A veteran recruitment leader predicts that leading social media site Facebook has only two to five years of life left in the social media maelstrom, in the wake of an era when what he called recruitment technology “whirligigs” substitute for genuine interaction between recruiter and candidate.

At the 'Recruiting and Employee Engagement in the Digital Age' discussion in Birmingham last month, John Mortimer, chief executive of office recruiter Angela Mortimer, acknowledged that recessions, such as the UK’s lengthy bout of economic difficulty, accelerate change. Nevertheless, Mortimer said, it was important to identify which actual cultural changes would stand the test of time and “what are just trends that will be gone before you know it”.

“Digital recruitment solutions are a substitution for real interaction and provide a watered-down version of it,” Mortimer said. 

He also warned the audience not to assume that a captive audience awaited recruiters’ each and every tweet and update. Social media, Mortimer contended, was “creating a lot of noise, with not that many people listening”. Mortimer’s views were countered by other speakers including Andrew Springhall, CEO of professional services recruitment firm Blusource.