Social Talent Acquisition

  Probably the best example of social talent management exists in recruiting.  I think there’s a good few reasons for this, including that:

• Recruiting is fairly process oriented, with an extensive adoption of traditional technology use

• It is often one of the least well executed areas of HR (see my post on the candidate experience) so has the most potential for improvement

• It’s externally oriented and therefore more impacted by the general uptake of social media outside business, which is generally ahead of uptake within organisations

• There’s also more opportunity for external stakeholders ie candidates to make more of a fuss than internal ones ie employees when things don’t go well.

 

 

In my presentation at the Enterprise 2.0 Summit I referred to Glassdoor and the impact this and other sites having in forcing companies to get their act together here.  I know a lot of readers know about this site, the ‘TripAdvisor of recruitment and employment’, but an awful lot of recruiters still don’t.

 

But I know from my trips to the States that many people are now looking here before they have a look at a company’s career site.  And that if they do decide to apply they’ll look in Glassdoor for information on roles, salaries and the employment experience.  And that if they get an interview, they’ll look on the site for information about tests and questions etc.  I also know that when I search on US based HR people, the top entry which comes up is increasingly an entry about them on Glassdoor (and it’s often not that nice).  We will increasingly see the same thing in the UK, Europe and beyond.

 

A lot of people dismiss all this as just something that’s going to happen and that people with gripes always comment more than people with good feedback.  And that’s true, but the ratings are still pretty valid (see Lauri Bassi’s book, Good Company) which is why candidates feel able to rely on them.

 

Zwi Segal also shared some similar if less comprehensive data on this as part of his presentation, again confirming that there is a link between Glassdoor ratings and company performance.

 

It’s because of these factors that I think more recruiters than in other areas of HR realise they need to move to a more social approach, combining traditional recruiting technologies with the use of social media.  But even in recruiting, a lot of the use of social media isn’t very social.  Sure we can use Linkedin and other tools to advertise our jobs.  But we also need to change our approaches to be more social, helping us connect and communicate with our candidates in a way that we’ve not had the need or the ability to do before.

 

There are really just two key needs which I can demonstrate using iCIMS Connect product (I’ll also explore iCIMS’ social jobs distribution tools at a later date).

 

Firstly, you need an ability for candidates to connect with you without having to apply for a specific job.  Doing this also helps avoid the high applicant to hire ratios which do nothing for employer branding or the ability to make sensible recruitment decisions.  iCIMS support this through their Social Connect Portal: with as little as one click candidates can share their social media profile to subscribe to recruitment communications and be informed of new positions that meet their interests.

 

Secondly, you need an ability to connect and easily communicate with your candidates on a regular basis.  iCIMS’ email tool allows you to create Talent Pools of candidates by function (e.g., Sales, Engineering, G&A) and to personalise the experience based on hiring needs, available talent and business activity.

 

So the technology is there, but you do also need a mindset which gives the candidate much more attention and focus than we’ve often applied to them in the past.

This post is sponsored by iCIMS.

 

iCIMS is the leading provider of talent acquisition software for growing businesses. Through the implementation of easy-to-use, web-based solutions, the iCIMS Talent Platform helps organisations manage everything from sourcing, to recruitment, to induction all within one streamlined application.

 

Check out a free walk-through of the iCIMS system or make contact at +44 (0) 118 9000 706 or europeansales@icims.com.

 

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