Employees using social media at work? Great – your recruiting team just got a lot bigger!
Written by Sarah Welstead - Read the original article at – ERE.net
In the past 12-24 months, most organizations have overcome their initial fears about social media: 99% of marketing departments are using social media to communicate with stakeholders, and 90% of recruiters say that social media is an important part of their recruiting toolkit.
However, the use of social media at work – i.e. employees visiting their personal Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter/etc. pages while they’re at work – remains a challenge.
Blocking social media sites is irrelevant since almost everyone has a web-enabled phone; setting down overly-specific social media policies can backfire because they set up the possibility of ‘loopholes’. (HR and legal professionals will tell you that sometimes, having a vague ‘use good judgment’ policy is ultimately more defensible – because it allows for more scope – than a 25-page, detailed social media policy.)
In other words: Eliminating social media at work is impossible. But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
At least half your employees are using social media on a daily basis.
As of March 2010, there are more than 10 million - almost one-third of the population – Facebook users in Canada, and LinkedIn adds 75,000+ new Canadian members every month. Combine that with Twitter, YouTube and other more specialized social media sites, and it’s hard to find a Canadian under 70 who doesn’t have a social media account of one kind or another.
In other words: If your organization has, say, 500 employees, you can safely assume that at least 250 of them are using Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter at least once a day.
If you can’t beat ‘em, leverage ‘em!
Recruiters say that the #1 source of A-list candidates are referrals from current and former employees, and the best way to build a strong employment/recruitment brand is by word-of-mouth.
Why not harness your employees’ social media channels for recruiting?
Status updates alone will make a big difference
Harnessing your employees’ social media presence doesn’t mean they have to set up company-specific social media accounts (Sodexo, for example, got a lot of buzz in 2009 because they had so many employees twittering under the Sodexo name).
All you really need are status updates:
100 employees
x
100 Facebook friends each (average)
x
1 company-related status update per week
=
10,000 more sets of eyeballs per week than you’re getting now.
Make it easy for them
Let’s face it: Asking employees outside the recruiting department to think up, and remember to post, a company/recruiting-related status update on a regular basis is going to be one of those tasks that fall into the “Oh, sorry, I kept meaning to do that but I never got around to it” category.
So make it easy for them: Once a week, send out one or two pre-written status updates that they can just copy and paste.
Examples
“We’re looking for Senior Developers for the Toronto office. Email bob@acmeinc.ca for more info.”
“Just hired 12 new technicians in Vancouver! Looking for 4 more – www.acmeinc.ca/jobs”
“We just won gold at the Best Company Ever contest! www.bestcompanywinners.ca”
“We’re sending a team to the Walk for Cancer in Edmonton this weekend – want to join us? www.acmeinc.ca/cancerwalk”
“We were in the news again because our office has just gone totally green: www.newspaperarticle.ca”
Results will happen faster than you think
Status updates sound like such a small thing, but the results can be dramatic, and they happen fast. They’re particularly effective when you’re doing high-volume, tight-timeline recruiting (i.e. you need 42 technicians by next week).
But don’t take my word for it: Do a test.
Next Monday, send employees a pre-written status update advertising a particular opportunity with a specific link to the job on your web page. Then monitor the traffic to that page over the following 48 hours.
That 25-50% spike in traffic you’re seeing? That’s your recruitment brand equity going up!
Promote
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Comments
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Global Recruitment, Suzanne, michellerea, Aaltje Vincent, michellerea and others. michellerea said: RT @recruitmentjob: Employees using social media at work? Great – your recruiting team just got a lot bigger! http://bit.ly/ckay0Y [...]
I posted this comment on the source of this article – but I guess it makes sense to post it here too.
–
Hi, thanks for this post! Always-be-hiring is a term I have heard in a few conferences. We’ve just launched Superscout which is a Social Network for Digital Jobs.
I agree with everything you say here, but why ask staff to update their status every time you need to recruit and loose the people that may be interested for another time. Superscout lets any company create a content rich Employer Profile then use the social media tools to promote it (and their Jobs) – as you say any company can have 10,000 sets of eyeballs discover the company and apply to their jobs.. and remain connected to them by following.
Candidates can either Follow a Company, or really easily apply to their Jobs.
Please take a second to have a look http://www.superscout.com – contact us @ hello@superscout.com
Thanks
Stefan
[...] http://socialmediarecruitment.com/blog/2010/05/26/employees-using-social-media-at-work-great-your-re... [...]
Productivity in the workplace can be hindered but also heightened depending on the usage of the application. Companies choose to block or not block social media apps. Unfortunately they are missing out on that grey area where social media apps can be utilized to further innovation and productivity. Palo Alto Networks came out with this whitepaper talking about how to block social media apps and when it is appropriate to let employees utilize these apps productively. To block or not? Check it out: http://bit.ly/d2NZRp