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Recent research indicates that there is now no such thing as a passive candidate. The vast majority of workers are open to new opportunities or actively searching for a new role. The rise of social media and smartphones has meant that it is much simpler for recruiters to find those looking to switch jobs. What does this mean for the regular jobseeker?
When I graduated and began seeking work my first ports of call were job boards and newspaper adverts (I’m showing my age here). I spent a great deal of time tailoring my CV in Word to upload to job boards or email to employers (bet you thought I was going to say post, I’m not that old) or completing lengthy online application forms. Being fairly well qualified (if I do say so myself), I believe I got a higher response rate than average, something like 20% of my applications resulted in invitations to interview or calls from recruitment agencies.
Some of the interviews I attended were assessment days including group activities and psychometric testing and some were straight interviews with either a single person or panel, but the overriding theme was that whilst my qualifications got me to that initial stage, to progress or be hired I had to demonstrate something more than could be gleaned from my CV – cultural fit, experience, problem-solving skills, etc. – all things that workers will find it easier to demonstrate than a jobseeker.
I attended the event Social Media in Recruitment at London and was dazzled about the whole bunch of information I got. In this first blog, I will write about the three most discussed social networks: LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. I just bundled all the information I got and wrote down a conclusion of all three of them. See here we go...
LinkedIn is the professional network used to look for candidates. The two biggest groups represented on LinkedIn are white collars and young graduates so if that is your target group, get yourself a profile and start engaging! Not all people on LinkedIn are looking for a job, there are also professionals who are just using it as a tool to develop themselves professionally. But why not communicate with them also? One day they might be looking for a job and then you already have build up a relationship of trust with them. If you want to use it as a company, I would suggest to use Company Profile (customized version). Here you can adapt your content to your target group. A sales manager for example will see other content on the career pages as an IT-specialist.
Twitter is noise so this one is for keeping everyone up-to-date about anything you like. As a company you can choose to tweet about jobs or news or maybe both. What is suggested is to use feeds: One for the news and one for jobs. People who do not like to be spammed with jobs, can choose not to see them. One thing you really have to do before starting to post jobs on Twitter is making sure that you have a proper career page. People still have to be attracted to your company after they have left the safe & sexy Twitterpage.
Last but not least, Facebook. I personally always felt a bit withheld to use Facebook professionally but Thursday I was provided with some new insights. What most people do not know is that the Fan Pages of Facebook are indexed by Google. When you set-up a customized Fan page (not that difficult apparently), you optimize the branding of your company. The more fans you have, the higher you will appear in search results. I concluded that Facebook is not necessarily used to look for candidates but that it is best used to increase your brand reputation and make your company more popular. And maybe, who knows, your very cool customized fan page is going to attract lots of talent from Facebook.
So now you know: LinkedIn to look for talent, Twitter to keep everyone up-to-date and Facebook to increase brand reputation.
A few of the highlights from Lisa's presentation follow. Presentations will be available for the delegates via the event website.
Great beginning with Human Being 1.0. Social community was about survival in the Stone Age.
As we moved to the industrial age, business used to be social as business was local. Communication tools did not exist for business to work outside of local area.
But, business got big, went global and the local social element did not scale.
When new comms technologies evolved, business could have two way conversations with their customers. Currently, we have blurred lines between social and business, especially with Social Media sites.
Lisa then showed a nice little film developed to educate the A4E community of 58,000 (to bring people back to work) - on what are social media communities.
Good slide of examples of various communities and technology engines that you can use to build/support communities.
Are the commercial social networks really a community or only a collection of people?
Attracting Talent is not a new Concept
War for talent is still alive and kicking.
What is wrong with old style recruiting? Nothing. All the older media still exist and are being used. New Social Media channels are add-ons.
But what about current recruiting processes? They leave jobseekers cold.
Where do you start to develop a new and better process?
What is the objective?
Where is your Community?
What are you measruiring?
Sodexo - talent community Microsoft - We Still Serve, a US veterans attrraction community
PSA Healthcare
Unbranded community
XBox, reliability engineers needed after a recall, created a long term community of potential employees for Microsoft - experts all in one place on a LinkedIn group.
Good Do's and Don'ts to close
Top 2 tips:
Don't underestimate the time it will take
Be thorough in the selection of your community platform
Let's be honest with each other for a moment. We all know that's easier said than done, sometimes you just have to keep quiet. Sometimes, you have to bite your lip. It's just easier that way.
But then where does that really get you? In the short term it can make sense, even make life easier, but the reality is, without honesty, in the long term we never really improve.
What if you could ask any question you like and get an honest answer? How much easier would that be when it came to making the right decisions?
If that were the case organisations could create even more authentic and transparent employer brands, based on honest employee feedback and opinions.
Recruiters could manage candidate expectations from the offset, delivering the right candidates for the right reasons.
Now I love Facebook; there’s not many days I don’t log on. Facebook is my life in pictures; it’s silly, inane comments that only my friends and family get; it’s me at my rawest: No facade, no show, just me. If you’re my Facebook friend and I’m having a bad day, then you’ll probably hear about it in rather passionate prose… But you know what; I don’t have very many Facebook friends! I won’t befriend anyone I haven’t met, anyone I don’t like, or anyone I think there’s even a remote chance I might work with. And anyone I do befriend gets immediately labelled with one of three privacy levels. It’s not that there’s anything remotely dodgy on there – maybe the odd drunken SingStar photo, or a choice expletive, but nothing condemning. My Mum and Dad are both on there after all! But I don’t want every man and his dog seeing pictures of my life, friends and family! That’s private stuff!
I appreciate that some people use Facebook for recruitment and business. Some with success too… but for me, Facebook is the personal social media tool of choice. LinkedIn is for business; Twitter is for a mix of business, personal branding and pleasure; and Facebook is purely personal. I don’t mind being advertised to on there but pretty please, with cherries and cream, don’t ask me to be your friend if you’re not actually my friend!
I’m totally intrigued about how other people use Facebook though. So many people I know have hundreds of ‘friends’! To what end? And if you use it for business and pleasure then how do you keep the two separate? Do you have separate accounts, a raft of different privacy settings, or do you just keep it clean and not overly personal?
Please share your experiences; I would love to hear them!
The first of the case studies on employer branding. Sabine Josch of the Otto Group, assisted by Milch & Zucker on the brand slides
Again in German, so my apologies for interpretation in advance.
Goal for 2012 to be top three trade employer. Developing new HR campaigns, with Employer Value Proposition, as basis for external communication
This is good structured presentation, on the steps they have taken from Marketing to creative concepts, based on real stories and real experiences and using 'uncommon images', such as the wrinkles around eyes and belly button to hold the text messages. Getting a good laugh - I like these two as presenters, very audience centric.
Next images showing the traveller sitting on suitcases - these are good marketing driven approach, not the common recruitment style images. Will be interested to get the presentation later.
So, after testing campaigns against the EVP, how do you make that concrete approach to advertising? Style, colours, Tag lines, and establish set campaign elements for implementation.
Key points to underpin the approach Personalise: employee as ambassador Be seen as authentic: use real stories which are believable Consistency of brand and image across media and campaigns
Tangible Results are emerging 2007, first improvements in brand ranking in Trendence Make the list of Tope Employers
Relaunched their own career site Fall 2007, Reflect the new branding and add more Web 2.0 features Moved up from 52nd in 2007 to 15th in 2009 in the Potential Park rankings Similar improvements in other rankings
Other initiatives include co-operations with various university and business associations
Now showing video applications - for candidate interviews, need to talk with her about this later
Twitter page is up: Receiving positive feedback from the pages. 895 followers today
Mobile recruiting, sees as necessary to embrace new technologies
Facebook Have a profile page
Video campaigns on YouTube for the company, neat as shows a fun and different approach to overall company branding.
Attending a breakfast seminar today in London, hosted by Totaljobs , featuring Totaljobs marketing research and International Labour market research by the Intelligence Group for The Network
Paul Smith, Group Marketing Director of Totaljobs Group , led off the presentations, after the introductions by John Salt. We will write about the Intelligence Group presentation (which is very impressive) later.
General economic challenges have impacted the job market
Decline in jobs
Increase in jobseeker activity
Google - recruitment query searches up 55% year on year
Advertising spend drops from £1.2 billion to £600 million
Offline decline 50%
Online decrease 30%
Paul projects a modest increase end 2011, early 2012 and online recruitment ad spend will pass offline in 2012
Wow, interesting series of blogs/articles out there on this topic.
I would love to see our blogging and social network experts like An de Jonghe, Ricardo Risamasu, Peter Gold, Bas van de Haterd all leap into this fray.
Check out: Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley Watch , who started this off this week relative to a PR 'expert' who advised on the use of Twitter and Facebook.
Then Jason Gorham has picked it up and run with it as it relates to an 'expert' in digital recruitment advertising.
This topic stream could be related to any type of 'expert consulting' in our and other industries. How many of us who do have the expertise from actually using the products/services/strategies have been pushed aside by a client/prospect because we do not come from one of the 'big name' companies?
Council has intentionally moved to online, with both their career site and Jobsgopublic.com
Reduced their overall spend on recruitment advertising by moving to direct sourcing. Almost no local press jobs advertising, other than lineage for lower level jobs.
The real key for me of what Janet has done: She has analysed and researched the existing staff, the potential marketplace for staff and the potential impact of trying to reach the GenY universe.
A great chart mapping: GenY, GenX, Baby Boomers and Veterans/ mapped against national averages within the employment community.
They analysed what will attract GenY employees Then analysed what are likely to be barriers to attracting GenY - including internal culture and processes.
Then develop the candidate attraction strategies to match the real requirements.
Challenges of promoting web 2.0 technology Facebook advertising - only reaching those on Facebook BFC employees cannot access Facebook at work
Add on ideas Informal networking 20-30 % of hires by word of mout
Include the messages about Facebook to staff comms, and ask them to add BFC to their personal pages
Future - What will Janet do in 2009?
Emphasise and enhance the initiatives already started for Geny
Section and team branding
Use SEM
Influence the Baby Boomer managers
Measure and monitor where the jobs are being initially seen
One of the morning's headlne speakers at the 
