History is often a straight line from the past to the present. People and politics can alter that course, but civilization seems to be predestined to advance because of natural forces that somehow eliminates the negative forces and builds on the positive ones. The history of social media in recruiting has not taken a straight line so far because the overall concept is always being influenced by monumental changes in the platforms that make it possible. Those who are seeing a straight line from placing recruiting ads in newspapers, then doing the same on career sites, and then on to social tools will never be able to see the future. You can’t get there from here. A serious internal dialog needs to be ongoing that doesn’t ask what social recruiting is, but what it is not. What could it be if we pushed the envelope?
- Social recruiting is not posting jobs on LinkedIn – One of the best tools out there and the one that is most often mentioned in surveys as a recruiting tool is totally misused in most cases. There is criticism that the job board concept is dying, so what leads us to believe that using the same post and pray mentality on another platform will work any better? If it is truly social then it will be a platform for listening as well as talking. Former employees captured in loyal alumni groups can be a voice of the culture and a source of positively influencing candidate interest. Empowering employees to represent the company brand in technical groups offers evidence that the company is progressive and on the cutting edge. The future: Unless you know someone that is clairvoyant or a LinkedIn insider, don’t assume that your needs will be lined up with their business plan. What happened to LinkedIn Answers could happen to your platform.
- Propagandizing with Facebook and Twitter is not social – Revisiting the problems with post and pray here would be restating the obvious, but it doesn’t take sophisticated software to glance at your pages and determine the degree of your relative sociability. What is the ratio of the people friending or following your page compared to the numbers you are following? Probably not very good. Most companies take a first step by gaining permission from corporate leaders and lawyers to commit company resources and then later start allowing outsiders to ask question or make comments. If this stalls at stage 1, then it will probably be seen as just another company PR outlet or Career Board and nothing more. The Future: You probably won’t even know you are failing because there will be no noticeable decline in connections that may hang around hoping for more. Let them speak! They will talk about you somewhere else if you don’t invite them to you into a forum that you control.
- Explore ALL social media platforms as a place to source candidates – It isn’t possible today to even know how many new tools will come forward as a major player. Do you use Pinterest as a social recruiting tool? Even if you only post your job openings it is a start. After you get a feel for how it works, create and contribute to interest groups. How about Reddit? This is already a powerful tool for job seekers looking for advice in several subreddits. Like any new platform, know the rules and make a plan before jumping in. It is not uncommon for a new Redditor to barge in and find that their user id has been blocked for spamming. This is one platform where a user must be social or else… promoting only your own posts is considered spam. Read the rules… bend them at your own peril. The Future: Every major social media platform started small and then grew up. Some mushroomed to greatness overnight and some are still struggling to find their niche. Partnering with entrepreneurial social media companies benefits all.
- If it doesn’t exist yet, make it happen anyway – Do-it-yourself social media can be an expensive proposition, but it could also reap huge rewards in cost savings over time. Is this just an unproven idea? Absolutely not. In 2008 Ryan Holmes began to search for some kind of tool to manage multiple social media networks at his agency Invoke Media. Not finding what he was looking for, his team developed the platform that is now Hootsuite, a profitable external social media tool that has been found to be a must-have for hundreds of thousands of users. Even if there is no budget for a proprietary social media tool, there are ways to embed Twitter feeds, blog posts, and YouTube videos on a company’s career page. There is a double benefit by externally driving traffic to the company site while also providing dynamic content. The Future: Not to be cliché, but the sky is the limit. If you can assemble ideas, resources, and empower your recruiting team anything is possible.
Recruiting with social media is still about recruiting. The objective did not change, only the tools. Recruiting is always social, so only the media is changing. The old tools are still around and will be for a long time to come. They won’t be extinct until some digital archeologist digs up something that has been totally forgotten. Will they wonder how we ever got by with such obsolete implements such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook?
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