Social recruiting is now emerging from its adolescence. It’s moving beyond the wide-eyed exultation of early adoption to the squinty-eyed assessment of mature users. The focus is less and less on what we can do with social media and more and more on how best to put it to work.
That’s especially apparent in the subset of social recruiting we call networking. Social or professional networking online now clearly falls into two general categories of activity. They are probably best described as content and contact networking. Both can help you access high caliber passive prospects for your organization, but each is performed differently.
Content Networking
Content networking occurs in the discussion forums on job board and association Web-sites, in blogs on corporate sites and in Google’s newsgroups. These destinations attract visitors who share a common career field or occupational interest and like to communicate and commiserate with each other about it. The interaction is social-a community of sorts does form-but it’s primarily based on the topic being discussed.
In most but not all cases, the members of these communities are passive prospects. They are not looking for a job. More often than not, however, they are interested in advancing their careers. Indeed, that’s why they are engaged by the content. They want to be smarter in their career field and better able to put their occupational interests to work. Said another way, they are top talent.
The only way to connect with these prospects effectively is by practicing the Golden Rule of Networking. That axiom is simple yet inviolate-you have to give in order to get. In other words, if you want the participants in these discussions to consider your openings, you have to first contribute to their content.
How can you do that? By being the expert you are. You know more about what employers are looking for in their field than they do. You have a much better understanding of how to interact with a group they consider exotic and hard to understand: recruiters. And, you have a more realistic sense of what employers will pay for certain kinds of expertise and different levels of experience.
So, don’t pretend to be someone you are. Be yourself. Then, when a participant’s contributions to the discussion single them out as a gem of a prospect, you can reach out to them privately and they’ll know who you are. You will have established the familiarity and trust necessary to move even the most passive of prospects into a more active frame of mind.
Contact Networking
Contact networking occurs on professional networking sites such as LinkedIn, Ryze, Yorz and Ziggs. These sites enable people to build out their connections in the workplace and thereby enhance their stature in their profession, craft or trade and/or make themselves “findable” by recruiters. While the groups within LinkedIn and similar sites do facilitate content networking, most of those who join these sites do not participate in them. They are simply interested in creating passive links that may prove helpful to them right now or at some point in the future.
The majority of those who sign on to professional networking sites would normally be passive prospects. In today’s economy, however, it’s likely that a significant percentage are, in fact, active job seekers. As in the real world, they are forging connections with others in the hopes of bumping into or being referred to a recruiter with an opening appropriate for them.
Networking in such a population, therefore, is basically an exercise in doing old-fashioned cold calling by email or InMail. Just as executive search consultants have done for years, it involves moving through concentric circles of contacts to uncover candidates for an open position. With the exception of the first circle-your own direct connections-the contacts are not personally known to you. They are, instead, leads that may either identify a genuine prospect or provide yet another lead to someone else who could be.
The key to successful contact networking, therefore, is two-fold. First, as with cold calling, the activity is basically a numbers game. You have to keep pouring a lot of contacts into the top of the funnel in order to reach even a small number of legitimate prospects at the bottom. Second, you have to know how to message with clarity and impact. Long and windy communications are unlikely to be read so active job seekers are more likely to apply when they shouldn’t and passive prospects are unlikely to read them at all. In effect, you have to find just the right balance between speed and engagement.
While we are still developing the best practices for both content and contact networking, these tools already represent some of the more mature applications of social recruiting. They are not, however, a substitute for the array of other sourcing methods we employ to identify top talent. They enable us to tap the power and promise of the social Web, but they incur a cost-the time commitment of the recruiter-that must be carefully managed within the context of your overall recruiting strategy.
Thanks for reading,
Peter
Visit my blog at Weddles.com/WorkStrong
P.S. Please tell your friends and colleagues about WEDDLE’s Newsletter. They’ll appreciate your thoughtfulness, and so will we.
Get WEDDLE’s Recruiting Bestsellers Today!
Hot off the presses, you can now order:
This edition of the Guide, our 9th, introduces an entirely new format: The Top 100, our pick of the most effective job boards and career portals on the Web, and the Best & the Rest, a directory of over 10,000 sites organized by career field, industry and geographic focus. And at just $39.95, it’s a true recession buster, as well!
The Association Guide lists over 3,000 associations by the career field, industry or location in which they specialize and indicates whether they have a job database, a resume database and/or a discussion area for professional networking. It is the only book of its kind in print and at just $49.95, it’s practically a steal.
How can you get these amazing resources? Click here to reach our online bookstore or call 203.964.1888 to order your copies of these truly unique recruiting guides.
And don’t wait. Even if you’re not hiring at the moment, these books can be helpful to you. Their site profiles will enable you to pinpoint the best places online for recruiting, once the economy starts growing again. And if that takes longer to happen than you would like, these books also include useful information for a job search. So, don’t delay; get your WEDDLE’s Guides today!
Our Featured Books
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Investment Finance
Law
Pharmacy
Psychology & Counseling
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One of the key roles HR professionals play in any organization is staff development. To execute that responsibility effectively, they must know how best to counsel employees on career issues and concerns.
How do you acquire the expertise to do so? WEDDLE’s is proud to introduce the first-ever certification program in Career Fitness. Based on Peter Weddle’s new book, Work Strong: Your Personal Career Fitness System, this program provides all of the training and follow-up support you need to become a Career Fitness Pro (CFP) and counsel employees on both the key principles of career success in the 21st Century and the practical steps that will put those principles to work for them on-the-job.
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and
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To learn more, email Peter Weddle at [email protected] or call at 203.964.1888.
Our Featured Job Board
Site Spotlite … from the pages of WEDDLE’s 2009/10 Guide to Employment Sites on the Internet.
There are 50,000 job boards now in operation in North America and an equal number operating elsewhere around the world. The key to recruiting top talent online, therefore, is knowing where to find and how to select the best sites for each of your requirements. WEDDLE’s 2009/10 Guide profiles The Top 100 employment sites on the Web today and provides The Best & the Rest, a listing of over 10,000 such sites worldwide. It’s all of the information you need to determine which job boards will deliver the optimum yield for you. For example:
Chicagojobs.com
Post full time jobs: Yes
Post part time, contract or consulting jobs: Yes-All
Distribution of jobs: Regional-Chicago, IL metro area
Fee to post a job: $300/posting
Posting period: 30 days
Can posting be linked to your site: Yes
Resume database: Yes
Number of resumes: 45,000+
Source of resumes: Direct from individuals
Top occupations among visitors: Administrative, Finance & Accounting, Information Systems, Management, Healthcare
Other services for employers: Banner advertising, Status Reports
Member, International Association of Employment Web Sites: Yes
Don’t Miss WEDDLE’s Recruiting Bestsellers!
Hot off the presses, you can now order:
This edition of the Guide, our 9th, introduces an entirely new format: The Top 100, our pick of the most effective job boards and career portals on the Web, and the Best & the Rest, a directory of over 10,000 sites organized by career field, industry and geographic focus. And at just $39.95, it’s a true recession buster, as well!
The Association Guide lists over 3,000 associations by the career field, industry or location in which they specialize and indicates whether they have a job database, a resume database and/or a discussion area for professional networking. It is the only book of its kind in print and at just $49.95, it’s practically a steal.
How can you get these amazing resources? Click here to reach our online bookstore or call 203.964.1888 to order your copies of these truly unique recruiting guides.
And don’t wait. Even if you’re not hiring at the moment, these books can be helpful to you. Their site profiles will enable you to pinpoint the best places online for recruiting, once the economy starts growing again. And if that takes longer to happen than you would like, these books also include useful information for a job search. So, don’t delay; get your WEDDLE’s Guides today!