Social Media in recruitment (again)

[kevinh]

I received an email this morning promoting use of social media in recruitment. It claimed that 43% of firms in the accounting industry use social media in recruitment. I find that very hard to believe quite frankly so I thought we would run a quick poll across all sectors.

[HRIMHO]

I find that hard to believe too... perhaps they include absolutely EVERYTHING - for example, a company doesn't have it as part of its formal procedures but someone dabbles in a google search and sees their Twitter page or something? That'd raise the percentages but wouldn't be a true representation of actual use of social media.

Speaking of my sector, Government, I very much doubt there are any agencies using social media... maybe a couple across Australia but not much at all.

[Tag44]

Well my company and i doesn't use social media for searching candidates or for the recruitment but yes i would definitely make use of social media and social networking support in promoting my company name and my site to the general users.

[Mark D]

We're about to go live with a Facebook presence to improve our brand penetration from a recruitment point of view. Financial Services industry.

[kevinh]

Originally Posted by Mark D

We're about to go live with a Facebook presence to improve our brand penetration from a recruitment point of view. Financial Services industry.

Mark,

Will it be someones specific responsibility to manage your Facebook presence?

What demographic are you hoping to attract via Facebook?

Kevin

PS: You might be interested in this blog post by Dr John Sullivan about employer brand management.

[Mark D]

Originally Posted by kevinh

Will it be someones specific responsibility to manage your Facebook presence?

What demographic are you hoping to attract via Facebook?

We're live now. The HR team are all admins of the Facebook group, which means as well as uploading our own content, we can moderate content other members upload, plus we can "block" people from joining the group if necessary (eg. disgruntled former employees)

In terms of demographic we're pitching at via Facebook, stereotypical Gen Y, I guess you'd say. Recruitment is like comms, you need to have more than one channel running in parallel to ensure you reach everybody, since every individual prefers a particular method.

[kevinh]

Originally Posted by Mark D

Recruitment is like comms, you need to have more than one channel running in parallel to ensure you reach everybody, since every individual prefers a particular method.

This has always been my belief, but it's incredible how many recruiters (internal or external) don't understand this.

So are you going to give us a clue to the identity of the group?

How do you intend to let people know about it/attract people to it?

[HRIMHO]

Originally Posted by kevinh

How do you intend to let people know about it/attract people to it?

Yes, let us know this!

But good luck with it, it's a great move. I'm wondering how one might get around the bureaucracy in Government to get stuck into this... I figure it'd be a way off.

[michaelakassar]

Hey Mark,

Great to hear your company has a presence on Facebrook. it will certainly help your company to try and manage it's reputation in a positive way. After all, given today's technology, the customer now has more control over the flow of information than you do, and unfortunately some people like to spread rumours and misinformation.

You also might want to build your company profile on LinkedIn if you want to improve your presence in global markets and increase web traffic.

Hope it all goes really well for you.



Cheers
Michaela