The Smooth Group - LinkedIn

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Recruiter ordered to hand over LinkedIn contacts

The Smooth Group has just got LinkedIn (see button left) only to see a story in yesterday's Telegraph about a former employee of recruitment firm Hays beening ordered by the High Court to hand over business contacts built up on his personal page of the social networking site LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is billed as “an online knowledge network for professionals, built on personal networks of trust.” It has 23m users worldwide and has become a bit of a Mecca for recruiters.

Mark Ions allegedly used his LinkedIn network to approach clients for his own rival agency called Exclusive Human Resources, which he set up in May last year, three weeks before resigning from Hays Specialist Recruitment. And approaching candidates for one firm when you work for another is a big no-no, no matter how you go about it.

After going through the courts Mr Ions was ordered to disclose his LinkedIn business contacts requested by Hays and all emails sent to or received by his LinkedIn account from Hays' computer network.

Those with 500+ connections take heed. In the UK at least, your LinkedIn contacts might not be your own!

LinkedIn | recruitment

posted on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 10:06:59 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]