Social Media & its use in Recruiting
A number of hospital clients have asked us over the years if they should use Facebook and other social media (SM) sites in their recruiting.
As an advocate for employers and with the focus on empowering them while making their process better, more effective and more efficient, the first words that come to our mind are “compete, time, effort, budget.” SM can be a time killer.
In addition, we ask “Who’s doin’ the tweeting?” We believe our client recruiters should use dedicated accounts (not personal ones) in SM as a form of communicating with contacts they perceive to be of value to their business and help their bottom line – almost like email a decade ago, but we caution them to set aside specific time for tweeting, staying committed to those time frames so valuable time isn’t lost. Many organizations are creating accounts in SM for their recruiting – with as many as 100 videos in each Online Job Tour, as well as interesting features on people and staff (all who have signed a waiver), and places, there are oodles of things to post from our elegant productions that would be attractive and meaningful, in an attempt to draw jobseekers to posted career opportunities, as well as to the Online Job Tours.
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Online Job Tours are designed in a “touring fashion” which starts with instructions that include directing users to review available physician and hospital jobs before starting, and then at the end, they are directed back to apply
Online Job Tour is a TURNKEY Tool. It is designed to exist on its own after being placed in any forum for recruiting or communicating with jobseekers or sourcing services. It has a Welcome/Instructions page that explains its protocol and promotes to physicians and other jobseekers web links to our clients’ physician opportunities as well as the client’s job board. The jobseeker is instructed to “Find the Job” they want, and then “Take the Tour” through our production. EVERY Online Job Tour finishes with a section labeled End/Recruiting Portal, which is where we circle the prospect back to the job they found, to apply.
What this protocol allows for, is that our clients can regularly post anything from their Online Job Tour, which will automatically move jobseekers on the correct pathway to both finding the jobs that interest them and applying after using the Online Job Tour.
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Anything posted from a client Online Job Tour on a SM post, will ultimately end in jobseekers being sent to the right place (if they follow instructions), or they can just as easily communicate with the client social media wall if they also choose.
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Social Media is also worth using because candidates are using it, and will just as likely share your Online Job Tour with their family and friends via their SM accounts than in an email – which we prefer because there is likelihood for more publicity and referrals.
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Employers have learned that engaging SM is really not free, but requires someone’s time to administer accounts, which pulls them away from other tasks they are paid to do. Again, we believe our clients should strike a balance with SM use and stay committed to time scheduled devoted to posting on the sites.
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Our work generally deals with higher end jobseekers such as physicians, who are the “revenue drivers” to hospitals; while some “techie” practitioners would use SM, others will more likely engage searches and go the employer websites (where our clients also place and brand their Online Job Tours in the appropriate place in the recruiting area).
Some Employers Use Facebook to Screen jobseekers: Like doing a “social background check,” emerging on the Internet are articles which suggest or state how employers view individuals’ Facebook pages as a form of “screening” them – which we find fascinating for many reasons, but it is not our immediate niche. It stands to reason that a client may want to have a dedicated SM account to “make the connection.”
Third Party Recruiting Services and Recruiters are on Facebook: After a decade of seeing how the recruiting industry has stayed ahead of their hospital clients by better understanding SEO strategies as well as sales and marketing to harvest candidates, the same entities are using Facebook, at least for now, to bullhorn their openings to others, no different than an “email blast.” Facebook and Twitter are some of the platforms they use, but there seems to be recruiters as equally interested in Tweeting; like anything, those who can strike a balance, or are more focused and devote more time to productive work, are more successful.
A Note about Social CRM (Customer Relationship Management): There is real value in CRM when applied to many products and consumer brands, and possibly regarding hospital marketing. However, here at Promo Web Innovations, we are big believers that there is a significant different between marketing and recruiting. While CRM may have merit in marketing and branding efforts with hospitals, and possibly even employee loyalty and satisfaction, none of that relates to recruiting. More importantly, recruiting involves “harvesting” prospects while they are in transition and moving. This isn’t about a hotel brand or consumer product that people will buy and attempts to keep them loyal, and generate more business from them, etc.
Career placement is ideally for an extended period of time. Online Job Tour plays into being a tool designed to attract, compel, educate, sell, pre-qualify and assist our clients in closing top talent and their families, as efficiently as possible. We don’t see a lot of CRM in such a dedicated recruiting protocol.
We are “luke warm” on the use of social media by our client physician recruiters and a little more favorable toward our clients setting up a dedicated and administered “OurCompanyJobs” Twitter account with staff other than the physician recruiters – and encourage both using Online Job Tour content (video links and images and features) in posts, as well as advertising their Online Job Tour in SM.
The Best Product: Online Job Tour is set up to SHARE each video produced via SM, and exhibits Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn as share options. We’re looking into new brands based on their popularity with different demographic consumer groups.
We’re techies here. We love social media and there is a good place for it in recruiting, and like most things, the bulls-eye keeps moving. The best thing we can do to ultimately support and positively impact your recruiting effort, costs, and results, is continually stay focused on SM’s influence, and take the time our clients don’t have, so they can compete for and then development relationships with prospects and candidates, and then close them.
Online Job Tour is made to be shared – as a simulation and improvement in delivering the content/information that your prospects/candidates need
We strongly encourage our clients to promote their Online Job Tour on social media, as well as using content from it in SM posts and communications. Our productions fit into the Internet culture, where sharing spreads the word and can lead to referrals. Additionally, unlike the real interview visit that family members and friends don’t go on and are left in the dark about our clients, Online Job Tour was always made to be shared, and it was invented before social media. We were sharing first!