Recruiting with Facebook, Twitter, and Skype

Special from BLR’s Advanced Employment Issues Symposium

Ryan, principal of Ryan Search and Consulting in Nashville, Tennessee made his remarks at BLR’s recent Advanced Employment Issues Symposium in Nashville.

What About Recruiting on Facebook?

Facebook is generally not a great place for recruiting, Ryan says; however, it can be good for attracting students, coop students or interns. You can generate a career page that has links to your website and ties to YouTube videos. It’s OK if these sites have a somewhat amateur look, he adds.

You can also do job posting with links to a PDF of the job description.

Is Twitter a Recruiting Site?

Twitter is now generating up to 200 million tweets a day. An interesting fact, says Ryan, is that Twitter users have an average income higher than Facebook, but a lower average age.

The real power of Twitter is that although messages can only be 140 characters long, you can imbed a URL that will take the reader to a longer message.

Also you can use hash tags that will appeal to certain types of individual. You can also “follow” someone, in which case you will see any updates the person sends.

Twitter’s search function is not as robust as some others, says Ryan, but a search on a term like “Las Vegas careers” might yield some interesting data.

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Skype for Interviewing?

Ryan often uses Skype for “pre-interviews,” he says. You may be able to use it on your phone, or Apple users may use IChat. Either way, it’s a low-cost videoconference, Ryan says.

Ryan suggests that HR managers may also want to consider:

• Programs like Seesmic and TweetDeck that make your social media life easier by accessing all your social media sites from one platform.
• Recruiting tools like Autosearch, Cozmic Dragonhorse, and iRecruit.
• Places like Dropbox.com and box.net allow you to store materials (a job description, for example) on line and available for access by other people.

Ryan Final thoughts:

• Quality is better than quantity
• Set a schedule and stick with it
• Understand your message—know your brand
• Build relationships
• The candidates are out there
• Tell your story
• Resistance is futile

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