Do Top Echelon Network Recruiters Read Blogs?

If it doesn’t lead to a placement, then recruiters are not likely to do it . . . and that very well applies to the reading of blogs.

How many people actually read these days, anyway? (Or like to read? If you’re reading this, then you’re probably an anomaly.)

Still, we wanted to know if Top Echelon Network members read blogs. So of course, we ran a poll in the Members’ Area. And yes, participating in that poll required some reading.

Do you read blogs?  If so, what kind?

Results:

The choice of answers that we provided is listed below, along with the percentage of Network recruiters that selected each one:

• Yes, I only read recruiting-related blogs — 1.9%
• Yes, I only read blogs about my industry — 0.9%
• Yes, I read blogs about recruiting and my industry — 8.4%
• Yes, I read blogs about a wide variety of topics — 33.6%
• No, I don’t read blogs at all — 55.1%

Blogs: to read or not to read

Let’s start with the bad news: over half of the recruiters participating in our survey (55.1%) “don’t read blogs at all.” That leaves 44.9% that DO read blogs. But which blogs?

Well, not many recruiters read ones that are specific to recruiting (1.9%) or their industry (0.9%) only. However, 8.4% read them about both recruiting and their industry.

Then there’s the roughly third of poll respondents (33.6%) that “read blogs about a wide variety of topics.” We’ll go ahead and assume that the 8.4% are included in that 33.6%.

All about the Benjamins

What’s rather interesting about the results of this poll is that over a third of those who responded “read blogs about a wide variety of topics.”

Recruiters want to make placements. (Understatement of the Year, ladies and gentlemen.) Every day, they pursue making placements with a single-minded devotion that for some borders on obsession. So it’s no surprise that over half of them don’t read blogs at all.

But the other half? One would think that those recruiters are reading blogs about how to become better recruiters and make more placements.

Take, for instance, the 33.6% of respondents who indicated that they “read blogs on a wide variety of topics.” Sure, they read on a wide variety of topics, but I’d be willing to bet that those topics also include how to become a better recruiter and make more placements.

Reading for entertainment is fine and dandy. However, it doesn’t pay the bills.