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!

So why do you like using social networks like Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn? Is it for work, a recruiting tool, social recruiting or just staying in contact with friends and colleagues?
Someone asked me that the other day, so I thought I would share my answers with you. It would be great to hear your reasons why social networks are good for you (please post in comments)
Why do I like using social networks?:

1. It started as a curiosity - a sort of 'what is all the hype about' approach. I started with LinkedIn 8  years ago, using it as a tool for my recruitment business. Then Facebook and Twitter followed - and as a person that likes to build relationships for business etc I became an evangeliser very quickly when I saw how great these sites are for that.
2. They are all great for business. I have now generated over £150k's worth of business directly from people reading this blog over the last three years. I find that I use LinkedIn, Facebook and particularly Twitter for building new business relationships and identifying new opportunities. I have met some fantastic contacts on these sites, that moved offline that I would never have got access to otherwise.
3. Fonts of knowledge. They really are a tremendous source of mind blowing amounts of information. The recruitment /HR/ consulting space is well catered fro on all the networks, and the links, websites, ebooks, interviews, product knowledge etc etc that people post on these sites is just brilliant.
4. Sharing. It gives me the chance to really share information tips, experiences, contacts etc with a whole diversity of people around the globe. This blog is read worldwide, and I love being able to share my opinions and advice with many people - and the social networks just help me do that. Having comment and conversation in countries such as America, India, Canada, New Zealand and all of Europe of course really does make me feel good, and just drives me on further, to write and share more on my blog.
5. Superb recruiting tools. (No.6 explains why) Were they invented for recruiters?
6. Access to people you wouldn't normally get anywhere close to. Social media has broken down many barriers within the business world (and the celebrity world of course), and it allows 'normal' individuals to enter dialogue with high profile individuals that previously would have been out of bounds. Of course you still have to go about it in the right way, and make contact in a correct and respectful way, but at least you have a chance to engage with them. They may of course choose to ignore you, but hey, they did that before didn't they??
7. Engaging. Contrary to what people think about social networking - they are very engaging, and it both allows and facilitates conversation, relationships and opportunity.
8. It is fun!!

So, come on then, why do you like using social networks then?

 

Things were really looking good, expectations were high, and quite literally, they were really top of the tree. So everything they had been told by their teachers and their parents - they could be anything they want - really looked like coming true.

Then of course their world simply fell off the side of a cliff - the recession happened and the same companies simply stopped hiring gen Y'ers, in favour of 'experienced' workers being laid off from other companies. The reason? - purely money........... jobs were needed and out of work people were lowering their salary demands....fast!  And of course, as soon as they arrived into the price bracket of the companies that were still hiring, it was always obvious what they were going to do.

Move forward two years and into the 21st century.

We have started to see upturns in the recruitment market, with many companies recruiting again - recruiters are reporting profitable results month on month, and there is even talk about skill shortages again (well actually they have always been there, but that is another blog!).

But what of this 'forgotten generation' that people were referring to? Where are they now in the big equation of the job market?

Well, I for one, think they are in demand again by many companies.

Why?

Well, for a number of reasons:

1. They have no baggage. They will not be tainted by other exposure to other company practices - they are the work virgins. Now while the demand through recruiters is for 'experience' , I believe many organisations are now bringing in people and preparing to invest time and money in these new employees, for the array of new social (network not interpersonal!) skills they can bring to an organisation

I am seeing it every day with both large and small companies. They know that these gen Y'ers needs jobs and careers, and even though there is a realism that these same gen Y'ers will probably leave in a couple of years to further their careers, they recognise that for the two years they are there, they will (hopefully) get some good employees. In fact many are using these gen Y'ers to bring the social experience and knowledge to their companies.

2. They bring social media into organisations. It is well accepted that the gen Y'ers are very much the age of social networking - they started it and they have been active in them as it as been such a global phenomenon. Many companies are recruiting gen Y'ers just for these skills to ensure they are not left behind. This is happening more and more each week.

3. They have been burned. Remember all those employees that took pay cuts to join them? Well, surprise surprise, they want that salary back and are now hopping and jumping all the way to new jobs. I call them stepping stoners. I have no issue with what they have done, but some companies were very naive when they hire them!

4. Money. Let's be fair - in a post-recessionary world, costs and certainly salary budgets do count. Gen Y'ers will unfortunately be starting at the bottom of the ladder (most of the time anyway) and therefore don't command the salaries of others......yet!

Of course, many out there reading this will cite all the graduates not finding jobs, and I can't argue with that. But there are jobs out there, there are employers that are again willing to dip into the gen Y talent pool and there is an acceptance that gen Y can now offer the corporate world something, again!

But, if you disagree - let me know. Your experiences may well differ.

Legal: I know I have given legal the joker card, but that is just to make some of them smile (they are a bit boring after all!). Seriously though, in the fast moving social world, good legal advice is critical.

So what about the leader of the pack?

Well to be honest, it doesn't really matter as long as they are passionate about the project (so that rules out IT then!) and they are able to manage the different parties and stakeholders accordingly.

Social media is about collaboration and communication - the only problem being that in some companies, the communication is actually the biggest obstacle!

Before I explain my thinking, let me first give you a biology lesson. Hands up if you studied biology at school? Well if you did, then you will know what symbiosis is and how it works - if you didn't let me just explain:
A symbiotic relationship between two organisms means that they need on each other to survive. An example from nature being the clownfish (above - you might know it better as Nemo!!). They feed on small invertebrates which otherwise potentially could harm the sea anemone (the habitat they live in), and the fecal matter from the clownfish provides nutrients to the sea anemone.

Ok, biology lesson over now.

Working with many companies on the subject of social recruiting / social media in recruitment, it is becoming very obvious that that they want to make it work. However, many are still failing to understand that for it to be successful, they NEED to make their social recruiting a symbiotic relationship.
Their social media interactions will die if they don't have the engagement of their followers, fans, readers, community or group members. Yes they can keep 'feeding' the online world with their content, but unless their followers, fans, readers, community or group members provide them with the 'nutrients' of comments, engagement and communication then their social recruiting strategy will simply die!

Equally, from the other perspective, if companies are not 'feeding' their communities with interesting, relevant and regular information then they facilitating their own demise themselves - 'starved' communities will simply go elsewhere for their 'nourishment'!

Remember, a symbiotic relationship is one where both parties need each other to survive. Social recruiting, for me, is a perfect example of this.

Now I have got you thinking biologically, I am going to change the word, and see if it makes further sense to you.

Take symbiosis and replace it with the word engage. Now you will see where I am coming from.

You go down the route of setting up a social recruiting strategy and engage with your followers, fans, readers, community or group members. This provides the two way communication you need to make it all a success:

Failure to engage will kill your social recruiting strategy dead:

Yesterday, I was given a unique and funny reason as to why someone had to postpone a meeting with me (today) - more of that in a moment.  It reminded me of what for me is still my best excuse EVER (in 20+ years in recruitment) for someone not  going to work. The question is can you better it?

The first - yesterday - is funny, and I have to say I am still laughing......

.......I told you it was unique!!

Now, can you beat that reason for candidates not turning up, for you?

Every couple of weeks I like to share with you an excellent infographic on the social space. Today I have got a really good one for you called, The Do's and Don'ts of Social Media for Business, and to be honest it needs little dialogue from me, because of it's simplicity.

This was originally posted on The Steel Method website. Word of warning if you visit their site - switch the speakers down as they have a an autoplaying sales pitch video!

This is excellent isn't it? What do you think?

Twitter is proving to be a very useful tool for the recruitment industry - that is when it sorts its servers out!

Option 1: Set up your own specific Twitter job channel and send your vacancies to it via the excellent  Twitterfeed. This is very effective IF you are transparent with the aim of the channel AND you are successful in making the target candidates aware of it. This is the failing of most companies that try this route. But I use this method with clients and it can work very effectively indeed.

They ensure the correct information appears in the 'tweet' to maximise the opportunity, and they shorten the url link back to the specific jobs on your website, using the trackable bit.ly tool.

The big difference between the two options is cost. While option 1 is free, it does need to be set up properly and marketed accordingly, which may be an issue for many companies. Option 2 - Tweetjobs - is not free, but it is a very cost effective way of distributing your jobs to candidates.

Tweetjobs is a service well worth considering both for recruitment agencies and corporates. If you are interested, you can contact contact @james_mayes via Twitter or via email.

PLEASE NOTE: I have no affiliation to the Tweetjobs product in any way, I just believe it to be a great service that is worth sharing with you.

There is also another excellent product in this space called TwitJobSearch, which I have written about before on this blog, and which for me is STILL the best job search engine on Twitter.

There is one question that employers want to know when discussing social recruiting, and it crops up time and time again:

3) Companies deciding not to be using social recruiting methods, use the answers to justify why they stay away (a good example is the 2009 Facebook fear campaigns in the press)

This is currently a very important area for employers, as their 'employer brand' is fast becoming very key indeed, in the transparent and viral nature of social media. HR Directors AND Marketing Directors should now be equally concerned with the power of their brand, because as with product and services, prospective employees are the lifeblood of any organisation.

There is a very interesting trend report carried out recently by Potentialpark Communications- a global research company on employer branding and online recruitment - that asked 16,000 job seekers across Germany, France, China, the US and the UK, that looked at social media in the decision making process of job seekers.

Vanessa Meyer who works for Potentialpark and helped produce the findings of the report, gives her opinion, "when the companies that chose not to have a social recruiting strategy in 2010, see a rise in the percentage of job seekers that look for career related information and opportunities through social media next year, the decision to go forward with a social recruiting strategy will be irrefutable. The upside of waiting till 2011 is that these companies will have a much faster learning curve than those who went in first and accumulated the "know-how" of social recruiting the hard way - through trial and error."

One of the findings of their report is really interesting to me, and I guess not that surprising - career sites are still HUGELY important in the recruitment process for employers. The graphic below from the Potentialpark trend report proves this:

 

Companies need to integrate social media into their career sites, making them user friendly (not something many career sites have taken into consideration, in my opinion!) and use social networks as traffic drivers to them. Here is the potential problem for me, with this: social media is 'sexy', fun, real-time and the future of communications on the web, but many career sites are just plain awful and don't portray the employer brand very well at all.
So you attract candidates via Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, you get them excited about you as a brand and an employer........................then they land on your career site....................DOH! Too complex, over engineered, boring and no well thought out user experience quickly send them away again! The result is that your employer brand takes a beating!! And the double whammy is that with social media being so viral and transparent, bad experiences get shared around!!

Another really important fact from the trend survey - and remember this is from 16,000 job seekers, is the reliance on the internet (and search of course) as an online information tool.

 

With search engines like Google and Bing now fully indexing the social networks like Twitter, Facebook (company pages) and LinkedIn so effectively, it is absolutely imperative that companies have a full social footprint to ensure the job seekers find your company. No longer is it sufficient just to rely on SEO on your career site to drive traffic, you need to be looking at a wide range of social channels. 

Many people are starting to turn against the phrase, 'social recruiting'. Many people still don't understand it, and the implications for recruitment strategies.
But, whether you want to call it 'social recruiting', 'social media in recruitment' or even 'social media recruiting' - one thing is certain, organisations who think that social media isn't for them will definitely be left behind over the next couple of years. It won't replace your current recruitment strategy, but social media will definitely become intrinsically linked to both you employer brand and your recruitment strategy.

 
Facebook have finally crossed the divide into recruitment with a new app called Work For Us. This new app allows companies to post jobs and receive applications via Facebook. This really is where recruitment meets with a social network to become social recruiting!

Obviously, some companies are going to get a bit twitchy with this concept, and will of course want to drive traffic back to their career sites.  But for some companies they may want to reconsider their recruitment strategy full stop, and send people to a fully social recruitment page. Many company fan pages already have jobs fed through to then via RSS feeds, which is free and trackable, so they will probably not be interested in this approach. But, for the many 1000,s of SME's out there, I am sure this would be of interest, and will only grow, surpassing the 2000+ companies that are already using it to good effect.

I don't know the answer to this, but judging by the speed the Facebook juggernaut is moving, I wouldn't want to bet against them stealing a big share of the market.

What do you think? Would your company use an app like this on Facebook? (why wouldn't you, more to the point?) Does this make you reconsider Facebook as a potential bigger part of your recruitment strategy?

 

This post was originally inspired by an an article I read within one of the LinkedIn groups I am a member of. Then the inspiration took a mad turn....... after I posted an innocent question on Twitter this morning, asking what recruitment myths are a load of rubbish!!

In the original article, Rebecca Sargeant, talks about the biggest summer rumour of all - know one recruits in the summer.  Obviously, we all know that while it slows down in the summer, recruitment doesn't stop just because of the holiday season - after all not everyone has the same two weeks off do they?

Thanks to all the people that responded on Twitter today, because it has just expanded some of the things I was going to say! So here is a comprehensive list of recruitment myths that are complete bunkum:

1. No-one recruits in the summer. Read the post by Rebecca, as she is right. But the verdict from me is that it is bunkum - recruitment slows down and decision makers are hard to track down, but it still goes on!
2. Cover letters make a big difference. No they don't!! The only people that will tell you different are the career coaches that write them for a living, and all the 'older' candidates who do them, because they always have. If the content is good enough for a 'super' cover letter then put it in the CV!
3. Attaching (or embedding) a photo of yourself on a CV will enhance your application. For the models maybe (and maybe the entertainment industry), but for the vast majority of roles it may even have an adverse effect. (Check out my previous blog post to see what I mean.) My advice, don't do it!
4. Recruiters will call you back about a job. (via @andybold) This is so wrong but it happens - they promise to call you back about a job, but they never do. Don't take it personally they don't call anyone back!! Just make sure you call them instead!
5. Recruitment is easy and anyone can do it. (via @simonlewisomj and @nataliejayw )NO IT ISN'T >> as much as people think recruiters have an easy job making loads of ££££, they are sadly mistaken. Good recruiters are much sought after, because of their vast range of skills. Bad recruiters lack many core skills including communication, listening and relationship building. They should re-train as estate agents or car salesman where they would be better suited!!
6. There is a war for talent. (via @mervyndinnen) Mervyn, obviously believes this is a myth - the only myth I would like to de-bunk is that the war for talent has never stopped - it has always been hard to find good people (SEE No.5)
7. Recruiters are heartless sales people. (via @nataliejayw) & @callumsaunders She is right they are not (well not all of them anyway!) There are many that will listen, help and advise job seekers without having to be asked. I for one have taken the time to help as many people as I could, with free and useful tips and advice about finding a new job. A good number of recruiters do actually care.
   
8. Recruitment is just a sales business. (via @mervyndinnen) It is a sales business, of course, but it is so much more than that, and just because you can sell a product, doesn't mean you will succeed in dealing with the most unique product of all - one that answers back!!
9. Recruiters work on commission and therefore are only concerned about money. (via @callumsaunders) This is a biggy! Many recruiters are motivated by many other things, not just the money they can earn. Yes of course it comes into it, but many are driven by achievement and satisfaction as well.
10. Social media will change recruitment for ever. (via @alcartwright & @garyfranklin ) They both believe that it is over hyped and that recruitment via social media channels won't fundamentally change recruitment. (I actually disagree, I think it has done already - but that is another day's post).
11. LinkedIn is the holy grail for resourcing. (via @jamesswift) Absolutely. There is so much more to resourcing than relying on one channel - however good it is. Just don't forget your own databases and the work you have done to build your own candidate communities - they are vital to the lifeblood of it.
12. Recruitment is a complex process that needs managing by experts. (via @grahamsalisbury ) Recruitment is a straightforward process as Graham says, but while experts aren't needed, competent recruitment professionals are. Certainly over-complication is not needed.
13. Online recruitment will take over the role of recruitment agencies. (via @keithpotts ) Complete load of trash - they work hand in hand together, end of story!!
14. There is never enough talent. (via @garyfranklin) Rubbish - there is always enough talent - you just need to know where to look!!
15. Recruitment consultants generally add enough value to justify the fee. (via @grahamruddick) The recession has proved that many companies have seen through some of the crap service some of the agencies have been giving their clients. No longer will agencies get away with just post adds on jobboards, giving then the best four candidates and charging a full fee.<
16. A sourcer is a junior recruiter. (via @thesourceress) This is such a simple response - they are not!! They are a separate and sought after stand alone skill.
17. Placing a job spec for a recruitment advert will do.  (via @andsomepeople )No it won't - it is just damn lazy and short sighted! You need to write different types of advert copy for different mediums.
18. Recruiters are brand and HR experts as well. (via @mattalder) Why would they be? Just because you work in recruitment, it doesn't make you automatically qualified to be a brand, marketing or HR expert.
19. One man band recruitment companies are cowboys. (via @cloudninerec) This is complete rubbish - many of the best consultants out there work for themselves and provide a superb service to their clients. It is the service not the size that counts.
20. Recruiters are as bad as estate agents. I absolutely hate this general sweeping statement that I hear from people. In every industry there are good and bad examples of poor performers. Judge recruiters by your own experiences, don't be a lemming and jump on this bandwagon. There are plenty of good recruiters and estate agents out there, you just need to find the right one for you!

Well there you go - some for to agree with and some, no doubt , you will disagree with! Please do, as this is what it is all about. The debate starts here (well actually in the comments below!)

And of course if I have missed any out, then please tell me below!!

Last week I saw a tweet on Twitter from SocialHonesty, that really resonated with me with regards to recruitment. She summed up the essence of the changes brought about by the 'magic words' social recruiting.

I have taken the tweet and made it graphical (below). Having met with a good number of recruitment companies over the last few months, I can say with any doubt, that many recruiters are still definitely pre-social recruiting! Right or wrong, that's where the majority are. 

When will Recruiters realise that there are great resources out there in the world of social media like LinkedIn (still many recruiters are not using it properly - some not at all!!), Twitter, Facebook and Google, that can be used to really improve the recruitment process. Social recruiting isn't a fad anymore, it is real and it is here right now!!

It doesn't mean that other channels like job boards are finished, they are not. It also doesn't mean that you forsake every other recruitment channel for social media channels, because they still all work, and they very much part of the mix. But, social media channels should become a valuable addition to your recruitment armoury - not next month or next year, but right now!

By next year, social recruiting will just become a normal part of recruiting new people, and the word 'social recruiting' will probably be dropped from conversation, reverting to just plain old 'recruiting' again. 

If you are still in pre-social recruiting mode, I would be interested to know why you haven't made the step forward yet? Maybe you could share your reasons in the comments below?

Blogs now, are so SEO (search engine optimisation) friendly, there are now many more website being built on the blog platforms of Wordpress and Typepad (my platform of choice for my Sirona Consulting and Sirona Social Media websites). I have written before that in my opinion a blog should be your social media mothership, acting as the hub for all your social media activities. So, they really are an important part of your social armoury.

So, you write a blog post on your blog, but what happens when you have pressed 'publish'? What happens then and where does your blog go?

Once you have written it and published it, your blog post is crawled, indexed, mined, scraped, republished, and propagated throughout the Web. Within minutes, if you’ve written about a timely and noteworthy topic, a small army of bots will get the word out to anyone remotely interested, from fellow bloggers to corporate marketers.

Well, the absolutely superb infographic below shows exactly what the journey of a blog post is (you will need to click on the image to expand it):

The graphic originally featured in Wired, and I think you will agree it is excellent.

Over the course of my career in recruitment I have both worked with and met hundreds and hundreds of recruitment consultants. It is my industry and I am passionate about people and companies doing it right. So when I see first hand the complete and utter load of b******s that floods out of the mouths of (seemingly more and more) 'so-called' recruiters then it really winds me up!