Sourcing with Social

(Editor’s Note: This essay was contributed by Mike Boyle)

Social Media Blurs the Line

Many times we hear of technologies that fundamentally alter the way we do business.  Much of that talk is inflated posturing, but we can all agree that social media is having an enormous impact on the way we communicate in business.

Why? – Because social media enforces a blurring of standard departmental lines.  Marketing, sales and PR have engaged with cross-functional expertise for years.  They’ve had to in order to get their jobs done.  Not so with HR.

Going forward, companies need to make HR part of the “marketing” group.  Why? - Because good brand management isn’t about what you say you are, it’s about who you are, and this places HR right in the middle of marketing efforts.

Social Media Myths

There are many myths surrounding social media so let’s dispel with them one by one, shall we…

• Social media is not a Facebook Fan Page
• Social media does not happen in a bubble
• Social media is not a tool for recruiting just one generation of folks
• Social media does not happen instantly
• You don’t just “do” social media

The Marketing Process & Creed

HR needs to understand the fundamental marketing process as outlined below:

• Know your audience
• Craft your message
• Use the proper tools to engage your audience
• Measure your efforts
• Wash, rinse, repeat

For each of these steps, go to your in-house marketing guru – we’re sure they’ll be happy to expand.  If they’re worth their salt, they’ll live by the following creed in some shape or form:

To understand and empathize with the needs and desires of their customers

The rest is detail – tools, messaging, measurement all flow from this insight.  Good marketers focus on the human element through empathy.  Their task is to build genuine relationships through dialogue.

Know your audience…

For HR, there are two classes of audience for your message, potential employees and current employees.  For potential employees:

• Engage your marketing department champion to help you understand both demographics and psychographics
• Build a profile of what type of person you’re looking for
• From that profile determine what they might be interested in, what drives them
• Then empathize

But…what will help the most in determining what potential employees to target resides right under your nose – your current employees…

Current Employees

Current employees are the most widely used and most trusted source of information about organizations for candidates.  Therefore your current employees are your most objective brand ambassadors.  Find the evangelists in your company and keep everyone informed about hiring priorities.  Support employees to engage referrals in their own networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.).  In good companies, executives are committed to and contribute to the referral culture.

What will help your current employees?  Training.  Bring everyone up to speed on the latest social media tools.  Share company updates, news and information.  Create a process whereby employees can contribute content and ideas.  Produce a content calendar and create referral widgets and social apps.  But most importantly you need to engage your audience by crafting the appropriate message:

• Be human
• Be honest
• Be interesting
• Be will to conduct a true dialogue – this will take time and effort
• Answer questions, acknowledge props, stay current
• Don’t over-focus on the hard sell/marketing message.  Social networks are built on being social…
• Focus on “inbound marketing” not “interruption marketing”

ROI in the World of Social Media

This is where the rubber meets the road.  ROI is calculated as (Gain from Investment – Cost of Investment)/(Cost of Investment).  In order to determine ROI you need to establish metrics and measurements.  Hard metrics include cost per hire, reduction in executive search fees, etc.  Soft metrics include influence, traffic, chatter, candidate experience and intelligence gained, company presence in social media, etc.  The proof of the pudding will be the amount of hires you make through social media, theoretically lowering your cost per hire.  There’s a perceived “time suck” attached to social media sourcing…however, you’re in it to build relationships and boost your employment brand.  These are priceless.

Quite simply, you cannot justify a purely financial, quantitative ROI approach to determining the value of social recruitment.  There must be qualitative metrics and measurements as well.  These must be agreed upon internally and have as much weight as the quantitative.  Hard, but doable.  When pressed to sway upper management do your best to assign ROI across the departments making sure that no one department claims social media ROI.  In doing so, you can spread the wealth.

Key Take Aways

• Engage with your marketing department.  They’ve been doing this a long time.  Find the champion and use them.
• Social recruiting is a competitive advantage for HR departments.  It has the potential to lower per hire cost.
• The HR/social media landscape is fluid, dynamic and bigger than Facebook and Twitter.  Like any new, emerging market there will be a proliferation of products and services.  Eventually market forces will force consolidation and there will be fewer players.
• Most importantly, understand who you’re talking to!  Understand and empathize...
• Leverage current employees.  Create brand ambassadors and give them the tools they need.
• Be human, be patient, tell stories
• Have a strategy
• Integrate throughout the company
• Measure both quantitatively and qualitatively