As our knowledge and learning about Social Recruiting continues to evolve, it might be tempting to simply try to mimic the success of the emerging case studies. However, these case studies should be used not as turn-by-turn directions but more strategically as the foundation for future success. As Wayne Gretzky famously described his hockey strategy, “I skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been.” For someone described as the best hockey player of all time, despite being undersized, this is not bad advice to follow.

Continuous Improvement
The companies that have taken an early lead in Social Recruiting are there because of their willingness to dive in and learn for themselves about how to extract value from the changing landscape. These companies are continuing to experiment with ways of gaining an additional advantage in successfully recruiting talent for their organization. As a result, if your company simply tries to mirror what these companies are currently doing, your organization will remain at a disadvantage to the continuous improvement of leading organizations.

Predictive Lessons
Companies that have used social media for recruiting are generous in describing how they have used these tools. When a company describes their success, it is important to think about, “What is the underlying reason why that worked?” From this, one can reasonably predict what new tool or new strategic use of these tools would also have a reasonable chance of success. This is how you start to either gain ground or leapfrog the competition. In the future, no organization knows for sure what recruiting strategies will be most successful. But, there are indicators that can help direct future initiatives.

Internalizes Knowledge
In order for your organization to be successful in using these new tools, the members of your recruiting team have to understand deeply why they are beneficial for both employers and candidates. At this point, your company is in position to effectively develop a Social Recruiting strategy based on reasonable rationale about what you think will be useful for target candidates. Since each employer offers a unique value proposition to their prospective candidates, it is important to be able to leverage this internal knowledge base and insight into the functionality of these tools in ways that your competitors can not.

If your organization is simply waiting for the next case study to be released, then you will never get to the deep insights necessary to be successful over the long term. The recruiting landscape will continue to evolve for both employers and candidates. The companies that have used Social Recruiting successfully understand their target candidates. They have determined that these tools are better able to help them recruit prospective candidates than other tools. If your organization wants to get to this a similar level of competence, read the case studies for foundational knowledge. With this baseline, design a Social Recruiting strategy that will get your organization to where the puck is going, not where it already is. By the time you catch up to where the puck is, new data for yet to be published case studies is already being developed. Will your organization continue to be a leader or follower in the shift to successfully recruiting talent using Social Recruiting?

–Omowale Casselle (@mysensay)

__________________________________

About the Author: Omowale Casselle is the co-founder and CEO of mySenSay, a social recruiting community focused on connecting talented college students with amazing entry-level employment opportunities. Our solution integrates social media tools, real-time web-based communication, and intelligent analytics to enable employers and students to discover, interact, and connect with each other.

__________________________________