© HighReturnSelection.com 2010 - 2013 all rights reserved

2013 Social Media

Recruiting survey…

The latest HRS “Social Media Hiring” survey has been published. Its key finding… “most companies are struggling to use Social Media Hiring effectively”. Survey results suggest that companies are still lagging in three problem areas: many make it difficult for candidates to apply, messaging isn’t targeted and their social media strategy is unclear and often fragmented.

“ too many companies turning potential applicants away”

© HighReturnSelection.com 2010 - 2013 all rights reserved

Introduction: The following information provides highlights from our HRS 2013 Social Media Recruiting Survey. In general, recruiters and HR leaders agree that social hiring is quickly replacing old fashioned recruiting methods. They also believe that establishing a highly effective social hiring platform is essential for finding the best people, faster while lowering costs. Although they agree on its importance, very few companies are effective in implementing and maintaining a good social media recruiting program. As a result, we decided to complete a study to better understand ‘what key elements are needed to implement a highly effective social media recruiting platform.’

How the survey was implemented: We put together a team of reviewers, comprised of recruiting and social media specialists. They determined that social media recruiting is most effective when the company is able to fill its open positions with the right candidates, quickly. To accomplish this, the hiring company must conduct a social media campaign that reaches the right applicants and quickly motivates them to apply for desired opportunities. From this external perspective, we identified six key factors with individual rating scales to determine the effectiveness of any company’s social hiring strategy. The team then randomly selected 100 companies from a broad array of industries including High Tech, Telecommunications, Financial Services, Manufacturing, Distribution, Retail, Professional Services and Life Sciences to determine their overall social hiring effectiveness.

The six key factors:

Integration: how each company coordinated and optimized its recruiting methods, career web presence and use of the latest social media tools. Companies receiving the highest ratings presented a consistent and seamless image by fully integrating their resources. Companies that received the lowest ratings projected confused and conflicting messages across their various social pages, company career site and job advertisements. Outreach: from the candidate’s viewpoint, how easy was it to find the company’s career opportunities and relevant roles? This factor included the placement of advertisements on web pages and social sites and the effectiveness in educating the reader about the opportunities and benefits to their professional and work life needs. Profile: was the company’s messaging targeted to the needs of candidates, for each profession? This factor included the ability of the company to spark the candidate’s interest and willingness to quickly start the application process. Companies with the highest ratings in this category were able to present themselves as an employer of choice while companies that received low ratings tended to list their essential requirements in a manner reminiscent of old fashioned newspaper want ads. Clarity: was the applicant provided with a clear, transparent and articulate explanation of the role, expectations and reward system? The highest scores went to those companies who used modern, well written position descriptions. At the low end of the range, many companies appeared to have cut and pasted old and dated job descriptions, many filled with errors and confusing sentences.

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Degree of Integration All company data

Engaging Messages All company data

Respect: unlike traditional hiring, today the best applicants are choosier and expect companies to provide an appealing environment. This requires companies to understand and speak to the needs of applicants within each profession. High scoring companies sparked an interest and engaged applicants within seconds. Simplicity: was it easy for a busy person to apply for a position or would they run out of time, maybe to return later? Companies that scored well in this category got to the point faster and encouraged applicants to apply within a couple of minutes. Companies that were ineffective actually put impediments on the front end of their application process, requiring legal disclaimers or account setup with shopping carts.

Survey Highlights While 83% of companies surveyed used some form of web based recruiting, only 38% incorporated social media into their hiring program. Social hiring is still in its early stages of development and those using it effectively are in the minority.

Integration...most companies have missed the mark Companies with highly effective social media hiring strategies have a good story to tell and utilize a fully integrated approach. Their talent search strategy provides a consistent, professional message to potential applicants, across all platforms including: social media pages, the company website, job advertisements and transactional processes. Surprisingly, only 10.9% of companies surveyed had achieved this level of expertise while more than 86% failed. The reviewers also noted that many companies projected inconsistent career messages, across multiple sites, forcing applicants to jump around in order to apply.

Outreach…SMEs have an advantage

Only 20.8% of companies surveyed were found to have highly accessible and engaging social media recruiting programs. Within this group, 64% of midsized companies stood out as the most accessible compared to only 38% of large international companies. Smaller companies lacked a presence, often due to their limited resources. Although large companies can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on talent management systems, too often these tactics resulted in overly complex, bureaucratic walls. To attract the best candidates, companies need to be quickly found and without distraction.

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Targeted Messaging All company data

Profile and Clarity…company messaging not targeted to engage candidates

Only 4.3% of employers were seen to engage specific professionals. These employers utilized customized

ads designed to attract desired professionals with different personality styles. 74% of companies surveyed either provided insufficient or uninspiring information about their company and/or the open position. More concerning, 21.2% of companies posted bizarre information, typos, internal jargon, grammatical errors and confusing, obscure phrases. Examples of such phrases: Leadership is your superpower, PHP Ninja, Honest Politician, Initiative Officer, Grand Master of Underlings, Creative Financial Accountant, Computer Network Attack Planner, Network Defender, Coding Ninja, Sustainability Evangelist, Sales Rock Star.

Conclusion The above information has been provided as a summary of some of the highlights of our more detailed findings. Overall, we found that the use and effectiveness of social media hiring remains very limited. Less than 12% of companies have social hiring methods that serve as models of excellence. Many others are potentially losing top talent. For example:

While a small percentage of employers can quickly engage candidates and have them complete the application process in less than 90 seconds, 72% of employers have a long drawn process that is challenging and bureaucratic

94% of companies still use old fashioned job descriptions that don’t generate interest in the new generation of applicants, and

77% of companies continue to use an old style ‘push’ approach to recruiting that worked well decades ago but is far less effective in the 21

st century.

It’s clear that Social media recruiting can add remarkable value to those companies who know how to implement it. They are able to find good people faster and at lower costs. It doesn't require big budgets; however, to be effective at social hiring, companies need to incorporate these important strategies:

1. Social media hiring is about engaging the audience, in their environment 2. Companies need to be applicant centric when planning their strategy and messaging 3. Effective integration includes the three pillars of social hiring: HR talent management, reach

marketing and technology About the authors Kristina Vohma and Tom Armour are the founders of High Return Selection™ (HRS). They teach company leaders how to find, hire and retain top talent. This directly improves profits, sales and productivity. In their experience, social media hiring represents the intersection between recruiting, proactive marketing and modern information technology. For more information about our survey or services please contact us. Visit our Web Page