I came to recruitment late. I didn't dream of being a recruiter from an early age but I worked in marketing for several years and then recruitment found me. I often say that I'd have no interest in recruiting for other sectors - say, construction for example, and it's true. Marketers are mostly an interesting bunch of people and the chats I have with my candidates - and clients are fun and insightful - it's not transactional at all.
Anyway. I often wonder how they did recruitment in the olden days. Back in the day - I'd guess even in the early nineties, we all had landlines at home and no mobiles. So trying to get hold of someone to tell them about a great job that has just come in - well, you'd have to be sitting at your desk at 6pm and phoning people after work. I can't quite remember when email became a thing but pre-email, any confirmation of interviews would have had to have been via fax or post. Imagine!
In those days, any marketer looking for a job would be reading the ads at the back of Marketing Week or Marketing (which became Brand Republic) and you'd send your application by post. Subsequent confirmation of interviews would be by post and then offers and contracts etc. The whole recruitment process must have taken....forever!
By the time I got into recruitment, we had both email, mobiles and the internet. All of these things have transformed the industry and have enabled the process of hiring people to be much quicker. When I first started out, all the communication forms were still pretty professional. Emails were much more structured and followed similar grammatical formalities to a written letter. Over the past 20 years, emails have become far more colloquial - not just between recruiter and candidate where the relationship has probably always been a bit more informal but also between recruiter and client. I think this is possibly more evident in the marketing and advertising sector because it is by nature less formal than say law or accountancy.
So over the years we've seen many changes. Email allowed us to manage the recruitment process at high speed. But then we realised that texts were checked more frequently so the bulk of candidate communication became text driven. Now, in 2026, I find that people don't check their personal emails or even texts that often at all! The majority of my candidate comms is now via WhatsApp messaging.
Regular readers will know that I'm not really a LinkedIn fan but it is a necessity in recruitment. I've steadily built my tribe over many years and when I post a job, I can have applications within minutes. They're not always relevant applications (ha!), but it's a great way for my posts to be shared and to get recommendations. I would have said it was the same for Twitter - sorry X but I've seen a real drop off in engagement there.
I personally am still a bit of a Luddite and I haven't gone for an app and with it, relentless notifications. Instead I send my candidates an email ever Friday with an update of what's new, and usually some random facts in the introduction. This does produce lots of shares and recommendations too which I love. I'm not sure how I will adapt when email dies out but I'll worry about that at the time.
You'll note that I don't mention the actual telephone that much. I do still talk to candidates but that's mainly when I make a point to call them when we are first introduced. I need to get under the skin of a candidate and understand what they are looking for and what sort of person they are. Often I'll be able to do a video call which has largely replaced the 'meet me for a coffee in town' (I'm quite sad about this, I love my days in Manchester and Leeds but really, it's so much easier for everyone to 'jump on a call'.
With the increasingly informal comms, such niceties as spelling and grammar do often fall by the wayside. I try not to judge - I understand people are quickly messaging me during another Teams call or they're on the train. I also try to explain to candidates that whilst I don't judge because our relationship doesn't need to be formal, when they are in a role or communicating directly with potential hiring managers, they need to be 'on it' as attention to detail and punctuation are still considered extremely important by employers.
So what was the point of the blog? I guess it was just an observation as much as anything, but also a reminder that we all need to ensure that we think about who we are messaging, what we are saying and checking that the language and structure is appropriate to that individual and channel. But having said all of that, you won't hear me complaining. I can receive a job brief in the morning from a client and have people interviewing the same day for that role. Of course, it's not always that quick but whilst we are fortunate to have many options to ease the speed of the hiring process, 99% of offers are made after a face to face (F2F) interview so technology certainly hasn't entirely taken over - and I'm glad about that. Whilst tech has sped things up, the key to a successful hire is as much about personality and chemistry and the only real way to assess that is a face to face chat. Too many short cuts in the process can lead to the wrong hire! We all need to do a sanity check when we're hiring or interviewing and a F2F meeting offers a vital chance to meet the team, do your due diligence and not to get carried away with excitement.
If you're looking for a new role or you are a business wanting to make a marketing hire, feel free to phone, text, WhatsApp or email me. I'm on 07976 125963 or fiona.christian@perfectmarketingpeople.com. And I'm always available for a coffee too!