First off, I know I don’t contribute enough to this blog, but managing the marketing programs for 3 companies can sometimes get a bit daunting. I had a free moment so I wanted to write a quick post on something I think is importantly as we approach a recruiting industry that is on the verge of being transformed with the prevalence of social media.
Can We All Just Agree…
A recent text message from a recruiter friend of mine.
Social recruiting isn’t going away; over 89% of all companies now turn to social media to fill their open positions. With that said, it’s a different animal than using social media to actively recruit or “head hunt” (I hate that term). A company who is hiring often times just has to put an ad out there and see who bites. For recruiters, you have to go out there and actively find people who may or may not be looking for new opportunities, welcome to the next generation of the cold call. Don’t worry recruiters, I have a bit of good news for you…whether you believe it or not, social media is your friend! Think about it, all those hot shot candidates you’ve been looking, they are now accessible online!
With Facebook announcing recently they now boast a user count of over 800 million while Twitter and LinkedIn both have users in the 100+ million range, there’s a good shot the people you’re looking for have profiles online that you can tap into. I get the sense that for the most part all experienced recruiters by now realize they should consider getting online as part of their job, but what a lot of them don’t seem to realize is how to do it properly and effectively.
Here's a quick playbook on how to approach each social outlet in your day to day:
There are a handful of sites we utilize in the social-recruiting platform, all of which serve a unique purpose that are important to the business:
Twitter: Twitter is an online social networking service that enables its users to send and read 140 character posts known as "tweets."
LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site.
Facebook: Facebook is by far the largest social network in the world boasting over 800 Million users. Primarily used for social and personal interaction, there are some tools that recruiters can use.
Google+: Google+ is a newer social networking site that encourages sharing to specific groups of people or “circles.” This lets you share information only to the people who will find it interesting.
How these sites help you with recruiting:
Sourcing: Using these social media outlets we are now able to find people and engage them much easier, you just have to do some digging!
- Twitter: Twitter has over 200 million users all of which have signed up with the interest of talking about topics they find interesting, using the search feature and following #HashTags are a great way of finding people you previously may never have through job boards.
- Linkedin: Aside from the obvious benefits of LinkedIn you can join groups from the broad to the niche whichs opens you up to a huge number of potential candidates looking for new positions. Being active by posting jobs and searching through members can help you dig up tons of new candidates
- Google+: Using the “people” search function allows you type in a specialty you’re looking for and narrow the results down by clicking “advanced search options” giving you the highest quality results.
Job Promotion: Getting your jobs out there online to the people you’re trying find.
- Twitter: Twitter is a great way to promote the jobs you’re working. Make sure to use #hashtags and SEO when building your tweet. The more care you put into your tweets, the better the result.
- LinkedIn: Your connections are all (for the most part) people you’re trying to recruit or in the field or specialty you’re recruiting for. Posting jobs to your LinkedIn status is a great way of letting your people know what you’re working on and perhaps garnering some interest.
- Facebook: Use the extremely niche groups within Facebook for sourcing and job posting purposes.
- Google+: Google+ allows you to create “circles” of people that you want to share specific information with. We suggest creating circles based on specialty and then sharing jobs that apply with that specialty in that circle. This allows you to only tap into the people you want seeing those jobs.
Reputation Management/Building: Chances are, your name is out there; make sure what people see is nothing but positive!
- Twitter: A great source of “individual brand building.” You can use your account to create an impression in your space as the “go-to” when you’re looking for X jobs in Y city.
- LinkedIn: Offers an option where you can request a recommendation from your clients after working with them. This is a very valuable tool to have when making initial contacts with people you are trying to work with.
- Google+: The more active you are with each group of people, the better your online reputation and the more knowledgeable you seem to a somewhat skeptical group of people.
Customer Service/Retention: Let’s be honest here, the recruiting industry is often considered inept in the customer service experience, let’s break that stereotype. You can use these channels to keep in touch with your candidates in order to build and maintain a relationship with them to curate a lifelong business-client partnership.
- Twitter: Being able to share industry news specific to their skill-set while creating and joining conversation with them, or checking in with them on with status reports is a great way of going above and beyond the call of duty to create a positive experience throughout the job search/hiring process.
- LinkedIn: Another great point of contact. Being able to InMail candidates to let them know where they are in the process is invaluable.
- Facebook: Does your company have a Fan page? There are over 750 million people on Facebook so chances are, your candidates are on there. If they want to ask questions about your company or share a positive/negative experience, this is a probably forum to do so. You can then respond in public to let others know you take an active interest in what people are saying about you.
By: [author-name]
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