Social recruiting is becoming a little bit of a smokescreen at the moment. Everyone wants to talk about it, hoping that it is going to be the equivalent of a recruitment magic trick. Yes, it is a revelation and it is a recruitment game changer (in my opinion), but ONLY if have have all the other pieces of your recruitment strategy in place as well.

What is the point in doing the most funky, exciting and brilliant Facebook, Twitter or YouTube candidate attraction campaigns just because you think you should, or (worse) because your'e advertising agency told you to do it (because THEY need YOUR revenue).

The fundamentals need to be in place first.

I was reading a great new blog - The Recruitment Magpie -  by Emma Mirrington from the SKY recruitment team yesterday, and a post that she had written really emphasizes this very well. She references some of her early recruitment career learnings from working for the company Unilever, when managing large recruitment campaigns.
They may have been a few years ago, but they still hold true today, and are as applicable for all recruitment - probably even more so currently, as the demand for talented people is on the increase again. The steps Emma recommends are:

1. Approach – make sure you define your proposition and plan your strategy
2. Awareness – create a teaser to encourage awareness before you go straight into the job specific advertising
3. Attract – On and offline advertising depending where your target market is
4. Advice – Take a consultative approach to your candidates throughout the selection process
5. Apply – Give assurance and manage expectations during the process
6. Accept – Instill excitement, make sure your candidates cannot wait to join
7. Advocate – Use your successful candidates to act as ambassadors for you (both internally and externally)

These all apply to social recruiting as well, as they are about engaging with your candidates, and getting hands on in the process with them. This of course can be done via a number of the social media channels.

Remember though, have somewhere to send them to, such as a good career site or suitable landing pages on your website (if you have no career site) ............ otherwise you really will be wasting your time and money!

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