Your company’s CEO may not spend her day Tweeting or check
Instagram during her daily commute, but chances are, she sees it as a highly
valuable tool in hiring at your company. In fact, it’s likely that she even
places it above marketing materials and your company’s website. That’s what a recent
study by Universum revealed after they talked with CEOs,
HR and recruitment managers and marketing managers and directors. When asked how
important social media was in employment branding, thirty-eight percent of
recruiters and HR professionals said that social media was extremely important,
followed by 35 percent of CEOs and surprisingly, only 31 percent of marketing
managers.
What
the numbers mean
As a social recruiting advocate, I find the numbers both
encouraging and somewhat lacking. The fact that more than one-third of CEOs see
social media as the most important channel for employment branding is huge! I
can remember the days of fighting an uphill battle many years ago as I tried to
incorporate social into my hiring strategy. Today, many recognize its
value. While we obviously have a long way to go, I revel in the
fact that we’ve come a long way.
On the other hand, it’s discouraging to see that less than
half of recruitment and HR managers don’t see it as the most important channel.
Social is where the most innovative, and arguably successful, recruiting has
occurred in the last several years and it’s here to stay. Recruiters must
realize that this is where candidates are engaging, so we’ve got to meet them
there. However disappointing this number might be, it is understandable.
Recruiters are not spending their time focusing on employment branding but instead
on simply finding qualified candidates. Building your employment brand on
social is a worthwhile investment, but an investment many don’t feel they have
the time, resources or skill for.
In the case of less than a third of marketing managers and
directors seeing social media as the most important channel for employment
branding, I think there’s a disconnect occurring. In the same way that many recruiters
aren’t equipped to develop a robust
employment brand, many marketers don’t know why a
robust employment brand is important. They can market products and services,
but they’ve never been recruiters. So while they may see social as a vital part
of their overall marketing strategy, they may not understand how an employment
branding campaign can fit in that strategy.
Moving
forward
There are a few ongoing
struggles that occur between recruiting teams, executives and marketing
professionals that contribute to the confusion of what works, what’s worth the
time and what’s a passing fad. However, I think the strongest position for all
to take is to become collaborative, each party learning from the others. We as
recruiters need to understand marketing strategy and social tactics better,
CEOs need to understand the value of today’s tools and marketers need a glimpse
into the recruiting world. I believe that with a better understanding of all
these concepts, recruiters will have the room to work creatively and be
supported by their organization, both in spirit a
Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She's the Chief Blogger and Founder of Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmillermerell.
