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Recruiters have acknowledged the growing influence of social networking sites on the recruitment process, and how this trend could lead to a reduction in agency income in the future.

Social networking won't replace traditional methods

At a recent ARC (Association of Recruitment Consultancies) event, Stephanie Lee from Intel explained how he company had become an avid user of social networks to help source new candidates. She anticipated significant savings in recruitment fees as a result of social networking, but some aspects of the recruitment process - mainly face-to-face interviews - would still require the traditional treatment.

Interestingly, Lee suggested that such new processes could result in the reduced use of job boards in favour of things like Twitter's job search and Linkedin's automatic candidate matching functionality. Permission to join 'hiring' groups on social networks was also at the discretion of the client company, which means that recruiters could easily be shut out.

Mark Bainbridge - head of recruitment at RBS, who also addressed the meeting, said that the bank will shortly launch a social media hub to help its recruitment efforts. Microsoft and the Army are thought to use social media for 90% of their recruitment.

Bainbridge estimates that between 30-40% of all hiring at the bank could soon derive from social media, although this was likely to be for lower-level recruitment.

Legal and practical issues should be recognised

Adrian Marlowe, ARC Chairman, urged a note of caution. Marlowe said that recruiters, whether end users or agencies, who intended to use social networking sites as part of the recruitment process, should balance the apparent advantages that social networking offered against a recognition of the legal and practical issues.

"While there is a rush to use social media, only time will tell if the advantages of instant communication and information that it offers really bring something to the table. Employer branding is different from recruitment, and agencies have developed sophisticated methods of assessing candidates which might not be apparent in hirings made purely on the basis of social networking. The new technology should be embraced but only with the knowledge of the potential dangers and costs involved."