A Social Network Admin for your Recruiting Department

Social networking is certainly useful for recruiting departments. However, social networking is often neglected as a separate skill and so recruiting departments never realize its full potential. Many of the qualities of a good recruiter do not necessarily equate with the technical and communications requirements of social networking. Recruiting departments therefore usually approach social networking haphazardly and also expect recruiters to “get it,” often without justification of this requirement.

As sourcing and recruiting teams being to use social networking as a vital component to their business process, is it time to delegate the task to a specialized position? Is it time for a social network admin for your recruiting department?

Many people have named themselves as “Social networking consultants” or “Chief Networking Officers.” These are new job titles constructed out of the need to place serious emphasis on external company relationships and large active candidates databases. The title is a cross between VP of Marketing, PR, CTO, and Chief Sourcing Officer. Practically speaking however, companies are still years away from constructing a distinct role for even very advanced social networking expertise. The social network admin role would be really simple technical communications and might be a first step to corporate acknowledgement of the need and requirement within recruiting departments.

If you manage a recruiting department or functional team of recruiters, consider segmenting the role and clearly defining a social media and social networking position even if you do not have a fully distinct Social Network Admin position. The social network function works best when overlaid with a Sourcer or Recruiter title. Centralize the expertise in that individual, and have them educate others on best practices and innovations within the space.

Allow this person access and development of their social network using the full resources of your candidate database, corporate website, etc… to integrate the external and internal databases to their fullest capacity. However, if you take this approach to forming a social network admin position, you do run the risk of having your full network walk away from you with your employee! So just as standards have evolved about corporate databases and Internet policies, have a social media policy and Intellectual property agreement in place for the people who manage your social networks.

Using this strategy, you can create a safe, reasonable, and actionable plan to tackle social media recruiting. Without a clearly defined role and at least a function, your social networking recruiting efforts will be scattered – and even worse – walk out the door with your employees.