Using Social Media to Recruit Talent

By Pamela Williams, CAE

An escalating number of companies use social media sites to post job opportunities, search for candidates, screen applicants, connect with customers and engage employees, and our industry is no exception. A quick online search revealed that all but one of the top 10 MSOs in the country has a group or company profile on LinkedIn®. ESPN has 165,359 Twitter followers, and The Food Network has 168,405 Facebook fans.

Yet, while many industry employers have a presence on social media sites, how they use it for varies greatly. Some post jobs, new hires and promotions. Others create social groups to target specific audiences based on their job function (engineers, production staff), interests (job seekers, alumni of a leadership program) or geography (west division, northeast territory). And the more progressive actively use social media sites to identify frustrated customers who require attention, drive traffic to their websites and screen potential job candidates.

Reaching Passive Career Seekers
In our industry, there are some jobs that require a very specific, unique skills set. Chances are the ideal candidate is employed and not actively searching out job opportunities. In this case, a job posting isn't going to cut it. Fortunately, many employers have successfully leveraged social networking sites to identify these elusive candidates. One industry employer actively searches social media sites to identify discussion forums for attendees at an upcoming or recently held professional conference. Often, the conference host will post the attendee list to spur ongoing professional networking among the participants. Finding a list like that is like hitting a gold mine as it yields contact information for a specifically skilled pool of candidates who may not be actively conducing a job search.

As this tactic illustrates, you can target your social media recruiting efforts. Unlike general interest sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook, some sites have very specific audiences based on professions, interests (ie. music, motherhood, travel), ethnicity, religion, geographic location and age. There are literally hundreds of social networking sites in existence and more launching by the day. To find a site that targets a specific audience, start by perusing a list of social networking sites available. You'll find an extensive list by category at http://traffikd.com/ and emarketer has compiled some useful statistics regarding the most popular social networking sites' usage by age.

Screening Candidates
In addition to posting jobs and identifying potential candidates, many employers also use social media sites to gain insight into their job candidates. In fact, a CareerBuilder® June 2009 survey of 2,600 hiring managers found that 45 percent of employers use social networking sites to research job candidates—more than double last year's results. Industry employers have gained some interesting insight about candidates simply by visiting their online profiles—everything from illegal drug usage to how the candidate really feels about his former employer. But that sword can cut the other way, as 18 percent of the employers in the CareerBuilder survey reported they had hired a candidate based on insight gleaned from a candidate's social networking profile.

"Social networking profiles often provide an employer with additional information that didn't make it onto the candidate's résumé due to space constraints. Examples include participation in community service organizations and extra-curricular activities. That information may be the extra something that separates one candidate from another in the selection process," shared Karen Bennett, Senior Vice President of Human Resources for Turner Broadcasting System Inc.

The bottom line is that if you aren't using social media sites to recruit, you may be losing quality candidates to companies who are. And for those of you who are posting jobs on social media sites, consider expanding your usage to reach passive career seekers or screen candidates. In any case, we wish you luck with your recruiting efforts!