Sirona Consulting
Sirona Consulting

Take a step backwards to go forward with your social recruiting

posted on 19 Jan 13
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by Andy Headworth
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One step back for social recruiting
Everyone in recruitment is (seemingly) looking for the next big thing, new angle, new tool, new bit of software etc. to enable them to find more candidates easier, quicker and more cost effectively, so that they can make more money (agency side) or reduce costs (corporate side). I can even see you nodding your head right now!

What is the fascination with the future and the ‘shiny new tool syndrome‘? We already have the potential to pretty much find anyone we want to, with the myriad of sourcing tools and social networks we now have at our disposal. There are now more Facebook recruiting products than there are people with the surname Smith! (Ok so I made that up, but you know what I mean!)
The problem is actually reaching out to these people and engaging with them to be able to present them with your opportunities.

But what if there was a way of easily engaging with your target audience, one that you have already invested time and money building, and one that doesn’t (en masse) sit on these many social networks, exposed to your competitors? It would be great wouldn’t it? Just think, you could then add all these people to your different social recruiting channels, communities and groups and look at developing some really focused people pipelines.

When I work with recruitment companies and corporates, this is one are that drives me nuts! They want to spend money to continually advertise, on every job board, on different social networks and on new social referral products. But when I ask them these simple questions they start to get a little uncomfortable:

  1. How big is your candidates database? > The answer is never a small number - usually in the tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands and one even in the millions!!
  2. What do you do with it? > Most answers vary from ‘can’t search it properly’ to ‘the system is 10 years old’ to (surprisingly often) ‘nothing’!
  3. When was the last time you communicated with them? > The answer for this is painfully simple - either ‘can’t remember’ or ‘never’.
  4. Have you got good candidates on your database? > The answer is 100% YES!

What would your answers be?

Now I am not going to go into a complex analysis of why many companies answer this way, but there are simple steps you can take to actually start to realise the value of the candidate database you are sitting on.

A new more modern recruitment system would be nice - but you don’t necessarily need it to start with. What you need is to use a tool that hasn’t died, and is more in use than ever before (and smart phone friendly) - and that is email.
Think about these points for a moment:

  • The vast majority of applicants never hear from a recruitment company or company that they have sent their CV to, after the recruitment process has finished. ( Many not even at all, but that is a conversation for a different day).
  • These applicants were sufficiently interested in the types of roles you advertised, to want to work for you or your clients you represent.
  • Many applicants are not the ‘post & pray’ individuals that put their CV across the whole markeplace, meaning they won’t necessarily be found easily on searches.
  • Not everyone is on LinkedIn (even though LinkedIn might tell you different!)
  • A huge number of people access their email in real-time on their iPhones, Androids, Tablets and Blackberries.
  • The InMail response rates are relatively low on LinkedIn, as (unfortunately) too many recruiters just blast out InMails like they are going out of fashion. Consequently, there is definitely InMail apathy from LinkedIn users.
  • We are now in the age of content personalisation - we all respond better to content served to us that has direct relevance to our needs.

Many of your recruitment systems are not ‘email marketing friendly’, so you may have to invest in a readily available email system like MailChimp, ConstantContact or one of the many other systems out there to get started.
The reason that I would suggest using one of these tools is that they are set up for tracking, metrics, data management, permissions, automation, segmentation, social sharing and are easy to use.

You will then need to work out a content and communication startegy to start the engagement process with all these people - not making the obvious mistake of sending the same content to everyone. The power of this process, is that you can personalise and segment the date to finite levels - which can make your results so much more effective.

And of course you can then do many things with these candidates as you integrate them into your social recruiting strategies - create talent pipelines, encourage them to join your LinkedIn Group, add them to Google Circles, connect with them socially etc.

There is one thing I will guarantee - and that is you will definitely find ‘fresh’ candidates that your consultants or recruiters will place or hire, making you or saving you more money in the process.

[Caveat: this is obviously a little simplified, but hopefully you get where I am coming from with this process.]

So, for more effective social recruiting, take one step back before you go forward - this time with quality data (candidates) that may not be sitting on everyone else’s desks!

If you are in this situation and want some help releasing the power of your database, just give me a call on 01903 206249

 

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Andy Headworth
I work with companies to help them improve their recruitment strategies, recruitment processes, candidate attraction, employer branding and recruitment content marketing strategy. I am also an international speaker, with a growing schedule for 2015. My second book, Social Media Recruitment - How to Successfully Integrate Social Media into Recruitment Strategy, is published on 3rd May 2015. To get a 25% discount for pre-ordering my book use code SMRAD25 when ordering via publishers site here https://www.koganpage.com/SMR | | Follow Andy on Twitter | Connect with Andy on LinkedIn  | Connect with Andy on Google+  | Send Andy an email