SOCIAL MEDIA AS HR RECRUITMENT TOOL

Recruitment is a tricky business. We all know how important it is to find the right people for the right roles and to make sure that staff will fit in with your organisations culture. For those reasons, most employers will welcome any legitimate opportunity to gather knowledge about a potential new recruit before deciding whether or not to make a job offer. Traditionally, employers have had very few sources of information on which to rely when carrying out recruitment, other than the information provided by the applicant and his or her referees. The rapid growth of social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn has created a wellspring of information from which potential employers may seek to gather further details about their potential new recruit. Social recruiting falls into two different categories. The first is internet sourcing using social media profiles, blogs, and online communities to find and search for passive candidate data and information. The second is social distribution. This involves using social media platforms and networks as a means to distribute jobs either through HR vendors or through crowd sourcing where job seekers and other influencers share job openings within their online social networks. Many recruiting departments are also spending less money on hiringrelated operations, and theyre relying partially on social networking sites and web-based job boards as cheaper means of filling their vacancies. Social media are primarily Internet and mobile based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. Examples of social media include Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter. LinkedIn and Facebook, however, stand out as recruiting tools since they both include job-posting features for recruiters. Facebook and LinkedIn are most popular among young professionals. Social media adoption is pervasive and fun. More importantly, HR sees an opportunity for social networking to enhance opportunities around employee engagement, employee satisfaction and employee retention. LITERATURE REVIEW Allen, Van Scotter, and Otondo (2004) completed a study on recruitment communications. Through a study conducted on 989 undergraduate students, they found that media and media features have a direct effect on communication outcomes, attitudes, intentions, and behaviours related with potential employees for an organization. Conveying a constant recruiting message and utilizing media features such as two-way communication,

personal focus, social presence, symbolism, and including a proper amount of organization, led to a positive opinion of the organization. In addition, these features were positively connected to the communication process. The findings show that media and media features have a significant effect on potential employees. Moreover, with a sample of 175 undergraduates, Braddy, Foster, Wuensch, and Grossnickle (2003) completed a study on Internet recruiting. Their research found that maintaining a favourable recruitment image is related to being successful when attracting potential employees. The navigational ease of a website led to a favourable notion of the company versus websites that were difficult to navigate. The study addresses the potential of the Internet and the recruitment opportunities a company has through a userfriendly site. The term social recruiting is a buzz phrase used throughout the HR world, which can be defined as harnessing the evolution of Web 2.0 technologies and social media tools to communicate, engage, inform, and recruit our future talent ( Jacobs 2009). The use of such social networking websites allows recruiters to connect to a broad array of talented and capable candidates in niche communities (Jacobs, 2009). Reviewing candidates social networking profiles can be a helpful tool for recruiters looking to hire a candidate.

The use of social networking sites provides socializing outlets and allows users to use their profile as a means of self expression and creates a persons social sphere (Hoy and Milne 2010). The Pew Research Center released a study stating three-quarters of all millennials (those between the ages of 18-29) have created a profile on a social networking site as a means of self expression (Pew Research Center, 2010). Overall, the Internet can be used to increase communication outlets and influence potential employees. Using the Internet for communication purposes can lead to an increase in the number of job applicants a company can receive. In addition, an applicant can develop a lasting positive impression of the organization through the companys official web page. Although these studies address traditional Internet websites, the forms of communication mentioned are exercised on social networking sites.

RECRUTING STRATEGIES:
According to Michigan State Universitys Recruiting Trends 2010-2011, four distinct categories of recruiting strategies have emerged: Arranged Events (fairs, campus interviews, campus visits): accommodates large companies and the larger end of mid-size employers. Agent Connections (resume referrals, faculty, internships, employees): accommodates larger companies, fast growth and small organizations. Situational (ads and state & local job boards): accommodates small and mid-size companies. Web-based (campus recruiting systems, social media, national web providers): all size groups utilize the same except that social media is almost exclusively utilized by large companies

Social Recruiting
As a recruiter you want to be where the most qualified, talented, and largest pools of applicants are. Human resources can leverage social media to tap in to potential recruits. This type of head hunting is called social recruiting. It's about engaging with users and using social media tools to source and recruit talent. While social recruiting does require time and effort, it also allows you to reduce costs-per-hire and time-to-hire. Being able to directly connect and interact with potential candidates is a huge advantage compared to receiving dozens of resumes through an automated system like an Applicant Tracking System(ATS) or job boards. Finally, social recruitment solutions are multifaceted, offering leads through advanced referral systems, social ATS, two-way communication tools to connect with candidates, access to larger networks, and job marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) all of which focus on the effort to recruit top talent and avoid the time-consuming job board process. KEY FACTORS Broad capability social-media-empowered recruiting has the broadest array of capabilities of any existing recruiting tool, by a large margin. In addition to the obvious direct sourcing capability, social media has the capacity for multimedia messaging, brand communication, conducting market research and for building sustainable longer-term recruiting relationships. Social media sites allow you to go beyond the traditional resume and gather information that can be beneficial in accurate candidate assessment. Leveraging employees there is never enough surplus time for recruiters to do all of the sourcing and branding that needs to be done. As a result, an important power factor for rating any recruiting tool is the extent to which the recruiting workload can be shifted to others, especially employees. Advanced social media leaders use their recruiters primarily as coaches and educators, so that your firms employees can carry the bulk of the social media prospect identification and relationship building. Authentic messages unlike e-mail and phone calls, which can include a high percentage of spam, most social media messages are permission based. In general, the messages received are treated by the receiver as more authentic than for example, a corporate website blurb. By using your employee population as your recruiting army, most of your messaging and communications will be sent by employees who work in the job every day, and be messages that are very likely to be read and considered as credible. Low cost in most cases, social media allows for no-cost messaging, job posting, and relationship building. There are some fees for some features that you may decide to pay, but overall, it is an extremely low-cost platform. It produces quality hires the last one of the power factors to be calculated but the most important assessment factor of any sourcing tool is whether it produces candidate slates with a high percentage of high-quality candidates, and eventually, high-performing hires. Unfortunately, many early adopters have failed to measure quality of hire, but because of

the stretched out relationship-building and assessment process, the chance for a major error is severely reduced.

Social Media Goals for Employers

For employers, these are social media goals that make sense for your business or career. y y y Develop a life-long network of professional contacts and easily stay up-to-date and in touch. Recruit potential employees with your business page, your professional and personal social network, and the professional and personal social networks of your employees. Search on candidate names and credentials to confirm your gut feelings about the person you want to hire Check that he or she presents an online image that is consistent with the person who showed up for your interviews. Reinforce your personal and your professional brand and strengthen your business brand. Network with people who share your interest in a career, a profession, or a topic. Create a space around which users of your product or service can interact with you and develop a relationship to build loyalty, word-of-mouth, and repeat use. Solicit feedback, provide customer service, and solve consumers' problems.

y y y y

Facebook Facebook started out as a site for sharing pictures and chat among college students but has evolved into a significant platform for businesses. Facebook provides a way for families and friends to stay in touch and share their daily lives and pictures. Facebook also allows you to create business pages that are separate from your personal page. People on Facebook y y y More than 800 million active users More than 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day Average user has 130 friends

LinkedIn LinkedIn is the premier site for professional networking, group discussions, publishing content, and advertising jobs. LinkedIn allows recruiters and hiring managers to target
passive candidates (those not currently searching for a new position), send direct messages through InMail, post jobs, interact through LinkedIn Groups and LinkedIn Answers, set up automatic search alerts, and set profile reminders.

People on LinkedIn y As of November 3, 2011, LinkedIn operates the worlds largest professional network on the Internet with more than 135 million members in over 200 countries and territories.

y y y

As of September 30, 2011 (the end of the third quarter), LinkedIn has 1,797 full-time employees located all around the globe. 13million members in India as of December 21, 2011 As of September 30, 2011 (the end of the third quarter), LinkedIn counts executives from all 2011 Fortune 500 companies as members; its corporate hiring solutions are used by 75 of the Fortune 100 companies. More than 2 million companies have LinkedIn Company Pages. As of September 30, 2011, hundreds of thousands of job applications have been submitted using Apply With LinkedIn.

Twitter Twitter is a platform where in 140 characters or less, people share their thoughts, share recommended reading, signal businesses that they need product help, and advertise jobs.
Twitter gives recruiters and hiring managers a platform to interact with a variety of candidates through short, personal messages. It also helps them get to know other recruiters and employers and share resources and information with one another.

People on Twitter Followers : y y y 7,437,465 In February 2010, Twitter users were sending 50 million tweets per day. As of June 2010, about 65 million tweets were posted each day, equaling about 750 tweets sent each second. As of March 2011, that was about 140 million tweets posted daily.

Google+ Google+ recently arrived with a flourish, and once the option of business pages is added, will rival Facebook for participants. On Facebook, you have one list of friends with whom you share. Google+ brought the concept of circles to the forefront. You can add different people to different circles and decide what and how much you want to share with the people in each circle. Ma Foi, one of the most respected consultancy firms, was part of the Ma Foi Randstad Work monitor survey, which revealed some interesting social networking habits of the Indian workforce. Almost 87% of Indian employees utilize social networks to check up on an organizations work culture. What is more encouraging is that 75% of Indian employees depend on social media to stay updated on developments taking place in companies they are scheduled to appear for an interview. Negative reviews about a company on social networks deter almost 75% Indian employees from joining a particular organization. This further highlights the importance of embracing social media as an important tool on the part of every organization. Moreover, the survey found that 90 per cent of Indian employees have an individual accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and out of them, 81 per cent use it for professional purposes

CONCLUSION This topic is becoming important as me use of online social networking sites continues to grow. Respondents are aware employers are looking at social networking profiles at the same time many reported there was nothing posted they would not want employers to see. These practices may have implications on the future use of social networking websites as the knowledge of recruiters utilizing the sites may incline users to move towards using them for job searching and professional networking.

Social media recruiting helps an employer get to know a potential job candidate. As with any job opening, using social media recruiting requires time and effort but it's an investment in longer-term benefits for your company. Using LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter takes recruiting back to its grass roots of networking but for a digital age.

REFERENCE

Facebook.com (2010) "Statistics | Facebook." Welcome to Facebook. Budden, C. B., and Budden, M.C. (2009). The Social Network Generation and Implications for Human Resources. Journal of Business & Economics Research, Vol.7 No.1: 1-12. LinkedIn. About Us: Latest LinkedIn Facts. linkedin.com. Twitter. About Us: A Few Twitter Facts. twitter.com. Michigan State University. Recruiting Trends 2010-2011: 40th Anniversary Edition. ceri.msu.edu. 22 December 2010. <http://www.ceri.msu.edu/recruiting-trends-2010-2011/>. Drum, K. (2010, September 8). Using social media to attract & engage passive candidates. Ere.net, Retrieved September 13, 2010 from http://www.ere.net/webinars/using-social-media-to-attract-engage-passivecandidates/