This week i’ve been on a talk show that is fast becoming a favourite. H.R.Happyhour which is organised by a host i admire, Steve Boese. The topic of conversation and debate, is HR Dead? I read a number of blogs this week commenting on the death of the job board. Despite the much reported demise they seem to be still around. The latest to join the nearly dead list are recruiters. It seems we are on our deathbed and close to demise. Seems we are due for the last rites any day now.
The point that strikes me is that the blogs, tweets, conversations and comments are mostly from the practitioners of those very professions. My feeling on this is cut the dramatics, put the onions away and stop crying. Recruiting, HR and Job Boards are alive and well. We need to constantly evolve how we work to adapt to the economy, technology, gen y, client and candidate perception among many other things, but change we will to grow in to something stronger.
The UK Recruitment market was worth £27billion last year, this year it will fall to a lowly £22billion! Thats the lowest its been for a whole 6 years! Not quite so dire!
My plea, stop talking down our industry. Get your heads together with other recruiting brains and look at how we can shape the changes needed to come out of the recession top of the pack. You can do that at The Recruiting Unconference London on November 19th.
This week i will be announcing the very exciting venue and thanking a MAJOR sponsor. The track leaders will now be joined by Paul Harrison of Carve Consulting who will be running a live lab to help solve your problems. It’s very exciting. The addition of Paul to the list gives us what i consider to be the best lineup ever assembled on matters of social recruiting in the U.K..
Our new sponsor also means i can offer a special ticket deal for this weekend only. Send me an email or a direct message on twitter, and i’ll give you a discount code that will enable you to buy 3 tickets for the price of 1.
See you there, alive and kicking,
Bill
Norton Folgate: The Recruiting Unblog 
I quite agree Bill. Recruitment is alive and well but probably going through the biggest change since the early days of the web. Social recruiting, in my view, changes the playing field. Recruiting is fundamentally social and social media when used properly will change the way both recruiters and job boards function. Watch this space..!
Recruitment is dead. Long live Recruitment!
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by recruitmentjob: R.I.P.Recruitment? http://tinyurl.com/yj3jh72…
Great points Bill. Saying an industry or professional needs changing or adapting is much, much different that declaring it ‘dead’. The real discussion is how does HR or Recruiting or any thing else change, modernize, and grow in order to stay meaningful and drive organizational success.
Thanks Bill, really looking forward to participating. Anyone reading this and planning to attend, bring along your challenges / onjectives / ideas so we can work on them in the “Labs” format. See you then.
[…] @mervyndinnen and @billboorman was followed up by a post from Bill on his Recruitingunblog entitled R.I.P Recruitment, encouraging recruiters not to give up on their industry and insisting its not […]