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Sirona Consulting Limited
How to Get Started with
Social Recruiting
Helpful Hints and Tips on Using Social Media
Effectively in the Recruitment Workplace
By Andy Headworth
2011
Introduction
The use of social media in recruitment is not new. Many recruiters have been using LinkedIn
for a good few years now – in fact I have actively been using it as a recruiting tool since early
2005!
However, things changed in 2009 when the like
likes of Twitter and Facebook became effective
ways of identifying, communicating and engaging with people. Add to them LinkedIn,
YouTube, blogs, RSS feeds and the relatively new entrant to the scene, Foursquare and this
represents a nice little social recruiting toolbox.
Over the course of 2010 and 2011
2011, I have spoken about social recruiting at conferences, and
coached and trained many recruiters through my social recruiting workshops. What has
become very clear is that while I may wish that the use of social media in the recruitment
re
industry is widespread,
spread, the reality is somewhat different.
Many people start with the best intentions with the various forms of social media – they set
up a Twitter profile, amend their Facebook account (removing all those dodgy photo’s)
photo’s and
they ‘play around’ with their LinkedIn profile. They may also experiment in trying to use
some of them to identify people. But the reality is that very quickly they struggle to
understand how to actually get started on each platform – who to follow, friend,
f
link to or
connect with – and what to say or when to say it.
So to help people get started with social recruiting, I have put together this hints and tips
guide to getting started with LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, YouTube and Foursquare,
not forgetting the all important RSS - which I sometimes describe as the ‘oil of social
media’.
This is not an exhaustive list of what to do, but something to give you the confidence to get
started. Social Media is a fantastic tool for the recruitment industr
industry,
y, and one that every
recruiter should be using. I hope this document give
gives you the confidence to get started and
continue to use different social media channels to identify
identify,, engage with and ultimately
recruit that next candidate.
Andy Headworth
www.sironaconsulting.com © 2011 Sirona Consulting Limited. All rights reserved.
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Contents
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2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
The Importance of a Social Media Footprint
Getting Started
What is RSS and How to Use it
LinkedIn
Twitter
Facebook
Foursquare
Blogs
Connect with Me
4
5
6
9
14
21
23
27
33
The information in this document is proprietary and confidential to Sirona Consulting Limited. No
part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, for any
purposes without the express written consent of Sirona Consulting Limited. This document is
subject to change without notice, and Sirona Consulting Limited does not warrant that the material
contained within this document is error free.
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3
1. The Importance of a Social Media Footprint
As recruiters, you need candidates to be successful at what you do. You need to be able to
find new candidates as well as candidates finding you. The latter is going to become
significantly more important over the next few years, as good candidates will become more
selective and harder to find.
This is where your
our social footprint becomes very important to you.
The leaders of the search engine space, Google and Bing now index all the social sites
through their real-time
time search engines. The majority of searching starts with either Google
(by far the biggest search
earch engine) or Bing. So to maximise the opportunity of being found
(for the relevant and appropriate industry search terms), you need to ensure you have as
large a social footprint as possible.
Google and Bing fully index LinkedIn, all the updates on Facebook Pages, all blog content, all
YouTube content (Google
Google do own YouTube after all
all!),
!), all the Twitter updates and all the
Foursquare check-in content.
So it makes sense to ensure that you have an active presence on as many of these social
media sites ass possible doesn’t it?
You do want the candidates to find you, don’t you?
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2. Getting Started
Getting started with social media is the easy part – it is a question of signing up and joining
the different social networks. Here are the xx websites that you should start by joining:
a) Google – www.google.com
Most people have already got a Google account for email –Gmail or
Googlemail, but if you haven’t, go and get one – you will need it to get your
RSS reader set up.
b) LinkedIn – www.linkedin.com
If you are in recruitment (at any level) then the chances are you will have a
LinkedIn account already set up. If you don’t then ensure you get one NOW.
c) Twitter – www.twitter.com
A quick tip here – try and get your name or as close to it as possible in the 16
characters you are allowed for your Twitter name.
d) Facebook – www.facebook.com
If you are not one of the 500 million+ people who have a Facebook account,
bite the bullet and get yourself started - contrary to what you may have been
told, Facebook is not the home of the devil!
e) Foursquare – www.foursquare.com
This one might flex your brain a little to start with, but trust me on this one, it
is a fantastic candidate sourcing tool.
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3. What is RSS and how to use it in Recruitment
Have you seen these orange 'things' on websites and ever wondered what they are? The
other day, I was giving some advice to a newbie blogger, and as she had put 'an orange
thing' on her new blog, I asked her which RSS reader she used to read other blogs.
Her answer was typical of many people - ".....every other blog had an 'orange thing' on it so I
thought I should put one on my blog as well, but I don't know what it is - I just thought it had
to be there!"
If you are already familiar with RSS, then fantastic, I hope you use it effectively as an
information gathering tool (but what about a recruitment tool?).
If you don't then let me explain what it is and why you should be using it today - whether as
part of a social recruiting strategy, a news aggregator, a competitor tracker or a way to keep
track of specific followers, subjects or hashtags on Twitter.
So what is RSS?
RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’, and it is a technology that is being used by
millions of web users around the world to keep track of their favourite websites in an easy
way.
In simple terms, what RSS technology does is to get websites to tell you when they have
updated their information. Then it 'collects' these updates for you and stores them in a
suitable place for you to read, at a time when it is convenient for you.
It saves you time and helps you to get the information you want quickly after it was
published. Many people describe it as a ‘news feed’ that you subscribe to.
The best analogy is that of a 'subscription’. It’s like subscribing to a magazine that is
delivered to you periodically but instead of it coming in your physical mail box each month
when the magazine is published it is delivered to your ‘RSS Reader’ every time your
favourite website updates its information.
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How to Use RSS
What you first need to get is something called, an RSS Reader - which will allow you to read
the RSS feeds you subscribe to. I use Google Reader and it works very well, as it looks like an
email inbox which makes it very easy to read. But there are others that you can use such as
Feedly which work very well, and of course you can use your outlook inbox to 'collect' RSS
feeds.
There are many feed readers going around with a variety of approaches and features however if you are a newbie then starting with Google Reader is as good as place as any,
because you can insert it into your iGoogle and have the reader on your iGoogle homepage
(which is very useful indeed!)
Sign into your Google account and go to the top right hand corner of the screen, and click on
settings. You want to go to your Google Account settings.
At the bottom of the page, you will see a myriad of Google services. If Google Reader is
there, simply click on it. If not you will have to go to Google, type in ‘get Google reader’ into
the search box and follow instructions to set one up for your account.
Now you have a RSS Reader set up, you need to put some feeds into it. Most websites now
give you the option to subscribe to their RSS feed – one of the orange icons above – are
usually well positioned on websites to make this process easy for you.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/SironaSays
Here is the sidebar from my blog. To subscribe, all you have to do is click on the orange icon
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Simply click on this button and
the feed will be added to your
Google reader.
As you subscribe to feeds you’ll see that unread entries from the sites you’re tracking will be
marked as bold. As you click on them you’ll see the latest update and can read it right there
in the feed reader. You are given the option to click through to the actual site or move onto
the next unread item - marking the last one as ‘read’.
When you have a few feeds, your Google Reader will start to fill up like this:
The best way to learn how to use Google Reader is to simply subscribe to some feeds and give it a
go. Both have helpful help sections to get you up and running.
Here are three ways you can use RSS Readers in a different way:
I.
II.
Monitoring your own brand. First set up three new folders in your RSS Reader –
your name, your brand name and your company name (and more if you want).
Next go to Google Alerts and set up three sets of alerts (for your name, brand
and company name) and direct the alerts to your Reader to collect the
information. Then do the same with a website called Socialmention.com (this is a
more social media focused monitoring tool, to use in conjunction with Google
alerts).
There you go, done! You now have a self updating information source of where
your various names are being mentioned on the internet. This will tell you when
and where people are talking about, your brand or your company, and will
include the links back to the original content to enable you to read it is directly.
Tracking your competitors. Simply go to the websites of your competitors or
people that you want to track, find the RSS icon and subscribe to the feed. As
above, set up a separate folder to monitor this information.
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III.
Automated Twitter and searching. I will cover this in more detail later in the
document, the one big advantage Twitter has, is the ability to create an RSS feed
for every search on the Twitter search engine - search.twitter.com. So you can
use this for searching for information, people or anything else you like to track.
I am a massive fan of RSS, and wouldn't be without it. Because I use Google Reader, it
means that I can access all this information from anywhere online, just by logging into
Google. So whether it is via my PC, laptop, Blackberry or other smart phone devices, I am
always up-to-date with the information I choose to select.
4. LinkedIn
For those of you that don't already know, LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com ) is a professional
networking group whose purpose is to provide its members a way to search and connect
with other people to find people, jobs and business opportunities. And unlike the social
networking sites, LinkedIn is primarily focused on the business community.
Your individual network consists of your immediate connections, and 2 further levels of
people connected to any of your connections. Very quickly your searchable network can
expand very quickly each time you connect to someone new. Just to highlight the power of
this network, as of today I have 1,334 connections and my total network is over 15 million
people!
When you first start on LinkedIn, you need to build a profile of yourself, what you do, who
you work for etc. This is like an online CV builder, and if you are serious about using
LinkedIn, you do need to spend some time getting this right and keeping it updated.
The reason this is so important is that LinkedIn is tremendously well indexed in terms of
search, by Google. Just to demonstrate this, if you just do your own name in a search in
Google, the chances are your LinkedIn page will appear in the first three searches. So if you
are a person wanting to be found on LinkedIn by clients and candidates alike, you absolutely
must ensure that your profile is 100% complete.
Take the time to fill out your profile properly, ensuring that you have ALL of your respective
industry keywords in your profile.
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Below is an image of my current profile on LinkedIn. I just want to highlight several areas on
there that you must pay particular attention to, to ensure that you give yourself the best
possible chance to be found in LinkedIn searches.
Tip 1: make sure the headline profile (in the 160 characters directly underneath your name)
gives an accurate representation of what you do. This really is a, ‘does what it says on the
tin’ statement. It is no good just saying you are a recruitment consultant for XX Company
(which is one of the most common faults on LinkedIn), as that tells me nothing at all. If you
were to change it to say; Recruiter that specialises in recruiting Key Account Managers in
the FMCG Grocery sector in London, then straightaway I would know what you do and if it is
relevant for me to make contact with you.
Tip 2: ensure your profile has a good head shot photograph of yourself. It has been proven
that profiles with a photograph on a much more effective than ones without.
Tip3: put your name at the start of the headline profile. This is due to a recent change within
LinkedIn, where they now limit the information it allows you to see for people in your first
level connections. They only allow you to see a Christian name and the first letter of a
surname - such as Andy H. So this recommendation of putting your name in one of the
highly optimised (for search) is a way of ensuring you appear in searches that are made on
LinkedIn. Effectively your name becomes a keyword.
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Tip 5: make sure that you use all three of the website links in your profile. Also make sure
that you change and really name the links to your own blog, website or web page,
whichever is relevant to you. You do this by clicking on edit on each link, drop box appears
before you, go to the bottom of that says Other, then put the URL you are linking to as well
as the name of the link. As you can see above I have changed the simple website link to one
that reads, The Sirona Consulting Website. I have also done this for my blog and for the third
link and I have directed the link at one of my website pages on social recruiting.
Tip 6: add your Twitter profile name to your LinkedIn profile, so are the Twitter users can
find you, and follow you if they choose to.
Tip 7: LinkedIn kindly allows you to have your own personal named profile (as long as no
one else has secured your same name) but you need to go to edit your Public Profile to
make the change to your own name.
One of the biggest mistakes people make who join LinkedIn is that they sit back and wait for
something to happen, which is only natural and I certainly did to start with. Any form of
networking whether that be offline or online, needs you to be proactive to grow your
network. The difference with LinkedIn is that it makes this very easy for you to do. My key
phrase with regards to this and other social networking sites is a simple one – ‘you only get
out of it what you put into it’!
So you need to start building your network, but how do you do it?
Here are my top 10 ways for beginners to grow your network on LinkedIn:
1. Take out your business card collection, or if you’re organised use your Contacts in
Outlook, GMail, or even on your iPhone, Android or Blackberry. Go through each one
and do a quick search on LinkedIn via your email accounts, and if you find them
there, send them an invite using the relevant page (shown below).
Make sure you personalise the invitation emails. There is nothing worse than boring
template emails!
2. Spend some time and think of people you have worked with during your career, and
if you find them link to them. They may have gone to the same school / college /
university, or you have worked with them at current or previous organisations. You
will be surprised at how many of these people are on LinkedIn.
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11
3. Each time you get a request to join a network, either accept it or archive it. Do not
choose the ‘I don’t know this person’ as once a person gets five of these their
account is frozen, and you could then be responsible for having them removed! My
advice in the beginning would be to accept all requests to link up.
4. Get into the habit of being a ‘name magpie’. Each time you think of people you
haven’t yet linked to write them down somewhere safe. Trust me this will happen,
and you will find yourself remembering people you thought you had forgotten
about! Next time you are online, go searching on LinkedIn and as before, when you
find them, link to them. It is also a great way of finding what people have been up to
since you last met – human nature I guess!!
5. If you do find someone in your (now expanding) network who you would like to
connect to but don’t have an email address for, then you can still contact them.
Request an introduction through someone in your network that is connected to the
person you want to connect to (if there are multiple connections here, you can even
choose which introducer to use!). Just make sure you explain succinctly why you
want to be introduced, as the introducer does have the power of veto.
6. Recommendations. Don’t be afraid to ask current colleagues, ex-colleagues, business
partners etc for recommendations on LinkedIn. They do help in building your profile
further, but my advice would be only seeking recommendations from people that
you would recommend yourself!
7. Regularly go through the connections of all your 1st level contacts. They are also
expanding their networks, and it is likely you will find mutual contacts that you will
be able to link to.
8. Connect with power networkers or ‘hubs’ in your industry. These are the people who
have thousands of contacts and are usually only too pleased to link with others. They
are often referred to as ‘open networkers’ and have their email address placed
publicly in their profile. Don’t be shy with these people; they are motivated by
expanding their networks. When you next do a search for someone, sort the search
by connections (drop down box), and you will find them. Invest the time to link with
these power networkers, and you will find your own network going exponential!!
9. Tell the world you are on LinkedIn! Ensure you have your LinkedIn profile name and
link on all your correspondence such as e-mail, letters and business cards. You may
even want to use it as your link address on your Twitter profile and Facebook
account.
10. Don’t talk about it, do it. Make sure you set aside a certain amount of time every
day to ‘invest’ in growing your network. This is not a quick fix; it is something that
you need to work out to make it successful.
Here are three more tips for you on LinkedIn.
Tip 8: LinkedIn now have a status update box that allows you to update your network with
your latest News, jobs, blog post or anything of your choosing.
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Make sure you do at least one status update every day - not forgetting to tick the share on
twitter box! **Warning** don't get carried away and do any more than two or three status
update today, as this could actually have negative impact on your network.
Tip 9: LinkedIn has a relatively new function that now allows you to follow companies of
your choice. When you do a company search, there is a box now above the company name
on the right-hand side that says:
You can click the blue box to follow all the activities of this particular company. So as anyone
that has listed Accenture as their employer, makes any changes to their profiles, you will get
notified of that change. This is particularly pertinent for recruiters because you get to find
out when people are leaving, joining and being promoted in the companies that you are
following.
Tip 10: add applications. Go to Edit Profile and scroll down to the Add Applications tab. Here
there are a large selection of different applications that you can add to your LinkedIn profile
such as your blog, your Slideshare account and even various documents via the Boxnet
application. By adding more applications to your LinkedIn profile you are adding further
depth, knowledge and character to your new online persona.
So, if you haven't already got the message LinkedIn is an absolute necessity for anyone in
business community, especially recruiters!
Remember – if you haven’t connected with me yet make sure you find me on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/andyheadworth - and send me an invitation to join your network, I'll
happily oblige.
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5. Twitter
For many people Twitter represents just one thing......
........ Noise!
If you are a Twitter newbie then you are advised to watch my short Twitter for Beginners
video that can be found on our YouTube Channel – www.youtube.com/sironaconsulting which explains what Twitter is all about.
The sheer volume of activity on twitter every single day is phenomenal. Every hour there is
millions of tweets about idle chatter, conversations, and links and just about everything you
can think of! This is what I mean, when I say ‘noise’.
For people new to Twitter this can be both fascinating to watch and mind blowing at the
same time, as they struggle to come to terms with what to do. The trick is to use tools to
manage your use of Twitter, to make sure you maximise your time effectively, and don't
miss out on the information that matters.
The essential Twitter tools and applications that will save you time.
Here are my selections of products that you should sign up to help you manage your time on
Twitter in the most effective way as a recruiter:
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It starts with a core in the middle that represents the primary platforms (third party
computer applications) that you should use to manage your twitter account(s). My personal
preference is TweetDeck as I find it the most user-friendly. The bonus with TweetDeck is
that you can update your LinkedIn, Facebook and other accounts all from the same
platform.
Here are my 10 helpful hints for starting with Twitter.
1) Follow other people that follow you. You want to get involved on Twitter then
you need to be listening to what is being said. This is a basic part of Twitter but
remember that there is no obligation to follow everyone who follows you.
2) Reply to @ messages. An "@ message" is when someone types @your
username. That means they are either just mentioning you, or trying to sending
you a message. Either way, the more of these you respond to, the more you can
engage with Twitter.
3) Learn the art of the RT (retweet). A retweet (RT) is when a tweet is shared by
someone else on Twitter because they deem it worth sharing with their
followers. They are a great way to let your content travel, as well as share tweets
created by others.
4) Remember the 120 rule. On Twitter you only have 140 characters. People can RT
content on Twitter just by clicking the RT button. But if people want to RT and
make a comment as well, they need some character space to do so. So it is good
practice to leave 20 characters free for the person sharing your content to
comment.
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5) Always respond to DMs. DMs (or direct messages) are private messages that
anyone who follows you can send to you directly without posting them publicly
on Twitter. Make sure you respond and don’t forget to put the ‘D’ in front of the
username (no @ needed!)
6) Follow the #hashtag. Interact with groups of people on the same topics by using
the Hashtag mark-up, a # followed by a keyword. For example #socialrecruiting
on tweets refer to tweets on social recruiting.
7) It is not just about you. Don't just promote your product or jobs, Twitter is not a
marketing tool, it is about relationships and conversations. You would get bored
of people just talking about themselves wouldn’t you?
8) Remember the Unfollow feature. If you don't like someone's updates, unfollow
them, Twitter is an opt-in service.
9) Be consistent. Try and have a consistent presence on Twitter. People will get
more used to see and hearing what you have to say and will more likely to follow
you to engage with you further.
10) Have fun!
There are three things that I am consistently asked about on Twitter:
a) Who do I follow and where do I find them?
b) How do I get people to follow me?
c) What do I tweet about?
So here are some of the advice I share with people on these popular questions.
Who do I follow and where do I find them?
The ‘who’ is pretty much down to you and your Twitter objectives. The same principle
applies to LinkedIn really – you should know the market sector you work in, with all the
relevant industry keywords and skills used in your target area.
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16
Tip 11: if are on LinkedIn, login and look for the ‘More’ tab at the top of your Home page.
On the drop down box, click Tweets, then connections. It will show you all your LinkedIn
connections that are on Twitter and gives you an easy way to follow them.
Tip 12: find the influencers (typically people with good amounts of followers, and who
regularly contribute interesting tweets in your sector) in your target sector and jump into
their following list (it is all public after all). See who they rate as worth following (i.e. who
they follow) and start to follow the ones that are relevant to you.
Tip 13: one great tool to use is Followerwonk.com (in the Twitter Circle above), as it allows
you to search the bio’s of Twitter users by keywords. A search for social recruiting is shown
here:
Tip 14: use http://listorious.com It is simply brilliant for finding people to follow!
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17
Do a search for
keywords, and it
shows you all the lists
associated with that
keyword and how
active they are.
You drill down and see all
the people on the list and
who you are not following
– you then just click to
follow!
You can also just do the people search as well, to identify people in the same way.
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18
How do I get people to follow me?
There is no magic wand with regards to building up a following. As you will find yourself,
who you choose to follow is down to the person following! There are two sides to building
up a following, one using the follow / followback ‘rule’ and one that is based on quality
content.
Tip 15: make sure your bio contains the keywords you want to be found by. Obviously if you
are a recruiter, then the word recruitment or recruiter should certainly be in the bio at the
very least!
Tip 16: on average approximately 40% of people that you follow (based on relevance) will
follow you back. So, one of the ways of building a following is to follow groups of people in
the anticipation of some of them following you back. This works, as long as you don’t follow
too many people each time, so that it distorts the following/follower ratio too much. E.g.
following 1000 people and having only 50 followers – it just makes you look like a spammer!
Tip 17: quality content will always gain you followers. So, re-tweeting interesting
information, sharing quality links, writing interesting tweets, @ engaging others in
conversation, commenting on topics, sharing written content (blogs etc) and being
consistent with all this is the longer term way to gain a quality and engaged following.
Tip 18: #hashtags from conferences, trade shows or exhibitions are a great way of finding
people to follow in an industry sector. Find the #hashtags by searching
http://search.twitter.com or via http://hashtags.org
Tip 19: create some of your own lists in your specific sector. Then tell then people that you
have added them to your list. They may well acknowledge the inclusion by following you as
well!
Obviously, building a network or community of people (like a following on Twitter), is not
something that will happen instantly – and don’t believe the people that tell you otherwise.
Better to have a steady organic growth of Twitter followers than large number spikes over
short periods. That may happen of course, especially of some of your content gets
re-tweeted extensively.
What do I tweet about?
Anything you want! No, seriously, that is exactly true – as long as it will have some relevance
to your followers and something you believe them to find interesting.
If you are unsure, then follow a bunch of people and just listen and watch what they are
talking about / tweeting. Then slowly dip your ‘tweeting toes’ in the water!
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Tip 20: if you are still struggling then here is a list of many things that you can keep yourself
busy tweeting about:
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Link to blog posts, articles and other thought leadership pieces written by
your colleagues
Post photos from corporate events, conferences or exhibitions
Company press releases
Job news in your company - maybe you are hiring?
Link to the jobs (not forgetting a few #hashtags)
Share aspects of your recruitment process.
Share some interview comedy gems - obviously missing out the names!
Interview nightmares – no names please!
What makes a good candidate for your company
Things that make you buzz as a recruiter
Upcoming events, shows, conferences etc
Recruiting events you are attending or running
Career advice
CV advice
Share industry knowledge relevant to your followers
Engage with people that have mentioned your company (or you) - you are
tracking this via the alerts now aren't you?
Share item links from your email newsletters
Re-tweet regularly from people that you follow-making sure you add in some
comment as well
Tell people about your other social channels
Link to interesting comments made in your LinkedIn Group, blog or website
Share a link to a video that is interesting (or funny)
Ask questions of your followers
Answer questions posed by people you follow
Share any new online tools that you found
Start a new industry # discussion
Join a # discussion within your industry
Re-tweet relevant tweets that your followers will enjoy.
Share pictures
Link to one of your published articles (on blogs or other websites)
Share links to industry articles
Post updates while attending a conference
Share case studies
Ask for help solving a problem
Share some expert advice and opinion
Announce new products or services
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Share a link to a Powerpoint presentation via www.SlideShare.com
And above all else,, maintain a sense of fun. Interject humour and ‘your own character’ into
your tweets. If you make them too corporate then you will give yourself a limited circle of
followers.
Finding information on Twitter is easy, as Twitter has a very effective search engine in place;
http://search.twitter.com
Don’t forget to use the
Advanced Search for
better search accuracy.
Tip 21: remember that you can take the RSS feed for the search and plug it into your RSS
reader – then you won’t have to do the search again, as it will automatically arrive in Google
Reader every time there is an addition to your search criteria!
6. Facebook
The use of Facebook as a recruitment tool is primarily based around having an effective
Facebook page for your company.
Facebook pages can be as simple or as complicated as you choose to make them (if you
have the skill orr know the right companies capable of building them!), But the essence of a
good Facebook page is continual engagement, communication and the right content to keep
your Facebook community returning to your page again, and again.
As previously mentioned in this document, Facebook pages are indexed by Google and Bing
and so can become an important part of your social recruiting footprint of your company.
Due to the privacy nature that Facebook has historically protected, successful recruiting via
Facebook has always been difficult and a little random. But this is starting to change and
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there are now a number of applications and third-party solutions that can be plugged into
your Facebook page to allow you to connect it to your recruitment process.
Work for Us is a good example of Facebook application that
you can use to create a customised job board on your
Facebook page. Candidates can submit CV’s through the app
or be redirected to your company's career website. Recruiters
can also create custom Facebook ad campaigns to target
specific segments of candidates based on attributes like
education, interests, and location.
NetNatives.co.uk is one of the leading companies creating and
building specific recruitment focused Facebook Pages.
They create fully branded pages incorporating your branding,
logos and imagery, so Facebook users have no doubt it is your
official Facebook page. They insert their bespoke software
turning your pages into dynamic recruitment pages with your
jobs continually updating.
The key to successful Facebook pages is the building of and sustaining your Facebook
community. The bigger the community you have of relevant people, then the bigger the
reach you will have of potential referrals for your jobs and events. The average user on
Facebook has in excess of 100 friends, so if you have a community and your Facebook page
of, say, 200 people, in theory you could have distributed reach of 20,000 people. That is in
the ideal world, but you get the message - the bigger the network, the bigger the reach.
To grow and maintain your Facebook community you need is to provide interesting and
value-add content consistently, week in week out. The style and the type of the content will
be dictated to by your own community. If, for example you recruit in the IT community, then
the content needs to appeal to those types of individuals. If, however your community is
more marketing focused than the content that will appeal to them will likely be much
different.
Here are some ideas that show you the diversity of content you can use on your Facebook
pages, to engage and interact your growing community.
°
°
°
Be interactive, fun and helpful. When people get on your Facebook page they
are looking for some kind of interaction. Don’t disappoint them.
Embed videos on your Facebook page. Use the app called Involver.com to create
a YouTube video tab to show your videos with inside your Facebook page. (You
will first need to create a you Tube video account and upload videos to you Tube
to make this work)
Promote any events you are running or attending through Facebook. Use
Facebook updates, photographs and videos (mentioned above) to promote any
new events you're organising or are attending.
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°
°
°
°
°
°
Create contests on Facebook. Create competitions and contests via Facebook
page to encourage participation i.e. requiring people to ‘ Like’ your page, for
example, to be able to enter the competitions.
Integrate traditional advertising with Facebook. The Facebook icon/logo is well
known and it should appear on more print ads. It’s a great way to promote
contests that encourage people to sign up on your fan page.
As already mentioned you can use Facebook to grow your email list, and vice
versa. One company used their email newsletter to boost awareness of their
Facebook page. They then promoted their email newsletter to their existing
Facebook fans. The end result was growth in their email list and in their fan base.
Introduce new products on Facebook. People who sign up to be fans on your
Facebook page are your most loyal customers. Reward them by giving them the
information about a new product before everyone else. You can even ask them
to promote them to call their fans and friends at the same time.
Recruit new employees using the reach and the passion of your current
employees. If multiple current employees send out jobs with links to your
recruiting website or your company's Facebook fan page, your jobs reach a wide
audience.
You can send messages about jobs to fans of your company fan page. While in
"edit" mode, in the right column, you can use the "send an update" function
under "promote your page” to all your fans.
You can also post jobs on the fan page, just like you'd post any other message,
when job openings occur in your company.
Tip 22: download the Facebook toolbar for your web browser. This is a free app and allows
you to update and interact on Facebook from your web browser, making it easier to share
relevant information. Go to http://www.facebook.com/toolbar?v=app_4949752878 and
download a copy.
Tip 23: don't give up with Facebook. Keep trying different ways to engage with your
community. Different methods work for different people on different Facebook pages, so
don't be afraid to try new things.
Tip 24: ask your community what they want to see in your Facebook page. Don't be afraid to
ask and more importantly don't be afraid of the answers.
Tip 24: Don’t share the exact same content across all your social networks (Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube, etc.) in exactly the same format – i.e. don’t simply distribute the same RSS
feed to all sites. You will get far better engagement and show your fans you care. Some
users of Facebook don’t really like Twitter and get irritated when they see hashtags or other
Twitter-specific content in their Facebook stream. Just try and be aware of the content
required for best engaging on each platform.
Tip 25: Don’t be afraid of people posting negative comments. You’ll find that (hopefully)
most of the time your fans will jump in and defend you or address these comments for you,
which can be more powerful, than you just replying. Think of it as a positive opportunity to
turn a detractor around with a quick and timely response, demonstrating your excellent
customer service.
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Tip 26: A lot of Facebook users choose to watch more than they read – yes many are
fundamentally lazy! They like videos and photographs – so make sure you mix up your
updates and regularly post different media types.
Tip 27: One way of getting instant involvement is to ask questions of your fans. Get their
opinion on a current topic – the more contentious the better! Why not ask them (for
example) what their favourite blog post or YouTube video of the week they have read or
watched?
Tip 28: Always track the activity on your page - your average number of comments and Likes
per post, number of visitors, new fans/Likes etc. This will help you adjust your content
strategy appropriately to ensure you are always striving for maximum engagement.
Tip 29: Facebook can be fun, if you want it to! Always try new ideas, and always encourage
sharing.
Tip 30 : Don’t forget to come and join my community at Facebook.com/sironaconsulting
7. Foursquare
And while you will surely have heard of the likes of Facebook and Twitter, I am guessing that
Foursquare may well be something new to you. So what is it?
Foursquare is a location mapping and social networking service that allows users to let their friends
know what they are up to by checking in to different venues. This is great for businesses as it helps
them track consumers whereabouts as well as the things they are saying about each venue.
There are two key elements that make Foursquare useful for recruiters, which are part of the way it
works:
Check-in's: People mostly check into a work place location for one of three reasons; they work there
and want to be Mayor of their workplace, they are going for a meeting (and so are likely to be in the
same industry) or (maybe) they are going for an interview there.
Mayor: People, who have become a Mayor of a workplace, will need to have visited that location on
several occasions and will therefore likely work there.
Foursquare is mainly used by early adopters, people tuned into social media and tech savvy people
(and by default smart phone users).
When companies develop new social media products, services and applications, do you think it ever
occurs to them that they are indirectly helping recruiters out? Probably not, and quite frankly, I am
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pleased. Maybe it is the mind of the recruiter that is the problem (now you're talking!) - with the
way we look at new applications from a completely different perspective. We are of course always
trying to find people, so it makes sense to use Foursquare, doesn't it?
I want you show you how you can use Foursquare to find people at working at specific organisations.
There are two ways you can do this, and I will show you both of these below.
Tip 31: How to search for candidates using Foursquare and Twitter.
First go to http://search.twitter.com
Then type in "at company name" 4sq substituting the word company name with your
target company.
This will find anyone that has 'checked in' to a company - so they will likely be employees of
that company (perfect!), interview attendees (perfect again!) or people attending meetings
there (your target market).
Alternatively, you can use an x-ray search on Twitter;
site: twitter.com "at company name" 4sq
Taking it a little stage further you can create an RSS feed of fresh results for check-ins at
your target companies.
Tip 32: How to play detective of Foursquare.com and find people.
First stage is to get yourself a Foursquare account - don't worry it is very easy and free to
just sign up for one. Next in the search bar put in the name of the company you are
targeting to find people from:
This will show you all the different offices/locations (and even different names) of the
company, that people have 'checked in' at on Foursquare.
Then you need to find the one(s) that you are looking for. As you can see in the example
above, I selected Accenture as my target company. Click on that company and it will show
you who has checked in to that location recently, and of course, the Mayor of that company
location.
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As you can see Mike H is the Mayor of Accenture Interactive - he is an active Foursquare
user and he has many badges and has checked in to many locations. Better than that
though, is that he has his Twitter account linked to Foursquare. Click on the Twitter icon
(many people also have their Facebook accounts linked as well) and open up the Twitter
profile.
It tells you his name, his website (with contact details on) and some details about him. If you
use Twitter (which you should be doing as a recruiter by the way), then you may want to
follow him and engage with him that way.
If you then want to take it a stage further then simply do a search in LinkedIn for him. Don't
worry if he is outside of your network, because a simple Google x-ray search
(site:linkedin.com "name") will show you the full profile.
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There you go - from an innocuous and seemingly irrelevant social media tool, you now have
a clever way of identifying and sourcing targeted candidates.
ot everyone attaches their Twitter or Facebook accounts to their Foursquare profile, so if
the first search doesn't deliver, keep trying. As with all candidate sourcing, a good dose of
guile and lateral thinking are required!
8. Blogs
Getting started with a blog can be a daunting project – platforms, content, writers?
But before you jump in and speak to your IT department to help create the blog site
itself, take some time to think through your strategy. This is a critical step to ensure
your blog is in line with your brand and it will meet your objectives for your blog.
First complete this checklist of questions to ensure you understand your blog strategy.
1. What are your business objectives for your new blog?
2. Who are your target audience? Who will be reading your blog?
3. What will be the style of your voice? Product focused, thought leadership,
knowledge share etc?
4. Who will be responsible for creating your content? An individual (not
recommended) or a team of content providers, managed by a content editor or
administrator (recommended)?
5. What regular features will you provide? Weekly / monthly/quarterly
6. Who will be responsible for creating your editorial calendar?
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7. Who will be designing/creating/building the blog for you/
8. What metrics are you going to monitor? Visitors, page views, subscribers, time on
site, pages visited etc?
What blog platform is best to use?
There are a number of options for you to choose from, all with different benefits:
Wordpress: the biggest and most widely used blog platform. This has a (seemingly) limitless
supply of top templates to choose from. This platform is most flexible when hosted on your
own servers and set up by your own IT team. There are huge amounts of plug-ins, allowing
for unlimited customisation. Recommended
Typepad: another large blog platform. A more ‘traditional’ blog platform that has complete
editing and customisation capability by using CSS. While this can be hosted on your servers,
the strength of Typepad lies in the hosted version.
Blogger: one of the original blog platforms now owned by Google. The current format is
restrictive in design, but a new feature rich and redesigned version is due out later in the
year.
Posterous: represents the new breed of social media friendly blogs and is superb for sharing
content from mobile phones and smart phones – particularly images and video. The blog
has been designed with social in mind.
Tumblr: similar to Posterous, it is a blog designed for quickly sharing any form of content on
a very social focused site. Designed for ease of use and it is very smart phone friendly.
When you decide you want to start blogging and create a blog for your company /division
the first thing to do is to read! It is very important you start reading other blogs, both to see
how other people/companies are blogging and also to get ideas for future content.
See Chapter 1 in this document to see how to start using automation to help you read a
wide range of blogs more easily.
Tip 1: don’t ‘select’ employees to blog for you, ask for volunteers, as this will be a much
more effective and realistic voice. They will write because they want to, not because they
have to.
Tip 2: always try and create a content one month ahead. You can then schedule all your
regular features and allocate posts to your ‘volunteers’
Tip 3: look to be posting 3-4 articles a week on your blog
Tip 4: include a variety of different media such as text, images and video to ensure a variety
of content for your readers.
Tip: 5: be aware of your business keywords, as inserting them strategically into your blog
headlines and blog posts are a very effective method for improving your search engine
optimisation (SEO).
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Tip: 6: share your blog post on your other social networks automatically using tools such as
Twitterfeed or Delvr.it , making sure not to have the same content on all the channels at the
same time.
Tip 7: ensure you have a moderation strategy in place. To start with moderate all your blog
posts comments (vet the post comments first before publishing the item)
Tip 8: don’t be disheartened at the beginning if you don’t get many comments or
participation on your blog. You need to think long term rather than immediate return on a
blog strategy to get the best return.
Tip 9: keep on reading blogs – make sure you set aside time every (even if it is just 20 mins)
day to read the blogs in your reader.
Tip 10: this isn’t just one tip – here are 100 of them! These will help you when the creative
juices dry up..... and they will at some stage! Below are 100 things you can write on a
recruitment blog:
101 Things to Write About on a Recruitment Blog
1. Tell people about you and your role in the company
2. Tell them about your company
3. Take videos for your premises - maybe a video tour?
4. Interview some of your suppliers (including photographs and maybe video?)
5. Interview some of your clients (including photographs and maybe video?)
6. Interview really good candidates about their experiences with your company
7. Customer case studies
8. Stories of customers gone wrong
9. Tell people about the best consultant you ever met and why they were good
10. Talking about the worst insult ever employed (make this one more humorous)
11. Share your business’s successes
12. Take this further and break it down into more details specialised areas within
your specific industry
13. Write about your competition – who is the competition?
14. Write about their products and how they differ from yours
15. Tell people how to get the most from your customer service department
16. The best way that people can suggest improvements to your service
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17. Tell people about projects you are currently working on
18. How do you work with your clients
19. How do you expect your clients to work with you
20. Break down each of your products and explain in more detail (maybe video)
21. How does your approach differ to that of your competitors?
22. Give examples of clients that have used different parts of the services and get
quotes from them on their success
23. Identify innovative new methods or products in the marketplace
24. Five tips for getting the most out of working with your company
25. Tell people about you as a person - what make you tick
26. Tell people about your company and your staff – video is great for this
27. Tell people of your growth plans
28. Tell people what your business worries for your industry i.e. £ vs. $
29. Share some funny stories of mistakes you have previously made
30. Share some funny stories of your industry that you have read in the press
31. Tell people about any anniversaries you have e.g. five years in business
32. Tell people about new products or services
33. Conduct a poll, related to your industry
34. Take a look the tools you use online in your industry sector
35. Create easy 5 or 10 point tips to using these tools effectively
36. Describe an interesting conversation with a client and the outcome
37. Describing interesting conversations with a candidates and their insights
38. What are the industry clichés and how they relevant are they
39. The latest new buzzwords in your sector
40. Describing some of your professional habits at work (I don't mean the bad ones)
41. Ask people's opinions about these habits and share the answers
42. Write about the person that mentored you when you first started in recruitment
43. Who'd you look up to in recruitment and admire
44. Who do you see as the new up-and-coming stars in recruitment and why
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45. Explore recruitment in different countries relevant to your sector or industry
46. Tell people interesting travel stories related to jobs and to work
47. Share funny candidate experiences from interviews
48. Review products from your industry
49. Describe your utopian ideas for recruitment – what would you like to see
50. Tell people your opinions about the industry are you working in
51. Tell people about your opinions on recruitment
52. Tell people about your opinions on other recruitment products or services
53. Use your knowledge and history of your sector to explain how things have
changed over the last few years
54. Interview people from your industry at all levels (ideally on video)
55. By reading magazines, find interesting quotes that people have come up with in
relation to sectors within your industry
56. Share industry stories that you have read and comment on them
57. Use other people's blog content to create a story that is interesting i.e. linking to
another blog post you want to pass comment on
58. Praise people and congratulate them, be a genuinely nice person!
59. Look at the trends in your industry
60. What is the latest news in your sector
61. What are the good trade magazines that people should be reading in your
industry
62. What are the trade magazines that people should be reading in the recruitment
sector
63. Tell people about your first day in recruitment
64. Tell people about the tools you used when you first started recruitment
65. Share of bio of yourself with your readers
66. Do you have some radical ideas about your sector/industry
67. Describe a ‘day in the life’ of you at work
68. Describe a day working as part of your team
69. Share some of your skills and knowledge
70. Some ‘how to’ guides, related to your role
71. Tell people of your worst experiences as a recruitment consultant
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72. Tell people about the best experiences you've had as a recruitment consultant
73. Track the news and find a newsworthy story in your industry or sector
74. Create a list, the top 10 ATS Vendors, the Top 5 social networks
75. Have a moan - there is nothing like going off on a rant
76. How do you use Facebook in your job
77. What do you think of Facebook in the recruitment Arena
78. Should recruiters actually embraced Facebook
79. What are the pitfalls of your company using Facebook to recruit
80. How do you engage with my candidates
81. How do you engage with my clients
82. What technology do you use on a day-to-day basis from my job
83. What latest technology would you like to use a day-to-day basis
84. Tell people about the last industry conference you attended
85. Tell people about bad conference experiences you've had
86. What are the biggest big business issues you're facing right now
87. Why did you join your company and what attracted you to them
88. How do you use twitter in recruitment
89. How can you use social media in the recruiting environment to recruit
90. Examine the differences in the generations in your particular industry i.e. gen Y
gen X , baby boomers etc
91. How could your industry use social media better
92. What do you enjoy most about working in your industry
93. Share some presentations you have previously delivered (via slide share)
94. How do you build a lifelong relationship with your candidates
95. Talk about your brand as an employer brand
96. How does your brand compare to other competitors in the market place you're in
97. How do you use social networking to find candidates in your sector
98. Share with people some of the things you like doing when you're networking
99. Do some industry book reviews and share those with people
100.
Play futurologist, predict what will happen in the future in your industry
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101.
10 tips for a newbie entering the recruitment industry
That should help to get you started!! And if you are still requiring inspiration pop over to
www.sironasays.com for some further ideas!
9. Don’t forget to connect with me!
If you have enjoyed reading this document then please take the time to connect with me on
some of my online communities. I create and share different content on each, so you might
want to join more than one! So whether you want to join our Facebook Community, Follow
Me on Twitter, connect with me on LinkedIn or simply read my excellent blog, it is up to
you.
Website: www.sironaconsulting.com
Email: andy.headworth@sironaconsulting.com
Telephone: 01903 206249 / 07788 726019
Blog: www.sironasays.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/andyheadworth
Twitter: www.twitter.com/andyheadworth
Facebook: www.facebook.com/sironaconsulting
Foursquare: andyheadworth
I hope that this has been of help to you in starting in the social recruiting world. These are
just a few of the hints and tips I share with everyone. And of course they are ever changing
as new social media platforms, applications and sites appear in the marketplace.
At Sirona Consulting we create and deliver social recruiting strategies for our clients,
whether they are recruitment organisations or recruitment divisions within companies. Our
passion is the same – we love making recruitment work for the people we work for.
If you would like to understand how Sirona Consulting can be of help to your organisation,
or you would like to talk to me about training your recruiters in social recruiting or maybe
you would like me to talk about social recruiting at a forthcoming event then I would be
really pleased to hear from you on any of the methods above.
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