New Methods for New Media

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The face of recruitment is changing. There’s already been in shift in how your organization hires employees, and social media is responsible. Where job seekers used to open the classified section of their newspapers, where they once logged into Monster.com, now their method of choice for securing a new position is to turn first to their social networks. That’s where you come in. To recruit top talent, you need to put yourself at the front lines. But it isn’t as simple as building a site on Facebook, as Tweeting out your jobs every morning. Tackling recruitment using social media has to be effective—not just cost-effective. It requires a new strategy.

To reach the maximum number of hires, talk to the client in a more personal way. If your approach comes across as too business-like, you’re going to scare potential recruits away. Answer questions as they arise on your networks. If you prove to a there’s a human on the other end of the keyboard and that your social media site isn’t simply Job Board 2.0 or a bullhorn that’s an afterthought to your hiring practices, you’re going to have more interest in your open positions.

Another approach to consider is building a place for social media promotion into your traditional marketing. Update your website with links to your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Build job promotional details into your current materials and job marketing efforts. The more people would follow your lead, the larger the pool of quality of employees you’ll have.

3 Super Strategies for Employee Engagement

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Motivating an employee force is critical to the success of any business. Unhappy employees can slow down productivity—while happy, enthusiastic ones can re-vitalize the culture of a business and provide exceptional results. Here are a few tips on how to go about energizing your employees.

Do your homework. Take the time to conduct research and get to know your employees: what makes them tick, their aggravation points, and what they’re looking to take away from their careers. Run surveys. Ask questions. Arming yourself with this fundamental knowledge will make future engagement efforts that much more effective.

Reward and recognize. Every workplace has their heroes and heroines. Identifying these individuals who perform exceptionally well—and rewarding them accordingly—not only inspires them to keep on going the extra mile, but also shows the rest of your workforce that extraordinary efforts yield real benefits. Contests and promotions help grease the wheels, too.

Encourage the culture. Every workplace has its own character. If you’ve taken our first tip, then you’re starting out with an overall knowledge base on your employee population. Tap into the culture, anecdotes, legends, stories, and overall flavor of your day-to-day operation. Use it as a template to develop programs specifically aimed at your unique place of business.

Managing Negative Facebook Feedback

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You’re a business, and that means you’ve got a Facebook account. As the nation’s consumers and potential hires continue to toss out the newspaper, delete their links to monster.com, and instead log onto social media, crafting a Facebook presence is a good idea. But what happens when good ideas go bad? If there’s one inevitable in life, it’s that you’re going to run into conflict. People will badmouth you. On Facebook, this takes the form of negative and sometimes downright nasty comments, justified or not, on your Facebook Wall—right where it’s viewable to all who visit. What should you do? Here’s some advice.

Stay positive. Facebook is still so new, and it’s all too easy to confuse the personal nature of the medium and reply in a personal manner. When you respond to negative comments, don’t get defensive. After all, you’re representing your business, and as a rule, businesses have thicker skin. If you decide to write back, remain calm, courteous, and professional.

Engage your detractors. Oftentimes, a person will make a big splash to get noticed. Barring profanity, try and find out what they’re after. If you turn an unhappy customer, that’s positive PR that lives on your wall for at least a few weeks. Nice!

Don’t be afraid to hit “delete”. Should the conversation go from productive to public spectacle, you need to take action. Delete the thread. Some folks are just out to do a little mud-flinging, and Facebook empowers you to nip that in the bud. If your online assailant uses profanity and verbiage of an adult nature, get it out of there. You don’t want other (and possible younger) consumers exposed to that.

Social Media and Recruitment for Education

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Social media: it’s a phrase that inspires thoughts about real-time interaction, reminiscences of the flowing green fields in Farmville, and a healthy dose of anxiety if you haven’t been keeping up with the trend. With an astronomical growth in popularity of Facebook and Twitter—not to mention a user base who is spending more and more of their leisure time online—social media remains a premier way to tackle your recruitment initiatives. Recruitment trends in education have a distinct flavor. Read on and discover what strategies schools and universities are using to pull in top talent.

The multi-platform approach. Facebook, Twitter, blogging: educational institutions have been using a multi-pronged strategy to reach out to students and talent alike. As large educational institutions create spaces for sports and students activities, it’s a no-brainer for them to use separate Facebook and Twitter pages specially designed to advertise jobs opportunities.

Real-time feedback for job seekers. Nothing is more discouraging to potential job applicants than submitting their letter of interest or resume and then waiting… and waiting… and waiting. Posting their interest as a Facebook entry or blog comment allows an administrator to acknowledge them as a person and give feedback.

Research goes both ways. Just as candidates can click through and explore the culture and information on an institution of a higher ed., so too can a school explore the personality of a person. The tables have turned, and some hiring decisions are being made without ever meeting a candidate in person.