creating a social media recruiting strategy

Much has been written about how social mediatools impact the recruiting discipline. The statisticsall seem to indicate that there continues to be increased use and investment in social media recruiting as well as the decline of the more traditional route, job boards. The tone of much ofthis discourse seems to be oriented towards a debateof how worthwhile the tools are in talent development and whether or not their continuedadoption will ultimately result in a death knell forthe job board market.

While the disruption to job board market seems obvious, the debate over whetheror not the impact to the job board market is fatal may ultimately not really matterall that much. A more useful discussion might be to focus on how to rapidly adopta social media recruiting strategy that augments investments in job boards, serves toensure that candidate sourcing and recruitment efforts drive improved candidate quality, and is able to establish a community of talent that has the potential to be introduced into the organization.

This eBook is intended to offer insight into the steps necessary to formulate a socialmedia recruiting strategy. The steps focus not on the tools of the social media recruiting trade, but rather the talent objectives of the employer. Implementing thissuggested process will not only better prepare an organization for use of socialmedia tools, but generally increase the talent development overall.

introduction

Page 1A Yoh eBOOK | Five Key Steps to Create a Social Media Recruiting Strategy© 2011 Yoh Services LLC • A Day & Zimmermann Company

Take Measures to Evaluateand Define the

Employment BrandEmployment branding is obviously not a new phenomenon, but the nearly ubiquitoususe and consumption of digital media has significantly impacted the degree of intimacyby which an organization’s brand is defined. Yesterday’s brand style guides essentiallysecured the look, feel and tone of the manner in which the employment brand wascommunicated. More aggressive organizations implemented a comprehensive communication strategy to ensure the perception of their brand as an employer wasproperly reflected externally. In essence, the employment brand was just that, a one-way communication exercise.

Towards the latter half of the 2000s, as digital media gained adoption and took a decidedly social turn, the one-way orientation of employment brand communication turned into moreof a multi-directional conversation. As the conversation and the channels over which this conversation exponentially grew, many companiesfound themselves at the mercy of the conversationitself. Compounding such a challenge has been a predominately knee-jerk reaction of employers to rushto the digital and social media tools themselves in

hopes of getting ahead of and driving the conversation. The result, in some cases, hasbeen to apply the static one-way communication plan of yesterday against the dynamic multi-channeled conversation of today.

Such an attempt typically serves only to exploit a firm’s unpreparedness rather than improve the value of their brand as an employer. This shouldn’t be a surprise as the expectation of communicating on social platforms is that it includes relevance of a personal nature. Not to say that the personality of the communication trumps thebrand message, rather that the conversation consistently offers value to the intended

participants. Moreover, the value is expected to deliver across far more than simply thepotential of employment with the company. Communication must be entertaining,topical, thought-provoking, challenging, and above all, engaging.

Therefore, before even considering which tools or platforms to use in social mediarecruiting efforts, the organization must revisit the objective of their employmentbrand. The analysis must ask some of the following questions. Who is the organization as an employer? How is the employment culture reflected in the branditself? What strengths of the employment brand can be easily called out with engaging and entertaining content? What is the position of the brand going to beto the employable marketplace at large? How will the brand reinforce the positionwith anecdotal evidence supporting the reality of the brand claims. Who’s responsibility will it be to protect and propagate the employmentbrand?

The exercise will not only better define the message of the organization as an employer, but will serve to lay the foundationfor any and all elements of communication targeted to theaddressable talent community.

A Yoh eBOOK | Five Key Steps to Create a Social Media Recruiting Strategy© 2011 Yoh Services LLC • A Day & Zimmermann Company

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Communicationmust be entertaining, topical,thought-provoking, challenging, andabove all, engaging.

By the Numbers

Current use86% of B2B firms using social media 82% of B2C firms using social media

Frequency of use32% of B2B firms use social mediaon a daily basis52% of B2C firms use social mediaon a daily basisSource: Mashable


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Determine Acceptable Levels of Outreach EffortThe social web is aptly named. By its nature it is conversational. The

conversation thrives on updated and fresh content. While the content can be developed or derived (i.e. not all content used in engaging the intended audiencemust be developed by the organization itself), sharing content is an activity thatmust be consciously executed. This fact can potentially be discouraging when embarking on social media recruiting strategies because the level of effort may seemdaunting.

Fortunately, the amount of effort required in completely under the organization’s control. The key is making sure the effort level is understoodand acceptable thresholds of effort defined.

Establish Frequency: It is tempting to begin to think about tools at this point,but it is still premature to do so. Instead, define an acceptable frequency for communicating with the talent community. The frequency must be consistentenough to keep the audience active, and also be something that the organizationcan make happen. In other words, it is an exercise of estimating how often youwant to start conversations with your talent community and then honestly answering the question of whether the organization can commit to that schedule.

Define Engagement: Finally, how involved in the conversation will the organization be? The audience will react and respond to content. They will takepart in the conversations. As this activity happens, what and how will theorganization react? Zero participation defeats the purpose of the engagement ingeneral, so there absolutely must be a statement of what the expectation is for engaging individuals in groups in the conversation that has been initiated.

Walking through each step will ultimately yield an estimate of overall effort requiredfor an engaging social media recruiting strategy. It is a good practice to increase thatestimate by 10% to 20% in order to properly set expectations adequately. In short, estimated effort is nearly always an underestimate.

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There are 4 factors to consider whencalculating the outreach effort:

Content Inventory: Content is key to an effective social media recruiting strategy.While content can range from something as simple as entries on micro bloggingsites such as twitter or Tumblr, to 5,000 word detailed whitepapers that educate the addressable candidate pool, it must exist. If it doesn’t exist it must befound or created. Therefore the effort required to engage the talent pool startsfirst by taking inventory of what content is already on hand.

Creation Prioritization: It is unlikely that the organization will have absolutelyevery piece of content that is needed to effectively engage potential candidates. Prioritizing the most important elements of a content plan will help to identifywhat needs to be either found or created.

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Prioritizing the mostimportant elements ofa content plan helps toidentify what needs tobe either found or created.


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Define the Members of the Addressable Candidate Market

A social media recruiting strategy is far more than the sum of all the individual jobpostings that an organization wants filled. It more closely resembles a targeted salesapproach. There exists a relational element to the methods of this communicationthat must resonate with the intended audience. By building the strength of the relationship with potential candidates, they will be predisposed with a positive perspective on employment with the organization when they are ready to consideremployment alternatives.

In order to develop a social media recruiting strategy that accomplishes this objective, a deep understanding of exactly who the addressable candidates are iscritical. This is another challenge for many organizations who have historicallylimited their concern of potential candidates to their tangible skill sets required toaccomplish the job. Fleshing out the nuance of the candidate’s fit with the cultureof the organization and the eventual team on which they would work has typically

been left to the screening and interviewing process. Those factors can no longer beleft to what is, now, very late in the recruitment cycle.

The sourcing required to fill talent demands must now include aggressively identifying the persona of the “best fit” candidate. A persona is essentially a profileof the candidate that is far more inclusive than just the basic skill set. The personamust address as many intangibles that are typical of a talented professional thatwould best contribute to the team. Warning, this is going to feel slightlyuncomfortable at best and at worst will send your legal team into nervous ticks.Why? Because it is exactly as it sounds, a profiling exercise. Caution must obviously be taken to ensure that this profiling doesn’t violate employment laws.

With the aforementioned warning in mind, to drive successful creation of a candidate persona, consider some of these questions to help define the intangible elements. The nature of each should help underscore the nuances that are beingsought after.

What does the perfect best fit candidate prefer, Meryl Streep or Will Farrellfilms?Would the candidate be more likely found in a museum or ballgame over theweekend?While an undergrad, was the candidate more likely to have been a member ofcommunity outreach student groups or some sort of social sports club?Does the best fit candidate completely avoid risk or actively seek it out?Is the preferred communication style with friends and family email, text orphone calls?Regarding technology, is the best fit candidate an early or late adopter?

The idea is to paint a portrait that best represents the target candidate. Why?

Because ultimately, social media recruiting strategies must be completely oriented towards engaging target candidates. These

seemingly innocuous questions help define elements of the candidate personalityand interest. With that knowledge, efforts to engage them will be significantlymore successful.

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Determine if Platform willbe Broad or NarrowThe speed with which social media tools are being adopted makes it very

tempting to focus initial efforts on figuring out which tools to use and how theyought to be applied. Evaluating the tools, however, is more an exercise in determining methods of communication and engagement for specific targeted

candidates. Therefore, it makes more sense to first determine how discretelyyour organization seeks to engage. A more general and broad approach will

set a standard common communication and engagement plan that would connectwith any and all candidates from an employment brand perspective. A more discrete and narrow effort will segment candidates by specific types and drive multiple engagement plans specific to each type.

This is an important step because the two way nature of digital social communication outlets requires content in order todrive the conversation. As such, a practical analysis should be

carried out to determine the proper approach surrounding the content generation activity. A modest ability to generate or repurpose content implicitly suggests that the targeted social media

recruiting efforts be of a more general and broad nature. Conversely, the content requirements grow proportionately to thenumber of candidate segments that are defined in a more narrowly

focused strategy. This critical step places focus where it must be as

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strategy is developedon the newly defined targeted candidates.Be forewarned, it is a potentially tediousstep and requires thatone specificindividual in the organization retaincompleteownership and responsibility forensuring that theanalysis occurs and the resulting execution plan is periodically monitored for performance. Failure to assign responsibility here will result in a disconnectedand disoriented use of social media tools and, in a worst case scenario, waterdown the intended position of the employment brand, alienating well qualifiedtargeted candidates.

Three tips to effectively identify whether a broad or narrow social media approachis best include:

Uniqueness Rating: Determine how unique each candidate segment is by assigning each a 1 to 5 rating of ‘uniqueness’. The higher the number, themore unique the communication and engagement must be for the candidates in the segment.Content Consumption Preference: Evaluate the candidate segments todetermine the most likely preferred consumption of content. Factor in thetechnology that each segments uses and where their largest digital footprintmight be found. The largest intersection typically points to the area wherecontent can most easily be distributed across the targeted segments. Shared Relevancy: Revisit the definitions of the addressable candidate market to identify overlapping interests. A high degree of shared interest indicates a broad approach will be successful.

Social media most popular among companies for recruiting: LinkedIn: 78.3% Facebook: 54.6% Twitter: 44.8% YouTube: 13.7% MySpace: 5.4%

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92% of respondents said thatthey either “currently use or

plan to use” social networks torecruit new employees.

Source: Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey 2010


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Tool PrioritizationOnly after the first four steps have been completed should tools evenenter into consideration. The audience, corresponding

message, and the breadth of communication are foundational and must influencetool selection. With this foundation, the recruiting team willconsider what level and type of communication best fits the company’s culture andcomfort level. Starting from a point that naturally aligns with culture increases the likelihood of not only success but sustainability of the plan.

Keep in mind the defined acceptable level of outreach and content volume

thresholds ‘best places to start’ can be categorized by type and tone. It is important to consider how serious or casual the current culture is, but more importantly, take into account the position of everydaycorporate communications. Is there an analytical bent on any data that

impacts or come forth from the organization? If so, then a comfortable place tobegin would be to exploit industry trends, statistics, and demographics. The predisposition to analyze numbers and statistics will make it easier to connect theanalysis to some story or narrative that the targeted candidate audience will find interesting or valuable. If, on the other hand, the culture is more comfortablefocusing in on the more personal realities of their workforce and customer base,they are more likely to have immediate success by bringing forth examples of thevarying personalities in their organization, customer base and industry in general.This approach will allow the connected narrative to harness immediate popular culture trends, news or events.

Social media tools should be evaluated against potential match of the newly defined areas of comfort and corporate cultural alignment. Asking the simplequestion of, “Does this tool fit with our communication comfort areas?” willhelp in creating a prioritized short list.


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BlogA blog makes sense for a company that likes to manage and dictate thetone of the conversation. More importantly, a blog is easily adaptableto the communication style identified in the cultural anslysis of the

organization. Analytical preferences are easily satisfied in the typical blog postlength of 250 to 500 words. And all blogging platforms provide simple use of morerelaxed content such as audio or video.

More than 133,000,000blogs have been indexed since 2002

77% of Internet users read blogs

Two-thirds of Bloggers are male56% say that their blog has helped their company

establish a positioning as a thought leader

within the industry

58% say that they are better-known in their industry because of their blog

Tool Facts

Source: Technorati “State of the Blogosphere”, 2009


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One out of every 14 people in the worldhas a Facebook account

Of these more than 500 million active users, 50% log in any given day

New user growth on Facebook is stagnating

The average user has 130 friends

Each month, people spend more than

700 billion minutes on Facebook

More than 2.5 million websites have integrated with

Facebook

People can interact with more than 900 million

pages, groups, events and community pages

Tool Facts

Source: Facebook Statistics Page, The New Yorker and Google DoubleClick Ad Planner

www.facebook.com

Facebook, as compared to many other social media outlets, is typically more casualin nature. However, this doesn’t necessarily exclude the opportunity to use a moreserious tone in your company’s Facebook presence. It just doesn’t make sense forsuch organizations to begin there. The key is to understand how content will beviewed by the target audience and how it will be shared with their networks. Inother words, the distribution of Facebook content is a typically distributed morewidely. This reality requires a disciplined approach to what content is shared byFacebook interaction. The easy way out is to simply post new job openings on thecorporate Facebook page, but this does not lend to the development of the employment brand. Facebook strategies require a calendar of targeted activity thatwill occur on the page and methods that will help increase those that like the page.Additionally it is critical to carve out a Facebook presence specifically foremployment. This means that the organization will have, at least, two Facebookpages. One oriented towards target customers and the other for the employmentbranding purposes. Note, a narrow approach could very well mean multipleFacebook employment oriented pages.

www.facebook.com


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Twitter has approximately 89 million unique visitors

Twitters visitors generate 5.8 billion pageviews

Tool Facts

In 2007, users tweeted 5,000 times a day. By2008, that number was 300,000, and by 2009 ithad grown to 2.5 million per day. In 2010,tweets grew 1,400% to 35 million per day. In2011, Twitter has 50 million tweets per day—that’s an average of 600 tweets per second.

Approximately 105 million

registered users

Sources: Twitter’s Blog and Google DoubleClick Ad Planner

www.twitter.com

While Twitter is conversational in nature no one necessarily needs to be listening inorder to begin to broadcast this way. A simple way to get started on Twitter is tosimply share content that is created for the targeted candidate market or foundcontent from other outlets that would be found interesting by the candidate market.Once established, effort must be made to engage any following developed on Twitter, and more importantly to be prepared to immediately engage. If a candidate had a bad experience, engage them. If a former employee had a bad exit,take a position and respond. If a member of your greater corporate ecosystem (evencompetitors) had a success, acknowledge it. If an employee has something interesting to share or say as part of their social media footprint, share it. If a newproject is increasing the number of openings at your firm don’t just tweet the jobopenings but share the nature of the project and its intention.

www.twitter.com


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LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network

More than 85 million members

LinkedIn has representatives from every Fortune 500

company

Tool Facts

Source: LinkedIn Press Room

www.linkedin.com

LinkedIn is naturally oriented to recruiting efforts but too few leverage it beyondjust trolling for candidates. The organization must bring value to the targetedcandidate community. This is done by effectively managing the LinkedIn presence beginning with the recruiting oriented LinkedIn page. In addition, it makes senseto ensure that leadership is well represented on LinkedIn. If company officers don’tfeel the site is valuable enough to have a presence, then certain targeted candidatesmay perceive it as a reflection of how these same officers value their employees.

www.linkedin.com


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Tool Screenshotwww.quora.com

Quora is one of the newer social media outlets, completely oriented towards questions and answers. Again, much like Facebook, the company is likely to havetwo identities on Quora. One which is consumer facing and the other which iscandidate facing. The candidate identity provides an opportunity to increase transparency over the employment brand, hiring practices and overall corporate culture. Much like Twitter and Facebook, this candidate facing identity must be bi-directional, posing questions as well as answering them.

There are many more tools, but these recommendations are provided to helpdevelop an initial plan. The art in leveraging them rests not only in how each isused but in the nuance of the conversations that each ignites. Mastering the nuance takes time and, more importantly, requires ownership. This is another areawhere an individual (or individuals) must be assigned to manage thecommunication of each.

www.quora.com


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The recruiting discipline is eager to capitalize on theadvent of widely adopted digital/social communication tools. However, not enough effortis given to develop effective strategies that will helpan organization better develop their incoming talent. The steps outlined in this eBook are intended to do just that, offer up considerations forcreating a strategy that aligns with the talent goals ofthe organization. The labor intensive nature of thetools requires a well defined, prioritized and orchestrated approach.

conclusion

The preceding is a Yoh eBook adapted from www.theseamlessworkforce.com – Yoh’s blog on workforce trends and information.Content contained herein may be reproduced with appropriate attribution.

About YohFor over 70 years, Yoh has provided the talent needed for the jobs and projects critical to our client’s success, by providing comprehensive workforce solutions that focuson Aerospace and Defense, Engineering, Federal Services, Health Care, Life Sciences, Information Technology and Telecommunications. Yoh fulfills immediate resourceneeds and delivers enterprise workforce solutions, including Managed Services, Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Vendor Management Systems, IndependentContractor Compliance, and Payroll Services. For more information, visit www.yoh.com. Yoh is a part of Yoh Services LLC, a Day & Zimmermann Company.

About Day & ZimmermannDay & Zimmermann’s 24,000 employees provide industrial, defense and workforce solutions to a broad base of commercial and government customers. Operating frommore than 150 worldwide locations with 2.1 Billion USD in revenues, the Day & Zimmermann family of companies is currently ranked as one of the largest privatecompanies in America by Forbes and is a former winner of the U.S. National Family Business of the Year award. Founded in 1901 and headquartered in Philadelphia,PA, Day & Zimmermann companies today provide architectural-engineering-construction services, power plant maintenance, modification and specialty services, securityservices, and staffing services to businesses and government agencies, and munitions production, equipment maintenance and facilities management services to the Department of Defense. For more information, visit www.dayzim.com.

about Yoh


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www.yoh.com

www.dayzim.com

creating a social media recruiting strategy

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