The rise of social media is creating plenty of opportunities for employers to showcase their message and to interact with current and potential employees. Sites like Facebook are a fun and easy way to engage with contacts and to have two-way communication with fans and people who are interested in your organization. Twitter is another great tool that allows you to easily blast updates to your followers.
When you have an audience, social networks make it easier to communicate and to expand that audience.
These tools however, do not replace traditional methods that have proven effective for sourcing and recruiting. Claims that newspapers are dead are misleading generalizations that don’t look at some noticeable exceptions (as the data below shows). The same goes for claims that job boards are becoming a thing of the past.
First, social media has not yet proven itself as an effective recruiting venue. Second, traditional media such as newspapers are evolving and along with a number of job boards, they serve as vehicles for reaching niche audiences. Social networks are one out of many communication tools to engage with these niche audiences. And third, social networks are an extension of our real-world networking, not a replacement.
Embrace new media and incorporate it into your overall strategy. But relying solely on it will lead to lost ground and missed candidates.
Social networks are used by the majority of Generation Y, yet few of these individuals find social networks to be effective in finding work. According to a recent AfterCollege survey of 670 college students and recent graduates, job boards were rated the most effective channel for finding a job, followed by applying directly to a company’s web site. Speaking to someone who works at the company of interest was third. Social networks, despite being used by over 80% of our respondents, ranked last in their effectiveness. Only 11% of respondents selected them.
Like email or instant messaging, social networks are a new communication platform, and on their own, they add little value. If you develop a social network presence, whether it is on Facebook or Twitter, you may get followers, but only those that are actively looking for you and these may not be the followers you’re looking for.
How do you reach those physical therapists and make them take notice of your opportunities? How about those PhDs in Electrical Engineering or those top accounting majors? You can wait for them to come to your Facebook page or follow you on Twitter, but you can also enlist the help of niche media, whether new or traditional, that targets your desired demographic to drive the right traffic to your online social presence or to your corporate web site.
Job boards, especially niche ones, continue to provide good return on investment for employers targeting niche audiences. A perfect example is Craigslist. The site has hardly changed in ten years, yet it remains one of the most effective sites for targeting job seekers geographically.
Newspapers that have moved online and have embraced the web have also become effective channels for targeting specific disciplines or regions. In our survey, newspapers received a healthy thumbs up by 28% of respondents who rated them effective for finding work. Other similar surveys confirm that new graduates still look at the paper for opportunities. The San Jose Mercury News, for example, is embracing new technology by conducting local online job fairs that leverage the newspaper’s local reach with both employers and job seekers.
Lastly, traditional networking is still the most effective means for finding a job. When we narrowed our survey responses to those who had an easy time finding a job, talking to someone who worked at the company of interest took the top spot. Job boards and company web sites were in the top three. Talking to educators, friends and family were other top choices. Out of the top five most effective channels, three of them involved real-world networking.
When looking at our social network connections, how many of them are people we met online versus people we first met in person? Social networks allow us to easily interact online, but they are also virtual representations of connections we already have in the real world. And most likely many of us will continue to build more connections through real-world interaction as opposed to online interaction.
Social networks and other forms of new media will continue to improve the way we interact. Embrace it and add it to your recruitment strategy, but don’t jump blindly into it. It’s important to discern between media that enables social interaction and media that allows you to target desired audiences.
At the same time, leverage traditional face to face networking to reach your target demographic. Relying solely on one approach, especially on new technology that has yet to prove itself, could be the equivalent of jumping off a cliff without a parachute.
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June 8th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Excellent synopsis and I completely agree.
I will only add that utilizing SM as a means to build virtual networks quickly can really add significant return when followed up with phone or face to face meetings with those you connect with.
For the last 2 years I have made it a practice to connect (via phone or F2F) with everyone I connect with on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc. The purpose of that call or meeting is to establish how we can leverage our relationship for a positive result and make the initial connection mutually beneficial to one another.
In my humble opinion, SM tools allow us to connect to vastly larger number of people across diverse industries/background/geographies etc. at a significantly accelerated pace. Actually turning that into something that produces a real world result requires “old school” interaction.
June 8th, 2009 at 9:26 am
This point of view is right on. Social media is just another tool in the recruiting toolbox. Job boards arent going away, their future is bright. Companies need to create an all-inclusive strategy that utilizes all these weapons in the recruitment wars…
June 8th, 2009 at 10:33 am
One thing is clear, web is an ever crowded place and we are all looking for attention (trying to get noticed). The web is only going to get more crowded.
The question for employers is, Do you want jobseekers to have to search for your Job Posting on the web or on generic social networks..
There is a reason why Small, Focussed and Niche saves time and money and improves your branding as an employer..
June 8th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
I’m not surprised that few people use SM sites to network with prospective employers, but I’d be interested in knowing how many people have *altered* their personal SM profiles during job searches.
Without getting into the debate about whether or not it’s ethical for employers to filter people based on their personal profiles, the fact is that employers do it and have made hiring decisions with the discovered results.
*That* makes SM profoundly different as a tool from a job fair or school career center:
You don’t have a choice on whether it’ll prohibit your search or not depending on the company. I’m in advertising/design and: if I didn’t have SM profiles, it would look bad; if I had a poor profile, it would look bad.
June 8th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Well done Roberto — this is valuable research that can benefit everyone in the industry!
June 8th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Love this post! I must say, as a recent grad, that I used to be terrified of any kind of online social networking. I think by the time we graduate we’ve hear so many horror stories of bad encounters online that we are terrified of using it as a tool to find people in your industry and make connections with them.
It wasn’t until I began taking a class on SM that I truly understood its value and am a now an SM advocate.
June 8th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
I think the post is very informative, but at the same time, I think that social networking can be a tool for finding jobs — it’s just in its infancy and therefore people aren’t aware of the benefits (nor do they realize there’s any potential). This NY Times article is a case in point.
I think that if more companies engage in the tactics explored in the NY Times article, you’d see a shift in the data collected. Let’s see if we can revisit this issue in a year or so. I’d imagine the results would differ, albeit slightly, but perhaps substantially enough that you’ll see it gaining momentum.
Remember, though, that Facebook and other social networks are networks that are NOT dedicated to the sole purpose of finding jobs. That said, they’ll never be #1 on the chart (where “searching an online job board” is positioned). But there’s potential to move up — (and there’s still potential for recruiters to capitalize on the talent on these various sites for placement).
June 8th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
I don’t see job fairs in big cities anywhere on that list. That’s impossible.
June 8th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Well said Roberto!
June 8th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
A healthy mix of both that is tailored to company’s best interest seems to be the best fit to me for the time being.
June 8th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
You have to go where the people are. A lot of the technology companies can probably score some good people from social networks. But old school companies might need to rely on older methods of recruiting to get the kind of people they need.
June 9th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Very insightful article. I believe this article showcases the need for a change in the current system. Engaged talent communities make sense on every level for both students and employers. Of course traditional means of recruiting will always exist but there needs to be better interaction initially between employers and job seekers.
This is exactly what we are going to do at GrouperEye.com (http://www.groupereye.com/launchprogram/). By providing an avenue for companies to seek, engage, and retain talent we hope to change the current model of recruiting.
June 9th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Nice overview Roberto. Niche is truly becoming the best way to identify both active and passive candidates by placing relevant posts where those folks live online. And the definition of niche seems to be changing daily, as I heard a national recruiter say that for her, local is a niche, as in “I recruit to fill Seattle jobs at http://www.nwclassifieds.com,” which is no different than “I recruit for school nurses at http://www.schoolnurse.com.” As they say, fish where the fish are.
June 9th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
I couldn’t disagree more with this article. Since embracing and fully utilizing LinkedIn, and using it correctly, my executive search firm has spent dramatically less posting jobs. I post in my LinkedIn groups and update my status regularly. With a lot of connections, I get resumes sent to me daily. Hate to say it, but the people on Monster or other job boards simply are not the candidates that we look for. As an executive search consultant, I need to dig deeper to find the right person. LinkedIn enables me to do this, and no job board that I’ve ever used does.
June 9th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Thank you for sharing this Roberto! These valuable results really show the need to have an extensive recruitment marketing strategy that encompasses and places the appropriate level of focus on each avenue of prospective candidate sourcing.
June 11th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
Started 3 social networks (related to jobs/careers) earlier this year, one was generic and the other 2 were focussed (in my judgement)..I was promoting all 3 at the beginning but soon found out that the 2 focussed niche networks had more traction and have leap frogged the generic network in members and content.
I should have known but sometimes its good to experience it directly..