HOW SOCIAL MEDIA CAN HELP IN EFFECTIVE HR MANAGEMENTNovember 13, 2015 Mukul Agarwal

In recent times social media has emerged as a powerful HR tool for recruitment, engagement and collaboration. This discipline involves in selecting the suitable social media sites from vastly available options and creating the value of theorganization. It is now crucial for HRs to know the advantages and disadvantages of the social media hiring and how to use it effectively.

Screening and Assessing the Applicants

Screening the candidates just by seeing their resume is becoming an old time task. In this online savvy world,

companies are also bringing in consideration the presence of candidates on social media sites like – LinkedIn,

Facebook and Twitter. The information about the candidates is easily available on these sites and it aids HRs in

assessing the behaviour and interest of the applicants they are about to hire. Infact, there are many third party

agencies which offer professional services in this field as well.

Social Recruiting

Social Recruiting has emerged as an important pillar when it comes to effective use of social media in HR and

recruitment process. A most popular example here is of LinkedIn Jobs, which allows recruiters to post their jobs and

reach out to its registered members, at some fees. However, tools like – Applicant Tracking System makes social

recruiting more cost-effective where recruiters can post jobs to LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter at free of cost, and

reach out to a vast audience in no time.

Connecting with other like minded people

Social media is loaded with relevant groups and forums which connect HRs and other related skilled professionals at

one place. These forums are there for the sole purpose of generating and distributing informative knowledge of like

minded people. HRs need to be active in the group activities to keep themselves updated about the current trends in

their profession. They can post queries to get expert answers and even can share their knowledge about the relevant

topics. Most popular HR forums in India are – CiteHR and HR.com. This is also a recommended way to create self

as well as company branding on social media.

Communicating to the Stakeholders

Mistimed communication to employees, customers or stakeholders can harm many in the interest of the company.

Most importantly when it is about policy changes, new product/service launch, good news or even worrisome talks.

Social media platforms allow organisations to pass the information to a large audience in short time. It also

effectively cuts down the rumors and temporary excitement in the employees. Website like – Yammer is an enterprise

social networking site which facilitates question and answer sessions, where everyone can clear any doubts regarding

new policies, system change and procedures.

Obtaining Feedback about the Company

HR managers mainly work on measuring and improving employees’ performance in the organization. But nowadays

modern managers are more eager to know the feedback about where the company is standing in the market in terms

of employee satisfaction. Websites likeGlassdoor and Quora are helpful for HR managers to gather the positive and

negative feedback of the company culture, policies, hiring processes, etc from the sources like job applicants, current

employees and former employees.

Training and Development of Talent

Till recently HR managers have to develop educational material, visit each of the office locations and deliver training

to their employees. Thanks to the technology improvement, now HR managers can create customized computer

based training and put them online (e,g:Slideshare) , so that employees around the globe can use it. Online social

media platforms are able to create collaborative environment where instructors and receivers can share the

knowledge informally and involve in healthy and constructive discussions. (e.g: video calling through Skype and live

presentations through Gotomeeting or Join.me)

To make more effective and efficient use of Social media in recruitment, HRs can look for the best social recruiting

tool available in the market. One of which is Applicant Tracking System that can easily automate sourcing of the

profiles. The platform allows users to integrate their personal as well as company’s social media accounts and post

jobs automatically to reach out to larger network. Real time reports give insights on the effectiveness of each social

site.