Social Media is Revolutionising HR and Recruitment Strategies

When I started my first job in the London recruitment industry more than ten years ago, there was a very simple rule – all CVs must be faxed to clients – no email and no post.

It was simply company policy to operate this way, although email and the Internet were already in wide use for a few years. Now, it seems like a way of doing business more fitting to the nineteenth century than the turn of the millennium.

Since then, the pace of recruitment has changed completely – for a start, it’s so much quicker.

The first encounters with social media came a few years ago with all those real and apocryphal stories of people posting pictures and status updates to Facebook about their alcohol-fuelled nights out.

These tales were perhaps the first impact of the social media phenomenon on the recruitment process, where the social lives of employees and potential recruits have become easily accessible online, creating in itself a whole debate about privacy issues.

Embarrassing photos and comments can be a serious problem for HR policies. One solution is to create internal training policies and clear social media guidelines on what staff can publish online and also to install procedures when such rules are breached. Some companies ban the use of social media in the workplace outright, but then miss out on many positive opportunities too.

Apart from Facebook, which now has around 500 million members, there are other social networking sites more closely attuned to the recruitment process, such as LinkedIn or Xing that are helping transform the way we work.

It’s hard to imagine anyone in the recruitment industry not being familiar with these sites, which act as a huge database for the professional lives of millions of people and yet, just over ten years ago, some of us were still using fax machines.

‘EMPLOYER BRANDING’

A current buzzword that illustrates how the HR industry is using social media is labelled ‘employer branding’ - because the way you appear online can make you attractive to potential employees, while a poor presence can have the opposite effect. The phrase is not new, but has taken on greater importance thanks to the interactivity and personalisation that social media sites can offer.

“Studies have shown that all things being equal, employees will choose to work for companies with a strong corporate social responsibility programme, they want to be proud of where they work,” said Jeff Hicks, the creative director of Optimize Interactive, an agency specialising in social media.

“To get the most from your CSR investment, you need to communicate what you are doing to the widest possible audience,” he said.

With skilled labour shortages in many sectors, professionals and graduates will naturally be more attracted to firms with positive images, which is where social media networks act like modern word of mouth marketing tools. Even if someone doesn’t know of your company, they will ask around their friends and family to check what others think of it.

The online reputation of a firm will also appeal to current employees too, as you seek to influence their perspective on where they work and appreciate it better.

IMAGE AND REPUTATION

HR departments must pay more attention to their firm’s online image and reputation and should use some of the smart programmes now available like Jungletorch.com that aggregates comments and makes it easier to monitor the general sentiment towards a company. After all, if you don’t know what people are saying about you, their opinions can’t be influenced.

One recent change to LinkedIn is the ability for people to ‘follow’ companies, so its 70 million members can watch out for news and other developments on favourite firms. This tool allows people to shadow and learn about firms where they may one day seek a job, so it’s crucial that the brand built online reflects well on your business.

“Developing your online presence is a constant process. But it also means using the right forums, blogs and sites to offer meaningful content using social media tools,” advises Hicks.

“You should decide in advance a timetable and the sites to be used for delivering your messages, which will allow you to plan and control, both what and when you say it. This can take a lot of time and effort and may require the services of an outside specialist, but it pays off in the long run,” he said.

COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY

Apart from future employees, social media can help maintain ties to former employees who can stay in touch with company news, creating goodwill through a broader communications strategy that takes all these factors into account.

“Recruiters and Human resources managers have to adapt their communication strategy according to the target group they look to reach both internally and externally,” said Yoni Szpiro, the General Manager with Generations Recruitment.

“Today, advertisers all over the world have recognised the power of the Internet and not one marketing plan is considered complete without an online element. But is it true for every group of consumers? This is the question that applies to HR managers and recruiters, they must assess their workforce so their HR strategy fits the people they wish both to keep motivated and to recruit,” he said.

Careful branding is one factor to consider, but so too is the ease with which professional networking sites, let you search for potential employees directly. It makes the mystique around executive search firms largely redundant because it’s become so much easier to find out about people working in many companies that were previously almost inaccessible.

This can save HR departments both time and fees, because they no longer need to pay high headhunter charges and can either do some of the research themselves, or else work with niche recruitment firms to identify potential candidates. At its simplest, it means that if you have to cold call someone for the first time, it’s easy to do a little background research, simply by reading someone’s profile, to get a sense of the person before speaking.

This point brings us to the flipside of social networks, how they can be used by anyone to enhance their online visibility for potential employment.

TIPS FOR PERSONAL PROFILES

There’s plenty of straightforward advice for appearing presentable online too. First of all, use built in privacy controls to make sure you keep your personal and private lives separate, so that if there are some embarrassing messages or photos on Facebook, they’ll only be seen by your personal, not professional contacts.

While it’s true that just about anything ever posted online is probably stored somewhere, most content can be easily deleted or edited, even if it means asking friends to remove photos they posted.

For sites like LinkedIn, you must put just as much time and effort into your profile as you would for a traditional CV. Be careful not to embellish anything that can’t be justified, because everything can be verified easily. If you do post a personal photo, make sure it’s an appropriate, high quality image and one that will reflect well in a career context.

Obviously it’s inadvisable to reveal too many personal details online, but saying nothing online can be detrimental too. Instead, it’s worth making careful comments and contributions in online forums appropriate to your industry that will enhance your reputation and visibility.

Apart from privacy, another challenge posed by the latest web-based tools is control over information, so whereas an employee may once have been forced to leave his Rolodex behind when he left a firm, he can now take all his online contacts with him on LinkedIn. It’s an issue that has yet to be resolved, but touches on thorny issues like data control and protection that are raised by the benefiits of social media.

ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL

And finally, don’t forget that different generations use social media in different ways. It seems to depend on people’s age when they embraced the Internet, so while people in their twenties are completely comfortable with a visible and active online presence, those in their thirties and forties might be more reticent.

As consumers, people use social media differently so while some people use Facebook, others prefer instant messaging to stay in touch and HR communications strategies must be flexible to deliver information through the channel people want to receive it and respond over the same channels too.

The Internet sped up existing HR processes but social media networks are changing the nature of interaction at a much deeper level.

Many changes have already occurred, while the latest deeper changes are being led by social media networks, which are literally transforming relationships, between companies, employees and potential employees – revolutionising HR and recruitment strategies.

- Christopher Purdy

Partner

Greenfield Recruitment

About Greenfield:

Greenfield is a Luxembourg recruitment firm specialising in the Finance & Accounting and Legal sectors.

Offering superior results through its modular approach, Greenfield makes the recruitment process faster and easier.

6, boulevard Pierre Dupong, Luxembourg, L-1430.

Contact Christopher Purdy: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or

+352 26 38 36 51.