Several of Social Recruiting’s top thought leaders gathered in San Francisco last week at a conference focused on the latest trends in the field.

The roster of experts ranged from corporate talent acquisition executives, to entrepreneurs bringing new technology, to specialists in the latest techniques in Social Recruiting.

photo courtesy @heatherbussing

I combed through pages of notes, and picked awesome quotes that made the biggest impact (in my opinion) during the conference.

The quotes serve as a compass for the recruiting industry, and it’s growing use of technology to attract top talent. You can see the whole conversation at #SRSC for yourself as well.

“Everyone Is A Brand Ambassador, Everyone Is A Recruiter” – @ThisIsLars

Your people are key to whether or not a candidate joins your company. The majority of them are on a mobile device. Embrace it, shape it, don’t fight it.

NPR has made it a core piece of their strategy. And it’s working.

“Top Priority Positions With A Large Talent Pool Are Where You Want To Get Social” –@JohnSumser

Don’t spend your social currency on the purple squirrels and unicorns. Those positions are where you need to “get physical” and do your heavy phone work.

Save your social energy for your “evergreen” positions. Social channels will have a much higher impact on top priority positions where you can engage a large talent pool.

“You Don’t Create Your Employment Brand, Your Candidates And Employees Do” –@ChiHeadhunter

You can quickly see a common theme from the conference. This is the second reference to leveraging your current employees in the first three quotes I selected.

People are at the center of your employment brand. It’s time to embrace it, and use it as your differentiator.

“If Content Is King, Then Relevant Content Is The Ace” – @ChiHeadhunter

photo courtesy of @heatherbussing

The age-old phrase widely associated with Marketing is “content is king”. Recruiting is in the dark ages when it comes to content…but it’s getting better.

The first part of fixing anything is by acknowledging you have a problem, and everyone now knows that job descriptions suck. As social and visual recruiting takes hold, jobs will become increasingly transparent.

Anyone who comes into contact with top candidate has heard about the importance of relevancy. Put the two together, and it all just kind of makes sense doesn’t it?

“An Employee In The Actual Job Communicating Via Social Media With Candidates For A Like Role Proves Most Effective” – @KelleThompson

No one reads the text-laden, compliance-driven job description anymore. What candidates really want is to hear from the folks they would work for or with. Thus, this comment is right on point.

“Your People Are Your Only True Differentiator” – @fishdogs

photo courtesy of @heatherbussing

By now, the theme is clear. The employees of your company are hugely important to recruiting top talent.

That said, it can’t be covered enough. Companies need to give their employees a voice.

Stop being scared of it, and put your people out front. They are already talking about all things work via their mobile device.

Let them point that communication at the people who want to hear it the most…candidates considering employment at your company. 

“A Feature Is Not A Feature Unless Users Use Said Feature” – @williamtincup

The market is flooded with new platforms, technologies, and apps built specifically for recruiting. Many of the coolest apps go by the wayside, being weeded out by the realities of the recruiting process. When a recruiter sees success, they will repeat that formula consistently. That makes a real feature.

“The Greatest Recruiters Consume Failure Faster” - @williamtincup

photo courtesy of @heatherbussing

Great recruiters incorporate failure into the core of what they do. They aren’t afraid of getting out of their comfort zone to try new things.

People often debate the use of Facebook for professional purposes, or crossing the line on Twitter, or revealing too much about their personal lives online.

Great recruiters don’t stress about what people think of them, they adapt. You must be confident in moving forward in order to innovate.

You need to be professional, and you need to be willing to fail.

“Candidates Just Want To Be Loved….Is That So Wrong?” – @crada

It was easy to spot the prevailing theme of the conference…use social media to get all of your employees communicating with candidates. The payoff of having your organization involved in recruiting is an amazing candidate experience. After all, candidates just want to be loved.

We agree.

“Custom Hashtags Drive Candidate Engagement On Twitter” – @garyzukowski

Not only should you empower your employees to participate in the social recruiting process, you also need to give them the right venue. @ThisIsLars gave a great example of using a hashtag campaign to organize the content our employees promote in an organized fashion. Here’s a look at a great example with their #NPRLife campaign:

Top Recruiting Tools We Heard About

In addition to the awesome quotes, we heard buzz about several new tools on the recruiting horizon. Here’s a few we’ll be looking at closely:

1. Vine: It was clear that emcee @DwaneLay was excited about Vine. Maybe it’s not a recruiting tool, maybe it is. We can see it being used as an attention getter with target candidates. The six-second video makes creativity more acceptable, and the need for a fully-produced video. While the concept is new and unproven, we’re also very excited about the potential.

2. Facebook Graph Search: @fishdogs showed screen shots from his early days testing the new function on Facebook. I’m already excited to get my hands on it, but seeing his search results gets me even more amped. It will be a much different experience from sourcing on LinkedIn, and could provide an entirely new way of searching and connecting with top talent.