Last month, I asked, “What’s next in social media recruiting?”
To find out, a few weeks ago Career Edge Organization attended “Recruitment Innovation Summit” held by the Human Resources Networking Group (HRNG). In addition to participating as exhibitors to share our expertise on employability and diversity, we also had the opportunity to network with HR professionals including leaders and decision-makers from organizations we work with like RBC, Xerox, Rogers, CIBC, Sun Life and many others. Several of us attended including our VP, Donna Smith, the marketing team and members of our client relations team.
The great thing about this event was its forward-thinking social technology focus, bringing together HR and social media champions to share their insights on “web 3.0 recruiting”.
One of the prominent themes that kept popping up was the need to think long-term as we shift from traditional forms of recruitment to online methods. Gone are the days when ROI and success is measured by the immediate number of hires. Instead, leaders in social HR are “planting seeds” and exponentially growing networks that allow their messages to travel beyond the organization’s reach. More importantly, when done effectively, these messages are carried and kept alive by real people outside of the organization who can bring authenticity and genuineness to the employer’s brand. That’s the beauty of social HR.
Great examples of this include the recent rise in popularity of websites like Vault.com (career intelligence) or Glassdoor.com (“an inside look at jobs & companies) which are user-generated, social career websites where employers are ranked and reviewed, salaries are posted by employees and inside info is exchanged all within a safe, anonymous environment open to anyone and everyone with something to say.
Glassdoor.com even has an area where people post questions they were asked in interviews! And with mobile devices, this can be done almost in real time. Somebody who recently interviewed for a technical architect position at Yahoo shared the following interview question on glassdoor.com:
“There are n gas stations positioned along a circular road. Each has a limited supply of gas. You can only drive clockwise around the road. You start with zero gas. Knowing how much gas you need to get from each gas station to the next and how much gas you can get at each station, design an algorithm to find the gas station you need to start at to get all the way around the circle.”
There are “venting” sites like JobVent.com, whose slogan “Love your job? Hate your job? Share your experience” says it all.
Big or small, your company is probably on at least one of these websites.
In a social world that loves to share and be heard, no amount of time or money spent on recruitment branding can achieve employer-of-choice status and help attract top talent if the organization is not listening to this valuable feedback.
Smart companies have joined the conversation – they’re listening, they’re engaging, they’re communicating and they’re attracting top talent.
At the HRNG summit, one of the speakers pointed to Ernst & Young UK as a great example of a company that is doing this well. Click here for the Ernst & Young UK Careers page on Facebook and you’ll see what I mean.
Like many others of its kind, the page encourages discussion and questions, but what’s particularly savvy is that they also explain why they’re on Facebook and suggest some guidelines for using the page.
Recent studies have shown that it’s not just Gen Y who are using online social networks – people in all age categories are logging onto LinkedIn, Facebook (the fastest growing segment of users are female boomers!) and twitter. And now that a growing majority of businesses are using these tools, wall are coming down in cubicles and people are accessing social networks at work.
The bottom line is that we are all competing for top talent so we need to be where the talent is, we need to hear what they are saying about us, and we need to let them know who we really are. That’s what social HR is all about.