Recruiting is Social! Twitter Job Channels, Facebook Career Pages, LinkedIn Company Profiles, Blogging, Video Blogging … its all part of what makes up Social Media and most of us are already doing it. This question, however is still being asked quite a bit: Why should my company use social media as part of their recruitment campaign?
The most talented people aren’t looking for a job; they’re working for your competition. Social media gives you and your organization the opportunity to reach not only passive job candidates but also provides access to the competition’s talent. Social media is just another way – it’s not the be all, end all solution – to build and cultivate a pipeline of talented people that can be tapped into when an unexpected opening occurs.
Social media also gives employers the opportunity to take positive control over their employer brand by personally conveying the meaning of a career at the company and connecting with people directly.
There were plenty of great speakers on hand this Tuesday at the Social Media Plus Business Summit and for me, a couple of real standouts.
Here are a few interesting facts from Brian Cavoli’s presentation on “The Future of Recruiting is Social – Leveraging Social Media to Attract Quality Candidates Faster and at a Lower Cost”:
· Facebook recently topped Google as the most visited website
· Facebook is more popular than email (If you are on Facebook think how often you communicate with your friends and family there vs. an email message.)
· Time spent on Social Media jumped from 2 hours a month to 5 ½ hours a day (Do we have games like Farmville to blame for that one?)
Of course social media should not replace all job sourcing and should not be used to just push jobs. Social media, plain and simple, is people helping people.
If your company isn’t using social media then it might be time to catch up. How do you get started? Besides calling Alstin (shameless plug, I know, I know) I agreed with Brian who suggested creating a plan, like this:
People ->who is your target audience, where are they and what are they doing
Objective->what are you looking to achieve?
Strategy->how will you achieve your goal?
Technology->choose the appropriate technology
Still don’t have any ideas? Check out your competition.
Are you worried about your employees? Afraid they might say or do something wrong? Most of you are. Nadine Hogan, who presented “Social Media in Recruitment and Branding – How Do You Start?”, suggests creating a social media policy that communicates the risks and rewards of social media, list the dos and don’ts and make sure internal and external social media outlets are included. Your employees are probably already using social media. Give them the chance to tell their story and what a job at your company means. Remember employees are your company’s strongest advocates. Alstin’s got a little more on how to go about creating a policy and some examples here too. And I am always open to more discussion on all things social media and HR, so drop me a line here or email me at blog@alstin.com
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