Working in a Corporate HR department, you know that sourcing is an essential skill that must be mastered. A trained sourcing specialist utilizes different techniques to profile skill sets and identify and attract potential talent. For companies that require skilled professionals, and specific skill sets to fill job positions, sourcers provide a key competitive advantage.
So, Let’s Start with the Basics
There are two different types of candidates: Passive and Active.
An active candidate is a job seeker that is actively seeking employment and will be responding to your job postings.
A passive candidate is an employee that already has a job but is still open to other opportunities.
How does social media fit into sourcing passive and active candidates?
Although traditional techniques such as phone sourcing, recruitment databases, and Boolean strings can be effective, they may be costly, time consuming, and inefficient as well. Social media sourcing is a great alternative to find candidates in a timely manner. Social media platforms provide an enormous reach, which exponentially increases the size of your talent pool and the likelihood that you will find relevant, quality applicants.
But, where does one begin when developing a social recruitment strategy to source candidates? With the multitude of social media sites already available and new platforms constantly being released, it is easy to spread yourself too thin and render your efforts ineffective.
I mean, off the top of my head I can think of using Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google Plus, Klout, Instagram, Pinterest, and Quora for social recruitment. With so many options available, it’s easy to see how having too much of a good thing can be a problem.
A few social media sourcing tips
I suggest selecting a few of these social media sites and developing a methodology that fulfills your recruitment objectives. Do some research to understand where your target audience spends the most time.
If you are a recruiter, don’t duplicate your client’s efforts. Your goal is to fill in the gaps in their recruitment process and utilize recruiting methods that they are deficient in. Ask yourself: What recruiting methods they currently use? Job boards, Boolean strings, LinkedIn, or Facebook? What is currently working for them and what methodology would they like to utilize but don’t have the resources to get into? How do they engage their talent community? Is social media even a good fit for their industry?
Use social recruitment technology to make your life easier. For example, a Facebook job posting app. SourceMob positions job content without leaving Facebook. Furthermore, an employer may track traffic sources and monitor analytics from all o their Social Career Sites.
by Zach Mayer