You regularly hear me discuss technology enhancing the way we identify and attract talent with the majority of recruitment activity now taking place online.

The impact of digital media has paved a new way for recruitment; progressing from targeting the active jobseeker through traditional channels, such as job boards and high street agencies, to leveraging the use of social media for the benefit of HR and recruitment professionals alike.

Amongst its many benefits, online recruitment activity helps employers to focus on long-term, strategic delivery, enabling them to build and add to talent pools, and identify how to maximise their brand when hiring. Despite the country being in a double-dip recession, many businesses still need to recruit, and I feel those who leverage online recruitment will feel the benefit further down the line.

This leads me on to a question I received from Mary, an HR professional looking to capitalise on social media to benefit her hiring strategy, but struggling to find the time to fit it in.

She wrote:

‘As an HR person, using social media to place roles can be time consuming. Do you have any tips for implementing social media into our hiring strategy correctly?’

Mary, it’s great to hear of HR professionals like yourself, adopting social media as part of their recruitment strategy. Social media is a great way to support existing recruitment activity and when done correctly, it can help to create talent pools and add value to your brand.

But you’re right; to be successful takes time and commitment. And unfortunately finding the time to commit to your social media recruitment strategy can sometimes be the biggest challenge – there are never enough hours in the day.

As a starting point, I suggest thinking about your objectives and knowing where your audience looks. For instance, do you want to grow a LinkedIn group? Gain followers in one specific industry? How much time are you willing to invest? Who will own the process?

By setting these goals, you will be able to target your efforts, streamline your strategy and monitor your levels of engagement. Whilst social media is a key component of a successful recruitment strategy, it’s important to remember, it will not generate an influx of relevant candidates overnight.

What social media platforms are you using? You’ll find each platform will generate different conversion rates, and to be successful, you’ll need to identify where the talent lies. There’s no point in investing all your time and effort using a platform that jobseekers you want to engage with don’t use.

Take LinkedIn as an example. Many businesses are finding great success using the platform, whether that’s through sharing jobs or posting vacancies. Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter on the other hand, will provide you with the chance to get your brand out there and will act as a powerful communication tool.

Finally, I suggest putting metrics in place to measure and evaluate your social media success. This will save you a lot of time in the long-run. If you’ve posted a link to a job in a LinkedIn group or tweeted it, and you haven’t had the response you were hoping for – look at how and why you are using that particular channel. Set clear, realistic objectives, monitor the response and evaluate the resources you have invested in with a view to amending if necessary.

2012 will continue to see the rise of social media as employers’ recognise the importance of creating social communities to build talent pools.

If anyone else has any tips to help Mary use social media as part of their recruitment strategy, please share them below.

Best,

James Caan
Chairman, webrecruit

Question? Email me at askjames@webrecruit.co.uk for the chance to appear in next week’s column.

Have a question for the team? Follow us on Twitter @webrecruit

As the old adage goes; there is more than one way to skin a rabbit, and the same principle applies when building effective and sustainable talent pools. Traditionally, recruiters would rely on referring to a back-catalogue of CVs received from previous candidates. It has to be said though, that this approach, when used alone, is a rather stagnant means of recruiting. In light of the fundamental changes brought about by the internet and the big shift towards online recruitment; hiring managers are becoming more diverse in their search for talent.

The keyword here is ‘groups’; the building, and maintaining, of networking communities who have placed an emotional attachment with your brand. Social media has revolutionised how we interact with each other. It has broken down the barriers and created bridges where, previously, it would not have been possible. The intricate web of engagement and hot-wires of communication accessible at the mere tap of a button, is a dream come true for hiring managers. That is, if you require the recruitment process to be a streamlined, speedier and far more cost-effective process, than ever before.

Groups have become synonymous with LinkedIn, and for good reason. Within the business world LinkedIn has opened up a myriad of doors for professionals seeking work. People have seen the platform’s potential to add dimensions to an application and, therefore, increase employability. Not only that, the networking opportunities it provides far outweigh what could ever have been achieved through traditional means.

There are now circa 9 million LinkedIn users, in the UK alone. This is a virtual world where talent pools lie in abundance. Added to that, the categorisation process has, all but, been done for you; as people are conveniently labelled in terms of their career credentials. In creating a group you are effectively generating brand awareness, whilst tapping into a market, easily discernible in terms of employability.

The same applies for other popular social media platforms, such as, Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Groups of people, who are online engaging with your message, make for a fantastic pool of talent. What is more, it is completely free of charge.

There is a catch though; generating the best results can be a difficult and time consuming process, not to mention a drain on resources. You need to be dedicated in your plight to conquer social media and to harness its true potential. The rewards if you do, however, make it entirely worthwhile.

Setting up a group is easy, and can provide a lucrative source for candidate applications, but only if you stick to your strategy. Posting a few discussions every so often will not generate buzz, nor will promoting one-way messages.

The webrecruit group, Transforming Recruitment Online, provides a strong case study for the benefits of social media and hiring. With over 78,000 members, it has become one of the largest recruitment groups in the UK.

Here we share a few tips we’ve picked up along the way to help you get the most from setting up a group on LinkedIn and, in turn, maximise your talent pool strategies.

- plan your content; ensure to post regular discussions
- appoint a social media champion, someone who shares company-wide best practices
- ensure social media is a company-shared ethos
- let group members steer the content; transparency is key
- include links/details to your career site, invite members to visit your careers site
- post your latest vacancies and encourage others to share to ensure maximum reach
- give people a reason to engage with your brand.

It’s no longer about the spray and pray approach; rather, today’s online recruitment activity is focused on long-term delivery, building and adding to talent pools, and identifying how to maximise their brand when hiring.

If you are a hiring manager considering how to use social media to complement your online recruitment hiring campaigns knowing where to start can be tricky.

Here are a few tips aimed at helping you to combine the reach of social media with the power of your brand to find great recruits.

Why are you doing it?

Some hiring managers make the mistake of dismissing social media, stating it doesn’t deliver the return on investment they need to build their talent pipeline. As a recruiter, however, we find it provides a key complementary tool that supports existing recruitment activity, such as using the job boards or your own careers site.

If you are clear with your objectives from the start, you can accurately measure its activity and value. Do you want to increase the number of enquiries or reach of your message? Or weigh up social media’s value against more traditional and often more expensive routes? Set realistic objectives to help inform and improve your strategy.

Blogs

People are inquisitive by nature, and social media is a great tool to feed that need for knowledge.

A blog can provide a great platform to collect enquiries from potential candidates. In fact, it’s a great way to connect with those who are actively seeking out information about you and are attracted to your brand.

Asking employees from different departments to write a blog will provide great insight into your company’s culture. This first-hand information will speak to current and potential candidates, and could provide a powerful marketing tool, especially if you ensure relevant call to actions or links to your careers pages are included.

It’s not just large companies that can benefit from this. Smaller companies could ask their latest recruit to share their first week experiences in the form of a monthly blog, or you could even write a monthly update and shoe horn your latest vacancies.

Join the conversation and engage

An increasing number of businesses are now using micro-blogging tools such as Twitter to share their latest news, competitions and updates. They are also successfully using them to promote their latest vacancies or share insights into their culture.

Have you tried:

- Asking your HR department to set up a jobs-specific account to share the latest jobs?
- Customising your bio – ensuring it includes links to your careers page?
- Planning when and what you will tweet?
- Asking your followers to RT recruitment messages for you?

Media sharing

Recruitment advertising doesn’t need to be just copy-based. A handful of companies are realising that their ideal candidates do not congregate on one or two platforms – or visit the same job boards every week – so they have begun to experiment with using different platforms to target a different audience.

As part of your online recruitment efforts, you could:

- Set up a branded Youtube channel and create recruitment videos. Try a mixture of formats – for example – insights into your company culture – to start engaging with potential recruits.
- Tell your company story using Flickr, using images to create an affinity with your brand.
- Ask candidates to submit visual CVs on Pinterest (great if you’re looking to hire designers)

A commitment to using the latest social media channels and technologies would make your brand stand out to job hunters.

Experiment & research

When deciding which social media recruitment channel you wish to explore, it’s important to remember one thing: where will your ideal candidate spend most of their time online?

There’s no point in investing all your time and effort using a platform that jobseekers you want to engage with don’t use. This is where research and experimentation comes in.

Once you’ve identified a handful of platforms (you can find this out by sending a poll to your user base, or asking your customers), the next step is to use your brand’s values and selling points, and translate these onto social networking platforms.

You don’t have to be the biggest brand; however, if you are savvy enough to do the research beforehand, you will save an incredible amount of time (thus giving you a head start over the big boys!)

Recent  research  supported this,  unveiling there is ‘little evidence’ of UK employers taking proactive steps to engage and retain older workers according to Cranfield School of Management and Nottingham Business School for Acas.

Particularly with the government predicting by 2020 there will be around 25 million people over the age of 50 in the UK. This fact alone shows our attitude to employing and retaining an older workforce needs a radical overhaul.

Whether it’s making offensive remarks about an older person’s age, treating co-workers of a certain age differently or turning down a candidate for their extra years – age discrimination in Great Britain is illegal and can severely damage a company’s reputation. So how can you prevent age discrimination in your workplace?

Here are some steps that can be taken to ensure that you build a diverse workforce with high morale:

Review your Process: Examine your work processes from initial recruitment and employment terms and conditions to promotions, training, redundancy and dismissals. Think about how you employ people and ensure there is no potential direct or indirect age discrimination.

Create an Age Discrimination Policy: Demonstrate your commitment to a supportive work environment for employees of all ages by implementing a policy as well as reporting and grievance procedures.

Don’t Ask for ‘Date of Birth’: When recruiting, don’t ask candidates for their ‘date of birth’, instead ask if they are over the minimum age required to legally work at your establishment.

Make Everyone Aware: Announce your age discrimination policy in a staff meeting, and ensure all directors and managers are on board and committed to upholding it. You could even incorporate it into your employee handbook and post on bulletin boards so it can be seen by all staff.

Encourage Mentoring: Pair younger and older workers together on projects. Workers of any age can pass on their experience and help others develop. What’s more, companies which embrace mentoring tend to be warm and all-encompassing places to work.

Promotions and Training: Are your promotion and job-related training opportunities available to all employees regardless of age? Ensure everyone is encouraged to participate and advertise these openings in places that will be viewed by people of all ages.

The authors of the research paper  The Employment Relations Challenges of an Ageing Workforce conclude that if the UK economy is to fully benefit from the skills and experience of its older workers, a larger proportion of organisations will need to adopt age management policies and practices which are effectively communicated to their workforces.

Either way, it’s clear to say age discrimination will continue to be prevalent in today’s society, but rightfully so, it is an issue which should be discouraged from any organisation’s culture.

If you’re looking for more information on ways in which you can tackle age discrimination in the workplace, Citizens Advice, provide some great information for employees and employers alike.

How do you prevent age discrimination in your organisation? Maybe you’ve been a victim of discrimination yourself? Share your experiences with us below.