3 Tips for Social Media Recruiting

Online gurus are saying social media is the next wave of recruiting.  Employers and recruiters salivate at the thought of affordably and quickly reaching 500 million Facebook users, 100 million LinkedIn profiles and 200 million Twitter accounts. Yet with these numbers, it can feel like finding a needle in a haystack.

In case you ever wondered, the reason it is called “social media” is because people are free to engage and respond to your information. For recruiting purposes, this means that you need to:

1. Develop a strong company brand.
2. Build a community of followers (an online network of people) by regularly providing relevant and interesting information.
3. Listen to what people say and respond; thus, creating a two-way conversation.

In other words, while LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are great, you better plan to spend a fair amount of time if you want to use these tools for recruiting. Most employers just don’t have the time to create massive “communities,” nor have the time to tweet, post, and search for possible candidates. Worse, social media can be addicting, sucking up precious hours and minutes as you find other “really cool” people on Twitter or that old boyfriend from junior high. No recruiting marketing strategy works if you don’t target the right audience, so you also have to find the appropriate “groups” within your social media of choice and market to them in ways that get their attention.

Hmmm . . . . seems like a lot of work. Perhaps posting on job boards, like CareerBuilder and Monster, and reviewing a couple hundred resume might be easier?

See additional ideas and strategies at Business News Daily.