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Social Recruiting: 5-day Programme

Facebook, Twitter and

Blogs

Using social networks to attract and

hire great people at zero cost.

Hire Strategies Limited Marston House

5 Elmdon Lane Tel: 0870 116 3031

Marston Green E-mail: [email protected]

Solihull B37 7DL Website: www.hirestrategies.co.uk


By Peter Gold

www.hirestrategies.co.uk

October 2009


CONTENTS

DAY 1.............................................................................................3

DAY 2.............................................................................................5

DAY 3.............................................................................................8

DAY 4...........................................................................................10

DAY 5...........................................................................................12

About Peter Gold and Hire Strategies Limited....................................16


DAY 1

Why recruiters don't need Facebook or Twitter

You may find this a pretty odd statement considering we advise recruiters how to use the

social web to recruit! But, just because Facebook has 200 gazillion people and Twitter is

flying higher than a high thing you don't have to be on there or worry about being left behind.

To be totally honest, most people using social networks for recruiting are doing such a bad

job they may as well not bother; which makes it easier for you to do better.

The objective of this 5 day programme is to explain how the various social sites can be used

so that YOU can make an informed decision to decide if they fit YOUR strategy; and if they

don't you can hold your head high knowing why they don't suit you and get on with what does

work. And if anyone asks, you'll have an answer. It's not about doing everything badly but

doing just one or two things really well. The British Olympics cycling team called it the

"Aggregation of Advantages" and we aim to help you identify those small things that can make

a big difference.

So let's be clear about what I mean by social recruiting as there are already way too many

different names such as web 2.0, social media, social web etc being discovered every day.

We started using the phrase social recruiting a few years ago when very few people thought

much about social networks and MySpace was all the rage. But the whole social media world

has moved on and is (now) "correctly" referred to as "the social web" or something similar.

Social media suggests advertising (which is fine and accurate in many cases) whereas often

it's not just about advertising. Social recruiting is definitely not just about advertising as you

will see - so what do we mean?

The social web or web 2.0 is about conversations rather than transactions. Great recruiters

recognise the need to build a relationship with both the candidate and client (this includes

internal such as Line Managers) to be successful and this cannot be achieved without

conversations. So, social recruiting is:

"Creating an online environment that enables simple two-way communication and data

sharing between all parties to maximise the potential of successful hires."

I realise it may be a bit of a mouthful but in essence it's all about conversations and NOT just

about advertising; sharing data openly and not controlling what either party can have. If all

you want to do is find out how you can advertise your jobs to candidates for free then you are

missing the point as this is not what social recruiting is just about. Yes, it is about reducing

your recruitment costs and a lot of the channels/sites we recommend are free - but just

because they are free does not mean that they will work without engagement and

conversation between all parties. One-way, SPAM type job advertising will not work even

though many still do it!


That said, here are the main areas of the social web we will cover over the next four days:

• How to use Facebook Pages and Groups to promote your brand/jobs and engage

candidates throughout the hiring process.

• How Twitter can go out and find passive candidates and how you can keep your

followers engaged in the conversation as well as knowing about your latest jobs.

• Why blogging is an important part of your recruitment strategy and what you can be

doing beyond just writing your own blog - but also how a blog can help you further

your own career.

• How recruiters can learn from e-mail marketing techniques to build, maintain and

grow a genuine talent pool instead of relying on a database of aging CV's of limited

value.

• How to use social channels to get your jobs out to as many relevant places as

possible using free automation tools that once set-up just keep on running for free!

As you can see, there is quite a lot to cover in the next 4 days so before we move on, one

action for you to think about. If you are serious about implementing a social recruiting

strategy you will need a profile picture that you like. It should be professional but can still

have some humour attached but most importantly, you must LIKE it. So many people tell me

they hate their profile but do nothing about it other than avoid doing to much "socialising".

I hope you have found Day 1 a good start and not too daunting; the next 4 days will be pretty

intense but as it is all by e-mail you can save all the information and refer back to it as and

when you need it.


DAY 2

Facebook is such a big, hungry and constantly growing site that with over 300 million

members there has to be a way to use Facebook to help with recruiting; and of course there

is!

There are many options but I'll focus on the main three that I recommend:

1. Profile.

2. Pages.

3. Groups.

4. Advertising.

Profile

You must have a profile to use Facebook so you have the following options:

1. Use your own personal profile.

2. Set-up a separate business profile.

3. Create a company profile that is only attached to a Page.

Officially Facebook state you are only allowed a single profile but in reality you can do all of

the above if you want to!

Pages

A Page is different to both a Profile (that's all about you) and a Group (about a specific

subject) and is in effect a mix of both but in an employers case, where they promote their

employer brand. Think of a Page as your own public facing mini-Facebook where you can

have:

• A blog.

• A discussion forum.

• Promote events such as assessment days.

• Upload photo's and video's.

• Build up a fan base.

• Feed your jobs.

• Communicate with all your fans.


Facebook even allow you to customise your Page to help with branding and layout so people

can easily recognise who you are. You can then promote your Page using the Facebook

advertising system and/or link to it from as many other places as you choose.

Finally, what I really like about Pages is that people can see it without even being registered

on Facebook and, you can decide which page of your Page they see first i.e. the landing page.

Why have a Page?

Having a Page places your brand right in front of a massive audience across all age groups. It

also allows you to try out a number of social networking tools for free to see how well they

work for your company. A good example is the Ernst & Young Careers Page at

www.facebook.com/ernstandyoungcareers which has almost 30,000 fans!

Managing your Page is very easy although you can get one set-up for you. We offer this set-

up service starting at £950 as a one-off fee so are happy to help if necessary.

Our Page is at www.facebook.com/Hire-Strategies-Limited - please become a Fan!!

Group

A Group allows similar functionality to a Page but CANNOT be branded or altered in anyway

but it can be made PRIVATE. This makes a Group a suitable tool for onboarding, discussions

with external suppliers or even an internal project team that needs a low cost (i.e. free!)

collaboration tool that is easily accessed by anyone from anywhere.

Why have a Group?

If you need to keep the conversation private or want to bring together a group of people

around a specific subject think about having a Group. If however it's more general and open

for public consumption then a Page may fit better.

Facebook Advertising

In the UK alone the number of people you will be able to targets ranges from 8m - 15m

depending on your exact criteria and you can also drill down to a very small group of people

that want part-time work in the Cardiff area (an example Facebook use!). Furthermore, the

adverts run on a CPC (cost-per-click) basis which means you only pay if someone actually

clicks on your advert.

Using Facebook Advertising should be the final part of your FB strategy as you really want to

maximise the Page and Group options first as they are both free and easy to set-up/use.

Why advertise?

There is always a time and place to use any kind of advertising and this is no different. You

can either use FB to promote your Page or, some kind of external location such as your career

site. We have and follow a number of conversations around FB advertising and as yet the jury


is still out but as cost can be easily controlled, and your Page has a reports module included,

it is something worth trying for yourself. There are examples of it working for recruitment

purposes and again we can help advise if needed.

So, that's a bit about Facebook which is more about people finding you rather than you

finding them. Your profile allows you to control your details which means that you won't get

too many stalkers, sales people or recruiters trying to be your Friend - that's what Linkedin is

for! Hopefully you have got your profile image organised and will be setting up your FB

profile very soon.

That's it for today, tomorrow we'll focus on Twitter.


DAY 3

Twitter, twitter, twitter - it seems to be everywhere these days. From celebrities to teachers

everyone is finding a way to make use of Twitter; plants have been rigged up to tweet when

they need watering and ovens when fresh bread is being put out on sale. (Sadly these are

actually true)

But, how can you use Twitter for recruiting and more importantly, how much time will you

need to invest? There are of course many ways you could use it but here's some good

starters:

1. Advertise your jobs for free.

2. Find people by skill, location, interest etc.

3. Find industry experts and learn new skills e.g.Google Adwords.

4. Keep candidates updated e.g. assessment days, graduate programmes etc.

Why Twitter?

Apart from the conversational aspect of Twitter (remember how important this is) there are

again millions of users with forecasts suggesting upwards of 100 million by the end of 2009

so it is another channel you cannot afford to ignore.

Also, as Twitter technology is open for other people to build applications that integrate with it

there are many new ideas being developed and some of which are job specific such as

Twitterjobsearch.

And finally, although you will need to invest some time in using Twitter to have your

conversations, a lot of the activities that add value to your profile can be entirely automated

most of which are free or VERY low cost.

Job adverts

You can send a feed of jobs using RSS via free tools so that as soon as your jobs are added to

your career site they appear on Twitter. They also get added to other job sites automatically

as well with no work required from you. If you have specific groups you want to focus e.g. IT,

Buyers, Fashion Designers etc then you would be better placed to set-up specific profiles with

those jobs on so they are more targeted for your followers.

Find people - recruiting or industry experts

There are various search tools that not only make it easy for you to find people, but you can

also set these tools up to automate the find, follow and welcome new Followers activities

based on keywords either within their profile and/or conversations. This will help a recruiter

quickly build up a list of Followers who are relevant to their recruiting focus.


This same approach can be used to gain new skills by looking for experts in key areas of

interest such as Google Adwords, SEO etc.

Keep candidates updated

You can create multiple profiles with or without protected updates. So, for anyone who is

invited to an assessment centre you could invite them to follow you to get updates both pre

and post the event. A lot more efficient that having to send out an e-mail to everyone!

There are of course many other public and private updates that Twitter can be used for and

are only limited by your imagination!

Next step

The first step with Twitter is get a profile set-up with a nice photo of you and description of

who you are. We go into a lot more detail about how to set-up a Twitter profile in our social

recruiting workbook which I will tell you about shortly. In the meantime, have a think about

how you could use Twitter and which one thing would you get the most benefit from - this is

where you may want to start.


DAY 4

I have been writing my own blog (blog.hirestrategies.co.uk) for 3 years now and no matter

what anyone tells you they take a fair amount of time. Of course you decide how much time

but the more popular your blog the more time you tend to invest; so tread carefully before

starting your own blog! But just because you may not start your own blog there is still good

reason for you to be thinking about how blogging can support your recruitment strategy.

Finding people

A large number of bloggers are both experts in their field and passionate about their subject

which in turn will generate a large number of readers. So, whilst you may not look to recruit

the blogger they could very well be talking to and be listened to by a key resource pool that

you would like to tap into. Also, the blogger will often reference other people of interest in

their posts as well as link to a number of other important bloggers in their blogroll (a list of

blogs they read). Also, the people that leave comments will generally have a link to a page or

site where you can find out more about them as well. Finally, some blogs carry advertising or

will accept guest posts (often they will want to be paid) which again gives you a way to get

your message out to your target audience.

Alternatively, you may be looking to improve your industry knowledge for recruiting in a

specific area or indeed brushing up your own skills. Either way, don't ignore blogs/bloggers

just because you don't plan to write one.

Reading blogs

At first and with not too many blogs it will be easy to keep up but I would strongly

recommend you set-up a Google Reader account so you can feed multiple blogs into a single

source. This saves you having to go out and check individual blogs for updates as Google will

goout and check each day for you - and as with most things Google it is free.

Writing your own blog

I am often asked by recruiters if they should have a blog and if so on what basis.

1. Is it a company blog that they manage/contribute to.

2. Is it their own blog that may or may not be linked to their employer.

Both points open up a number of questions. A company blog may have a few more

restrictions and want to control the message; it also has the potential to stop at any time for

many reasons.

A personal blog is exactly what it says but can be used whilst in situ at an employer to

promote your current vacancies, news releases etc and in effect gives you some additional

free content to give your brain a rest!


My thoughts

If you want to stand out develop your own blog strategy and blog. Reference your employer

and their vacancies etc but ultimately use it to add value and advance your career as well as

your recruiting success. For anyone that gets onto our masterclass series we cover personal

blogging in more detail. It's not something you need to rush into but that's my view either

way.

That's it on blogging for today. It's a subject that we will no doubt debate at a later stage but

in the meantime think before acting; it's not for the faint hearted and takes a fair amount of

your time.

Tomorrow we'll look at how you can build a real talent pool and make sure it stays awake

rather than wither away like most others!


DAY 5

I hear from so many very large organisations who have 250,000+ CV's in their recruitment

system yet also admit that they do very little if anything with them. You may be in the same

position and are also thinking the same:

"How can you make more of this list but more importantly how do you avoid it in the first

place?"

First of all, you need to get in contact with your list to see if they are still interested in staying

in contact with you so we'll use e-mail as the start point.

How will I e-mail everyone?

If the list is relatively small and you are not overly concerned about cleaning the list beyond

those that re-register, Outlook may be OK although we generally would not recommend this.

Alternatively, you would create an e-mail campaign using a third party system that gives you a

fully branded HTML e-mail and full tracking. This will give you some useful stats about your

list such as dead addresses, opens/unopens, click throughs etc. After the campaign has been

completed (which may be a series of 3-4 e-mails) you have a 'clean' focused list to work with

which may be 50% smaller than the original list but 100% better quality.

I have a list already

I refer to it as a 'list' as at this stage it is pretty much a list of names/CV's. The first thing you

need to do is get the list in a decent format with name, surname, skill type, location etc. As

much detail as possible but as a bare minimum e-mail address but ideally with first name as

well.

Depending on how well you can segment your list will depend on how you make the first

contact but ultimately, using e-mail marketing techniques, you want to start a conversation

with these past applicants to either get them off your list or, move them into a more focused

list/group. To get them onto the right list does mean giving them somewhere to go to though.

So where will you send them? In simple terms you want to create some new databases of

people by specific skill sectors or whatever segment you need them in. If you are using an e-

mail marketing tool this would require interested applicants to sign-up to (for example) a

monthly newsletter, Facebook Group, Twitter profile etc. Once they have signed up you can

decide what regularity for ongoing communications and what type of content you will provide.

I need to build a list

If you need to build a list you will miss out the first phase i.e. segment your list (as you don't

have one!) and need to decide if 1) You build one first or 2) Start from no list.

If you want to build a list by searching on Google, Linkedin, Totaljobs etc you will then need

to segment accordingly.


Where will they go?

I will assume you have a number of different skill sets so you will need to think about each

and where best to suit that audience. For example, certain types may prefer to join a

Facebook Group whereas others may prefer a monthly newsletter approach. You will need to

think about the different ways to communicate such as:

1. Recruitment newsletter - general company information or industry/location specific.

2. Sign up to a recruitment blog.

3. Get job alerts.

4. Join an online Group or discussion forum e.g. retail buyers.

5. Latest job details by target sector e.g. IT, Sales etc.

You will need to think about your own time and skills which will in turn determine how much

automation plays a part in the process. Take this e-mail programme for example. I create

this once, review it monthly but only tend to makes any changes every 3 months or so

depending on how the market changes. So in effect, this initial introduction manages itself

and only after the programme has finished do I use this list to communicate updates etc.

You could use a similar approach to 'Your career with XYZ' or 'Your induction programme

weeks 1-8' knowing that everyone has had consistent messages.

Once people have chosen what they want, you can tailor your messages accordingly to

improve the freshness of your talent pool and the success it delivers.

What next?

Now you have your lists segmented you are in a much better position to start focused

conversations that are relevant to the people you are talking to. As people start to engage you

will by default start to identify the best hires and build other communication channels e.g.

Twitter to bring people along the hiring process.

I appreciate it may all sound somewhat complex and time consuming but it isn't as hard as it

may seem plus, you don't have to do everything within this programme. Also remember, the

e-mail campaign piece can be outsourced from set-up only to a fully managed service at less

than the cost of a monthly Monster subscription! The ongoing communication method will be

based on what works but can be more focused as a result of cleaning your list using the

various social recruiting tools as necessary.


End of the road

So that's the end of this 5 day programme. I hope you have found it useful but would be

delighted to get your feedback to make sure it is as good as we can make it.

• Was the content enough or too much?

• Was 5 days right or would 10 days be better i.e. an e-mail every other day.

• Has it got you focused or are you more confused than before?

• Anything else?

Please e-mail [email protected] with your comments. You can also follow me on

Twitter to keep in contact or subscribe to my blog to pick up some additional tips.


And finally! The Social Recruiting Workshop.

I hope that you feel social recruiting is something worth considering but realise you may still

need a bit of time to think about it and some more information before making a final

decision.

The social recruiting workshop helps you take that next step from "maybe" to "can do", you

can find out more details at www.hirestrategies.co.uk/socialrecruiting including date, cost and

location. If you are ready for the next step and sign-up before the end of today you can use

the special £25 discount code TRUTH1 - just add it to the order form and the amount will be

automatically removed.

Thanks for staying with me; I look forward to helping you again soon and if you do sign up for

the workshop I'll see you there.

Alternatively you can also contact me direct to arrange a telephone discussion using

any of the methods below. In the meantime I hope you have found this report useful.

Tel: 0870 116 3031

Twitter: www.twitter.com/petergold99

E-mail: [email protected]

Profile: http://tinyurl.com/petergold

Web: www.hirestrategies.co.uk/contact.cfm


About Peter Gold and Hire Strategies Limited

With more than 20 years recruiting experience, most of which have been utilising the

Internet, Peter Gold advises employers on how to implement real time technology

solutions to attract, connect, engage and retain great people at minimum cost.

Hire Strategies help organisations demystify web 2.0, social media and other Internet

technologies with services that range from coaching and workshops, strategic

consulting to tactical ideas encompassing corporate social networks, leadership blogs,

process automation, e-recruitment technology selection and implementation, career

site marketing, and search engine optimisation/marketing.

Peter has worked with well known organisations such as Mothercare, New Look, Focus

DIY, Debenhams, Tesco, Boots, Halfords, DHL, Sodexo and Pets at Home to name

just a few.

He has built his own Applicant Tracking System (acquired by Jobs.co.uk PLC), career

sites and job board, utilises the techniques and strategies he talks about, and is an

avid Blogger (blog.hirestrategies.co.uk) as well as a renowned public speaker, giving

him a unique perspective on the world of web 2.0 and social media.

His latest report Social media in the workplace has been his most popular to date due

to the number of organisations trying to understand how to harness the social

networking phenomena for attracting, hiring and retaining the best people.

Peter Gold also wrote The Retailers Guide to E-recruitment, a 95 page guide to retail

e-recruitment that contains tips and advice on how to use the Internet as your primary

recruitment channel. ISBN: 189904308X

Pages: 95

A4 Format: Hardback perfect bound

Published: September 2006

Download - 6c5660

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