Posts Tagged “tips”
Guest Post from an HR Analyst. About the Author: Kyle is the HR Analyst at Software Advice – a company that reviews human resources and applicant tracking software.
Social media can be a great tool for sourcing, screening and recruiting candidates. For a number of reasons, though, many recruiters sometimes find themselves crossing the line as their quest to find quality candidates. Many are asking, “How far is too far?”
Beyond learning the hard way, there are some best practices emerging to help recruiters know when they’ve pushed the envelope too far. And hiring professionals are discovering a new line of recruiting applications and tools built into applicant tracking software to help them rise above the same old hashtag to better identify, connect with and place viable candidates.
Many folks using social media in their recruiting efforts are running into the same issues. Regardless of how good your intentions, these issues can tarnish your reputation and cause you to miss out on golden opportunities. Here are the top three:
- Spamming job posts. Want to render your social recruiting efforts ineffective? Spamming people with your job opportunities is a surefire way to do just that. The key to social recruiting is to be social and engaging. Share industry news and articles of interest, exchange personal messages, etc.
- Prying rather than researching. Some positions require a flawless social media presence. For the rest, you shouldn’t be digging too deeply into their profiles. Screening should be focused on general impressions of candidates to see if they would fit within your company culture.
- Penalizing candidates for level of access. It’s not unusual for candidates to deny recruiters access to their Facebook profile, inviting them to connect via LinkedIn instead. Many people use Facebook for personal, rather than professional networking – especially in Generation Y. Don’t write off candidates for showing a bit of backbone and managing their public image – it’s hardly something to penalize.
Lessons Learned from the Trenches
Carolyn Betts, CEO of Betts Recruiting, is one person experiencing more success in social recruiting than others. She was recently featured in a New York Times article, for leveraging social media to grow her recruiting success. She’s picked up a few tricks worth sharing:
- Focus on strategy. You won’t be able to make the most of social media if you’re going into it blindly. You need to have a plan for how you want to accomplish your goals. Betts suggests starting with one social media site, familiarizing yourself with it, then growing your presence gradually.
- Have realistic expectations. When you consider the industry you’re in and the position you’re hiring for, are your deal-breakers realistic? You need to determine upfront how much weight you are giving a candidate’s social media presence.
- Leverage the right apps and tools. Many successful social recruiters know that in order to make the most of your social recruiting efforts, you need to leverage the right tools. Why go it alone when there are applications with built-in best practices for recruiting more effectively?
Expanding Your Reach with Software
According to a recent study, approximately 85 percent of U.S. companies used LinkedIn for recruiting last year, though only 30 percent of active job seekers are on LinkedIn. As such, many recruiters are finding LinkedIn a bit overcrowded. Where are the candidates? The large majority of them are on Facebook.
Because the data recruiters are looking for is a little harder to find on Facebook, however, many miss the sourcing opportunity this vast network provides. Fortunately, there are third-party software developers devising methods to put actionable candidate information into the hands of recruiters quickly and efficiently. Some of these recruiting solutions are standalone applications that leverage recruiters’ networks. Others – like Bullhorn Reach – are applications designed specifically for automating social recruiting.
For further reading, check out Kyle’s HR blog at: http://blog.softwareadvice.com/articles/hr/social-recruiting-how-far-is-too-far-010271/
If you’re new to Twitter, you might not know that there’s an etiquette to it. If you’re one of those that say, “I don’t get Twitter”, then pay attention. In this world of social online connections, Twitter is a crucial method of communication between job seekers and potential employers and vice versa.
That being said, I’m going to give you some Twitter Tips to guide you on your path to understanding Twitter and making it useful for you.
1. Sign up. This might sound basic but I want to be sure I’m specific so I don’t lose anyone. When you sign up, it’s important to choose an appropriate user name. You want one that identifies you but doesn’t use up too many characters. This is to allow people to “re-tweet” things you say without your username using up too many of those 140 characters. (I’ll explain re-tweet later on in this article)
2. Complete your profile. A complete profile will contain your name, a nice close-up picture, your location and a short bio and a link. This link can be whatever you want it to be – your LinkedIn profile, your blog, your facebook page – whatever. Just make sure that the link you include is an appropriate representation of yourself. Remember, employers use social media too. I recommend using city, state for your location. This makes it easier for locals to find you.
3. Set your preferences. Do not protect your tweets. This is pointless unless you’re only using Twitter to talk to your 5 personal friends in real life. Twitter is a social tool. It’s meant to be used as such. On the mobile tab, you can activate your Twitter account on your mobile phone. This is useful so that you can route direct messages, or messages from certain people to your cell phone as text messages. That way when you’re not on Twitter you can still get that important message. You can also set time preferences, such as “only receive updates between 7 am and 11 pm” or whatever time frame works for you.
4. Find people to follow. This is the key to engaging on Twitter. In order to have conversations with people, or find a way to network with people you don’t know, you have to start by following them. First, decide who you are interested in following. It might be local people, other people in your industry or line of work, others with common personal interests, etc. Of course, you can start by following people you know, too! Often, people we know are a great source for finding other interesting people to follow. Find out who your friends or colleagues are following and go from there.
5. Be patient. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was a Twitter network. Networking takes time and patience. It also takes involvement, so the less active you are the longer it will take. Keep that in mind. The more people you follow the more opportunities you will find to engage others and begin relationships. Quality of followers is more important than quantity.
6. Be aware! Like anywhere else on the internet, there are bots, scammers and viruses roaming on Twitter. If you get an odd direct message from someone asking you to click on a link – don’t do it. Reply and ask them what it’s about or if it’s legitimate. Sometimes these messages even seemingly come from those you know well – but don’t be fooled. Chances are, that person’s account has been compromised by a hacker. Err on the side of caution.
7. Don’t say anything on Twitter that you wouldn’t say out loud to a room full of people. Self explanatory, no?
8. Re-tweet when you can. A re-tweet (or an RT) is forwarding of someone’s tweet to your followers. If you like something someone has said, or like an article they tweeted, you can re-tweet it. This is a sign of endorsement by you and complimentary to the person you re-tweeted. This is often seen as a sign of endorsement of that tweeter and their content. If you want people to notice you, re-tweet them. It’s the highest form of flatter on Twitter and will get people looking at your profile – and hopefully, following you!
9. @ or Direct Message? If it’s something you wouldn’t say to someone in front of other people, then save it for a Direct Message. If the person you want to send the direct message to isn’t following you though, you won’t be able to send it to them. In such case, you can send an @ reply to that person asking them to follow you so that you can DM. @ replies are public, Direct Messages are not.
10. “What do I talk about?” This is the most asked question and it’s something I cannot answer for you. For each person the answer to this is different. However, consider what you’re using Twitter for. For most, you will want to present a professional image, but Twitter is also the place to let your personal side show. People are interested in who you are, not just what you do. Sharing things about yourself, your profession, industry related articles, funny things, technology news, etc. Just remember that what you tweet about will determine who finds you/follows you!
Do you have more tips to add to this list? Have you learned through your own trial and error what works? Please share!