Jennifer Lumba, CMO at Rideau Recognition Solutions

According to the old adage, finding the perfect job is all about “who you know.” Yet, the same can probably be said about finding the perfect candidate. Never has this held truer than today, in the age of social media where “who you know” implies a far-reaching network of family, friends, and acquaintances that transcends barriers of language, time, and geography.

With a contracting economy and a shrinking pool of talent, it is increasingly crucial that recruiters be able to identify and hire the right talent for their company. Social media present a great opportunity to engage with potential candidates long before they enter the interview room. These platforms provide a forum where you can glean insights into candidates’ attitude and personality, which more often than not can determine a future employee’s success or failure within the organization. They provide an affordable alternative to placement agencies, have been found to be more effective than job boards, and they allow recruiters to reach passive candidates, the happily employed who may still be tempted if the right offer came along.

Here are a few tips on how to better harness social media to boost your recruitment efforts and find the best of the best for your company.

1. Establish a focused strategy. Take the time to plan out how you will engage social media for recruitment purposes. Identify your goals: Do you want to fill a specific position? Or do you simply want to create a pool of potential candidates for the future? What sort of investment do you want to make: are you starting small or implementing a full-fledged social recruitment strategy? Make sure to get executive buy-in and align your human resources appropriately. There is no sense in engaging in social recruitment efforts if you cannot dedicate the time, energy, and resources to doing it right.

2. Choose your tools carefully. Establish who you are targeting and how they will be targeted. Ensure that your tools are the ones your potential candidates are using. LinkedIn’s appeal, for instance, is cross-generational, whereas Facebook and Twitter tend to be favored by Generation-Yers and Millennials. For example, a high-level executive position will require a different placement than that of an IT developer or a business analyst. While more labor intensive, a segmented, focused, and diversified social recruitment strategy will yield better results than a blanket approach.

3. Define your social brand. In the past, I have explored the importance of internal branding efforts and how social media tools can support this. However, many of the same principles apply to your company’s recruitment brand. Make sure to involve and align your HR, Communications, and Marketing departments. This will help ensure that what is said on the company’s LinkedIn and Facebook pages corresponds to the corporate website, which is in tune with the company’s current PR messaging. Potential candidates will research a company thoroughly, and you want the message to be consistent, regardless of where their search takes them.

4. Be active and present. The key to the long-term success of any social recruitment effort is ensuring that all your social media are monitored and updated regularly. Respond promptly to questions and comments posted on the company’s Facebook page or LinkedIn account. Have a blog? Update it on a regular basis. A Twitter account? Same thing: Tweet regularly. You want your content to be timely and up-to-date. If your content becomes stale, interest in your company as a potential employer also will become stale. So make sure that the resources are in place to maintain your social presence.

5. Ensure high-quality content. Regardless of the tools you are using, choose your content carefully and ensure that it is relevant. Do not turn your fora into a dumping ground for all manner of company news and information. Social media are a democratic, two-way conversation that is driven first and foremost by your audience. Create interesting, meaningful, and thoughtful content that will draw in your talent and motivate them to engage with your company.

6. Make it a positive experience. Remember that regardless of the outcome of the selection process, you want the candidate’s experience to be positive. In a recent study by Alexander Mann Solutions (2010), 52% of respondents said that a negative interview experience would likely impact their buying products and services from that company in the future. More than your employer brand is at risk here. So treat the candidate as you would a customer. Reply promptly to queries, keep the conversation polite and respectful, and make sure to clearly communicate your decision. Remember that, nowadays, a candidate can choose whether or not to connect and engage with an employer.

7. Advertise the job, but promote the company. A candidate’s choice is as much related to the actual position as it is to the company’s culture, mission, values, and the people who make all of this come alive. So don’t hesitate to feature personal content. Advertise your people and their stories, and share how they make your company a fantastic place to work at. Blog about the great charity your IT Team Lead is volunteering at. Tweet about a new environmental initiative that’s come out of your Communications department. Focus on the person-to-person, rather than the person-to-business, relationship.

8. Be transparent. Just as you would in a traditional recruitment process, make sure that you are honest and open in all your interactions with potential candidates. This means stating clear expectations regarding the selection process, clearly communicating information about the job position, and not “over-selling” the company. Avoid embellishing as it will eventually come back to haunt you.

9. Mix the old and the new. While social media tools offer a radically new way to source talent, it doesn’t mean you can do away with traditional recruitment methods. Rather than mine job boards for interesting candidates, you now mine LinkedIn and Facebook profiles. The conversation with a candidate occurs now as much on Twitter as it does in a formal interview process. Job fairs can be virtual and held online… or simply promoted online. So do not hesitate to combine your social recruitment strategy with other, more traditional recruitment efforts to find the best talent out there.

10. Engage your best asset. Remember that your best asset – your people – also have Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, and LinkedIn accounts. They can be your most passionate promoters and your best link to the perfect candidate.  Encourage them to share their company success stories with their network of friends and acquaintances. They can link to company videos, tweet about new job postings, and share their own achievements on Facebook. And, when you are shaking hands with your latest hire, remember to thank the person who referred them in the first place. Great talent is hard to find and everybody’s contribution counts.

Remember that social recruitment is simply good, old-fashioned networking, amplified by 21^st century technology. It gives employers unprecedented access to a pool of talented candidates. Conversely, it allows candidates to engage with potential employers like never before. What used to be a top-down “push” process has now become an active, two-way conversation, which provides companies with new opportunities to build and develop impactful and meaningful relationships with their employees from the very beginning.

Jennifer Lumba is the Chief Marketing Officer of Rideau Recognition Solutions (www.rideau.com). Built on state-of-the-art technology, Rideau’s employee recognition and customer loyalty programs change the way companies recognize employee service and achievement, reward individual and team performance, strengthen customer relationships, and create brand loyalty. Lumba can be reached at jenniferlumba@rideau.com. Follow Rideau Recognition Solutions on Twitter @Rideau.