The other day I was speaking to a Talent Leader who was asking about Social Media and the “fit” for her organization. I sent the checklist from my previous blog and asked that she reflect on it.
Her response was,… “When I read the checklists about what to expect from an effective “Social Media Recruiting Strategy”, I guess I ask myself, are these not all of the qualities that you strive for in any effective recruiting strategy? And so, what is truly the impact/benefit of adding the SM component? It certainly seems like a lot of work and begs the question, what additional value will it really bring to our current process?”
My Reply,…..
You are 100% correct that any effective, comprehensive and successful Recruiting Strategy (a term which has now been morphed into “Talent Acquisition Strategy” to bring a new tone to the function) should include all the points identified on the checklist. Simply put,… the birth of social media has pushed organizations to augment their Talent Acquisition Strategy to include social media.
There is no mistaking that the goal of recruitment has changed very little over generations and the end result remains constant,…”Hire the best people for the job”. What has changed is our processes, strategies and mediums in which we search for this talent. As far back as I remember the message to a recruiting organization has been, “fish where the fish are”. There are countless reams of statistic to support the growth, adoption rate and engagement of society to social media, so we ask our recruiters to “fish where the fish are”. The difference is that social media is more engaging than any other recruitment best practice we’ve ever seen.
The challenge that many organizations face is taking their talent acquisition best practices and creating a Social Media Recruitment Strategy that reflects that best practice. The great thing is that this is all so new and the margin for error is big enough that organizations can “test” Social media recruitment without significant risk.
Until the next time,
Richard
