 |
|
 |
Based on recent surveys, social networks are leading the other recruiting channels in two critical areas. First, employers are investing more heavily in social networks relative to the other recruiting channels such as job boards. Second, these networks are yielding higher quality candidates for corporations than any avenue other than professional recruiting firms.
There is good reason for this trend. There simply is no better way for candidates and employers to quickly digitize referrals, market themselves, conduct research, publicize their opportunities, and connect with those who have similar interests. At milewalk, we’ve been supplementing our endorsement-based recruiting tactics (phone and live personal interactions to gather referrals and endorsements to the best candidates) with social recruiting since our inception in 2004.
A recent study by Jobvite (Q2 2010) showed that over 80% of the participants (600) that responded indicated their organizations are currently using or plan to use social media for recruiting this year. While Linked In continues to lead the way, Facebook and Twitter usage has grown by 15% and 32% respectively. Currently, 78% of those surveyed are using Linked In, 55% use Facebook, and 45% use Twitter.
Interestingly, the surge in social networking usage has had a profound effect on job board usage. 36% indicated they will spend less on job boards in 2010. While the survey indicated that employee referrals yielded the higher quality candidates (no surprise), participants indicated that candidate quality from social networks was substantially higher than that from job boards.
What does this mean for you?
If you’re an employer, recognize that higher quality (and often times passive) candidates can be found on these social networking sites. The key expression in the previous sentence is “can be found”. That is, you can build a platform that maximizes the use of these social networking tools to help attract those candidates, but these platforms are not a silver bullet. They still require you to research and recruit those individuals. These platforms will, however, provide you with more streamlined capabilities to research, manage, and aid the recruiting process. Many of them can even be seamlessly integrated into your applicant tracking systems, allowing you to import information from these pay or free sites. For example, at milewalk, we use Maxhire which integrates Linked In and hundreds of other sites using integrated software from TalentHook (which can also be used standalone).
Keep in mind, that candidates are using social media sites to research and connect to the company and its employees prior to applying for jobs. Therefore, you’ll want to create a clean, accurate company profile that has robust information about your organization and its offerings.
Employers that are truly maximizing the social landscape go beyond these free sites. The best organizations create a custom or tailored social network, typically powered by Jive’s Social Business Software. These tools not only allow you to tailor your offerings, but more importantly also allow you to actively “listen” to what people are saying about your company. These Social Listening and Monitoring Solutions can be developed using tools such as Filtrbox and SocialSense and are invaluable to tailoring the site to attract the people and customers you want.
Employers can also create Social Press Rooms to attract candidates and customers. These Social Press Rooms can be filled with offerings, news, awards, etc. The alignment and integration of these offerings with your Social Recruiting Platform can be a powerful combination that draws the best candidates and customers.
If you’re a candidate, realize that employers are investing more in these sites and are relying on them more heavily. Therefore, it is beneficial for you to establish a robust profile detailing your work experience. Pay special attention to the keywords you include in your profile because many employers will be performing searches on these sites according to their key skill requirements. You can also peruse these sites from time to time because employers are now investing in the recruiting packages on these sites that allow them to post job opportunities. This is not something that has been used heavily until recently.
 |
We are thrilled to announce our formal partnership with 7Summits LLC, a Social Business Agency founded in 2009 that specializes in implementing Applied Social Media for business. We believe so much in this shift toward socialized solutions that I personally invested capital to fuel 7Summits’ continued growth and will act as one of their Advisory Board Members.
While these Applied Social Media solutions are new to the Enterprise, 7Summits has become the front runner in helping companies leverage these strategies and applications. We’ve been aiding companies in areas across the social media spectrum including:
 |
Customized social networks, social listening and monitoring solutions, and social recruiting | |
|
Creative Services such as Cross Channel Commerce Solutions, Online Business Optimization, and Web Analytics | |
|
Digital Advertising such as Social Pages, Content Syndication, Social Press Room, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing |
7Summits helps organizations design their overall social strategy and is also well equipped to implement the technology solutions. Recently, Jive Software, the leader in Social Business Software (SBS) according to Gartner and Forrester, named 7Summits their premier central region partner to implement their software.
The company was formed by Paul Stillmank, a leader in the Digital Solutions space, and is growing quickly because of the demand for these solutions. Paul, is accompanied by a former Accenture colleague of mine, RJ Reimers, who is the EVP of Operations. The company has 15+ employees and is currently supporting 11 clients in its short lifetime. Eighty percent (80%) of these clients are Fortune 500 organizations.
As a starting point, we provide a session called a “Social Media Thought Provoker”. The ones we’ve done to date have been extremely well received, primarily because in advance of the meeting, our team actually spends time evaluating your brand, products/services, and competitors to perform an “online listen” across all media. In addition to listening for your brand, we listen for conversations that provide insight that could affect your marketing strategy, product development strategy, and recruiting strategy. During the session, we share the latest information on how this Social Context can help you drive more revenue and reduce cost.
The meeting itself is case-study driven and a nice immersion in the space for you (and your team). We cover areas such as listening platforms, tailored social networks, and rich story-telling video on the web, and content syndication solutions. We also address Social Business Strategy, ROI for these programs, Key Opinion Leaders and Social Influence Marketing. If appropriate, we can even involve thought leaders like Jive Software in the session if you’d like. For the session, the typical interested parties are Marketing, PR, Customer Service, HR, Recruiting, and Corporate Communications.
Please let me know if you are interested in arranging one of these sessions. They are well worth it.
Additional information on 7Summits:
www.7SummitsAgency.comPR on our thought leadership
Recent blog post
Slide-share presentation on “Business Case for Social Media”
Presentation “Creating a Social Business through Applied Social Media”
|
Andrew LaCivita is the chief executive of milewalk, an executive recruiting and human capital consulting company located in Chicago, IL. He has consulted for over 90 companies throughout his career and publishes this free newsletter to the human resources community in hopes it will help you attract the top talent and improve your ability to motivate your employees. After all, as Jim Collins indicates in Good to Great…people aren’t your greatest asset, the right people are. For a more complete biography, please visit the milewalk website. |
 |
|
|
This quarter, milewalk and 7Summits are offering "Social Media Thought Provoker" sessions. For more information please email info@milewalk.com or call |
|
|
Client Referral Program
milewalk offers a donation to your favorite charity if you refer a new client. Inquire about our program.
Human Resources and Recruiting Executives in Chicago LinkedIn Group
We have created this LinkedIn Group to network, share ideas, and support the Chicago HR community for the IT space. Please click here to join if you're interested.
Openings
For general information on job opportunities offered through milewalk, please visit our website.
For detailed inquiries please visit our candidate portal.
Feedback
Your feedback is always welcome and very much appreciated. Please let us know whether you enjoyed this or how we can improve it. Send feedback to feedback@milewalk.com.
If you would like to subscribe to future issues of the milewalk insight, please send an email with your name and email address to subscribe@milewalk.com.
Previous Newsletters
Past editions of the milewalk insight can be found here at www.milewalk.com/mw_prev_news.html.
milewalk | Unique Insights in Executive Recruiting
911 Busse Hwy Ste 201 Park Ridge, IL 60068