Social Media Recruitment
The social media recruitment is a modern way of the recruitment. It is a direct recruitment channel, which is fully operated by the dedicated employee in the organization. The social recruitment has to be run in the close cooperation of many departments in the organization, as the company has to build and grow engaged communities of followers. The recruitment cannot be promoted as the primary aim of the company. No engaged community of follower is interested in monitoring vacancies in the company, they want to spread interesting messages influencing the entire community.
The social recruitment should be used as the tool for finding the unreachable job applicants. These people are real experts in their area of expertise, but they do not search for the new job. They are passive on the job market, but they are active in social communities. They actively search for new information and they tend to discuss. They become attracted by the interesting discussion. The social recruitment finds different job applicants than the traditional recruitment sources.
The social recruitment should be a part of the recruitment mix. The social channels cannot deliver job applicants for all vacancies in the organization. The social media recruitment strategy has to be developed and it has to be aligned with the recruitment strategy and HR strategy.
The engaged community is the key success factor for the social recruitment. The organization has to identify topics, which build the strong engaged community of followers. The social community, which is active and proactively spreads topics and messages to other online communities. The multiplication of the communities is a key.
The social media recruitment is not a cheaper recruitment channel than the traditional recruitment channels. At least in the beginning, the dedicated employee has to research the social media, has to identify the topics suitable for the organization and has to engage into different groups. The followers will not evolve randomly, the engaged community has to be developed. The social media recruitment ROI is negative in the beginning and the benefits are realized over a longer period of time.
The social recruitment has to be based on the same principles as the social media communication. The main characteristics of the social media are:
- Participation
- Openness
- Conversation
- Community
- Connectedness
The social media recruitment is a complex area and HR has to be visible widely. The social recruitment cannot be solved by a single Twitter account. It is about blogging, being present at Facebook, twittering important and interesting messages. It is about discussing with the community and engaging people as they become followers.
The social media recruitment strategy has to be designed and many business units have to provide interesting information from their internal sources. The followers are interested in engaging discussions and they do not want to see a simple list of vacancies.