You're linked, you're sold

Company: ePeopleTrend: The Integrated-Channel AproachSubject: Recruitment

What do you see?

First of all, we apologize for the fact that the screenshot cannot be read by a non-Dutch audience. However, we have not managed to find a similar example in English.

Recruitment agency e-people integrates social networking into its website. On the one hand, e-people offers people insight into their network, while, on the other hand, it uses the candidate’s network.

To grant job-seekers insight into a company’s current employees, e-people offers links to LinkedIn with each vacancy. Candidates can view the company’s LinkedIn profile and even the personal profile of their future manager. When they log in, they can easily check if they have future colleagues in their network. First or second degree.

‘I know a candidate’ is an option that goes beyond ‘tell a friend’. Instead of mailing the vacancy to a friend, the candidate ‘sells’ his friend to e-people. He receives no less than 10% of the intermediary fee.

Why is it effective?

A vacancy or company description has its limits. There’s nothing as useful as a face-to-face chat with a current employee. e-people enables candidates to get in touch with these people. The ‘I know a candidate’ option has a higher success rate than having e-people recruiters cold-calling potential candidates.

These features relate to the buzzword ‘connectivity’. ‘How connected am I to people working with this company?’ Many professionals use LinkedIn to maintain and expand their virtual network. e-People cleverly refers to this popular online network.

What’s next?

e-people merely offers links to LinkedIn’s public pages. The next level would be to install a LinkedIn API: an ‘application programming interface’ that gives visitors access to the LinkedIn programme while staying on the recruitment website.