Doubt Social Recruiting Works?

Michael Goldberg, Talent Acquisition Leader, National Convention Services and Event Management Company

I love it when hiring managers challenge the quality of candidates that can be found using social media.  Last week a colleague of mine was telling me about an e-mail received the following email from a hiring manager.  The content of the mail said -”Really?  Another social media find?”  My friend didn’t understand why s/he would be challenged that social media isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

So..I will ask you…are you still living in the dark ages waiting for social media?  Are you a nonbeliever in the social media/recruiting craze?  If not…I quote Andy Dufrane (Tim Robbins character) in Shawshank Redemption, “Get busy living or get busy dying”  Maybe that is extreme, but think about it….if you and your hiring managers want to stay in the dark ages, have high time to fills, wait for people to apply via job boards you are a dying breed of recruiter.

However, you want to proactively identify candidates and have candidates at the ready within a 5-7 business days of the posting and your hiring managers embrace and understand the benefits of social media/recruiting…well, you get it and you are living the good life.   So if you are on the other side of the fence, how would you demonstrate the benefits of social recruiting to your nonbelievers?

1.  Provide two sets of resumes.  A group of your top 3 to 5 candidates sourced from your standard job boards as well as 3 to 5 candidates you have sourced using social recruiting tools.

2.  Track the time it took you to find the each candidate.  Time to Find is a great metric to show how valuable social media is.  My bet, you will find candidates faster and who meet 95% + of the qualifications your hiring manager seeks using social recruiting tools

3.  Quality of Hire:  As you track your social media hires, do not stop measuring.  Quality of hire can be tracked a variety of ways.  I look at their annual review scores, productivity and retention   You can also track your social media hires to referrals, hires through old methods, and other sourcing techniques.  You will see a noticeable difference in the quality of candidates.

4.  Finally, social media and recruiting tools provide both the recruiter and the applicant to know each other better prior to the initial phone call.  How is this better?  Think about, due to the vast information out there such as LinkedIn recommendations, Tweets, and Presentations on widgets such as SlideShare, recruiters and hiring managers can open the cracker jack box and know what the prize is.  Yes, there are few surprises left in the world, but when it comes to hiring, social media takes the guessing out of the equation and shows us what each candidate is capable of.

To my friend, don’t back down because of nonbelievers.  Know that social recruiting tools will continue to improve daily, weekly, monthly and yearly.  For those who are still waiting at the station…requisition loads are beginning to increase and will continue to.  Therefore, you need to use all the tools available and use social media for your hiring sources.

SO, ARE YOU READY TO GET BUSY LIVING?

SHARE YOUR STORY…So my question to you is what stories can you share on your social recruiting skills and where they have been doubted.  How have you proved that person or group of persons wrong?  Post a comment and let me know what you think.

Posted by Michael Goldberg on July 12, 2010. Filed under Recruiting, Thought Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry