September 3rd, 2010
Privacy, legal, and discrimination are a few of the concerns that have been discussed at length when considering using social media for recruiting. However, the biggest fear that most recruiters have at the back of their mind but don’t want to express publicly is the challenge of managing public interactions with aggressive, unqualified candidates.
With the increased transparency that social media affords, how you deal with these candidates will impact how those within your target audience view opportunities at your organization.
Recruiters are well aware of prospective candidate’s ability to link insignificant parts of their experience to the responsibilities and requirements of the job opening. Candidates are hoping that somehow, someway they will hit the job lottery and be rewarded with an interview despite a clear lack of qualifications.
When using social media for recruiting, members of the team give depth to the organization by sharing images, videos, names, background, and contact information. For the aggressive, unqualified candidate this wealth of information is a gold mine. Now, they don’t have to try and track down the name of the recruiter to avoid “the black hole”; the information they need to present their candidacy is readily accessible.
They can tweet on Twitter, Facebook friend, connect on LinkedIn with the recruiter who has job openings (I’ll leave out the potential of Foursquare for now). Given current economic conditions, the shifting employment landscape, and the opportunity to finally present their candidacy to a real person; it is hard to fault their effort.
Recruiters, who have been largely protected by technological anonymity, will now have to find creative ways to tell these applicants that they are not a good fit while simultaneously maintaining the strengths of their carefully cultivated employment brand to target candidates. This is no easy task.
Recruiters, how do you plan to respond to aggressive, unqualified candidates who seek to take advantage of the increased accessibility that social media affords?
–Omowale Casselle (@mysensay)
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About the Author: Omowale Casselle is the co-founder and CEO of mySenSay. We help top employers and next generation leaders connect.
Tags: discrimination, employer, fear, legal, privacy, prospective candidate, social media, unqualified
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
September 1st, 2010
When discussing social recruiting, the primary definition has centered around the use of online tools to help an organization achieve their recruiting objectives. However, this definition is rather limited and does not give the required depth to the true potential of social recruiting. In my opinion, social recruiting combines the best practices of online and offline information discovery and relationship building to create a one-of-a-kind experience for both the candidate and employer. This process which begins online and ultimately moves offline helps both candidate and employers make an intelligent decision.
Online
With Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook; it has become easier and easier for candidates and employers to gather a great deal of information about each other. Instead of waiting until an in-person meeting, baseline information can be efficiently gathered and evaluated. Initially, this information can help determine if a candidate is interested in applying for an opportunity at all. Similiarly, employers can use online interactions to determine if prospective candidates fits within their target criteria. With a strong foundation of knowledge and interest established, in-person communications can move to higher level discussions.
Offline
Throughout the history of recruiting, it has always been necessary for employer and prospective candidate to meet in person. Whether seeing a help-wanted sign in a window or responding to an advertisement in a newspaper, there has always been and will continue to be tremendous value in meeting in person. There are certain elements of fit that cannot be confirmed through only online diligence and discovery.
Transparency
In both online and offline communication, each interaction serves as a continuous fact-checker. If a prospective candidate says online that she loves science, then that is something that can be probed during the interview. If an employer says that work-life balance is fantastic, then the candidate can ask for specific examples to confirm that statement. No longer will it be acceptable to present one image, and the reality be something different. The major reason is that not only can these data points be confirmed, but they can also be shared with others.
Not only does social recruiting combine the best of online and offline interactions. But, the feedback loop between prospective candidates and employers is optimized. Instead of an organization simply publishing relevant information on their career site, they can post insights about special projects on their blog. Prospective candidates can see this content and instantly respond. Instead of having to wait for an in-person meeting, a real-time discussion can be started. In the same way, employers that see an interesting tweet from a candidate can directly follow up. This direct 2-way communication is extremely beneficial for both groups when trying to establish the part-art and part-science of mutual fit. What other ways do you think social recruiting helps create an optimal employer/candidate relationship both online and offline?
–Omowale Casselle (@mysensay)
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About the Author: Omowale Casselle is the co-founder and CEO of mySenSay. We help top employers and next generation leaders connect.
Tags: environment, offline, online, optimal, recruiting, social
Posted in recruiting, social recruiting | 2 Comments »
August 26th, 2010
Expectations play a powerful role in outcomes. For children, most parents ascribe to a mantra of, “Aim for the stars. If you don’t reach them at least you’ll end up among the clouds”.
In the academic environment, teacher expectation about student potential often has a tangible effect on student achievement. The main reason is that students tend to internalize the high or low expectations of their teachers.
In the business environment, a popular approach to championing new initiatives is ‘under promise and over deliver’. In the context of taking on a new initiative like using social media for recruiting, this seems like a good approach. Since the technology is so new and everyone is still trying to figure it out what works and what doesn’t, it seems prudent to set expectations low.
However, very rarely do low bars excite leadership enough to provide the strong support necessary to achieve real success. If a marginal improvement in results is expected, then management questions why they should invest precious time, energy, and resources into the new project.
This creates a self-fulfilling cycle which begins with low expectations, is followed by starvation of resources, and will ultimately result in failure of the new initiative.
If you are championing the use of social media for recruiting within your organization, perhaps it is time to aim for the stars.
–Omowale Casselle (@mysensay)
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About the Author: Omowale Casselle is the co-founder and CEO of mySenSay. We help top employers and next generation leaders discover their shared purpose.
Tags: Employees, expectations, social media, students, teachers, technology
Posted in recruiting, social recruiting | No Comments »
August 24th, 2010
While there is lots of advice out there on how to use social media and social networking to achieve business results, the fact of the matter is that getting from Point A to Z is pretty difficult. Along the way, there are going to be lots of bumps in the road. Some strategies that your company develops and implements will be spot on, while others will leave members of your audience scratching their head. However, what can never be ignored is the focus on using this channel to influence the behavior of your target audience.
Some equate influence with celebrity. While celebrities are certainly influential, their stardom is not without purpose. Quite often their large fan base can be directly tied to their success. It is not necessary for you to be a social media celebrity in order for your company to achieve results.
Tweets, retweets, likes, fans, and followers are an important step along the way. But, these metrics rarely determine how influential you are. Instead, influence is when you convince someone within your target audience to take a desired action. For a celebrity, this could be watching their new television show, purchasing their album, or buying one of the products/services they promote. In recruiting, this could be getting a prospective candidate to apply for an opening or having them share an opportunity with someone in their network who they think would be a great fit.
To become influential, your target audience must know what your company stands for. In its simplest form, this is your employment brand or unique value proposition. If your company is laser-focused on letting your community know what makes your organization special, then you are much closer to acheiving the happiness that comes from influencing behavior that drives business results.
–Omowale Casselle (@mysensay)
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About the Author: Omowale Casselle is the co-founder and CEO of mySenSay. We help top employers and next generation leaders discover their shared purpose.
Tags: celebrity, company, employment brand, influence, organization, prospective candidate, social media
Posted in recruiting, social recruiting | No Comments »
August 19th, 2010
“But, remember, the brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.” –Randy Pausch, Last Lecture
Unless you pay to run advertising on Twitter or Facebook, the direct cost necessary to use these sites is minimal. While this is not the only cost to consider when determining whether or not to use the tools, the reality is the financial barriers-to-entry are low. As a result, lots and lots of users, including companies, started using these tools for a wide variety of reasons.
This does not mean that successfully recruiting talent for your organization is easy. In fact, if you’ve used social media and social networking for recruiting, you have probably found that it is much harder than expected.
The critical mass of end users creates attraction for advertisers and marketers. Among this group are employers seeking to recruit prospective candidates for their organization. However, the downside of popular platforms is the associated clutter by those focused on quantity not quality.
This clutter makes it very difficult for your employment brand to stand out as you become guilty by association. Yet, when you consider the potential to connect with 500 million Facebook users or 100 million Twitter users; the chance to recruit those who would be a great fit for your employment opportunities is too compelling to ignore.
As Randy says, the brick walls are not there to keep us (your company) out; they are there to stop the people (your competitors) who don’t want it (top talent) badly enough.
–Omowale Casselle (@mysensay)
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About the Author: Omowale Casselle is the co-founder and CEO of mySenSay. We help top employers and next generation leaders discover their shared purpose.
Tags: advertisers, brick walls, employers, Facebook, last lecture, marketers, prospective candidates, randy pausch, recruiting, twitter
Posted in recruiting, social recruiting | 6 Comments »
