Social Recruiting: Make a Plan or Plan to Fail

Personal use of social media has been made too easy to use. The platforms that allow us to stay in touch with family, friends, and former colleagues even reminds us to wish a “Happy Birthday” to them and others… and we call people friends that we have never met. This is not a bad thing, but the same medium that provides so much information and entertainment also lures us onto dangerous turf. Ease of use means people that are somewhat computer literate but not overly tech savvy can fall for phishing scams that compromise their privacy and perhaps expose themselves to even worse cyberstalking activity. It is more than just an inconvenience when business use of social media permits employees to open the doors to hackers capable of stealing proprietary information or maliciously damaging the company brand. Unfortunately, many social media skeptics in executive positions come to the table with “No” already on their lips when the social recruiting missionary is pleading a case for resources.

An article in Human Resource Executive Online last week, Risky Recruiting Business, gave a pretty good summary of the SHRM survey on the use of social media for recruiting and screening candidates. One startling fact jumps out of the page: 57% of the companies that are already using social media for recruiting have no policy in place for using social media platforms. Further proving the fact that they just don’t get it, the majority of them do not even plan to implement such a policy. How can this be? They probably have budgeted for one LinkedIn Recruiter account to post job openings, report that they are embracing social recruiting, and then ignore everything else. In these cases the naysayers are probably right. It won’t work. With no policies, no planning, and no progress it should not be a surprise when the plug is pulled on social recruiting next year.

Starting with no homegrown company social recruiting missionaries, there are a myriad of expert guides online and consultants that can survey needs and help build a cohesive program from the ground up. Whether in-house or out-house, there are some minimum touch points that the expert/missionary has to consider.

1. A company-wide policy on employee use of social media is imperative – The concept of blocking social media sites on company computers is so archaic that most would not consider doing it today. On the pretense of “helping” employees by protecting them from this productivity killing time suck overlooked the fact that most employees come to work with a smartphone in their pocket or purse anyway. Allowing unrestricted access requires a policy to prescribe standards. Such a policy should cover the do’s and don’ts of using social media and specifically train employees to recognize and guard against phishing, scams, and spam.
2. Strategic business objectives that can benefit from social media must be set – Starting with an executive sponsor, there must be a steering committee containing elements of Finance, Marketing, Public Relations, HR, Recruiting, IT and any other functional body that may have input. Any company entity that goes off on its own without considering the needs of others is building a silo of wasted resources. It is not uncommon for marketers to be the first to the game, so they need to allow for the strategic interest of their partners and be taught to think like recruiters.
3. Tactical plans to meet corporate goals have to be defined – The best strategic plan sets the overall objectives and the tone of outbound communication, but no functional area should have veto power over the needs of another. The focus needs to be on identifying the authors and monitors of content. This should be etched into the plan from the start and modified as needed. Social recruiting requires access to multiple platforms with a very specific targeted audience. It may be necessary for HR or Recruiting to have a separate more comprehensive plan to supplement the company plan.
4. Incorporate growth and scalability into the plan – Every social media platform is a possible candidate for use in sourcing and recruiting. Remembering that the key to success with social recruiting is to be social, it is better to take baby steps and master one platform before adopting others. LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook are the usual first steps, but each one must be a conduit for dialog with candidates. Feedback works both ways. Engaging talent on any of these platforms means allowing them to speak, answer, and question company employees. Growth of this network should be anticipated and planned.
   
5. Engage employees to accomplish social recruiting goals – The reason for providing social media training to employees is to deputize them as allies in broadcasting the message. Distributing the workload over a wider base makes sense. There will never be a recruiting organization in a company that is large enough to handle the entire dialog that social recruiting can generate. The first step is training them on how to use a social recruiting platform followed by making every employee an ad hoc recruiter. We know that referrals are one of the best sources of external candidates, so recognize and reward employees for their participation.
   
6. Develop methods for monitoring, measuring and modifying the plan – Social recruiting is never static and is constantly changing. Under ordinary circumstances a project should be monitored to confirm that it remains on target to complete the assigned tasks. When the platform itself is constantly changing, the situation becomes so dynamic that an entirely new direction may be required. Metrics to insure the quality of hire as well as other parameters are indicators of the correctness of the course selected.

These general terms are broad enough to serve as an overall guideline for a social recruiting plan, but there is also a need for specific checklists to start things rolling and keep it on track. Jobvite has produced an excellent checklist in Social Recruiting Workbook that walks the user through the process of touching all the critical point in establishing a social recruiting program.

 
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