Using Facebook for Recruitment

Using Facebook for Recruitment (0)

Gillian Lindsay | 5/11/2008

As your business grows so will your need for new employees. Without a doubt you will search for the most extraordinary candidates possible; just like every other company.  If you need to locate and entice quality employees, especially the highly-sought, recent university graduate, you may want to consider a presence on Facebook.

To secure the best candidates you must effectively communicate the positive differences your company provides. Do you tell candidates you are focused on their success, fast paced, cutting edge, diverse, open to new ideas, authentic, and collaborative? While you may think you are getting your point across your candidates will hear such claims at nearly every company they speak with. If you would like to make a lasting impression you need to demonstrate these values in action.

Ernst Young began a coordinated effort to recruit using Facebook over a year ago. Their Australian Facebook site boasts a wealth of recruiting features including upcoming events, videos from current employees, and discussion boards. The site even offers photo albums where current employees can showcase daily life inside the company.These features paint an overall picture of the corporate culture in a way that traditional recruiting material cannot equal. Ernst Young is demonstrating they are collaborative and focused on their employee’s success. The Australian site alone has over 3,500 fans, which are Facebook users who have chosen to follow the activity on the site.

Getting started may be easier than you think but this approach is not without its challenges. There is no charge for setting up a profile. However, you must be willing to spend time creating your content and maintaining the site. You should begin by searching for your business on Facebook. You will probably be surprised at the number of past and current employees already using the site. Your next step is to create a group and invite these employees to join. This will help build a small community in a short amount of time.

The thought of exposing your business to a social networking site may seem intimidating. Who knows what could be said? You can mitigate some of this risk by carefully planning how you will portray your company and designing a well thought out governance plan. Bear in mind that the occasional negative comment is already being posted about your company somewhere on the Internet. By providing a central location for your business you can balance out and address the occasional disgruntled customer or employee instead of allowing potential candidates to stumble upon one lone negative voice.

tags: Online Trends ,  Web 2.0 ,  Business ,  facebook