Why more recruiters should be using Google Plus

I know it starts to feel a bit overwhelming when you constantly feel like you’re obliged to sign up to the newest social

networking site in an attempt to stay in touch with social media trends. But let’s face it, Google Plus isn’t really “new” anymore, so if you aren’t a user yet, you are already being left behind.

Let’s discuss why:

First of all, Google is a global corporation, specialising (and dominating) in Internet-related services and products. If that doesn’t suggest to you that they know what they’re doing with Google Plus in the social media space, then I don’t know what would.

For recruiters, it’s doing wonders.

“Circles are awesome” – that they are. Google Plus’s Circles allow you to organize your contacts. And organize efficiently. Which is what puts it in the “recruiter-friendly-social-networking” category. Circles are essentially folders where you take all the contacts you want to use and file them neatly into their own folder. This plays nicely to the fact that as recruiters we tend to share and communicate different information to different people, in different ways. This allows us a respectable amount of privacy and control.

And just last December, Google Plus took Circles to the next level of excitement, with Communities. It’s a forum-like feature that allows us to join groups based on industries, hobbies, interests, etc. It allows people with similar lifestyles and interests to connect, discuss, and chat in real time – uh, “hangout”, if you will. It’s a great way to attract candidates into one pool and equally as good at keeping us recruiters up-to-date with trends.

Like any savvy brand (think Apple or Microsoft ), Google has pushed all its services and products into a neat little integrated package, with each link directly and working with each other. For example, Google Plus with Gmail, Google Docs and even our beloved Chrome web browsers. This means we log in on one site and all our candidate information and data, contacts and even search history, is accessible wherever you login, whether it’s on your own device or not. They call it: Data Liberation. A great, simple touch.

Google Plus has also really hit the mark with Hangouts as it allows us to have real-time group conversations in a professional, online space. Not only this, but you can share calendars with those in your circles too. So it saves us time in contacting and coordinating multiple people. And we all know how excited us recruiters get about anything that alludes to saving time.

It would be silly not to note the fact that Google Plus’s search feature is a big benefit. Google was obviously built on the premise of web search, so the strength of search plays out across the entire group of services. But within Google Plus in particular, it allows for easy search and tracking of people, candidate and company profiles.

And what really stands out for me is the idea that once you find people you want to connect with, there’s none of this trivial requesting, accepting, approving or declining. It’s simple and professional. There are ‘add, move or remove’ options for your circles and that’s as simple as it needs to be.

Of course Google Plus is spectacular and feels like it had us recruiters in mind when it was developing; allowing us to do our jobs just that little bit better. But what we really seem to be missing is the vast scope of people using it – 100 million users. Not bad Google Plus. But we can do better.

I feel like it’s all there, ready to roll out into something significant for our industry, but we are still waiting for everyone to come to the party. I can’t put candidates in my circles and invite hiring managers to Hangouts if they’re not aboard the Google Plus train yet.

So let’s get up to speed. Recruiters who were quick on the uptake of Linkedin have been rewarded with a solid network and I dare say it could be the case for Google Plus too. Spread the word, it’s here for the taking.

Comment by Ryan Mulrooney on May 8, 2013 at 2:53pm: The issues that I have found with Google+ is their upkeep is poor. It is very hard to get a review posted and even harder to get an inflammatory review removed. Based on how effective G+ has worked for me, I am not sure that I would invest my time and recruiting resources into it at this time or any time in the future. Very well written blog post though.

-Ryan

Comment by Bill Vick on May 8, 2013 at 4:30pm: A timely post. I'm finding the engagement on G+ higher than LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook. The demographics are also more in keeping with most recruiters niches as well. LinkedIn is still the go to guy for pure networking and finding but if you're serious about your business G+ is a must.

Comment by Ryan Leary on May 8, 2013 at 5:45pm: Bill, I think that you make a great point: "if you're serious about your business G+ is a must.". I agree. There are a few nice recruiting tools new to the market that leverage this same functionality.

Thanks for the Amanda.

Comment by Jeanna Zivalich on May 8, 2013 at 11:34pm: Thanks for sharing, Amanda. Good information. I'm learning a bit more about Google + and hope to be using it consistently.

Comment by Chris Wessell on May 10, 2013 at 7:38am: What are you finding best to post on Google+? Besides jobs and recruiting related articles, anything in particular getting more engagement?

Comment by Shane McCusker on May 12, 2013 at 6:55am: Hi Amanda,

I really like Google Plus and see massive benefits to recruiters. I'm running a webinar on it later this week and have been researching the very many different ways it is being used. It is perhaps a more complex platform than some of the other social sites and does take some thinking about to understand the subtleties of how to use it to communicate and source. That said, because of this complexity, there is real scope to leverage it in ways that the casual user will not be able to.

My Webinar is on Thursday, I'll be using a Google Hangout and will no doubt post the recording on RecruitingBlogs for anyone who may be interested. For anyone wanting to watch it live and follow the twitter stream, there is more info on my blog page www.intel-sw.com/blog

Shane

Comment by Will Thomson on May 13, 2013 at 9:50pm: Hi Amanda, I was weary of Google plus when it first came out, but I am noticing it is picking up huge steam. I like it and its functionality. Has anyone else seen a decline in their LinkedIn views? I think it is because of Google Plus and Twitter.

Comment by Will Thomson on May 13, 2013 at 9:51pm: Bill, I like your comment also.

Comment by Raja on May 17, 2013 at 3:00am: I like the comment as it worked for me

Comment by Andrew Watson on May 22, 2013 at 5:21am: Hello Amanda! This is really an amazing idea. G+ has various options connecting people. It has sharing option, chatting option, connecting others via circle option. It is really a great media for connecting people socially. After reading this post I do agree with you. If I am not mistaking, offshore IT staffs providing companies will also be able to contact with their clients as well as their resources. Let me know your thoughts..Thanks for sharing this valuable idea with us. Keep sharing......:)