Do you want to get a good grip of the massive evolution of recruitment from the 90s to the new social era? Do you want to define where you are in your recruitment? Is your current recruiting style just about the same as in the 90s? How to optimize your recruitment if you happen to find yourself back to the time without internet access? Read on below to find exact answers you want

Suppose that you are running a recruitment business, the server goes down unexpectedly. Many of your team immediately begin packing up their stuff and heading for the door as if nothing can work without internet access. They say such words as, “We can’t work as there’s no connection”; “There’s no point just sitting around without internet access”. You then suddenly realize that you have a team of recruiters who actually believe that they couldn’t work just because they have temporarily lost their access to the internet?

So there need some practical recruiting tips if for whatever reason you happen to find yourself back to the 90s. But before hitting to the point, let do your homework about recruitment in the 90s and in the social recruiting era.

Recruiting Evolution

Mid-Late 90’s = Desks and Phones

That time, recruiters received paper resumes in the mail, scanned them with OCR software and input them into their internal database. They used some fledgling online resume databases, attended job fairs and posted to online newsgroups. They lived on the phone, cold calling to target firms. Times were really hard for HR recruiters!

Late 90's - Mid 2000's = Job boards

Then came the era that the Internet was booming and there’s a website for everything. Embracing this new technology, recruiters posted jobs on Monster, MonsterTrak, CareerBuilder, etc. They also advertised positions, waited for people to apply online, and scoured the internal database for candidates. It was called the recruitment method of ‘Post-and-Pray’. The so-called proactive recruiters would go out and search the online resume databases and directly reach out to candidates. Of course, all of those candidates (those contacting recruiters and the other way around) were all active jobseekers and, thus, not exactly ideal. Among human resource management, there was round-the-clock talk of reaching the passive jobseekers though, it always sounded more like a faint wish for the future rather an actual action plan. That time, recruiters still attended job fairs, but this made no different in seeking out passive jobseekers. It’s because those job fair attendees were just the same people they were already finding online (i.e. active jobseekers).


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Mid – Late 2000’s = Linkedln Dawn and Expansion

Though recruiters that time were still utilizing job boards and resume databases, there was something new horizontally – Linkedln. Linkedln helped recruiter find lots of great passive candidates.

2010 - Onward = Social recruiting era

Presently, it’s all about social recruitment, making connections, riveting your target audience, and expanding your reach. It’s all about social influence, Klout, growing your network, increasing your followers, engaging passive candidates, developing your brand, etc.

Linkedln has grown to be a popular name with over 180 million users globally. It has become the business networking site and vital to recruitment. For recruiters, Linkedln has become the standard, just like job boards in the 2000’s and job fairs in the 90s.

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Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, FourSquare, Meetup, FourSquare, and other social network are also proving to be invaluable recruitment tool. Those forums have not yet been fully availed by the recruitment community as effective sourcing tools though, they are growing by day.

Now it’s time to explore recruiting tips if you happen to be in recruiting landscape of the 90s.


Read more: How to optimize your recruitment if you happen to be in the time without internet access?