Talent Acquisition and the Role of Social Media

Friday, January 13, 2012

Talent acquisition, even in these days of continuing high unemployment is tough. While there appears to be some light at the end of the tunnel, many employers are still very reluctant to hire except in cases of absolute necessity.

Sourcing talent, top talent is expensive, time consuming, and can have unpredictable results. In an April, 2011 report, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) polled human resource managers and others on the role of social media in talent acquisition. Not surprising, the role of social media has increased significantly and based on the SHRM poll, is going to continue to increase in the future. In the report, “Use of Social Networking Websites to Recruit Potential Job Candidates in 2011 vs. 2008”; partartpants reported that 56% of polled organizations used social media to recruit potential job candidates.

One aspect of sourcing talent via social media is the ability of recruiters to do so in a passive manner prior to inviting a prospective candidate to submit a resume or application. This allows recruiters to “window shop” potential current and future prospects, follow the development of individuals, and identify emerging leaders in their fields. While most staffing issues deal with an immediate need, social media does permit a recruiter to build and maintain an inventory of future talent. Examples of how such efforts might be beneficiary are:

● An employer wants to expand and needs to add management and technical staff over the next year.

● An employer wants to add technical staff experienced in a specific software application.

● An employer wants to acquire a junior staff with short/long term growth potential.

● An employer wants to acquire project staff for a fixed duration assignment.

The blogosphere has allowed million of persons to publish the most mundane aspects of their daily lives, however, many bloggers write on professional and technical topics of interest to others within their field of endeavor. By viewing the blog of a prospective candidate over a period of time, the astute recruiter can gain insight into the communications capability of the blogger, the likelihood that they will culturally fit into the organization or team, and their technical understanding of the blog’s various topics. Furthermore, an individual’s blog speaks to their motivational level, a blogger who writes consistently and routinely may have the motivation to stay on top of that major project. “MonsterThinking”, a new blog at Monster.com even publishes a “Top HR and Recruiting” bloggers list.

It goes without saying, sourcing through social media and networking sites is not for everyone and every organization. Recommendations posted by current and prior coworkers do not replace face to face interviews and appropriate background and reference checks. Even the most professional networking sites currently on the web are unvetted and pose a significant risk to the unwary recruiter. Legal concerns abound about the ability of a prospective employer to use posted materials to screen candidates are continuing to emerge. Just as the professional recruiter would perform due diligence in checking the job history, education, and references of a paper resume, so to would they cast a discerning eye on a candidate’s social media profile.