Tag: recruitment

Is it Ethical To Research Candidates Online?

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This is an age when a growing number of available candidates for many job positions have a significant presence on a variety of social media sites. The press increasingly takes note of issues of recruitment, hiring and privacy related to this development. At the same time, it points out that many recruiter human resource departments are grappling with how to best use these new tools.

At least two ethical issues are immediately identified when discussing recruitment and social media. The first is how not to become an abuser by spamming the market with opportunities and listings. The second issue deals with deciding where to draw the line in the ethical use of social media to screen candidates and prospects.

It is this latter issue that generates stories of young people losing out on opportunities because of online indiscretions. Some recruiters have allegedly asked potential employees for passwords to personal social media accounts. It is clear that the evolving issue requires the establishment of reasonable boundaries. What is not yet clear is where those boundaries will be drawn.

It is generally agreed that gross indiscretions on largely public sites are fair game. Anyone wanting to be considered a responsible candidate for most positions should understand that such postings and information are highly prejudicial. Appropriate discretion is the first rule that should apply to any social media information. In fact, the more public and sensitive the prospective position, the more such discretion is required.

Drawing the Lines

A second emerging question is the redefinition of what is and is not considered an indiscretion. Using LinkedIn and Facebook to access relative experience and background is to be expected. Going to private postings related to vacations and family gatherings is a direction that many now question, again with the truly gross indiscretion exception.

A third immediate area of concern is the question of the right to access non-public areas of social media. Some employers come down on both sides of this issue, depending on the specific position being considered. The candidate always has the right to refuse what is considered an invasion of privacy, but what if it costs being considered for the position?

There is no question that the issues related to the ethics of recruiting and social media are under scrutiny. Anyone in the business or dealing with human resources will increasingly have to decide what rules apply in their approach to the profession relative to social media.

Facebook vs. LinkedIn

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Recruiting and retaining top talent requires a keen understanding of the forces that drive your business as well as your potential hires. In today’s market, it’s simply not enough to go the traditional route to attract candidates. As Forbes recently reported, professional networking sites like LinkedIn are growing at an extraordinary rate. Ignoring social networking as a recruitment tool can mean missing out on a pool of young, eager, educated talent. But how do you successfully navigate various networking platforms and tie them in to your tried and trusted recruitment strategies?

New Insights, New Features

For starters, you’ll need to differentiate between two of the largest social networking giants. While Facebook has traditionally been a site where friends and family connect to share informal insights into their daily lives, the site currently has 1 billion users, making it a major communication outlet for businesses looking to draw potential hires and customers to their brand. In addition, a recently released study by Facebook may urge its users to start using the site as a networking tool. Facebook researchers Moira Burke and Robert Kraut found that users with strong ties who frequent the site regularly recommend job openings via messaging and chat channels. These findings indicate that Facebook may be a valuable tool to spread job opportunities through an already established network or close friends and colleagues.

On the other hand, LinkedIn has always been geared towards professionals looking to network. Most recently, LinkedIn announced a new search feature that will allow businesses and candidates to search for their next professional connection. HR professionals looking to use LinkedIn can now search for specific attributes and qualifications, allowing them to target potential candidates in less time.

Social media is becoming an increasingly powerful tool in our personal and professional lives. With new features and growing insight into the workings of our digital identities, HR professionals have more leverage than ever before to make connections between talented professionals and growing industries.

Striking the Right Recruitment Tone on Social Media

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Social media has become a major facet of our personal and professional lives. Harnessing the power and reach of your business’ presence on multiple social media platforms can help you increase your recruitment efforts and cast a wider net to potential applicants. But how do you strike the right professional tone in a less formal forum?

Pithy, But Professional
The main difference between a traditional job description and the content on social media sites is the length of content. Twitter forces users to post in 140 characters or less and while Facebook allows for longer posts, users tend to prefer content in the 200 character range. This means that your company must get to the heart of your recruitment pitch in very little time. Consider posting the most exciting sentence or two from your latest job description, along with a link to the full posting on your company’s site. Or, use the unique features of visual social media, like Pinterest or Instagram, to share unique insights into your company’s culture. Show your potential hires what a typical workspace in your company looks like by taking care to choose an employee’s space that embodies the type of values you want to promote.

Sharing images of your staff hard at work can also increase interest in joining your team. It’s appropriate to share images or posts that allude to the perks of working in a close-knit office, but take care not to focus on how hard your team plays once the weekend comes around. For businesses, social media can be a chance to communicate the values and vision that drive its products and people. Resist the urge to lower your recruitment efforts to the lowest common denominator, even if you think those types of posts will generate “shares” and “likes.”

Powerful Personalities
If your staff is fairly social media savvy, be sure to highlight their interesting posts, tweets, videos and images. As you work to recruit quality people to your company, you can help this effort by showcasing the already stellar people on your team and communicate your commitment to their success both on and offline.

Recruitment Drive Initiatives: Part 1

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Faced with the task of launching a brand new recruitment initiative for your company, you could find yourself at a standstill. Between the many new types of media available today (including social media avenues like Twitter and Facebook) the options are more numerous than ever. The best solution for filling an open position is to first attract top talent, and then keep them at your organization. But with limited budgets, how do you make this happen?

No matter your medium, make a strong case for your open positions. Just what about your company provides value to your employees? Is the work culture? Compensation? Location? All have are important selling points to top talent. Consider allowing more personal expression into the workplace. Although an admitted time sink, companies are experimenting with opening up sites like Facebook and Twitter—often for business, networking related purposes. Companies are also providing time for music and exercise, finding that the resources they’re expending catering to high-performing employees is more than worth the investment.

Above all, remember that a plethora of available talent doesn’t necessarily translate into increased productivity, and ultimately higher revenue for your business. Taking the time to plan a thoughtful, fun, creative, rewarding workplace is a great strategy for truly utilizing emerging graduates with a lot to offer your organization.

Signing off for now,

Buyer Advertising
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Quick SEO Tips for Recruitment

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Promoting jobs online is a great strategy. Not only is it a cost-effective way to advertise specific opportunities, online venues have the potential to reach a younger demographic—often an attractive hiring range for companies looking to fill positions. But even by accessing a variety of online job posting opportunities, if nobody’s reading your postings, there isn’t anybody who’s going to apply through this medium.
One important topic to address is optimizing your jobs for search engines. The more index-able your postings, the more potential employees will connect with your opportunities. Here are a few tips.
Cross post: Promote opportunities on your site, as well as through Facebook, Twitter, and your blog.
Optimize: Use searchable phrases common to the industry. Shoot to hit these job phrases that are based on what people would actually type into their search engine.
Integrate real media: Use print and brochures to send potential hires to your job listings.
Stay current: Post often. If you don’t have any new openings, stay fresh by posting topical news and other career-related interest bits.

Signing off for now,
Buyer Advertising
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Troubleshooting Your Hiring Strategy

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In tough economic times, becoming complacent doesn’t pay. With a larger applicant pools, it’s possible for HR departments to tap into greater wells of talent: a double-edged sword. On the one hand, finding the best of the best becomes more of a reality. On the other, the sheer mass of applications to wade through to get into that position takes time—and as you know, that means money.

Of course, the strategy that maximizes your time is recruitment advertising. The tactics you use should aim not for the quantity of applicants, but the quality. Tailor your media—articles and web postings—with language that challenges an applicant as much as invite their resume. If you’re looking for extremely qualified applicants, don’t be afraid to ask for that up front.

Agencies like us exist to maximize the dollars you spend in recruitment initiatives with results that improve the functioning of your organization. We welcome all questions!

Signing off for now,

Buyer Advertising
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Building a Community

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With recent changes to the way search engines like Google return results, and as a necessary step in the evolution of hiring strategies, social media is unmatched. Every day, we see companies like Progressive and Staples use their Facebook collective buying power of thousands to increase sales revenue—not to mention to exist as a powerful well of talent to draw upon. You recognize Facebook’s role in your own ability to stay competitive. But how do you get started? For those beginning from scratch, here are a few tips to steer you down the right path.

Don’t Market. Social media is a whole different species from traditional channels. When you’re deciding what to write in the omni-present “update” box, steer clear of anything that promotes your business. “Friends” are not customers, and they can smell a pitch a mile away. Stick to content that benefits them, not yourself.

Start Right. First rule of social media: empty fan lists tend to empty unless acted upon by an outside force. Ask friends and employees help “seed” your fan list to get you started. If your new fans like what they read, they just may invite friends of their own.

Lighten Up. All work and no play makes Jack… well, you know the saying. Facebook and its ilk are mediums of leisure—therefore, part of your posting strategy should be to entertain your fanbase. Try a few techniques and see what works best.

Happy hunting,

Buyer Advertising
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An Agency Advantage: Perspective

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If you have a favorite book, you know that every time you re-read it, it loses a little bit of punch. A week of your favorite food may send you to Fresh City, hungering for a little variety. Even your favorite song, on loop, will make you feel as if you’re hanging out in an elevator. The truth is, the more familiar material is, the more we become blind to its effects. The same holds true for companies who write and produce their own hiring marketing material.

Whether your hiring campaign is being considered by management, product experts, or internal team members, it’s likely for them to simply assume key benefits and essential elements that just don’t register for someone browsing online or flipping through a magazine. For a business deciding on a hiring strategy, the results could be disastrous.
One great advantage of any agency can deliver is a little perspective. As outsiders, agency professionals immediately engage by considering a message from the viewpoint of an audience. This is such a critical process of attracting new talent—and frankly, communicating any marketing message.

If you’re testing your current employee messaging, ask yourself these questions: Is what I’m saying immediately apparent to my audience? Why should they care about what I’m saying? Is my content too detailed? Not detailed enough? Thinking like a consumer is something agencies are trained to do, and through audience-first perspectives, help you arrive at an optimized brand and hiring strategy that could work wonders for your organization.

Signing off for now,
Buyer Advertising
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Social Networking Means Socializing

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If you’re here, you probably realize the importance of social media. After all, blogging is a great way to get your message out while putting a personal face on your business. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter—these sites represent a conduit to better SEO and a solid recruitment platform for your business. Although we’ve discussed the value of simply signing up in the past, let’s review some great ways to get talking, stay social, and put your social media strategy to work.

Get active. If you’re logging onto Facebook or Twitter only when you have a position to fill, you’ll be staring into a blank space every time. The best recruiters spend time building their network even when they’re full up. Social networking provides some great ways to do that: inviting colleagues and acquaintances to connect, joining professional groups, and building a fanbase by offering smart posts, links, and content.

Be Generous. Provide advice to fans and professionals alike, and check in every so often with a genuine, “how are you”? Becoming a resource is the number one way to attract attention in the world of social media—and in the case of sites like LinkedIn, more attention means better access to qualified candidates.

Stay Current. Update your business’ profile with links to your personal and company homepages, provide an email address, and keep information up-to-date. Staying relevant keeps you foremost in the minds of potentially perfect candidates—and after all, isn’t that what we’re after?

Signing off for now,

Buyer Advertising
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Online Job Interviews: Yea or Nay?

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We may not have rocket boots or flying cards (yet) in these modern times, but one futuristic trend is making its way into HR offices already: the online job interview. Although it may seem like something from the Jetsons, HR personnel and hiring managers alike are giving up the leather chairs and clipboards, and instead asking potential candidates to stay home and switch on their computers.

There are a few compelling reasons that face-to-face is becoming passé. Services like Green Job Interview (greenjobinterview.com) are promoting their product as enabling hiring staff to make decisions without the ecological cost of carbon-burning transportation and paper waste. As they put it, “By utilizing secure, browser-based technology and support services, organizations and candidates interact face-to-face while minimizing costs, maximizing time, and reducing environmental impact.” Other companies providing “virtual” job interviews include HireVue (www.hirevue.com), which promotes their service by stating you can save an average of $3,000 to $5,000 by interviewing and hiring online.

Of course, as a trend, nobody’s certain if this all-too futuristic fad will catch on. There are bound to be hiring managers who won’t give up their hiring routine for the sake of a little gasoline and paperwork. So the question remains: will online hiring become a recruitment standard, or a flash in the pan?

Until next time,

Buyer Advertising
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