TAtech Tip: Post-Social Recruiting
Social recruiting is over. It was a nice idea – that social media would make candidate networking easier and more effective – but it fell apart in the face of human nature. Most people can’t be bothered to network unless they have to, and will only do so if there aren’t other and easier ways to connect with employers. So, we’re now in the era of post-social recruiting, and the key to success is skipping all the unproductive networking to focus instead on creating and engaging proto-employees.
Even the least experienced job seeker knows that the best way to connect with an employer is through its own organizational website. Historically, however, those connections have been faulty. Despite all the pretty pictures and flowery benefits descriptions, visitors to these sites are treated as outsiders and thrust into processes that funnels them through job listings and applications forms only a cog could love.
Active job seekers have to tolerate such treatment, but passive prospects don’t – and most won’t. They have options. They’re probably employed already, so they can stay right where they are, or they can move on to another employer – one that recognizes a simple, but profound truth about talented people: They want to be treated as the top candidates they are, not as another faceless applicant in a dehumanizing system.
What does that mean? Top talent want to make smart career decisions. They’re already successful and are determined to remain so. Therefore, they shop for new jobs the same way they shop for cars – they pick the winners by test driving the employment experience. They can’t actually get on-the-job experience, but they can find a useful surrogate: the employer’s recruiting process. Candidates assume that the way they are treated as applicants is a good approximation of the way they’ll be treated as employees.
Build a Community for Proto-Employees
While every employer’s recruitment process involves a large number of moving parts and players, the front door, in almost every case, is the company’s career site. Therefore, that site should be designed not to administer to candidate-cogs, but to emulate the organization’s employment experience. As much as possible, a company’s career site should make every visitor feel as if they are already a member of the family – a “proto-employee” of the organization.
- Peer Blogs Categorized by Career Field: Set up blogs where authors describe what it’s like to work in their respective fields for the employer – the tasks they perform, the challenges they face, the rewards they receive, etc. Visitors can then interact with the authors, posing questions and requesting additional information from people who would be their colleagues if they were to join the organization.
- A “Friends of the Family” Newsletter: This publication should be posted on the site regularly (at least once a month) and focus on the activities and achievements of employees (e.g., their conference presentations, bowling team victories, and community blood drives). Visitors can then get a feel for the culture and values of the organization and even get to know some of its employees.
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Social recruiting is dead because it misunderstood how and where candidate relationships are best formed. They’re not built by networking with strangers on social media sites; they’re built by transforming strangers into proto-employees on your organization’s very own career site.
TAtech: The Association for Talent Acquisition Solutions is the global trade association for the talent acquisition technology industry. Collectively, its members power or operate more than 60,000 sites worldwide and provide state-of-the-art products and innovative services for virtually every facet of talent acquisition. Join the dialogue at the TAtech Conference & Expo – connect with the real experts in talent acquisition technology and get your hotel room for free!