Social recruiting can be really personal

{ 03/04/2013 @ 9:10 am } · { Candidate Experience, HR, Recruitment, Social Media, Social recruiting }
{ Tags: HR, Recruitment, Social Media, Social Recruiting }

Social media for recruitment. There’s much talk about engagement. Finding the right job hunter. Searching for the passive candidates. Spreading effective content. Generating the correct ROI. Creating an Employer Brand. Ultimately, it always comes down to the hiring.

But there can be another side. When social media transcends the worry about the application process into something more personal. Rather than platitudes that this would be a dream job, it turns to talk of experiences from real life. And in our role as social media community managers, we’ve seen this touching side of recruitment, time after time.

Take someone who suffers from an extreme form of epilepsy. They contacted the Twitter account, after asking for a follow, and then enquired about how to gain a foothold in the industry for a career. We took up the conversation. For them it took the extreme effort of a chain of Direct Messages over a 45 minute period to fully explain their situation. For us, it was an extremely emotional conversation, as you saw the passion and frustration coming through. We pointed them in a useful direction.

Then, late one night, there was a girl trying to apply for a role but there were issues with the online application form. We were on hand to help. She then cam back to say she couldn’t apply because of family pressures due to her mum suffering from MS. We talked with her about the situation. (She even RT’d some of our replies.) She never applied. But hopefully, we helped her that night.

Another occasion, a gay man talked to an account about how he’s been victimised in a previous job because of his sexuality. We offered some advice. Other followers joined in the conversation. He appreciated all of the support.

You would never, necessarily, be exposed to these kind of ‘recruitment’ issues, if it wasn’t for the openness of social media. And only if your social media accounts show that they have a human side. Providing a platform for real conversations, not just jobs. The next time the question is raised of  ‘Is this Social Media effective for recruitment?’ remember that it’s effects can more worthwhile, far more wider reaching, than you could have imagined.