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In the past week alone I’ve been approached online by no less than 30 or so different connections who want to connect to me and my network.

So in the words of Derrick Zoolander, I must be really, really ridiculously popular right?

Well I suspect I’m not as popular as I’d like to think; so why are these professionals reaching out to connect with me and my network?

The answer lies in the as yet, largely un-fathomable Return on Investment (ROI) that everyone believes they can achieve through growing their social and business networks. Surely the more people I know the more likely I am of selling my product, getting that new job or building my client list. But the reality is far from that simple with perhaps only the most astute recognising that the key to working any network, online or off, is to connect with people from whom you can deride a benefit and importantly who may also deride a benefit from you.

‘Influence’ appropriate to your desired outcome in growing a network is the key to a successful network, more so than the number of connections and tenuous friends that you can lay claim to.

As the year comes to a close now is the time to re-assess your goals and objectives for the year ahead; what type of people would be useful for you to know and how can you assist those people? The deluge of social media driven connection opportunities that have grown in the past year alone are staggering and there are no signs of it relenting. At the risk of having to hire an assistant to manage my ‘friends and connections’ I’m going back to the old adage of ‘quality over quantity’. Don’t be offended if I don’t accept your LinkedIn invitation, If I’m doing my job correctly I’m probably saving us both some time if our mutual interests aren’t similar. On the flip side, if you see a connection I don’t see, spell out your intentions clearly and I’m likely to look more favourably on the approach.

 At the end of the day it may not be; ‘what you know, but who you know’ but it’s also now “why you know them’.

Perhaps one of the more pertinent reasons recruitment professionals are scorned lies in the nature of the business model under which they operate, Sales. It’s intrinsic in any sales business that the art of influence and persuasion are required in reasonably heavy doses for anyone who wants to be successful and it’s these attributes that are perhaps not best bed-fellows with the concept of trust. When a job seeker is looking to move in to a new position he/she must feel that they are doing the right thing at the right time, and if the process is being managed by a third party then that trust element, separate from any sales bias, is critical to the success of that process.

In today’s global economy job hunting has never been more paradoxical; on the one hand roles are more complex and specific than ever before whilst on the contrary are often sourced through mass managed, automated technological solutions which fail to address these significant intricacies.

The role of professional recruiter one might argue, has never been more needed. But the trust and altruism of finding someone the right job, at the right time and for the right reasons is essential to maintain professional and industry integrity.

Anyone who’s suddenly found themselves out of work for any period of time would tell you they would probably do just about anything to get back in to the workforce. But would they go so far as pay a recruitment provider to find them a job? Agencies are usually prohibited from charging a fee to job applicants, as they receive their fees from clients. In some states and under some circumstances they may charge a fee for registration or where the services they are providing are ‘impartial and individualised advice and assistance to advance career options’.

The question I’m posing doesn’t so much go to the legal challenge but rather the ethical one, ‘Would it be right to charge job seekers?’

As any legal scholar will tell you, for a contract to be formed there must exist three legal principles; offer, acceptance and consideration. The latter relating to something of tangible benefit or value, like for example the service of finding someone a job perhaps. And so it goes with any service provision that patrons will (usually) pay for the benefit of receiving said service.

Why should recruitment, ethically or legally for that matter be any different? Read more…