Social Media Position Paper
Shania K. Gillison
Central Michigan University MGT 643

Social media based recruiting is when companies and recruiters use social platforms such as Face book, LinkedIn, Twitter and other sites as a talent database to source and recruit candidates for employment. Using these sites gives employers the opportunity to advertise open positions, as well as connect with their targeted market to build a community for future relationships. Social recruiting also highlights a company’s reputation and brand by getting their name and product out for a larger audience to see. When used vigorously, social recruiting can truly enhance a company’s marketing scheme and talent acquisition. Promoting these aspects of a company can reel in employees who might otherwise choose another organization. In addition social media based recruiting establishes sustainable longer-term recruiting relationships. All over the world recruiters are also able to reduce cost of marketing for hire, expand outsourcing capability by using multimedia messaging, brand communication, and conducting market research. The use of social media to support recruiting is not a fad, it is the most powerful tool added to the recruiter’s tool box since the invention of the telephone. The use of social media to support recruiting ranks second only to employee referrals in the hierarchy of powerful recruiting tools, and there is no doubt that this tool will continue to expand
Social media can be defined as websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. It is a collection of online communication channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration. It seems as though in just a few short years social media managed to change the world. Social media can be used for just about any function and society takes full advantage of that. Consumers use social media to tell a company and everyone else about their experiences with that company. The experience can be good or bad. The business can also respond very quickly to both positive and negative feedback, attend to customer problems and maintain, regain or rebuild customer confidence. The Fastest, most efficient and economic method for an organization to have a connection with its consumers is through social media, it would only make since that organizations not only use social media to connect with consumers but also for recruiting purposes. Unlike e-mail and phone calls, which can include a high percentage of spam, most social media messages are permission based. In general, the messages received are treated by the receiver as more authentic. By using the employee population as the recruiting army, most of the messaging and communications will be sent by employees who work in the job every day, and be messages that are very likely to be read and considered as credible. The widespread use of smart phones offers access to almost all social media applications for prospects and candidates anywhere in the world, 24/7. Social media offers tremendous flexibility when it comes to communicating because the message can be presented in multiple ways, including the traditional written word, text, voice, video, or photos.
Social media based recruiting is a very widely used tool that requires much more strategy and skill to master than other tools, but presents organizations with unparalleled capabilities. It enables the primary driver of social media leverage quickly becoming a foundation activity, it also doesn’t hurt that many of the possible uses come at no/low cost. Majority of the people using social media are not there actively searching for a job, thus improving the organizations chances of finding truly top talent that is gainfully employed. It broadens the capability and brings the attention of a larger audience. Social media recruiting heightens the quality of hires by expanding relationships all over the world, and contributes to globalization within an organization. Globalization is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments of different nations and is assisted by technology. Social media has empowered recruiting to the broadest array of capabilities. Recruiters in most cases are able to access possible talent all over the world using social media at little to no-cost using messaging, job posting, and relationship building features. There are some fees associated but overall, it is an extremely low-cost platform.
Social media sites allow recruiters to go beyond the traditional resume and gather information that can be beneficial in accurate candidate assessment, such as morale, and personality characteristics that may or may not be beneficial to the company. Being able to gather such qualities to some may seem unethical or an invasion of privacy but our society should understand that once something is put onto the internet it is no longer private and could be used against you. A first impression can be made through social media. Unfortunately, many early adopters have failed to measure quality of hire using social media, but because of the stretched out relationship-building and assessment process, the chance for a major error will definitely continue to be severely reduced. Many sourcing tools fail to produce superior results because the last step is formally applying for a position using the firm’s corporate website. A long tedious application is fine for active candidates, but it is not user friendly enough for non-jobseekers who have recently been convinced to consider a new position. Fortunately, well-designed social media strategies automatically route employee-generated contacts from social networks through a more candidate friendly employee referral program.
Social media based recruiting is and will remain a powerful recruiting and employer-branding tool because of its wide audience and its many powerful features and capabilities. Unfortunately, the immense potential of social media recruiting has yet to be reached. If users don’t rush to get on social networks and take the time to really gather an understanding of how they work, why they work, and when they are appropriate and not appropriate more companies will begin to see the success it will generate.

References
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