Recruiting Through Social Networking Sites

Social networking (Facebook, Squidoo etc) is one of the newest ways in which to advertise. Recruiting through social networking sites can perhaps bring you great results in a short space of time, though it can be questionable seeing the amount of companies that are beginning to ban such sites from being accessed via company servers.

That aside, social networking and recruitment can work well together. Why? It could perhaps be the way the sites visitors are young and open to online marketing, and are regular visitors to such sites.

The new Human Resources trend is to advertise jobs on sites like Facebook, simply to enable them to target a good range of potential applicants and this could even take over the job boards for popularity alone.

Benefits of Recruiting through Social Networking

The superior technology alone is good enough reason to hire new employees through social networking sites. An alternative to traditional methods, like recruiting via printed media and even through recruitment websites, the networking sites can allow a business to target their recruitment campaign to various areas.

Cons of Social Network Recruitment

The drawbacks are apparent when you use social networking in the wrong way. Not having a good strategy in the first place can really undermine the work you have put in, with disappointing results.  You also need to use the information intelligently since these are not recruitment or business boards, but social.

Top performers, as always, may be difficult to track down so even the most dedicated recruiter might find that efforts may not bring the results they had hoped for.  Given the amount of publicity given to social networking sites as sources for recruitment more and more job seekers are creating profiles and hoping to be spotted.  Thus the ability to stumble across top talent is balanced by the need to sift through a lot of details on a lot of individuals.

Decisions

Hopefully when you take up the chance to recruit in this kind of way you will not be swept off your feet by the hype - stay grounded. It is important to know and realise that your campaign still requires lots of input. You should actively be searching profiles for potential candidates as you would in the usual way. However, those candidate searches are made easier by these websites and you are able to contact them directly which cuts out any hassle you might have going via recruitment companies.

Job boards and larger recruitment agency websites may already be doing the work for you. As many companies are getting more involved with today's trends, you may find that they save you the time researching this new media - for a fee. Make sure this is a question you ask if you are serious about recruiting on Social media.

In the end, you make the decision on what is best for your company. Despite being seen as innovative and modern, recruitment through social networking is just as involved as other advertising media and needs the planning and input that comes with finding that top talent.