Many corporations today are adopting Web 2.0 approaches for boosting business, brand, recruiting, etc. You’ll see icons for sites like Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Linkedin, and others on many corporate sites today. Microsoft’s corporate website is an obvious example of a company that has incorporated Web 2.0 in every sense. While some other corporations are more conservative than others and therefore a little more hesitant, ultimately by 2012 use of Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0 will be a necessary business function. Before corporate social networking can be successful there are several approaches that need to be well defined and organized.
Prior to Initiating Social Networking for a Corporation:
Anyone from a company can go out and create a company group on sites like Linkedin and Facebook. The problem with these sites is that the company cannot control what people say and what type of groups people create. Having defined groups created by the corporation and controlled by the corporation just like the company website itself can help draw people away from the other groups and sites that may not have controlled materials, appropriate direct company contact, etc. To have a successful corporate created social networking site first consider the following:
1. Define Objectives: Set specific expectations and goals. What is it that you are looking to accomplish with using the social networking sites? Is it increasing client or potential client traffic to the site? Is it building overall company brand, is it keeping contact with current and past employees, is it attracting the best talent to the organization? Maybe all of the above. It is important to first set the expectations of what the company wants to accomplish with the adoption of the social media and then set a plan.
2. Have a set plan: Once the initial objectives are defined, it is important to set a plan of adoption. Determine who needs to be involved in the process and who will maintain the social networking sites. Often times individuals from several areas of the company need to be involved depending on how large the company is. Legal department’s needs to be involved to make sure the sites are structured and maintained as set by company standards. Marketing teams can develop appropriate branding materials to make the sites more user friendly and desirable to visit. Then you need to determine who is going to run and maintain the sites from day to day. Maintaining all the social networking sites can be a time consuming task. Is there a task team assigned to it, is there one specific individual hired to maintain such sites for the company. That needs to be determined prior to deployment to make sure everyone is on the same page and everything runs smoothly prior to launch of promoting the sites.
Key Approaches to Building Successful Social Networking Sites:
1. Listen to the customers/prospects: Whether is it existing clients and employees or potential new hires or potential revenue producing clients, it is important to listen to those that view and respond within the networking sites. Prospects want to know they are being heard and know that a real person is hearing what they have to say and giving a constructive response when it is needed.
2. Be Responsive: Responding to prospects or viewers makes the company seem more real and inviting. Even using automatic response to send a thank you for visiting our site, gives visitors and followers an initial sense of belonging and appreciation.
3. Communication: While the company’s ultimate goal is to attract clients and make a sale, these sites are meant to be more subtle and a way for prospects to interact with us without feeling pressured to buy or do something. These sites are meant to be a communication portal to those that typically may not be heard or seen though other resources.
4. Track/Measure Successful: Review interaction on the sites, track responses and feedback from customers and other followers. Are the sites yielding a positive return? If they aren’t then you need to go back and make sure the objectives are still in line with what you initially expected them to be and the approach may just need some tweaking. If it is doing well see what else can be done to increase awareness and use of the sites.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Friday, June 5, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
The Wave of the Future-Social Media
There are hundreds of articles being posted everyday on the future of recruiting and how social networking must play a pivital part in the next generation of recruiting. There are a multitude of sites and so many avenues to choose from. Trying to learn them all or use all is just a rediculous waste of time. But with that said, not using any social neworking at all will also lead to less productivety moving forward.
Social sites are a great place where those that aren't actively looking for jobs can showcase their skills and talent and brag about their successes without looking despirate for a job (for those that know how to do it well). The use of job boards such as CareerBuilder and Monster are low in comparison to other sites being used for job searching. Smaller, more niche job boards are struggling as well. This may be a foreshadowing that job board resume databases may become obsolete in years to come. The major job boards see this and have been trying hard to update their sites and make it more desirable for companies and candidates. But the next generation of workers have adapted to so many other ways to network and communicate that nothing may keep them from eventually falling of or at least flat lining.
I have studied and fiddled with many of the social networking sites myself, trying to see which ones would bring me the most value for my organization. I have narrowed down to only a small handful. Some were good but just not for what I need to recruit, others just didn't seems to hit it off or were too complicated and/or time consuming to bother with and some have proven to be well worth my time and energy. I have joined and tested Linkedin, Konnects, Ning, Xing, Facebook, Plaxo, Naymze, Myspace, Twitter, YouTube, and probably others that I just can't think of off the top of my head.
I will admit. The thought of using Twitter to find talent was a struggle for me. I just didn't see the value of reporting what I was doing every hour and how that would bring quality talent to my organization. For months I refused to join twitter and decided there was no way to really utilize such a tool for my work purposes. But several months ago I gave in. The hype was too much for me to handle. My curiosity was undeniably eating at me. I just had to find out what was so special about twitter.
So I created a general corporate recruiting Twitter page. It doesn't have my name tied to it, so no one can find it through looking for me, only by searching by keywords such at LexisNexis and Careers. I branded it with our company logo and general career site information. I then went out and marketed my page to all my other social networks (Linkedin, My blogs, Facebook, Konnects, etc). I targeted my main preferred audience, which in my case is primarily legal and sales professionals.
I then started tweeting. I tweet about company news, about product launches, and most of all I tweet about new career opportunities. I engage with people that I think might have an interest in hearing about information at my company. I search for people with specific key words and reach out and ask them to follow me.
I then decided that I wanted to be able to track the success of my tweeting efforts. I had Twitter added as a source option to our applicantion process and use tr.im to link back the number of hits I get per tweet with an embedded URL. I was quite surprised and excited to see the number of hits I was getting on my tweets. Just today-Within 5 minutes of posting an update on twitter I had 20 hits on my link. I finnd that pretty impressive for an amiteur like myself.
So for those that haven't joined the bandwagon and feel that twitter is a waste of time, just like I left only months ago, I am living proof that anyone can make Twitter a useful tool if you have some time to truly focus on creating a fully fonctional site and building a following. Taking a few minutes a day is all it takes to see what Twitter is truly capable of.
Aside from Twitter I have been using many other networking tools for about three years now on a consistent basis for all my recruiting efforts. I can barely remember what it was like to recruit without use of the internet. Using sites like Linkedin to join and converse within groups where experts in my industry are just dying to get noticed is like a goldmine for a recruiter. The one advantage of being a corporate recruiter is that it is easier to get involved in conversations and engage within groups and discuss the industry, company products and company/industry opinions, etc without trying to shove a job description down someone's throat. This gives a competitive advantage by allowing me build relationships with key individuals that may be a great asset to my future sourcing needs.
Linkedin is definitely a networking tool I would not want to be without. In addition to Linkedin, Facebook has become a fairly useful tool. Though for the level of individuals that I search for, Facebook is slightly lacking. The primarily personal social site tends to lend more benefit to the college level or entry level positions. Companies like Microsoft and Sun Microsystems have done a fantastic job of creating wonderful fan pages that are geared toward college graduates. However most Senior Sales professionals spend the majortiy of their time out in the field and networking with clients. They don't tend to want to use a site such as Facebook for les personal reasons.
So whatever your recruiting needs are, there is at least one social network out there that would give value to the organization. Without the use of social networks companies will start to lose out on tons marketing and branding opportunities and could miss out on some superb talent. Because if we don't find them, well someone else will.
Social sites are a great place where those that aren't actively looking for jobs can showcase their skills and talent and brag about their successes without looking despirate for a job (for those that know how to do it well). The use of job boards such as CareerBuilder and Monster are low in comparison to other sites being used for job searching. Smaller, more niche job boards are struggling as well. This may be a foreshadowing that job board resume databases may become obsolete in years to come. The major job boards see this and have been trying hard to update their sites and make it more desirable for companies and candidates. But the next generation of workers have adapted to so many other ways to network and communicate that nothing may keep them from eventually falling of or at least flat lining.
I have studied and fiddled with many of the social networking sites myself, trying to see which ones would bring me the most value for my organization. I have narrowed down to only a small handful. Some were good but just not for what I need to recruit, others just didn't seems to hit it off or were too complicated and/or time consuming to bother with and some have proven to be well worth my time and energy. I have joined and tested Linkedin, Konnects, Ning, Xing, Facebook, Plaxo, Naymze, Myspace, Twitter, YouTube, and probably others that I just can't think of off the top of my head.
I will admit. The thought of using Twitter to find talent was a struggle for me. I just didn't see the value of reporting what I was doing every hour and how that would bring quality talent to my organization. For months I refused to join twitter and decided there was no way to really utilize such a tool for my work purposes. But several months ago I gave in. The hype was too much for me to handle. My curiosity was undeniably eating at me. I just had to find out what was so special about twitter.
So I created a general corporate recruiting Twitter page. It doesn't have my name tied to it, so no one can find it through looking for me, only by searching by keywords such at LexisNexis and Careers. I branded it with our company logo and general career site information. I then went out and marketed my page to all my other social networks (Linkedin, My blogs, Facebook, Konnects, etc). I targeted my main preferred audience, which in my case is primarily legal and sales professionals.
I then started tweeting. I tweet about company news, about product launches, and most of all I tweet about new career opportunities. I engage with people that I think might have an interest in hearing about information at my company. I search for people with specific key words and reach out and ask them to follow me.
I then decided that I wanted to be able to track the success of my tweeting efforts. I had Twitter added as a source option to our applicantion process and use tr.im to link back the number of hits I get per tweet with an embedded URL. I was quite surprised and excited to see the number of hits I was getting on my tweets. Just today-Within 5 minutes of posting an update on twitter I had 20 hits on my link. I finnd that pretty impressive for an amiteur like myself.
So for those that haven't joined the bandwagon and feel that twitter is a waste of time, just like I left only months ago, I am living proof that anyone can make Twitter a useful tool if you have some time to truly focus on creating a fully fonctional site and building a following. Taking a few minutes a day is all it takes to see what Twitter is truly capable of.
Aside from Twitter I have been using many other networking tools for about three years now on a consistent basis for all my recruiting efforts. I can barely remember what it was like to recruit without use of the internet. Using sites like Linkedin to join and converse within groups where experts in my industry are just dying to get noticed is like a goldmine for a recruiter. The one advantage of being a corporate recruiter is that it is easier to get involved in conversations and engage within groups and discuss the industry, company products and company/industry opinions, etc without trying to shove a job description down someone's throat. This gives a competitive advantage by allowing me build relationships with key individuals that may be a great asset to my future sourcing needs.
Linkedin is definitely a networking tool I would not want to be without. In addition to Linkedin, Facebook has become a fairly useful tool. Though for the level of individuals that I search for, Facebook is slightly lacking. The primarily personal social site tends to lend more benefit to the college level or entry level positions. Companies like Microsoft and Sun Microsystems have done a fantastic job of creating wonderful fan pages that are geared toward college graduates. However most Senior Sales professionals spend the majortiy of their time out in the field and networking with clients. They don't tend to want to use a site such as Facebook for les personal reasons.
So whatever your recruiting needs are, there is at least one social network out there that would give value to the organization. Without the use of social networks companies will start to lose out on tons marketing and branding opportunities and could miss out on some superb talent. Because if we don't find them, well someone else will.
Friday, April 24, 2009
My Perfect Gig Recruiting Solutions hosts Maren Hogan of Red Branch Media for Twitter as a Corporate Recruiting Tool
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
Monday, April 13, 2009
What does a Corporate recruiter do?
I know many people have common misconceptions about what a corporate recruiter really is and what we do. And it may very from company to company. But for some, it is just a matter of not really understanding the importance of a Corporate Recruiter, or understanding how to use them to their advantage.
So what do we do?
1. A corporate Recruiter is in place to manage the recruitment process from start to finish and for an ongoing basis.
2. Corporate Recruiters are responsible to keeping up with best practices and recruiting trends. We must know what the best technologies are to use, what other resources are available.
3. CRs are in place to help minimize hiring costs. We are typically measured by key metrics such as cost per hire, time to fill, quality if hire and retention rates, and satisfaction of our managers with our recruitment support.
4. We are responsible for managing relationships with third party agencies, but first and foremost, trying to find avenues to fill positions without utilizing a costly agency. Once all internal resources have been exhausted-then we reach out for additional assistance.
5. Administrative duties-setting up interview days for managers, preparing managers for interviews by giving recommended interview questions and interview tips, having applicants complete behavioral surveys, managing our applicant tracking system.
Administrative verses real recruiting:
I read a blog recently that was posted by an external recruiter. It made mention that corporate recruiters aren't real sourcers because they are caught up with administrative tasks. True-If you let managers use you as an admin and do everything for them then yes, you will never have time to go out and find candidates of your own. But if you manage your client groups and your time effectively then you can actually be a more effective recruiter.
I don't let myself get bogged down with administrative duties. I spend as much time as I can sourcing the web and calling prospects. I typically dedicate 1 full day a week to just sourcing. Then once I have a solid list of contact info and resumes I start calling them to discuss what my company has to offer and determine if their experience and skill set is what I am truly looking for.
Advantages of being a Corporate Recruiter:
1. Working from inside the company helps give a better company perspective. They have a better understanding of the roles and responsibilities for the position and candidates can get direct feedback more quickly.
2. CR's have relationships with both Hiring Managers and HR.
3. Position is not heavily commissioned like recruiters from outside agencies.
So what do we do?
1. A corporate Recruiter is in place to manage the recruitment process from start to finish and for an ongoing basis.
2. Corporate Recruiters are responsible to keeping up with best practices and recruiting trends. We must know what the best technologies are to use, what other resources are available.
3. CRs are in place to help minimize hiring costs. We are typically measured by key metrics such as cost per hire, time to fill, quality if hire and retention rates, and satisfaction of our managers with our recruitment support.
4. We are responsible for managing relationships with third party agencies, but first and foremost, trying to find avenues to fill positions without utilizing a costly agency. Once all internal resources have been exhausted-then we reach out for additional assistance.
5. Administrative duties-setting up interview days for managers, preparing managers for interviews by giving recommended interview questions and interview tips, having applicants complete behavioral surveys, managing our applicant tracking system.
Administrative verses real recruiting:
I read a blog recently that was posted by an external recruiter. It made mention that corporate recruiters aren't real sourcers because they are caught up with administrative tasks. True-If you let managers use you as an admin and do everything for them then yes, you will never have time to go out and find candidates of your own. But if you manage your client groups and your time effectively then you can actually be a more effective recruiter.
I don't let myself get bogged down with administrative duties. I spend as much time as I can sourcing the web and calling prospects. I typically dedicate 1 full day a week to just sourcing. Then once I have a solid list of contact info and resumes I start calling them to discuss what my company has to offer and determine if their experience and skill set is what I am truly looking for.
Advantages of being a Corporate Recruiter:
1. Working from inside the company helps give a better company perspective. They have a better understanding of the roles and responsibilities for the position and candidates can get direct feedback more quickly.
2. CR's have relationships with both Hiring Managers and HR.
3. Position is not heavily commissioned like recruiters from outside agencies.
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