Why are Social Networking Sites Important for Recruiting? | Bird Dog Candidate Acquisition & Management System #SoulcialMe

March 13th, 2012 → 5:44 pm @ John von Harz // One Comment

Last week GlobalSpec, an industry heavyweight in digital media, released some astonishing statistics on social media activity with engineering, technical, manufacturing and industrial professionals.

• In the past year participation in LinkedIn grew from 37% to 55%.
• 66% of industry professionals have a Facebook account and, of those, 60% follow businesses and 40% participate in work-related discussions.

Those torrid adoption rates and the behaviors people are exhibiting present a remarkable recruitment opportunity for employers of technical professionals.

Primer Social Networking Sites
Social networking sites are online communities where users connect, interact, and exchange information with those who have shared interests. The sites provide a fast and convenient way for individuals to organize and engage when compared to older offline methods such as meetings and teleconferences. They also allow for continuous engagement as opposed to scheduled networking events. The most active social networking sites in our industry, according to GlobalSpec, are LinkedIn, Facebook, Google and Twitter. In terms of reach, social networking sites are substantially larger than job boards.

• Facebook – 750 million estimated monthly users.
• Twitter – 250 million estimated monthly users
• LinkedIn – 110 million estimated monthly users
• Indeed – 14 million estimated monthly visitors
• CareerBuilder – 10 million estimated monthly users
• Monster – 5 million estimated monthly users
• Simply Hired – 3.5 million estimated monthly users

How to use Social Networking Sites to recruit
Traditionally, employers would post an open position on a job board and receive interested job seekers and their resumes by email. The job boards essentially owned job seeker inventory and employers would pay for access to that inventory. Social networking enables the employer to get their own brand in front of job seekers, and to build their own inventory to draw from. In time, this strategy allows the employer to move away from the “post and pray” model (or even worst the contingency search fee model).

The first thing you’ll need is a hosted Career Site. Look at a hosted Career Site as your own micro job board. There a variety of options available from different companies, but at BirdDog you can obtain a hosted Career Site starting at under $2,000 for an entire year. Next, you’ll need to post job openings. These postings can be open positions or positions that you are always accepting applications on. Then, you’ll want to go to social networking sites and behave like a job seeker to locate your targeted communities. You can search for groups on LinkedIn and hash tags on Twitter (don’t get spooked – we can help here). Finally, you just step into the conversation by sharing your openings though easy social media sharing buttons. That’s it!

Social Media – it’s Viral
Social networking sites are viral. Look no farther than the recent uprisings in the Middle East and the rampant distribution of Stop Kony and you will recognize the power of multiplication in social media. Within the context of social recruiting, imagine if 10 of your employees shared a job posting with 10 contacts in their LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter networks, and those recipients shared it with another 10 of their contacts. You just placed your open position in front of 1,000 people in just a few days (or hours).

Beware, the viral effect can work against you if there is chatter out there that you are not an employer of choice. So, be sure to participate in the conversations taking place.

What About Plain Ol’ Search?
Social media is powerful, but it’s unlikely to replace the speed and ease of search available through Google or, within the job search context, a job board. At BirdDog, we often talk about the active and passive job seeker. Active job seekers are out there searching today for open positions on Indeed, MEP Jobs, ASHRAE Jobs, CareerBuilder, Simply Hired, etc. Passive job seekers, on the other hand, would be interested in your opening if you contacted them first via social media, peer-to-peer networking, email or the phone. If you are interested in both active and passive job seekers we recommend using both social networking sites and job boards in your recruitment efforts. The good news is your hosted Career Site provider (including BirdDog) can get you to both of those with just a few clicks.

(GlobalSpec 3/6/2012/2012)

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Tags: Always On Recruiting, construction, employment, engineering, Social media, Social Recruiting

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