Thursday, January 12, 2012

Social Recruitment in a Sunday Paper World

My perspective on recruitment has changed dramatically over the last few years.  For those paying attention...ahem, that excludes many leaders I know...they've radically changed not only their thinking about recruitment, but their spending as well.  


Let's be real for a minute, if you're talking about the changes that have come about because of social media but you're still buying ad space in the Sunday paper, waiting for the monthly niche journal to publish, or believe your brand is so strong applicants should be grateful to work for you, then you're missing the boat. Many leaders acknowledge that social media is growing, but haven't even explored how to use the tools themselves.  How is that possible?  

Social Media Recruiting
As I continue to learn s l o w l y about the power of social media in my professional practice, I'm putting my company's money where my mouth is => we're shifting our focus, our energy and our spend to where the world is going, not where it's been. Here's a brief summary of the key components of our evolving strategy:

  • facebook page for HR: Includes links to our jobs, benefits, recruiters, our RN Residency program, has posts that provide tools for job seekers, information about housing (did someone say the beach?), information on restaurants, theatres, museums, and where to go for happy hour
  • twitter: branded account for the HR team but each recruiter has an active account as well, consistently use the same hashtag (#achjobs) for job related posts and all traffic is driven to the HR facebook page, not the company website
  • foursquare: all locations have been claimed across the organization and instead of a "special" we're using tips to drive traffic back to the HR facebook page
  • Linkedin: beyond just a free company page, we're developing our careers page that will soon have additional video testimonials from employees in addition to several highlighted job postings and company video updates
  • Talent Communities: this is our next BIG endeavor that will reverse the way we recruit from the centuries old approach of posting a job and hoping someone qualified applies, to a more proactive system of building relationships with potential candidates and then selecting from that community when positions become available...much more to follow on this...
  • Oh yes, and we have the obligatory company job page as part of our company website (If this is the only place you're on the web as part of your recruitment strategy it's time to turn the lights off and call it a day)

Metrics Matter
Making sure this strategy adds value, or any strategy for that matter, is a cornerstone of our approach. Tracking specifically the ads we run, and the follow through at the candidate level all the way to the end of the recruitment cycle is essential. In future posts I'll share our successes, particularly as our Talent Community initiatives get traction this winter.


How About You
Are you an HR leader that is still hiding under your desk scared to death of social media? Now that I think about it, you probably should be.  You see, the world is moving fast, trying new approaches, and sharing more than ever. We're learning every day to try and keep up, but it isn't easy. That level of transparency is foreign to old-school HR folks, and will probably be the reason they don't get the respect they deserve.  Give social a try...I'll help!

I'd love to hear from you.


No Excuses.






pics courtesy of living-authentically and glowimages

9 comments:

  1. although i would say there is still a place for sunday papers and even community publications when it comes to finding certain kinds of local talent. you'd be surprised what "oldies but goodies" can pop up as a result of those advertisements. take a look at some of the bigger companies still publishing their openings in the paper...there's still value there. having said that, your post is on-point and valuable to those who are still scratching their way on to the Recruiting 2.0 (3.0) scene. ~A Self-Proclaimed Social Media Evangelist!

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  2. Thanks Charlie. You're correct, there will never be a one-size-fits-all for recruitment advertising. Hopefully others will start trying the various tools to stay somewhat current and engaged. Thanks for the comment!

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  3. This is great, Jay! I look forward to reading more as I help us dip our toe into the social media ocean. There is still so much fear of unknown and people get wrapped up in negative stereotypes. It's important professionals begins to see and leverage social media. It isn't going anywhere!

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  4. Great post.... Really good to see more and more people promoting the benefits and affectiveness of soial media.

    Your statement "Let's be real for a minute, if you're talking about the changes that have come about because of social media but you're still buying ad space in the Sunday paper, waiting for the monthly niche journal to publish, or believe your brand is so strong applicants should be grateful to work for you, then you're missing the boat." really sums it up!!

    Dylan

    For easy-to-use recruitment software that integrates with Microsoft Office go to www.Darwin.com

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  5. RD - thanks for jumping in!

    Buzz - many thanks as always!

    Recruiter - much appreciate your feedabck!

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  6. Very Nice!!!!!!!!!
    pleasure to find such a good artical.
    Please keep update.....
    Thanks for sharing.
    Flat fee online recruitment

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  7. Thanks for the great article on social recruiting! We have a similar post on the SmartRecruiters blog: http://www.smartrecruiters.com/static/blog/social-media-recruiting-trending-to-commonplace/

    It looks like we blog about similar topics. We should do some blogging together!

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