Recruiting New Talent Via Social Media
Social media is not just a successful channel for communicating your brand to your customers. More and more companies are using social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to generate brand awareness among potential employees as well. By creating a social media profile, companies can connect with prospective employees and share with them employment information as well as background information on the company and the types of positions that are available.
LinkedIn
Traditionally, LinkedIn has been seen as the go-to social network for corporate recruiting, with 75 of the Fortune 100 firms using it as a hiring solution. It is built around the user’s resume, expertise, and experience and is designed explicitly as a forum for networking. Using LinkedIn for recruitment is easy. For less than $200, companies can post a job listing that is good for 30 days. Applicants can apply via LinkedIn itself or through a company’s website and any applications that come through LinkedIn provide the company with full access to the user’s LinkedIn profile whether they are directly connected or not. From the job seekers perspective, LinkedIn allows for very targeted employment searches by enabling applicants to search by position title, company name, geographic area and more.
Facebook
Although LinkedIn is used by many firms for recruiting, companies have begun to get more savvy about using Facebook and Twitter as well. A great example of how firms can use these platforms is Sodexo, which has been recognized by the Society for New Communications Research and ERE (the online network for recruiting professionals) for excellence in their use of social media. It’s worth checking out the Sodexo Careers page on Facebook. Through it, potential Sodexo employees have access to a wealth of information about the company including its history, links to the company website, and blogs written by Sodexo employees. In addition, Sodexo’s HR team is actively involved on the page, answering questions and posting jobs using their personal profiles, and not just as the official “Sodexo Careers” corporate page. This kind of personal involvement has resulted in great interaction on the page, with many applicants posting questions about specific positions and getting answers directly from the manager responsible for hiring.
Twitter
In addition to Facebook, Sodexo is active on Twitter via its @SodexoCareers account and via the personal Twitter accounts of more than 50 of its recruiters. The company’s Twitter activity is credited with more than tripling traffic to its website.
Personal Branding
Unfortunately, social media is a two-way street. It is great that users can find out more about potential employers, but that also means that those same employers can find out more about applicants. Social media recruiting makes it even more crucial for the young professional to portray themselves as such on their social media profiles. Employers don’t want to see pictures of last weekend’s crazy party – they want to see you as a respectable person who may represent their company in the future. This means that job seekers need to make sure they are branding themselves just as carefully as their potential employers.