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As reported by SHRM, Employers, recruiting analysts and consultants
all have begun to extol the virtues of using web logs—better
known as blogs—as a way to identify and attract job candidates.
However, corporate web logs that are specifically used as
recruitment tools are few and far between.
“I
think employers are well aware of the value of blogs as a
recruiting tool,” says Ted Demopoulos, management consultant
and co-author of the book Blogging for Business (Kaplan Publishing,
2006). “There just aren’t many that have made recruiting
the specific goal or focus of their organization’s blogs.”
But
blogs offer businesses an excellent and interactive communications
tool, and many leading corporations have extensive web log
programs. Microsoft, for example, is one such company with
close to 3,000 blogs posted by the company’s employees.
Blogs can give an insider’s view of an organization and
could provide the best and most accurate picture about a company’s
work environment to potential job candidates.
A
number of other high-profile companies such as General Motors
Corp. and Boeing Co. have joined the corporate blog bandwagon
this past year and are following the footsteps of high-tech
firms like Microsoft, Sun Microsystems Inc. and Honeywell
Corp. The primary reason companies are choosing to make the
blogging leap is because they don’t want to risk being
left out of an online phenomenon in which an estimated 5 percent
of Americans maintain blogs and 20 percent read them. A Gallup
poll conducted in February did find that the number of new
blogs is tapering off; however, the number of people reading
blogs regularly definitely seized the attention of corporate
boardrooms around the nation.
Companies
that don’t have employee blogs clearly could find themselves
at a competitive disadvantage in recruiting qualified workers.
A good example of blogs’ benefits, Demopoulos says, is
the story of a man who recently read employee blogs at Microsoft
to learn as much as he could about the company. He discovered
that Microsoft employed many people who shared his interest
in long-distance cycling and that the company also encouraged
participation in cycling events. The man then decided he wanted
to work for Microsoft and interviewed with the company.
“This shows how blogs offer the information that job candidates
can use to make a very informed decision about their careers.
And the job candidates that employers want and need are the
savvy and well-educated people that blogs would tend to attract,”
says Demopoulos. “So it’s a tremendously powerful
tool.”
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