CWS 3.0: July 25, 2012

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Wanted: Social Media Recruiting Help

“Mid-range companies, those with $100 million to $750 million in revenue, are seeking temporary workers to leverage the firms’ existing social media recruiting efforts to source talent. There are even some that are also looking for firms that could conduct the entire process for them.”

— Joel Capperella, vice president, customer solutions at Yoh, a workforce solutions provider

The buzz around social media continues. Companies are getting increasingly smart about how they recruit talent. “They want to decrease some of their investment in job boards but they are not sure how to do it,” Capperella says. Further, these firms don’t feel comfortable with increasing headcount with their recruiting units to source talent through social media tools. After all, social media recruiting can be a labor-intensive activity,” Capperella adds.

Enter contingents. These workers provide companies with tremendous flexibility. But it’s not always easy to find the right person to fill these roles. These requirements involve a complex set of skills. Folks need to know how to recruit, understand the nature and business of recruiting, and at the same time be savvy about social media tools usage.

As a result, staffing firms are offering creative service packages to fill this need. These offerings let the staffing provider run the social media recruiting efforts for the client. But Capperella warns his clients that it is not a simple process. He advises firms to build their employment brand. Narrate the typical employee experience and involve both current staff as well as alumni. Make this knowledge public via the company’s website.

“What we tell them to do is consider blogging for the candidate marketplace. Engage these workers in Linked In, don’t just troll for candidates, but participate actively to actually engage these workers, even if there are passive candidates whom you don’t currently have a position for,” Capperella says.

These engagement efforts do pay off over time. In the interim, companies should be measuring results. Part of this process involves monitoring website traffic and its sources. Are more people coming to visit your site from your employee experience blog or through referrals? Stay on top of traditional marketing metrics as well as social media numbers, and over a period of time, companies should see results.