The New Effective Social Media Way to Recruit Employees

Oct 11, 2011 by Sami

Then social media exploded and everyone jumped on the wagon faster than you can say “140 characters is great” and it become a little more time consuming to weed-out through profiles to find new employees. Granted, very exceptional people will always come out on top regardless of how large the pool is.

Another issue is the simple fact that some are not the same online as offline. There needed to be a cost and time effective way for an organization to find out good talent. Smart companies came then to the realization that they need to combine both online and offline in their recruiting efforts.

I have been a huge fan of is social media’s capability of bringing so many online conversations offline and then back online and that’s exactly what some companies have noticed and tried to take advantage of. How? By creating a community of prospects and fans online and hosting events to bring them together, an organization will have a tremendous help in finding new employees.

This is a great example of how community managers wear many different hats in an organization. Community managers can work directly with HR to help in planning the event and creating the community of prospect employees.

Exhibit A: An agency has had interest in recruiting new employees to their expanding Social division. They’ve noticed some great candidates in the community but were unsure if they should proceed to contacting them directly about the opportunity. What this agency then does is host a TweetUp or a MeetUp at their local office. Nothing formal. A casual meet-and-greet type event to meet the brains behind the agency and casually network with others in the industry. Here’s what they’ve just accomplished with minimal costs and time efforts:

* Brought not only their HR department but others from company that would be working with or directing employees to observe prospect candidates.

* Agency would announce event strictly on social media channels and that’s why they are able to get attendees who are familiar with the space.

* Prospects are able to meet and talk with people that they might work with in the future and gauge how well they would fit with the company’s culture.

* Since it was a less formal event, the agency can have a better feel of what a candidate is like in day-to-day situations which is often unseen during an interview.

* The agency is not only able to see how a candidate interacts with agency members but others as well.

 What other benefits or ways are there when companies create a community online then take it offline in order to recruit?

 

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