High Tech and High Touch
This book examines headhunting—contingency recruiting—in the wake of two profound changes in the labor market. The first is the emergence and explosive rise of various forms of social media, most prominently LinkedIn, which have made information about employers, jobs, and job-seekers much more widely available. The second is the unraveling of internal labor markets and the fraying of the ties between employers and employees, which started in the 1980s and 1990s, and accelerated in the wake of the bursting of the dotcom bubble and the Great Recession. Both changes created the possibility that employers and candidates would be able to find each other without the benefit of labor-market intermediaries like headhunters. The book explains why headhunting survived these changes: employers still need headhunters to find good candidates quickly. In a high-tech world, it is relatively easy to find large numbers of apparently qualified prospective candidates. Headhunters, however, determine which of these prospects are truly viable candidates and they invest time and effort in converting prospects into candidates. They bring high-touch search to a high-tech labor market.