How Social Media is Influencing HR

By Ryan Rhodes

When it comes to social media and HR, the numbers are staggering. Consider these statistics:

• 89% of companies use social media for recruiting, according to a 2011 Social Recruiting Survey.
• Over 39 million students and recent college graduates are on LinkedIn, according to a 2014 infographic from Digital Insights.
• 84% of job seekers have Facebook pages, and 48% have used Facebook for job hunting, according to a study by KPMG.
• The average daily number of LinkedIn mobile job applications reached 44,000, according to the Digital Insights’ infographic.

Leading companies have embraced social media to recruit active and passive candidates, manage candidate pipelines and improve onboarding. They are leveraging LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other popular channels to expand candidate pools and personally connect with potential employees, while enhancing the organization’s brand and communications.

Recruiting Using Social Media

Social media has transformed recruiting, offering job seekers more ways to connect with employers, and recruiters access to a bigger pool of potential candidates. Managing all the available channels can be overwhelming, but a simple strategy can keep things under control, while improving your success rate. Here are the basics:

• Do Your Homework: Find out where people in your industry are most likely to “hang out” and share information. Search LinkedIn to find appropriate groups, and seek out industry-specific social networks and blogs where your best candidates are commenting and posting.
• Recruit your network: Post job listings everywhere, and ask your connections to share.
• Use LinkedIn to Build Relationships: Human resources and LinkedIn are an ideal matchup. Pay attention to your company and personal LinkedIn pages; keep them updated and interesting. Work on building your network and developing relationships with potential employees long before you need them.
• Keep the Goal in Mind: Build your network thoughtfully. Remember the goal is to grow a network of people who might one day be employees, or who can introduce you to potential employees.
• Be Patient: It can take time to build relationships with a pipeline of interested candidates, but it’s worth it when positions become available.

Using Social Media for Branding

Recruiting and branding are inextricably linked. Attracting the best candidates requires communicating your company’s values, mission and cultures in an authentic way that creates a response. Workers today place a high value on a company’s culture, and want to feel like part of something bigger.

Social media networks are the ideal channels for presenting your company’s brand. Regular posts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google+ can yield measurable results, while communicating what makes your organization a great place to work. Remember that social media is not a one-way street, so be sure to respond to questions and inquiries. It’s the right thing to do, and interaction builds relationships with potential candidates.

If company policy allows it, share human resource social media channels with employees. Allow them to use your specific hashtags to share job listings, and to become brand ambassadors for the organization.

Employee Communications and Social Media

Instead of relying on emails and memos to communicate to employees, more HR professionals are using an in-house or enterprise social media network. Why? First, it’s more interactive, and a great way to garner feedback. Second, it’s accessible. People are used to communicating through social media channels. And finally, it’s ideal for employee connection.

Other social media channels you might try are company blogs that communicate news and other information to employees, cloud-based file sharing, and group hangouts, which are easy to set up on LinkedIn and Google+.

Social Media and HR

HR professionals can use a variety of social media networks to improve recruiting, branding and employee communications in a cost-effective way. In addition, when social media is incorporated into a company’s culture, it facilitates organizational development and performance. Why not utilize all the tools you have available to make your job more efficient and successful?

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