Talent Is Not An Online Commodity.

If you subscribe to online recruiting news distributors, your inbox is full every morning.

It’s filled with the latest gadgets, technical aids, data analyses, video vendors, Gen-X attitudes, tomorrow’s LinkedIns and lots of reasons why you no longer need a recruiting firm

After all, you’ve now got all the toys you need to identify that special, one-in-a-million candidate yourself. And that’s as far as the frenzy can take you.   Identifying candidates is not the same as hiring them.

For several years now, the buzz in recruiting has been how technology is turning the industry upside down. The assumption is the recruiting agency is going the way of the typewriter.

Market share simply must be declining as more corporations take recruiting in-house, candidates grow more independent and assertive and LinkedIn connects to more millions of eager souls. Right?

Here are some stats for you:

• Agency sales in Australia are up 29% so far, year over year, with permanent placements +26%
• In the UK, recruitment firms have 26% more vacancies on their books
• In the US, temps working through agencies exceed 2.9 million, an all-time high
• The global staffing market through agencies grew 10% in 2013 and will exceed $40B in 2014

Far from dying, agency recruitment appears headed for a Golden Era of growth.

No one believes this more than Greg Savage, an outspoken Aussie (have you ever met another kind?) in Sydney who writes on global recruiting in a blog called (of course) the Savage Truth. Here are some of the reasons he feels this way.

Massive, global skills shortage — More than 50% of global employers are reporting talent shortages, crucially in sectors where niche skills are in short supply and hard to find.

Talent is competitive advantage – Talent is the new currency of wealth creation. It makes companies win or lose in the marketplace.

Changing candidate behaviour – with so many channels open to them, candidates know their worth, as well as the complexity of the search process. The smart ones (the ones you are looking for) will favour a good agency as the most efficient path to a great job.

Selectivity – LinkedIn has been forced to impose privacy rules as candidates get swamped with a barrage of untargeted job offers.

These are powerful reasons for good, professional recruiters to not only survive but thrive

Technology is indeed disrupting old processes and for the better. Search today accesses many times more candidates than in the past. Past that point, we now have brilliant assessment technologies, but nothing that will replace the judgement and opinion of an experienced, intelligent recruiter.

That, at least, would seem to be what the growth statistics are telling us.

It’s worth keeping up with The Savage Truth. Here’s the link. http://gregsavage.com.au/