Is social networking part of your recruitment strategy?

To put this into real perspective Facebook (at the time of writing this) has more than 800 million active users with more than 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day an average user has 130 friends.

LinkedIn adds around 10 new members every 5 seconds with around 135 million professional members.

Twitter, the “SMS” of the internet has in excess of 300 million users generating over 300 million tweets and handles over 1.6 billion search queries per day.

Its therefore of no surprise that tech savvy and progressive companies have a real desire to capitalise on securing and retaining the best talent available within their chosen marketplace as well as building on their brands recognition as being seen as an employer of choice.

What this means is by establishing an online presence and building on your brands reputation and recognition you are positively promoting to potential, hard to find, candidates that your company is understands how to communicate and wishes to communicate with them. By being an employer of choice, candidates should aspire to work for your organisation and this message, if done correctly spreads across social networks, endorsing your brand and message.

The benefits and potential return on investment in using social networking as part of your overall recruitment strategy can be considerable when combined with traditional methods like press advertising, recruitment agencies, internal HR, staff recommendations etc.

As any progressive hiring manager knows your staff truly are your biggest asset, and you will of course being trying to connect with the best candidates that fit, within your industry. Candidates that will drive business levels forward in this economic climate and compliment your existing workforce. Social networking not only increase’s your organisation’s reach, but also opens up a different talent pool of previously “hard to reach “ candidates.

However, this should not be seen as replacement to your existing recruitment strategy, more so one that will compliment your existing methods as well as substantially enhance your whole process.

The use of social networking like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter allows you as the hiring manager to fully engage and connect with these previously hard to reach candidates.

Even in the current economic climate the competition for quality candidates has never been higher and identifying and securing the “best” talent available for your organisation can be both challenging and time consuming. Social networking gives you the ability to reach these hard to find or passive candidates that you have been unable to reach before.

It is well know that people that frequent and embrace social networking sites are considered to be “early adopters” of technology and are switched on to our rapidly changing world in how we now conduct business.

These types of candidates are considered to have the key skills and traits that many companies now look for in their ideal employee of the future. Social networking sites allow you to swiftly connect with these people and demonstrate that you are a company that they should be considering in working for.

Social networking clearly offers a powerful tool for you to reach a talent pool of quality candidates that you may have been unable to reach previously. By establishing your company online within the social network environment you are giving a clear message that about your company to potential candidates as well as increasing your brand reach and improving the procurement experience.

To succeed in your “social networking” strategy in 2012 you will need to put some real thought and planning as to not only how you plan to engage with your potential new candidates, but maybe more importantly in delivering your brand message as to what makes you the employer of choice as they develop their career

Just think if it’s taken you three minutes to read this article that’s another 360 new professional LinkedIn users registered and embracing social networking to connect within the business world.

Prima Ardelle Associates provide a range of recruitment solutions many market leading organisations associated with the office professional sectors sectors.