Article: Attracting talent? Use social media wisely

Talent Acquisition

Attracting talent? Use social media wisely

While social media has become a key differentiator, a recruiter should drive social employer brand with caution
Attracting talent? Use social media wisely
 

Good recruiters make effective use of trending tools such as twitter tags to capture interest and attract talent

 

While social media has become a key differentiator, a recruiter should drive social employer brand with caution

Talent acquisition (TA) has become a complex business process owing to a variety of factors. The ability to attract and retain talent has become a strategic differentiator. In order to build a strong employer brand in the talent market, an organisation encounters several challenges and progressive recruiters are actively using social media to attract talent and influence the employer brand.

Firms that are able to communicate an environment of cooperation, exchange of ideas and flexibility enjoy a superior employer brand.

It is important that organisations recognise not just the skills and knowledge that exists within their current talent pool, but also their attitudes to compare these with the ideal set of knowledge, skills and attitudes that they desire.

A social media strategy has thus become integral to the talent acquisition process thanks to its ability to gather intelligence and reach out to the talent pool through adaptive methodologies.

Diversity and inclusion is on the list of top priorities for recruiting organisations. Smart employers are increasingly employing social media to propagate their commitment to diversity. While social media has become an integral part of the TA process, there is still no formal or benchmark process for social media hiring. In order to be an effective social media recruiter, an organisation should be aware of the following trends:

1) Be careful while choosing a social medium for reaching a prospective candidate. Most social media is personal space. Not everyone appreciates being approached via that medium and a careless approach to social media outreach can leave a big dent on the employer brand.

2) Progressive social media recruiters have become good at using their social pages to build an employer brand and popularise job opportunities. Good recruiters make effective use of trending tools such as twitter tags to capture interest and attract talent.

3) A very popular and sure-fire way to increase an organisation’s employer brand quotient on social media is by creating and propagating awareness such as employee programmes, work-life balance and other social activities through videos and other rich-media content.

4) Gestures on social media such as congratulating fresh hires and new joinees create a sense of belonging in candidates and some of the most popular employment/career pages regularly update congratulatory and recognition messages of existing and future employees.

5) Using social media gamification for inducting and training employees builds a strong and healthy culture of competition. Recruiters have also realised that knowledge sharing becomes easy when a new employee joins the firm.
In addition to social media, the TA space is witnessing several other trends. There has been an increase in the incidence of organisations employing managed services / RPO route to manage TA effectively.

Ajit Isaac is the Chairman and Managing Director of IKYA Human Capital Solutions
 

 

Read full story

Topics: Talent Acquisition, #Social Media, #Trends, #HRIndustry

Did you find this story helpful?

Author

QUICK POLL

How do you envision AI transforming your work?