By Chris Lee

Recruitment consultancies may save companies time by identifying relevant interviewees, but they don’t come cheap. This – coupled with the rise of social networking – has led many firms to look to the likes of microblogging site Twitter and business profile site LinkedIn to research their own leads.

One such company is London-based creative digital agency The Other Media, which has worked on projects such as the new Paul Smith website, Victoria & Albert Search the Collections and the Football League iPhone app.

The company recently hired non-executive director Daren Forsyth via Twitter. NMK caught up with Other’s managing director, George Crabb to learn more about the company’s experience of recruiting via Twitter and how candidates should best protect themselves from having a negative “digital footprint” – such as deleting controversial comments, blog posts or Facebook updates and photos.

You've recently hired a non-executive director that you found on Twitter - why was that?

In our experience, in the agency world, those looking for a non-exec director tend to recruit from a very small circle within their offline network and typically appoint someone they already know.  To us this would have defeated the objective of taking on a non-exec, which was to get a fresh perspective on the business.  Tools like twitter also allow you see quite clearly what else an individual is involved with.

What other tools were you using to look for candidates?

We didn’t use any other specific tools; we just spent some time doing careful research online since in the digital industry it’s relatively easy to see if people practice what they preach. 

Are social networks such as Twitter and LinkedIn a serious threat to the recruitment industry or do they offer more choice to companies looking for talent?

They are a threat in that it’s clearly possible to do the job yourself, the issue is obviously resource since it’s not always practical to spend the time yourself trying to root out people for every single position you’re trying to fill.

From your experience, what are your top tips for candidates looking to get hired via social media?

Make sure you have your own site or blog that gives a flavour of your specialities and experience.  It doesn’t have to be complicated but it is important that people can easily see what your skills are.  Be human and be yourself but don’t over-share – no prospective wants to read about how you went into work with a raging hangover three times last week!