To those who have embraced Social Media, what is working best for you?

I'd love to hear some tips and strategies froom those who are having success with Social Media, and by success I mean new business or placement activity that came about via Social Media (aside from the obvious recruiting candidates off linkedin).

I'll be the first to admit there's a lot I don't understand yet about Social Media. I'm out there a bit, my jobs are automatically posted to Twitter and I add the occasional comment or link to article of interest, but Twitter is where I spend the least time, so I am sure there are tips for how I could better maximize the time I do spend there.

So, please share any success stories you've had, and suggestions for ways we can better incorporate social media into our recruiting businesses.

Thank you!

Pam

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David DeCapua on February 13, 2011 at 11:30am

The two most important words in recruiting / search today are "social media". Recruiters new to the profession immediately embrace this powerful technology, leaving those of us "seasoned" pros no choice except to learn or find a new vocation. It reminds me of the initial resistance to computers, the fax machine and email. Unfortunately technology continues to evolve at light speed, effectively forcing us to get on board or fall behind. The good news is that it's really not that hard to learn - you just need to make the effort. As a recruiter with 15 years of experience, I strongly suggest you figure out how to incorporate video into your presentations. Virtually every website in development today is inclusive of video. Within the next couple of years there is no way that job seekers will still rely on paper - they will use digital video with links to social media and more. You can adopt this technology today and be seen as a leader. My firm has been on board for six months and video has been a complete game changer for us. Then again, I'm completely biased.... :)

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Permalink Reply by Suzanne Levison on February 13, 2011 at 3:24pm

I utilize all social networks more for research. I have connected with a few prospects~Client company Exec's as well as candidate. Too, I like to stay on top of my industry "who's who", who's moved, etc. Not sure that I see value in posting positions.

For me, as an early adapter of social media, I consider all of the social media main sites as options/ secondary tools.

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Permalink Reply by Sylvia Dahlby on February 13, 2011 at 4:32pm

Bravo Morgan, my sentiments exactly - don't fall for the hype. You nailed it with the comment that social media needs to "blend into your activity because its a free tool that can help brand you, your searches, and your reputation - and then you can turn around and use it as a recruiting tool as well. But always focus on what is right for your desk."

I'd like to add that the idea of "social media" IS NOT NEW to recruiting. For example, Recruiting Blogs itself is an online social network of like-minded professionals since before Twitter & Facebook took off as networking & recruiting tools. Many of my contacts here were once part of the old Yahoo newsgroups, and other communities such as ERE or technical specialty bulletin boards for networking & sourcing.

The point is that recruiting/staffing professionals have ALWAYS gravitated to the communities where the talent is (or where their prospective customers are), whether that's online or not. Social media has simply given more MEDIA CHOICES for sourcing, branding, promoting jobs, business development etc. And like all media choices, it's just another option & tool in the shed. Use accordingly.

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Permalink Reply by pam claughton on February 13, 2011 at 8:23pm

David,

Can you explain more about how you are using video? And how it has been a 'game-changer'?

thx,

Pam

David DeCapua said:

The two most important words in recruiting / search today are "social media". Recruiters new to the profession immediately embrace this powerful technology, leaving those of us "seasoned" pros no choice except to learn or find a new vocation. It reminds me of the initial resistance to computers, the fax machine and email. Unfortunately technology continues to evolve at light speed, effectively forcing us to get on board or fall behind. The good news is that it's really not that hard to learn - you just need to make the effort. As a recruiter with 15 years of experience, I strongly suggest you figure out how to incorporate video into your presentations. Virtually every website in development today is inclusive of video. Within the next couple of years there is no way that job seekers will still rely on paper - they will use digital video with links to social media and more. You can adopt this technology today and be seen as a leader. My firm has been on board for six months and video has been a complete game changer for us. Then again, I'm completely biased.... :)

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Jolly on February 14, 2011 at 12:07am

Anyone had any luck using Facebook. So far we have been a bit reluctant to try it for recruiting, feeling that maybe thats crossing the boundry into peoples personal space. Any success/disaster stories there?

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Permalink Reply by David DeCapua on February 14, 2011 at 6:19am

Hi Pam: Happy to elaborate. My firm is like every other search, recruiting and staffing firm out there - there was nothing unique or special (other than the obvious - great people, hard working etc. etc.). My professional group (60K-150K jobs) resisted video technology like crazy - they wanted no part. Finally they decided to try it... Guess what? Calls got returned - people started talking and placements happened faster. Hiring managers had never seen such technology and found that it saves a ton of time. Who wouldn't want to see and hear a candidate, prior to an interview? I hope this helps :)

pam claughton said:

David,

Can you explain more about how you are using video? And how it has been a 'game-changer'?

thx,

Pam

David DeCapua said:

The two most important words in recruiting / search today are "social media". Recruiters new to the profession immediately embrace this powerful technology, leaving those of us "seasoned" pros no choice except to learn or find a new vocation. It reminds me of the initial resistance to computers, the fax machine and email. Unfortunately technology continues to evolve at light speed, effectively forcing us to get on board or fall behind. The good news is that it's really not that hard to learn - you just need to make the effort. As a recruiter with 15 years of experience, I strongly suggest you figure out how to incorporate video into your presentations. Virtually every website in development today is inclusive of video. Within the next couple of years there is no way that job seekers will still rely on paper - they will use digital video with links to social media and more. You can adopt this technology today and be seen as a leader. My firm has been on board for six months and video has been a complete game changer for us. Then again, I'm completely biased.... :)

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Permalink Reply by David Jansons on February 14, 2011 at 8:10am

I am in the same position as you and spend about 30 mins a week updating our Facebook page and sending the odd tweet. I cannot say I have directly made a placement from social networking but can say through studying our Website stats there has been a dramatic increase in site traffic. I have also observed an increased amount of direct applications sincing moving into social networking i.e not from job postings on job boards.

In summary I am sure it is worth doing but cannot pinpoint a direct placement through its use.

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Permalink Reply by Jacob Rhoades on February 17, 2011 at 1:22pm

We just posted on our blog about this very subject! In short, we believe it to be key and very important, especially in a market like Seattle.

<ahem>

"David Meerman Scott (www.twitter.com/dmscott) prefers to call social media “Real Time Marketing”, which in that respect I think its a definite plus for recruitment, no matter the size. It has to become a normal part of your recruiting activities. You put together marketing slicks, you put job ads up online, and you create a presence online to attract candidates and clients at the right time. Its not going to work 99% of the time, but its a matter of being ready when the stars line up.

We hired one of our own HealthcareIT recruiters based on her response to a blog post we wrote and most recently, we’ve had candidates come to us specifically because of tweets we put out announcing one of our local volunteer activities (she happen to follow volunteer threads).

We recently invited David Martin (www.twitter.com/nielsenwire) with Nielsen Media to speak at our headquarters regarding recruiting and social media trends. Its just as useful for the job seeker as it is a recruiter. The video has not gone up yet, but the slide deck is available in case people want to see it – it gives a great idea of where people are spending their time and gives some good insight into not only where people are going, but even when you should post. The problem with real time marketing is its a lot like fishing – you can be in a great spot, but if you throw the line out while the fish aren’t biting, you aren’t going to have any returns!

The slide deck is here: http://www.parkerservices.com/media/65974/speed_series_deck_0208201...

Once the video goes up, we’re going to cut the slides into the vid, so you’ll have the audio to go along with it, but still, some good relevant data."

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Permalink Reply by Chuck Klein on February 17, 2011 at 2:47pm

I would love to hear comments about the use of in-mails in Linkedin.

I have a Talent Finder account on LI which includes a substantial quantity of in-mails, especially since you get them back to use again if the recipient doesn't respond.

While response rates are low, we have made some good contacts and found strong candidates with in-mails. Have others had better/worse experience.

* also how many of you have Talent Finder accounts? If you don't, you have very limited searching capabiities.

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Permalink Reply by Robert Segovia on February 18, 2011 at 1:50pm

Hi Pam,

Some great points already on here. Here is how see it.

   1. Social Media can be an extension of your brand and can offer candidates visibility to your company that may have never considered before. Especially for smaller to mid size companies.
   2. Research tool - I am sometimes amazed the data can find out about companies and individuals in Linkedin. Sometimes just knowing who you want to target is hard enough.
   3. Facebook - yes we know of it as social media site to connect and keep in touch with all your friends. Which is a lot of fun and great. In addition, FB is a platform where many applications are being built on top of it which means their will be a growing number of recruiting applications to connect us from a business and career perspective. I think its important to look at tools such as Branchout, job magic etc.. that are starting to make some headway.
   4. Personally, I think its important to keep up with the trends and be able stay progressive and up to date on the latest sourcing strategies such as social media!

Anyways, great post and some really insightful answers!

Robert Segovia

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Permalink Reply by Heidi on February 18, 2011 at 2:08pm

Pam:

Thanks for starting this post. I defintely found it insightful. It is always nice to hear from other recruiters on how they are using and applying various tools.

Kind regards, Heidi

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Permalink Reply by Paul Alfred on February 18, 2011 at 4:13pm

Nice Post Pam ... I have had a ton of success with Linkedin ... This is how I use LinkedIn to achieve that success:http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profiles/blogs/linkedin-its-unorthod...

In terms of Twitter ... I utilize it strictly as a tool to redirect traffic back to a blog or a LinkedIn update. I use FB in th same way ... If the viewer happens to be a candidate it would be hard for me to tell as I don't check who hits me on LinkedIn from twitter. I am looking into http://tweetmyjobs.com/jobpostings/2312756/displayjob ...