Recruiters and HR Professionals need to ask themselves,
“Is it time to dump your candidate database, and wipe your filing cabinets clean, in order to jump on the Social Media Recruitment bandwagon?

This is a question that Digital Personnel put to recruiters involved in the digital media recruitment space recently. Surprisingly most thought this was a ridiculous idea, taking the stance that an agency database is the ultimate USP and to remove it would be similar to cutting your telephone wires. In fairness it was a leading question as it would indeed be rather silly to remove your matured database of contacts and it will always be the primary tool for documenting feedback.

This is a great question that HookLineandThinker put to the recruiters involved in this ever changing, rapidly growing media scape. After conducting an extended poll, we found it surprisingly, most felt that this type of jump-ship mentality is a dangerous and ridiculous idea. The notion that an agency would go to such drastic length, would be like cutting their phone lines and relying solely on the internet to communicate. In fairness it was a leading question as it would indeed be rather silly to remove your matured database of contacts and it will always be the primary tool for documenting feedback. Social Media can begin to step in as the medium, yes, but can it stand alone at it’s own applicant tracking system, and accurate H.R. research and documentation?

That is yet to be determined.

The ability these days to network opportunities across social sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook is both powerful and plentiful. Do understand, that it is extremely effective and important these days to build communities on social sites and target specialized audiences. These captive audiences will then determine your ROI by either directly showing interest in opportunities, or by passing your vacancies to their own network of contacts. ( Think of the pyramid marketing scheme, you may only begin 100 in your network, but each of those 100 contacts has their own 100…and exponentially, the potential to advertise is limitless. In many cases, the ability to network opportunities to groups of career-seekers through virtual “Word of Mouth” within the social networks, and identify fully qualified candidates eager to pursue vacancies….is continually achieved without the first step to search within a private database.

Think of what will happen when that candidate is happily settled in their new position, and grateful to have a pleasant productive work environment, with great benefits and growth potential, who do you think they are going to tell? That’s right, their social network connections. That right there becomes free PR for your company…right from the source.

Candidates from social and business networking sites are geared up and ready for the surge.  Sites like Linked In and Ryze help provide an in depth career history, a record of their affiliations, blogs and real and tangible references to connect with, in search of honest recommendations.

This technology is undoubtedly a dream come true to the recruitment industry! ( and unfortunately a nightmare to the giant newspapers and careerboards.)  The key to success on how to leverage this WOW technology is really how and who to align with as your ‘front-man’ to engage these thriving audiences.  What strategies need to be implemented to grow appropriate and rewarding communities? How much should you spend within your budget, and how easily can you measure your ROI?  Reportedly. many recruitment agencies are already re-inventing themselves as a brand that can communicate successfully through these mediums, as well as in print, mail, t.v. and radio, The real trick lies in finding which one to go with, If your current agency hasn’t been taking the initiative to weather the storm of social networking technology, and continually encourages the careerboards and newspapers, it may be time to jump ship on them.
There are also rewards to be found from clients. By building a stronger online presence, recruitment agencies can further their reach for potential business partners and if credible engagement with audiences is evident, an employer would be wise to make the first move. The canvas calls will not stop of course (utopia for many employers!) but this is potentially another route to increased revenue streams.

Social media is an unstoppable force that will engulf the recruitment industry, and has already become the lead medium in some market sectors. A recruiters’ unique database is no longer a selling point, the ability to tap into the unlimited talent across the web and capitalize on this is how agencies will ultimately be the key to getting the greatest talent.

“We’ve seriously sold our souls to the internet, ….and it seems that now we are buying them back. Our need and desire to be individualistic and expressive about our lives, photos, feelings and views, is the price we have paid.”

In the New Age of Social Media, it seems that nearly everyone is on board. Instead of having phone call conversations with one good friend once per week, we now have an unlimited “life-feed” of information available to us at the click of a mouse. WE can monitor the lives, updates, events, promotions, photos and status of hundreds of people per day, freely and easily. And WE’RE not the only one’s monitoring. In fact an industry has been created to delve into social media to gather what we once thought to be private, AND another industry has arise to clean up those little secrets you wish never got online.

Photos of new babies, broadcasts of new jobs landed, current moods and descriptive locations. All right there, for everyone to see, everyone that is looking. And by this, we can safely put Recruiters at the top of this list.

The great debate about whether or not it is an invasion of privacy to search someone’s social networking site for ‘character analysis’ of a candidate –has fallen on deaf ears.

Recent Studies have shown that more than 45 percent of employers and recruiters use Facebook or Twitter to screen job candidates. And this number is only growing. Whether it is considered ‘constitutionally right’ for a manager or boss to search Adam Jones’ linked-in profile, Facebook wall or Twitterfeed, after their interview has ended..doesn’t stop the actual act from happening. And it is a strong argument, upheld. Sure, Adam comes in with his perfect 4.0 GPA, impeccable references, polite manners and a relentless outlook of optimism. But not so behind the scenes in the land of the World Wide Web…there are photos of Adam doing kegstands at his Memorial Day weekend party, and doing belly shots off a scantily clad bartender– A huge departure from what the hiring Manager was shown just hours before in their ‘face to face’ interview. Further research found Adam’s twitter account had several racially charged insults and jokes, safely hidden behind the Twitter username RockStar88, still originating from the mind/heart/belliefs of Adam Jones nonetheless.

Kicking the Tires:

Just as any educated consumer would use a service such as a www.Carfax.com report to know where a used car has been, how many times the engine has been rebuilt, how many different owners, or accidents it has had…it is only common knowledge to know and believe, that right or wrong, social background checking is something that is very easily and very frequently performed. Accept this truth. Many new sites are popping up on a daily rate to assist people to obtain any information they would want about you. One of the most popular and highly controversial is www.Spokeo.com.  Spokeo.com is a human search engine, that for a reasonable fee, would show you anyone’s: age, address, phone number, e-mail address, religion, credit score, photos, affiliations, blog comments. ( Go ahead, search yourself on it,  you will be shocked at what you will find for free. ) Spokeo.com is one of several websites that collect personal information. The accuracy of the information varies from person to person and site to site. This site is a very resourceful tool to recruiters to get a better look at your life beyond the suit, tie and uber promising smile.

A recent survey that was commissioned by Beyond.com and conducted by students of the Wharton Small Business Development Center asked college students if they were concerned that potential employers may discover their personal information on social networking sites.  And 51% said yes. Which is a shame given that these sites were originally designed to be used in a social setting (hence the name ‘social’).

Past? What Past?

Because there are sites like spokeo.com that will publicly divulge your information for a fee, and a great deal of nervous college grads that will be soon seeking employment, and needing to cover the tracks of their good times and life experience, there are now also companies that help to protect your reputation, or any negative information that may be available on the internet. One of the forerunners is www.reputationdefender.com, which claims to help you remove information from the Web you don’t want out there…….for a fee.

We’ve seriously sold our souls to the internet, ….and it seems that now we are buying them back. Our need and desire to be individualistic and expressive about our lives, photos, feelings and views, is the price we have paid. We’ve all seem to have been led down the yellow brick road of social media. Yes! It is fun, liberating, exciting and inviting. EVERYBODY is doing it! Only to be led to a glorious castle that is made up entirely of smoke and mirrors…and it’ll cost you a pretty penny to get back to Kansas.

Aside from trying to find sites to ‘protect’ our reputation, how about a bit more of a preventative measure. Accept the reality that what you’re putting online right now is going to shape your digital legacy.

Adam Jones may like to challenge himself to the occasional keg stand, but he may also be the most brilliant salesman your company has ever had. But because of sites like spokeo.com, he’ll never get that chance to shine, unless of course, he has a subscription fee to pay www.reputationdefenfer.com for a year (whose membership list is assuredly confidentlial).

Latest news from internet traffic rating sites shows that Indeed.com has joined the ranks of the major locations job candidates go to start the searches. Now surpassing Monster and on the heels of Careerbuilder, it’s clear that the Job Search Aggregator is gaining more traction.

After all – why see only one option when you can see them ALL? Indeed offers jobs from big job boards, applicant tracking systems, niche boards and even customized “branded” careerpages using technology provided by several vendors now on the market.

“Employers can get their job availabilities onto search aggregators for little or no money – posing another threat to the more mature Careerbuilder and Monster”, says Matt Peter, VP of Business Development at JP Media (www.jpmedia.com ). And they are through a variety of creative alternatives. Other critical search aggregator is SimplyHired, whose ads provide the backbone to the LinkedIn job search engine.

See our Alexa.com stats below for a little back-up.

One of the most important aspects of your organization’s overall recruitment strategy is developing and managing your employment brand. Candidates rate an organization’s employment brand the 2nd most influential factor when considering employment opportunities. Google is the world’s most recognized employment brand. Google’s employment brand was built in a short period of time and exclusively through viral marketing. Google’s employment brand has been written about in every major business publication and as a result of its branding Google receives over 3,000 resumes per day. Other organizations such as Southwest Airlines, IBM, GE, Disney and HP have implemented similar employment branding techniques and are finding similar results.

While smaller organizations should not set out to compete with Google’s employment brand they can strive to become the number one brand in their vertical. A viral based approach to employment branding will result in the ability of the organization to attract top candidates. If you have to pay to get your message out it will not be credible. A successful employment branding strategy must be viral and must excite potential candidates to take action.

Successful employment branding emphasizes stories about an organization, an organization’s recruitment process and what it’s like to work in an organization which can easily be spread by employees and candidates. Employment branding has been called the #1 strategic way to increase application traffic yet on average companies spend less than 5% of their recruitment budget on employment branding.

The goal of any organization’s employment branding should be to build the organization’s reputation as a top place to work in order to attract top talent. Your employment brand should be credible, believable, and concentrate on the spreading of positive stories about the organization, being talked about in the media, and winning awards.

Some of the components of your employment branding
initiative should include:

· A well developed and implemented employee referral program.

· Development an execution of a “Recruitment Culture”

· Proper utilization of social networking
(LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Plaxo, Twitter, Ning, etc.).

· Viral Marketing

· Recruitment Video
· Career site SEO

· Award programs.

· Articles in targeted business publications

· Presentations at conferences

An organization’s employment branding should lead potential candidates to a strong career site. Candidates will visit the career site to confirm if what they’ve heard about the organization is true and read detailed information about the organization. The career site should clearly identify the organization’s culture, values, vision, current job openings and benefit programs. The site should reflect an organization’s brand and strengthen a candidate’s desire to consider employment with the organization. Included on the site should be testimonials from employees and video showing employees doing engaging work. Video should definitely be a part of employment branding as it can excite candidates and allow them to see feel and hear the passion and excitement of an organization’s employees. Google’s recruitment video “An inside look at Google” has been viewed over 500,000 times on the Internet.

Positive employment branding will result in a significant increase in the volume of unsolicited resumes, higher quality candidates, higher offer acceptance rates, an increased number of employee referrals, improved employee retention rates and an overall increase in the success rates of an organization’s recruitment programs. Remember that your employment branding is only as good as your candidate experience ratings.

Mike Astringer, Founder and CEO
Human Capital X701
mike.astringer@humancapitalconsultants.com

http://www.humancapitalconsultants.com
http://mikeastringer.blogspot.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_Astringer

Many news sites and reports have been buzzing about the latest and greatest contender for jobboards: Twitter. The ongoing conversation of the future of conglomerate job boards, such as Monster and Careerbuilder could not be any more black and white. Whether an extremely favorable, or an extremely skeptical vision, opinions have been made, launched, and continue to flood the internet and newsites. You can choose one of two sides, because there seems to be a startling lack of a gray area- you can believe that all printed and paper materials and old world forms of advertising will cease to exist, Newspapers, billboards, magazines, publications and the like. Everything we say, think, create and do, will be at the fingertips of our smart phones, therefore eliminating the need for a 7 am paper, or the 6 o’clock news. Others firmly believe that all of this social media hoop-o-la is a massively disruptive trend, unorganized, riddled with opinion and fiction, and one that will fade out in time.

Proper experimentation with social media will tell you, it’s all about building relationships. It’s all about connecting, listening and engaging in relevant conversations. The ability to do this to a large and captive audience offers the glimpse of an exciting new world for recruitment….one that is honest, one that can target better candidates…on a more human level, and defiantly without a word limit.

Some people predict that the job-feed feature that Twitter has yet to unveil, will be nothing more than a new venue for SPAM and BOTS. Keep in mind that Twitter job feeds are not necessarily mutually exclusive. After all following someone’s Twitter feed is an opt in choice and it is impossible to spam users on Twitter if they are not following you. The flip-side of this though is that not many people will want to follow an automated job feed, making its potential reach distinctly unimpressive.

As the creators of JOB-CAST, we filter through 3,000 available job listings per day, across the country. We as recruitment professionals, know where to look to get the latest and greatest availabilities, which may not mean signing on to Career builder, and creating a daily alert. There are thousands of smaller job boards available, targeting niche industries, that may not advertise on Career builder, due to the massive amounts of unqualified applicants flood the in-boxes of recruiters who use this technology…and the rest of the world…that has access to it!

JOB-CAST gets on average, about 50 requests a day from fellow Tweeters that would like to utilize our service to broadcast their open availability. Without costly advertising, banners, radio spots or commercials, we’ve successfully built our brand on a good thought, a free service, a  need for such a service to exist, then of course, purely word of mouth. And it works!

As twitter unveils it’s Job board, it will be a work in progress, and quite possibly something that will not fully catch on, or become automated…for another 12 months, or quite possibly the next 2-5 years. Connecting the right audience to the proper feed will be crucial, considering timing of tweet, demo-graphical information, location, and measurement of success. But the true success will lie in it’s nearly real-time capability, and accessibility. Job seekers who follow specific Tweet-boards, will have nearly real time access, ( even if currently employed) to the hottest job availabilities around them, and can learn and connect on a much deeper level, before even scheduling an interview. I think that twitter for jobboards may not necessarily entirely replace jobboards all together,..but it will certainly give them a run for their money, and attract a much more social media savvy flavor of talent…in minutes…and 140 characters or less.

Would you use Twitter to find or Post a job?