In the long run, will LinkedIn’s services endanger or assist recruitment and placement agencies in Belgium? Could there be a win-win situation?

With close to 650 million users, LinkedIn’s role in recruitment has been quickly growing over the years. Indeed, jobseekers can market their skills, businesses can publish job offers, recruitment agencies can contact potential candidates etc. This new trend may or may not become a threat to those very recruitment and placement agencies. The objective of this thesis is to understand the organisational impact LinkedIn has and will have on the recruitment market in Belgium. Could there be a win-win situation for both players in the long run? This paper includes four different parts: The first part resumes a literature review on the recruitment business and an analysis of professional social network LinkedIn. The second part covers the methodology used in this work. The third part indicates the results of both qualitative and quantitative researches. At last, general conclusions are produced with a critical analysis of the situation, providing answers to the assumptions and research questions drawn up beforehand. Among others, this thesis investigates the added value offered by both recruitment agencies and LinkedIn, the functioning of contracts or partnerships between LinkedIn and the triangle formed by: The talents (i.e. the people with a profile), the clients (i.e. companies in search of talents) and the agencies (i.e. the placement and recruitment providers).