Social media for recruitment

Early start today to get to Regent's Park for a seminar run by those nice people at ProspectUs and NCVO.  It was all about the use of digital media for recruitment.

In the "old days" we recruited into this sector via newspaper ads, typically the Guardian on Wednesday, Third Sector, Sunday Times etc.

Then along came the internet and job boards.  If you're looking for a job today it's so easy to log onto job sites and have your email inbox filled with likely vacancies.  But for the recruiter, there are so many job boards, which one(s) do you choose?

And now we have social media – Facebook, Twitter and all the others.  Yet another way to reach people.  Why do we need to get involved with this?

The answer is because that's where people are.  As a population, we read fewer newspapers and communicate less and less by email.  Apparently we now communicate via social media more than any other way.  So like it or not, we need to get to grips with the social media boom in order to recruit the best people.  

The presenter made the point that it isn't scary.  Well, it is until you learn the buzzwords and have a go.  Then it's not that bad.  There are people out there who will help, and it can cost less than an advert in a big paper.

Think about it.  If you desperately need a Canadian flobberwort weaver for your organisation, you could put an ad in the Guardian and hope one of them sees it.  Or you could go to the social networks and find the on-line group(s) where the Canadian flobberwort weavers meet, and talk to them online.  Which do you think will produce a better result?

I haven't really done the presentation justice. I came away with lots of questions which is good.  What's the right approach?  How to go about it?  What's the right mix of print, on-line, social media etc etc.  I guess the point of writing this post is to spread the word that there's a new way of doing things, and that we all ought to invest some time in thinking about it.  

So I'm going to think some more.

NB there is no such thing as a Canadian flobberwort – just in case you were wondering…..