Social Media Recruiting for Small Business

Social Media Recruiting for Small Business

Nirad Chaudhari, MBA, CHRP

Richard Florida in his book ‘ The rise of the creative class’ mentions the three Ts of economic development - Talent, Technology and Tolerance; talent being the key factor in making an organisation competitive and innovative. The biggest challenge that all organisations face, from Fortune 500 companies to the cafe down the street, is a struggle to hire candidates who can push their brand, productivity, and profits to the next level.

Where do you find these driven groups of individuals? Depending on the volume of recruiting, organisations tend to deploy various techniques. Large organisations end up utilising services of dedicated recruiters, advertising on job boards, referral incentives etc. Small and medium organisations find it tough to compete with large organisation when it comes to attracting and hiring the best of available talent, not any more. Social Media has levelled the playing field to a large extent. There are about 500Million+ users on various social networks. Facebook (Facebook Pages) and LinkedIn have made it very easy to get your organisation’s profile in front of the dedicated audience. Social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter offer many cost effective (free) tools that take away the financial advantage large corporations have enjoyed to date.

LinkedIn groups allow you to be connected with people with similar interests or skills and status updates allow you to advertise jobs postings. Linkedin Groups allow you to reach potential job seekers as well. If you are looking for a restaurant manager, you can join the relevant group, initiate a discussion or let everyone in the group know about the job opening.

Yelp is a great example of how different stakeholders have come together on one platform through the power of social media. Good reviews of your business on Yelp can create strong branding for your business, resulting in more customers and easy access to potential candidates who would want to work for your organisation.

Exploiting social media to its full potential is up to the individual employer. Social media allows you to connect with the right audience. The biggest challenge is that with so many social media options available it can be difficult to determine which to use, how to use it, and most important are you ready for it?

An online profile, whether business or personal, will tell the reader a lot about the author and their organization. Start by creating a complete and comprehensive online profile. People in general value genuineness; ensure that your profile is authentic to your business and the culture within. By doing so, you will attract potential employees who are the right fit for your organisation.

While searching for potential job candidates using social media, look for individuals who maintain a complete profile and make frequent updates to their profile. Consider whether or not they have established affiliations with various professional organisations, participate or contribute within group discussions, and mention their hobbies or volunteer activities. Genuine online references (referred to as recommendations in LinkedIn) from their superiors and colleagues are great to see as well.

Successful recruiting is about finding the right candidates, using the resources, at the right time. The quicker that effective recruiting can be accomplished, the lower the impact of opportunity costs that ultimately affect the business bottom line. Potential employers can maximize their recruitment efforts by marketing positions and searching for candidates where they gather, and these days they are on social networks. While there may not be one defined way to find the talent your organisation needs, recruiting through social media is the way of the future and its here to stay. Why not go and look for candidates where they are, in the millions.

Guest Blogger - Nirad Chaudhari,MBA, CHRP currently works as an Account Manager for Sapphire Technologies (a Randstad Co.)

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