Social networking is changing many things, in many sectors. One significant area of development is recruitment. In the PR sector (in the UK anyway) we are blessed with a number of decent recruitment consultants, but the way companies recruit and the way candidates source new jobs has changed out of all recognition in the last 12 months. Throw into the equation the biggest recession since the war and it becomes clear that this is a market that is likely to come out of all this churn very differently to how it went into it. The recruitment triangle, the bridge that recruitment consultants used to dominate between clients and candidates, has long been the place where recruitment consultants have added significant value. For many years recruitment agencies have made good money linking clients and candidates. This bridge is unlikely to imminently crash into the river, but perhaps there just might now be one of a number of ways to cross and that as a result, the amount of traffic on the recruitment agency bridge might be drastically reduced. (Don’t panic, I’ll leave the river & bridges metaphors there!) These days if PR consultancies or in house PR depts want to find a new person, I’d suggest they’d do something like this: 1. Ask their staff if they know anyone relevant. 2. Get the HR person (s) to check their undoubtedly large network on Linkedin. 3. Get the company Tweeters to put out a few Tweets telling followers what they are looking for. 4. Then think about placing an Ad on PRWeek or in The Guardian. 5. Then call a recruitment consultant. (OK, I accept points 4/5 may be reversed.) In the old days companies would ask around, then either call PRWeek/The Guardian or call a recruitment consultant. (So steps 1, 4, 5.) So what’s my point? Simply that when we do come out of this recession the role of recruitment consultants in the PR market is likely to have changed, and the percentage of total recruits that they make placements for is likely to fall significantly.