I was over on Twitter a few days ago, and saw that one of my software dev friends had posted that he was filing for UI. I sent him an email and asked him why he hadn’t sent me his resume? (Come on, when you list a recruiter as a true friend, that should be the first thing that comes to mind!)
His response? He exptected that recruiters would find him on Twitter and other social networking sites.
DOH! OK, not only is this beyond arrogant, it shows a true lack of understanding of the basic laws of supply and demand. Here’s the rubdown. There are *many, many many more candidates than jobs available.* The days when truly gifted and qualified candidates could expect to just sit back and let the recruiters come to them is a trend of the past for now. As I told him, right now those recruiters lucky enough to be employed *with* openings are being deluged by frantic candidates. They honestly don’t have the time to go out and find candidates, they are getting frazzled with the number of resumes that are coming their way.
Sourcing, or the process of *finding* candidates is something most recruiters don’t enjoy doing (I’m the exception to that rule.) Sourcing is as much about looking at and dispositioning candidates that are applying to your openings as it is about going out and headhunting. When I was at Microsoft, this was a *huge* issue in a strong market, let alone a depressed economy.
Yes, in the past couple of years tech publications have touted the revolution of social networking sites as tools that recruiters will embrace; but that is if they have *time*. Drowning under resumes means they don’t have time to be creative. So now is the time to definitely consider *mainstream* methods first (Monster,Careerbuilder, etc) and then go find the recruiters (hint: most of them with an internet presence are on LinkedIn, Plaxo, and Spoke.) Take a cue from the housing market: it’s a buyer’s market, and you are the *seller*.