review by Glenn Gutmacher

Bullhorn just released the results of a "Tools of the Trade" survey that has some very intriguing nuggets. It lists the favorites of third party and corporate recruiters in several sourcing categories. More interesting than the stats themselves, for me, were the selected comments (good and bad) about the tools. The anecdotal sidebars about MySpace and what makes a strong recruiting blog, as well as decent analysis by Bullhorn that didn't overreach, are also good reads.

I won't spill all the beans, but the report is free to download. Here are worthwhile highlights:

Online social networks:

No surprise that LinkedIn is the most frequently-used site by far, but what's interesting are the ones that barely registered -- Facebook and MySpace are the faves of only 2% of respondents. Bullhorn concludes that this maps to usage preferences of younger staffing personnel. It makes you wonder, if you're targeting younger talent but you're older, maybe you need to break out of your comfort zone and try the tools that skew younger!

Informational or Professional Development sites:

That's what Bullhorn calls sites like ERE, SHRM and even Monster, which has bulked up its recruiter editorial content over the last few years. People like these, but also complain about the time/volume of info to sift through in order to find what they need, the number of self-proclaimed experts who aren't, and those "know-it-alls who don't know when to stick a sock in it." (You know who you are! ;-)

Recruiting blogs:

According to the survey, blogs suffer all of the aforementioned problems as the Info/Pro Dev sites, as well as "irrelevant and/or repetitive content" and "the quality of thought and caliber of individuals is all over the place." However, people like finding new, useful tips and tricks, news on trends, and expert advice on blogs not found elsewhere. Only 29 percent reported using blogs to find candidates.

The most frequently-used blogs by recruiting pros are the ERE Blog Network (my former boss Shally Steckerl writes one of their most popular blogs), dropping off significantly to a virtual tie for second place between the blogs of Barb Bruno, Jim Durbin (see this and that, etc.) and my Microsoft colleague Jim Stroud. Kudos to all!

The category of top job boards is reviewed similarly.

Though only 721 respondents gave full answers out of the near-50,000 who received an email about the survey, Bullhorn claims a sampling error variation of 4.75% against the universe. Based on the logical results, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. All in all, a worthwhile read.

P.S. For the follow-up report, Bullhorn should review the tools of the trade that good sourcers really use, as opposed to what the general recruiter population does! Hey, wait, I presented a well-attended webinar on this very topic over a year ago sponsored by HR.com. Maybe I should approach them or Bullhorn to do an updated version?