Recruiting through social media…Is it a hindrance or a help?
October 14, 2011 11:38 AM written by Lee Biggins 
14 Comments
It’s a bit like marmite; you either love it, or hate it. I used to have no time for social media and I would pity those who sat aimlessly tweeting updates every 10 minutes, discussing innovative software on blogs and building networks of cyber connections through Facebook, but look at me now…my very first blog post!
I still don’t expect to make money from social media and I’m strongly against my employees spending hours and hours sifting through unrelated LinkedIn group discussions. However, I do understand the importance of having a presence. It’s very hard to balance how you incorporate social media into your every day recruitment plan and as a job board we have a totally different outlook to recruiters. But one thing is for certain; we definitely want to be found wherever people are looking.
You can easily get swept up in social media and find the working day is over and you haven’t even checked your emails. This is clearly the wrong way to use this new marketing tool but with over 30 million Facebook users in the UK alone how on earth do we keep up with everything?
In this fast paced world of interactivity how involved should we be as a national job board? In all honesty, I’m still trying to work that out.
@Lee, love the blog, just an idea. If social media was properly used, surely it can be integrated into the daily routine with your staff as it is so strong and it appears that it will stay as such until we learn telepathy! Maybe it could be structured for each team member to tweet, LI, FB something about the companies offerings/services once a day. We might all be amazed at the results acheived.
Just my thoughts of course.
Social media has its place but as its new and the economy has been poor people are tending to over hype it’s value. Social media will continue to grow and grow in strength but in real terms you are still being asked to advertise in Facebook to get best results and/or build communities other can infiltrate online quite easily. My advice is dont be social for social sake if your not going to get market and target twitter followers then close your twitter account.
Sorry hit the wrong button before ending with… all social media routes lead back to the humble email. So don’t be afraid to do a bit of old school marketing to keep your social pools active.
@Darren, like your ‘old style’ thought process. At the end of the day there is nothing better than ‘some’ of the older ways of working in recruitment. I have, on occasion, worked on finding particular candidates via the new social media and found out that that person I seek has to be ‘on’ at the same time to really get a true response; e-mail and phone calls still play a big part in my business.
As a jobboard, we’ve used social media very successfully and it has really helped with generating new traffic to our site that we may have missed via search engines for example. I think it’s a great way to engage with jobseekers which we don’t really have the opportunity to do as a jobboard, however it’s essential that you have a strategy in place to stop any timewasting. I don’t really agree that we have a totally different outlook to recruiters as ultimately we are targeting the same audience, and if jobboards can use this medium successfully, recruiters should be following suit….
Hi Lee, very interesting question and blog. Let’s face it, the use of Social Media within Recruitment has been on the increase for some time now and has proven to be a valued tool by many. The question is of course how to maximise the usage of Social Media in this way whilst not losing production levels of staff using it. This is where companies must ensure that they protect themselves and their business by ensuring that they have a robust Social Media Policy in place. Over the last few years we have seen vacancy fulfilment move from print to internet Job Boards and now to Social Media. All have had their successes and this I see continuing with the now growing use of Mobile/iPad App’s which are becoming more popular. This has been a great piece and I look forward to reading more from you.
I’ve used Social Media and some online advertising to recruit over 50 members of staff, who needed to have very niche IT skills, and saved around £350k in agency fees. So yes, it definitely works.
Hi Lee, some great points here. I think employers are missing a trick if social media activity is not allowed in the workplace where it does not detract from day to day work. For spreading your brand and casting a wider net, is there any other low cost way?
Social media policy agreements are commonplace now anyway. The burning question is, from a purely legal standpoint, who owns the contacts you make (say on LinkedIn) when you leave, if you made those contacts on company time for the company?
Another point Id’s make is, most everyone presently gets it wrong when it comes to social recruitment.
Social recruitment is not about putting your jobs on twitter, facebook, myspace, linked in etc and your done. Because if this is your strategy all your doing is sending the user back to your job board/recruitment site/career site via a link in most instances (the same is true of mobile apps). If those sites have no social engagement when you get there you have not created a social talent pool, you have created a site bounce.
Social recruitment is about more than that, it is about building online communities where people hang out and be social. The fact that a job search now and or in the future might have brought them to the environment is cool but not the be all and end all. Being social means providing content and knowledge that keeps a person wanting to be social and/or promote you socially.
Social recruitment requires marketing skills. If your not prepared to invest the time and money in marketing then social will also not work for you. If you measure marketing by what it cost rather than what it brings then you should never ask for a quote for social recruitment services because your not on the right wavelength with what being social means.
I don’t see the problem with no social access at work use your mobile instead, then offer social apps and recruitment apps which have value to the user while on their phone.
Lastly, Social recruitment will come with a price if it hits the main stream. Example as a recruiter your told to ask candidates where they have been for interview to get job leads, when the candidates are told and/or work out what your doing they stop giving the info so easily and/or at all.
It will not take the average human being much time to work out… hang on if I refer my mate for a job a recruiter would get 20% of their salary for that I want more than a thank you email, chance to win an iPod or some face book likes. In short they will monetize their networks.
To make sure we give value to our clients we need to make sure we have all areas covered at finding the best talent, if social media is one of them then we need to be ahead of the game, promoting your company, linking in with people, tweeting, I think a true specialist should be able to offer value to clients in different ways not in ways they already search/recruit, so if we are using social media use it properly.
Most recruiters presently have a social media recruitment facade rather than a social media strategy and given the bad press about recruiters we need this like a hole in the head.
Social recruitment requires investment and employers need to see you have made that investment, especially employers who presently lead the way with social recruitment.
The other thing is to be sure where social recruitment works best, is it for temps, perms, contractors, interims etc or does it work for all? Does it work in all industries, all regions and so on. When you have those answers or partner with people who have them then shout out you have a handle on social media.
Darren, you have hit the nail on the head, I agree 100%
Thanks
[...] an awful lot of staff take advantage of social media. I touched on this in my previous blog post: Recruiting through social media…Is it a hindrance or a help?, and I’m still working on finding the right [...]