Will 2011 be a Big Year for Recruiters and Social Media?

I read a brief sidebar article in the November 1, 2010 Fortune magazine that detailed the hottest jobs of 2010 and I was pleased with what I saw, and I thought you would be too.

Apparently, Fortune worked with “LinkedIn’s top data crunchers” to pull some exclusive information about the job titles that saw the biggest percentage increase in 2010 over 2009.

Here are the 10 titles they listed:

  1. Social Media Manager
  2. Principal Sales Consultant
  3. Recruitment Officer
  4. Digital Designer
  5. M&A Analyst
  6. Investment Banking Analyst
  7. Junior Software Engineer
  8. Technical Recruiter
  9. Transition Manager
  10. Corporate Communications Manager

Recruiting and Social Media

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see a few themes here:

  1. Social Media Manager, Corporate Communications Manager
  2. Recruitment Officer, Technical Recruiter
  3. M&A Analyst, Investment Banking Analyst

Yes, I know some people might say that the tie between Social Media Manager and Corporate Communications Manager might be weak – but not necessarily.

Who is to say that Corporate Communications Managers can’t/don’t use Socialtext, Yammer, Confluence, Drupal, Jive, Novell Vibe or Salesforce Chatter to push corporate communications? Many already do!

While I see quite a bit of chatter about social media being used to engage people external to companies (e.g., social recruiting, social media marketing), I am not alone in predicting the next big wave will come from more companies realizing there are huge benefits to be gained from internal, private, behind-the-firewall social networks.

Enterprise collaboration ring a bell?

Ding!

The Hottest Jobs of 2011?

Of course I’m wondering if social media and recruiting roles will continue to be among the hottest jobs in 2011, and I do think they will.

Interestingly, Fortune recently featured an article on 2011’s hottest job you never thought of – and apparently there aren’t enough skilled supply chain management professionals to match the demand (pun intended).

The demand for supply chain professionals is far out-pacing the supply, so much so that MIT (yes, as in Massachusetts Institute of Technology) has published a white paper on the topic – Are You Prepared for the Supply Chain Talent Crisis? Ken Cottrill, Global Communications Consultant for the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics believes that a “talent tsunami” could hit the supply chain management industry in the next few years.

What Does All This Have to do With Recruiting?

A number of things:

First – I think that recruiters and social media professionals will continue to be in demand and enjoy more employment opportunities than the average job seeker.

Second – if your company has needs for supply chain management resources (or if you’re an executive recruiter), you may want to look into aggressively identifying supply chain management professionals, stockpiling resumes and profiles from every resume database and social network you have access to, and building a network/pipeline within the supply chain management talent pool.

Third – sourcing and recruiting (aka talent identification, acquisition and retention) is human capital supply chain management.

I suggest you think about that last point for a bit – there are many implications. :-)