The world of recruitment in 2014 - Part 2

This is a follow up piece to my recent article - the world of recruitment in 2014, and over the coming weeks I will look at how you can use social media to achieve results within recruitment.

Using social media in recruitment and achieving results is not rocket science - far from it! So I’m sorry to dispel the myth started by so called “Social Media Guru’s”. Yet I still hear from nearly every company I meet with that they want to “do social or be social” without much thought behind this other than that their competitors are doing it or they think they should without any thought about the strategy needed behind it.

It seems that most recruiters still approach social media very much as they approach candidates offline, that is, in a transactional way with no desire to create “relationships”. We live in a digital world yet when it comes to recruitment we are years away from achieving anything that resembles digital maturity, and I fear that the “spray and pray” method will be used for many years to come.

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail

Social Recruiting is sadly all too often just seen as a form of Guerrilla marketing without any creativity. The objective of guerrilla marketing is to create a unique, engaging and thought provoking concept to generate buzz, and consequently turn viral, which disappointingly in recruitment terms seems to equate to job postings, feeds and spamming.

I have to confess that I don’t really like change and often grumble about the latest Facebook page layout, which products or services LinkedIn has removed, and when Google changes their algorithm. But let’s face it, digital and social moves fast - just look at Facebook’s recent acquisition of Oculus which they bought for $2 billion. The reason I mention this is because Oculus only started in 2012 with a Kickstarter campaign, so in a 2 year period they have become a part of how Facebook is evolving.

I am all for businesses being agile, but if you want to succeed in social recruiting you need to have a strategy. Social Recruiting should work across many departments including legal, marketing, PR and IT, but defined and ultimately owned by recruitment and HR. If you are not sure what can be achieved or how to go about it, buy in the expertise and really think about whether you have the time and resources to dedicate to it. Have someone own the project and commit to a long term strategy rather than focusing on short term wins.

Social Sourcing

Social sourcing is the way most recruiters seem to use social media, and it shocks me how few companies look at their ATS as being a social CRM, which can offer a single view of the customer. When buying in technology really consider the social element in attracting candidates, to increase conversion and track the candidate social footprint. I remember back in my agency days when trying to get in touch with candidates, I would come across a dead number and then have an email that would bounce. With social foot printing, this should never happen.

Having recently been looking at implementing an ATS for a company, I found that Tribepad and Jobvite were the ones that really did have great social functionality, and it was clear that as part of their roadmap this would continue. On the agency side, a product I love for linking social communication together is Ebsta.

It never seems to amaze me how many recruiters cannot do basic Boolean or X-ray searches. If you are going to invest in a recruiter licence make sure your recruiters are able to utilise it and consider how you can help them upskill. There are lots of free resources such as webinars and blogs but also consider courses such as Black Belt by Johnny Campbell.

I completely understand the reluctance for recruiters to use social media as part of their job, as in the early years, most were banned from using it and no KPI’s set to measure against. So why should they use it? Because it enables greater reach and the ability to engage with the passive candidate, and if done properly will result in either more revenue, faster time to hire or lower cost to hire. If you are thinking about a direct sourcing model it is impossible to achieve this without fully embracing social recruiting.

No social media budget? Then you just aren’t ready

Social media requires an investment, and when you are next reviewing your recruitment or marketing budget, you should be making a business case for why social media can either reduce costs or achieve more hires. Think about this alongside your media planning and break it down into the following

• Paid: Job board posting
• Earned: Coverage on ERE.net or an award
• Owned: Your career site

Earned media can most easily be described as the result of paid and owned media.

One size fits all

It would be great if you could apply the same strategy to each business, but sadly there is no one size fits all model so coping with what another company does will not necessarily produce the same outcome. When defining your strategy, keep both your applications and candidates at the heart of it, and make sure your strategy is measurable and that you will create data that can back this up. You also have to consider how scalable your plans are and consider brand guidelines as well as business objectives. In the current age you wouldn’t dream of not having a digital strategy so why should social be any different?

Really interested to hear what your focus on recruitment will be in 2014?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Amanda Ashworth is a Freelance Social Recruiter and Marketer with over 11 years experience recruiting globally. Most recently she has been working with Digital Agencies and Fast Tech Start-ups on Employer Branding and Recruitment Marketing Campaigns. She is passionate about social recruiting and sourcing as a social media/tech geek and avid blogger, blogging for The Undercover Recruiter, Social Media Today and Business2Community. She spoke at both #TruLondon 6/7 and regularly mentors young people enabling them to enter the workplace.

Feel free to connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter @recsocially