabric of a recruitment company has to change. Give recruiters some freedom, treat them like er.. adults, and allow them to flourish, and most of all – recruit the RIGHT ones, and hang onto them!
Great idea! That MIB Neutralizer may work better than a Dr Who Sonic Screwdriver. Not even that could fix and bend transactional mindsets! The transactional recruiter DNA is more of the ‘me me me’ and ‘find find find’ and can never be social can they? Wanting to appear social on one hand and not allowing it on another does not work either.
Savvy recruiters will check out a prospective employers social policy ahead of taking up a position perhaps.. And yes, there are plenty of those scare mongering legal eagles about most of which don’t understand social engagement do they? In any event, if businesses look within, they will already have IP protection in place in employment contracts where it belongs. Social Policy needs buy in and not least from the new marketing and PR people – the ‘recruiter brand ambassadors’ :-0 ! Policy, starting and ending with ‘rule rule rule’ has already failed and that’s a Kodak moment policy for a Kodak recruiter.
But protectionism is the issue – where existing revenue streams are 100% NOT in social but ARE 100% in the transactional aka ‘post and pray’ world. But for those truly looking to embrace change (and stop talking and start listening), there is hope but Influencers are going to have to work harder!