Thursday 19 July 2012

Why large organisations are using social media to recruit

Brand and recruitment 150x150 Why large organisations are using social media to recruitYou will have no doubt heard the word ‘brand’ bandied about a lot recently. Usually followed by the two biggest buzz words of the 21st century; social media.

There’s no getting away from the fact that social media has taken the business world by storm recently. Companies who have managed to harness its true potential for generating brand awareness are reaping the rewards; those who haven’t are losing out.

It really is as simple as that. What social media can offer, in the way of brand exposure, is unparalleled in terms of its cost and effectiveness. What’s more, you can make your brand accessible and build relationships with your fan base using minimal effort.

Once you have an established network of followers, you are in a position to boost your brand and bolster your company’s reputation. Not only that, but you are effectively building your very own talent pools with which to source candidates from.

The beauty of using social media to recruit in this way is that, not only is it easy on resources, but you are also able to vet your own candidates. LinkedIn is a prime example of this. Really, what you have is an online CV database with a myriad of additional extras.

You can instantly ascertain whether a person possesses the necessary skill-set for a certain role, but added to this you are able to see what other professional activities they partake in. It helps to give a far more rounded portrayal of a person and adds depth to your understanding of whether or not they would be suitable for the role.

It’s worth investing the time to have a presence on all of the major platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest, so as to tap into each of the unique audiences they attract. This will increase your brands exposure and will allow you to make use of different techniques within your social media strategy.

Statistics from jobvite show that 80% of companies are using social media platforms to recruit and 9% of the remaining respondents said that they plan to begin. When asked whether or not they had successfully hired a candidate using a social network 2/3 (64%) answered yes. The trend for utilising social media as a hiring resource is certainly on the rise.

For companies, the incentives to go social are both rich and plentiful. It won’t have escaped your notice that our economy is suffering and so, with recession, comes cut backs. The biggest draw of social media is that it’s wallet friendly and fairly easy to implement.

What it requires is people and, more importantly, people engagement. To achieve this, companies need to provide a generous mix of high quality content and consistent interaction. Transparency is the key here. It’s no good a company trying to control every aspect of the message they are putting out. People just won’t buy it or bother taking an interest. What needs to happen is for people to make up their own mind and the company just to provide the back drop for people to say what they think.

A really good example of where this was effectively rolled out was when Ford decided to reinvent the brand’s damaged reputation. They gave out 100 free Fiestas to people who were big on the social media scene. This included popular bloggers and social networkers who were already documenting their lives online.

Their stories made for an authentic and compelling narrative which was completely organic and not at all dictated by Ford. It generated much respect for the brand, as it made it appear more personable and real.

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