As we begin another year in our recruiting careers, it is time to assess our social recruiting efforts. Here are some tips as you reflect and refocus your online social recruiting goals:
- Examine your social media footprint. You can start by visiting Pipl.com to see what information exists about you online. If you don’t like the content that is shown, you have an opportunity to immediately change it. Start commenting on blogs of influencers in your industry. Contribute a post to ERE or Recruiting Blogs. Be a part of Twitter conversations to share best practices. Create a Google profile.
- Your social media presence should reflect your passions. Reassess your professional goals. It may be time to hire a career coach to help you identify strengths or skills that you are overlooking. Read, Crush It, by Gary Vaynerchuk for inspiration.
- Update your avatar. I had the same profile picture for over 6 years, until a close friend suggested that I change it. It is important that your photo shows who you are professionally.
- Review your online bios. Due to size restrictions, you will have different versions on Twitter, LinkedIn and your company website. Your bio should reflect what makes you special and different from other recruiters, including critical keywords so that your profile can be found. Is your bio a long-winded press release that no one will take the time to read?
- Plan your social media activities after you set specific goals. Social media networks are designed to engage. You may start in LinkedIn searching for an IT candidate and 30 minutes later you wind up in an alumni group looking for old friends. In order to combat this, calendar specific functions. For example, from 2:00 PM – 2:30 PM, reserve time to find 10 qualified candidates for your Java Developer opening.
- Change the frequency of your social recruiting activities. Social media never sleeps. How often do you update your Twitter or LinkedIn status? When was the last time you posted something to your company’s Facebook Fan page? Set Outlook reminders to ensure that your communication is consistent to your social media communities.
- Keep paying it forward to candidates. Conduct a complimentary webinar for your ideal candidates on a subject that they truly value. Volunteer to speak or review resumes at job seekers groups, like a career ministry to help those who need recruiting resources now more than ever.
- Outline your job notification process. When you get a new opening within your company, how do you promote it to your networks? Is there a standard process based on past recruiting metrics or a random series of posts depending upon how you are feeling that day?
- Evaluate your accomplishments on specific platforms. Hopefully, you have been measuring your recruiting activities. Review your past placements. Where did your best referrals and candidates come from? When you are determining which social platforms to focus your resources into this year, don’t believe the hype and the propaganda of biased resources. Your best social recruiting platform may be an internal network from employee referrals or cold calling niche online directories of candidates. Remember that your social recruiting strategy is unique.
- Add innovative tools to your social recruiting tool kit. It may be time to reevaluate your career website and the candidate’s experience with your online presence. Maybe you should consider incorporating video, jobcasts, Facebook advertising or an iPhone app for potential candidates. Be sure that any tactical choices support your comprehensive recruiting plan.
In the ever-changing world of social recruiting, there is always room for improvement. Continue to engage with potential talent in new ways and measure your results of each social recruiting campaign. Let’s continue to evolve our social recruiting efforts in 2010!