Sunday 3 March 2013

Talent Acquisition with Social Media

Is the traditional recruitment process still a practical solution to talent acquisition for your organization or should you be looking at your internal processes?

A standard response is we have a recruitment agency that does it all for us and anyway we do not have the time to go through thousands of CV's.

Well then you should still be looking at the processes that the recruitment agencies are using to attract this talent on your behalf, especially if they are still using the 'send us your CV' approach.

The new talent comes from a group called the Y Generation, these millennials - sometimes referred to as the Net Generation, no matter what you call them they are having a serious impact on how businesses attract  source, hire, and retain employees. Oh and if you think having a Facebook account is going to work, you are absolutely wrong.

Recently HR Lab in America did a survey of the Y-generation acquisition process and the results are astonishing:

64% asked about the social media policy of the company during the interview.
24% said social media policies would be a key deciding factor before accepting the job.
2 out of 5 workers from Gen Y would take a lower salary to have social media access and mobile options.

Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook remain the most popular ways to connect socially with prospective employees. Research also shows that LinkedIn sends 3x the amount of posting views of Twitter, and 6x that of Facebook.
Gen Y do not prefer Facebook and only 35% of the job seekers attributed using Facebook for job information.

The measurements within the grouping have also changed, they are no longer just interested in getting their salary at the end of the month - they expect opportunities for personal growth, training developed specifically for their needs and a clear chance for career progression needs to be given to them. They would also like to be consulted on new or additional policies they may have a negative impact on them.

70% of Gen Y workers indicate they'll look for a new job once the economy improves.

Why does this matter?
Well more than half of the companies surveyed refuse to let employees use social media for any reason while at the workplace.

According to the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), by 2015, 60 percent of all open positions will require skills that are only held by 20 percent of applicants.

More than ever we need to look at attracting the right talent, we need to ensure we retain this talent by providing the training and career opportunities they desire.

Where to from here?
Talent acquisition is about building brands, the stronger the brand the more people will be attracted to it. Brand building has two angles the company brand and the individual brand, they are separate yes and that is often why the policymakers have excluded the use of social media within organizations.

However the above argument should of answered the problem of not allowing social media, so I will assume that is going to happen and there will be no further discussion other than when we formulate the Social Media Governance Policy (with your Gen Y staff of course).

Coming back to the branding issue well the best place to build a brand is online; via the relationships and influences you have created through the network of followers you have created.

Notice that I have not mentioned how the company builds it's brand. When we are talking about people, which in this case we are. We must realize that people connect with people and great brands are because of the strength of the brands that work within that brand.

Yes the future is about personal branding and strengthening these personal brands by aligning their interests with the mission of the business and every other person working for the brand. By doing this you are able to harness the qualities of individual worth: content, authenticity, integrity, reputation, commitment, and reliability.

With these in place you may just attract the talent you are searching for.


Image courtesy of cooldesign at FreeDigitalPhotos.net


What else could I have added to this article, I look forward to your comments.

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