I was approached by silicon.com to see if I would be interested in having a chat about social media and recruitment. As this is an area I am very passionate about I was more than happy to be involved.
The article has now been published and can be found in full here, but if you would like a quick view at what I had to say here you go….
“Michelle Flynn, EMC Consulting's internal recruitment manager, is a big advocate of using Twitter in a recruitment strategy - and not just for communicating with Gen Y either.
"If I look internally here at the people who use Twitter, it's everybody at all levels from the graduates up to the directors. So I think you have the potential to reach the much more senior people [on Twitter] who you might not necessarily find on a job board," she says.
EMC Consulting is also making extensive use of LinkedIn to recruit workers, and now finds 20 per cent of its new staff through social media.
One reason why EMC Consulting began using social media in HR was to enable potential candidates to become familiar with the company identity: "As well as people being able to see a technical overview of what we do they could also see a cultural overview," EMC's Flynn said.
As a result, Flynn believes Twitter should be used for more than simply tweeting vacancies: "[Twitter] is not necessarily [just for advertising jobs] but also about getting it out there about what type of company we are, what sort of person is going to fit in.
"People can read a job spec that says, 'we want five years' experience' but that doesn't tell them what the company's like."
Of course, that's not to say that these avenues cannot be combined. Once you have considered the benefits of them and how to make them work for you, also consider if two different tools can complement each other. EMC Consulting's Flynn suggests using the quick format of a tweet to point a large group of people to a new blog post, where more information can then be given."
Let me know if you agree or disagree with any of my points