This post was written by Mirna Bard, a social media consultant, speaker, author and instructor of social media at the University of California at Irvine.
SmartPulse — our weekly reader poll in SmartBrief on Social Media — tracks feedback from leading marketers about social-media practices and issues.
Last week’s poll question: Do question-and-answer forums play a role in your social media strategy?
- I’ve never used them, but I’m open to giving them a shot — 27.06%
- I have answered questions on these sites to help establish myself as
an expert in my field — 22.35% - I have used them, but haven’t seen any significant results — 22.35%
- I don’t plan to include them in my strategy — 21.18%
- I have used them to ask questions, but not to answer them — 7.06%
There is no doubt that use of social-networking sites for hiring is increasing, slowly but surely. Though, as we see in the above poll, the numbers are still quite low in comparison with other social-networking uses, such as marketing.
The social networking approach is inexpensive, easy to use and offers both a huge audience of job-seekers and the tools to sort through prospective hires efficiently. But we can probably attribute this slow uptake to a lack of knowledge and understanding of social tools, the time factor and dedication it takes to use social tools, the possibility of violating discrimination and privacy laws, the potential for unreliable information and the many myths of social media.
The companies that are using social networking for recruiting are doing so in innovative ways. For example, a few days ago, the people at Marc Jacobs International tweeted that they are looking for a social media specialist and will be doing the hiring through Twitter. They are not looking for resumes or interviews at the start, just clever tweets to be considered for the job. Thus far, it doesn’t look like they’ve found their candidate, but they are bound to find someone from their 90,000-plus Twitter followers.
I believe that there will be a swell in social recruiting the next few years due to its many benefits and the number of job-seekers online. Recruiters and staffing firms have begun to focus on the tactic of scouting prospects through social networks; career centers will likely skip many traditional career fairs in favor of using virtual Web-based solutions; and job boards may no longer be the primary source for higher-quality candidates as candidates insist on superior quality communications from employers and recruiters.
On the other hand, we are clearly a long way from seeing social networking replace traditional methods of hiring. How do you think the future of hiring through social networks will play out?
Twitter
Facebook
Linkedin
RSS
I'd like to see it grow to be more of an influence. I know I use various online sites to draw talent for certain functions of my business, but I know for job seekers its much tougher to find the right opportunity, because of all the competition. In terms of recruiting, however, it would make sense to develop forums that help employers and employees connect and be available for guidance, if that's what you mean.
David,
You are right. At this point we do have more job seekers online than we do recruiters, so finding the balance with forums to allow more engagement is a great solution. Thanks for the comment.
David,
You are right. At this point we do have more job seekers online than we do recruiters, so finding the balance with forums to allow more engagement is a great solution. Thanks for the comment.
I love your blog and would love to guest post an educational article I have written pertaining to social media and the conflict in Egypt. If you are interested please email me for more information.
T. Morrison
twmorrison75@gmail.com http://twitter.com/ twmorrison75
Hi Thomas,
Are you talking about my personal blog (www.mirnabard.com/blog), or SmartBlog on Social Media? Not sure if you saw the recent post I wrote on Egypt and Social as well.
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Don't think I agree with this method. A tweet? Really? For hiring someone? What a silly way of finding a decent candidate. Someone who can write a quipy one liner doesn't make the best intern.
Hmm…
My recent post Drugs- Swans and Oxbridge
[...] How social media is making companies rethink recruiting (smartblogs.com) [...]
I agree with cookingincambridge. In the first pass of screening information of possible candidates you want to make sure that all or most of your paper requirements are met before you engage with anybody. Twitter does not tell you anything about a person until you dig deeper which is time consuming.
[...] Social media tactics have been adopted by virtually every industry and by many functional areas, but one that has been slower than most to wade in is human resources. Mirna Bard takes a run at some of reasons for it in a post at smartblogs.com, How Social Media Is Making Companies Rethink Recruiting. [...]