While we tend to stress the importance of social media in HR, some companies and organizations still aren’t interested or come up with the same excuses on why they don’t want to introduce Facebook and other vital networking sites into their recruitment campaigns.
FistfulofTalent.com recently posted an article, “3 Myths About Recruiting on Facebook – Haters Love to Argue!” that pretty much sums up in a few paragraphs why the same old excuses not to use social media are invalid and outdated. As the article explains, “Five years ago I was invited to speak at a corporate event by a Fortune 500 company, by their HR Department, to speak to their employees about the advantages of joining LinkedIn as a ‘professional network.’ Do you remember those times? When HR folks were actually encouraging their software developers, engineers, and professional level employees to join LinkedIn?! Today, HR/Talent Pros would be publicly hanged for encouraging their IT staff and other hard to find talent to put their profiles up on LinkedIn. You are basically encouraging your employees to go out and put up a billboard that says: ‘I’m available! Come find me and make me an offer!’ That is what LinkedIn has become – Generation-Next-Job-Board. Don’t get me wrong – I love LinkedIn! They are one of the largest sources of talent for my company. When I was on the corporate side of the Talent desk – I still loved LinkedIn – because I could more easily yank talent from my competitors – but I also hated it for that same reason! Facebook is what LinkedIn was 5 years ago – the Haters just don’t want to admit it.”
Still not speaking your language? Here are the myths and reasons behind them condensed:
“1. Facebook is for your private life – LinkedIn is for your professional Life!
You hear this right! This is the same type of myth that LinkedIn perpetuated for years – ‘We are a professional network!’ – yeah, right. You might have started that way – but you are now one big job board – thank you! Facebook is a ‘social’ network. Yes, but this is fast changing and will continue to change as people become more comfortable living one life, and learning how to use the Facebook tools and Apps to have both a social life and a professional life on Facebook.
2. There are too many people on Facebook to be effective as a recruiting source.
This is the lazy myth. Basically, the haters are going to discount Facebook because there are too many people to choose from and that’s hard. Sorry – you don’t get to say that! Figure it out – the talent is there, the tools to find them are there – stop making excuses! Facebook is 1 degree of separation for every person in the world. Any time you spend trying to figure out how to take advantage of that won’t be a waste.
3. Facebook is a fad, it will be die out in 3 years.
The one thing I know for sure is, Facebook has changed how our society communicates. As a recruiting Pro – I want to be a part of how our society communicates. Will something new come out – sure it will. Will Facebook be gone in 3 years – probably not! In the meantime, we have been given a list of every possible candidate we might ever want to contact, or at least be within one contact point of every candidate – Fade or not – Talent Pros need to take advantage – now. If it’s dead in 3 years, I’ll move to the next source – but for now – I’m using it!”
Now stop making excuses and buying into the same myths. Start incorporating social media into your recruitment efforts and see what these networking sites can do for your company. Even if you’re still not sure, why not at least give it a try for a few months and compare your results?
Has your company embraced Facebook.com and other sites in recruiting efforts? Have you seen good results or do you still believe that social media doesn’t help, or even harms your efforts?
