Why large organisations are using social media to recruit

You will have no doubt heard the word ‘brand’ bandied about a lot recently. Usually followed by the two biggest buzz words of the 21^st 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.

SMEs Using Social Media to Recruit: FAQs

Are you a small to medium sized business wondering if social media recruitment is right for you?

Once upon a time, it was only big organisations that were fully able to leverage the power of the internet as a tool for attracting and building talent pools.

But today, the rise of social media sites, such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, has given SMEs a vital and cost-effective way of interacting with and identifying potential employees. And in addition to a candidate rich market full of far greater talent than there is demand; research has found more than half of UK job seekers now use social media to assist them in their job searches.

But how do SMEs take full advantage of this opportunity?

Here are the answers to some of the more commonly asked questions by SMEs when considering leveraging the recruitment benefits of social media.

We’re a small business, how will potential candidates find us online?

SMEs are in a difficult situation as they do not always attract the best candidates compared to well-know corporates and big brands.

Whilst there is no simple answer, there are a few things SMEs can do to help increase their online visibility. For example, you can use social buttons as a simple way for candidates to find and follow your social platforms when visiting your company website. You could also share keyword optimised content, such as blogs, to help raise your online profile.

What platforms are best for an SME looking to recruit using social media?

Choosing the right social platforms to spread your message is key to your success.

Consider the type of candidate you’re trying to attract. Do they spend more time on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn? Find out where people with specific interests, skills and experience related to your company are talking. What engages them? Online gaming, blogs, videos?

Whilst LinkedIn is an obvious choice of social network for recruitment, graduates spend more time on Facebook. Twitter works well for niche career specialisms through the #hashtag function.

Remember though, not everyone is signed up to every social media account. So combine your media to get your hiring message out. For example, integrate content and context using Twitter to share short sharp messages or links to your corporate blog, and Pinterest to expose your brand identity and share images of your company.

There are not enough hours in the day already, how will I find the time?

As an SME, you will have limited resources to dedicate to your social media strategy, and as such, it’s important to make the process efficient and financially viable. At a minimum, webrecruit suggests spending the following time on each platform:

LinkedIn – 2 hours per week

Twitter – Tweet twice a day

Facebook – Share three posts a week

Blog – Once a week

If you are unable to tweet regularly or struggle to find the time to share posts, there are tools available that can schedule your updates, such as Hootsuite. There are also sites dedicated to finding and recommending web content to its users, so if you need help with sharing your blog posts, you could try Stumble Upon.

How do we ensure our talent pools are engaging?

By using what others crave most – compelling, rich and engaging content – social media can have a massive reach creating tremendous value when it comes to recruitment. As such, it’s your company’s job to create a compelling environment where people frequently want to go.

If all you have on your social platforms are corporate videos and job descriptions, you are not moving beyond traditional recruitment. Think of exciting ways to drive engagement, such as crowdsourcing and gamification, and don’t be afraid to think outside of the box.

Get your own employees involved in your social platforms so they are visible and accessible to potential candidates. Answer questions about the company honestly and openly and don’t hide unmoderated comments and discussions. All of these are real engagement activities that strengthen relationships because they demonstrate an organisation’s ability to offer positive responses and extend trust.

I’m not getting the response I was hoping for, what should I do?

If you’ve posted a link to a job in a LinkedIn group or tweeted it and you haven’t had the interest you expected, look at how and why you are using that particular channel. Perhaps the type of candidate you are seeking doesn’t use it?

To overcome this, set clear, realistic objectives, monitor the response and evaluate the resources you have invested in. You may find you have to take an integrated approach. For example, use Twitter to share your latest job posting, but write a follow up blog that is keyword-rich to source candidates using those particular words.

As more SMEs begin the process of transitioning into social media recruitment, it’s important to remember that it is of course, only one more channel. People will still search for jobs on Google and use job boards, but the social arena is growing fast. And when this new way of working is wholeheartedly embraced, social media could provide a genuine opportunity to identify the best talent for your SME business.

LinkedIn targets the market

Posted under featured, social networking on Monday, July 9, 2012

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On the 20th of June LinkedIn rolled out an exciting, new feature which allows organisations to post targeted updates to specific company followers.

LinkedIn company page administrators are now able to send custom messages to members based on company size, industry, job function, seniority, geography and including/excluding company employees.

Once the update has been posted to the selected viewership, access is then given to detailed analytics of the users who see and engage with the content. It marks a move forward for the site which, as the largest professional network on the internet, is clearly trying to drive increased user engagement.

For hiring managers the new function is a very valuable tool, as it allows them to be able to deliver highly personalised content to the relevant followers. For example, job opportunities can be shared solely with followers from the appropriate industry and level of seniority.

Targeted Status Updates are a sure fire way of increasing brand awareness and upping the game when it comes to extended exposure. To gain maximum effect when delivering a message you want to be able to tailor it for the desired audience. Now that you can target content to those who match a specific criterion, you instantly increase loyalty and engagement to your brand.

It means that you can put out a far more refined and tightly packed message on a more regular basis; without having to be conscious of it becoming like spam when clogging up follower’s news feeds.

Once content has been submitted it can then be chartered and the effectiveness of it tracked. This is done via a follower insights page which gives administrators access to the demographics, growth and levels of interaction of company followers.

Below is a screenshot of where it has been used:

Crowdsourcing: Harnessing the web for what it was built for what it was built for

Designing a strategy that services an organisation’s talent needs has become an increasingly complex task for the hiring manager. Not just because of the unpredictable shifts in the economic climate, but also the constant introduction of new technologies, paving paths for new talent channels.

Recently, Matthew Jeffery described a relatively new concept – recruitment 4.0 and crowdsourcing. It involves using social communities to outsource tasks traditionally performed by internal employees.

How does it work? A company posts a problem online and a large number of individuals offer their opinions and ideas as to how to solve it. The winning idea is rewarded in some form, and the end result is the company adopting the idea for its own benefit.

Often described as a win-win solution – crowdsourcing is cost-effective for businesses and fosters innovation among their social communities. In fact, Amazon, Cisco, Facebook, IBM, Pepsi and Starbucks have already used crowdsourcing techniques to generate ideas that have already or are expected to turn into new products and service innovations.

Whilst there is still a way to go before we see a scalable crowdsourced recruiting solution, key elements can already be incorprated into companys’ social communities, such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Here are some of the basics for businesses considering leveraging their social communities to crowdsource.

It’s an additional resource, not a replacement:

First and foremost, it’s important to remember that crowdsourcing is not being used to replace any human decision making processes.

It is a form of attraction, a platform to promote your brand and encourage your social followers to send you suggestions and ideas that can be used within your company, and ultimately create a pool of talent.

If you want to attract talent, you must make yourself attractive:

Building an attractive culture and work environment that will encourage star potential to your social communities is the basis of getting the most out of crowdsourcing.

The only way you’re going to be able to build these communities is if you build an incentive structure that will attract them to your social platforms – whether that’s through gamification, a place to share videos and photos, or offering exclusive access news.

Outsource clearly defined tasks to achieve your goal:

Crowdsourcing is best suited for simple tasks such as a new logo, website or product name.

Be specific. Make a detailed list of what the person is supposed to do. For example, if you’re looking to re-launch your company website, you could ask people for their feedback regarding layout, the readability of text and attractiveness of the design. From there you can get inspiration.

Align Incentives:

To those who develop a winning solution to your problem, you must offer some type of reward, whether that’s financial, a holiday or an iPad.

In return, each person who takes part in the challenge is focused on doing their best work so that they might win. And as such, the ideas and solutions you receive should be pretty fantastic.

Overall, it seems fair to say, keeping talent engaged and interested in your brand and business is not going to get easier. The influence of social media, it’s ease of access and the desire it creates to connect on a global level, makes crowdsourcing, simply another natural progression of time.