Peter Wilkinson Panther Social Media
Social media can deliver a cost effective research stream for HR departments – and put them directly into contact with fruitful avenues of future employment. It’s important not to lean on them too completely though.
The international social media marketing consultant suggests that the best use of social media in the HR department is as part of the overall marketing mix, rather than as the basis for all job advertisement. Because not all high quality candidates use social media for business, or are discoverable on business social media networks.
Some very high level executive positions are often filled, for instance, through word of mouth. The international social media consultant rightly points out that he or she can’t find people who aren’t using the technology you are. So you should always retain this view: the most cost effective stream for discovering good candidates is generally the one in which most of the suitable candidates for your business or position are swimming.
This is where social media comes into its own too of course. The international social media marketing consultant is there to show you how.
Finding streams rich with the kind of fish you want to catch is what social media networks are all about. Because professional social networks tend to separate into department and industry sector-specific circles, all the HR department needs to do is join in.
The international social media consultant shows that the HR professional taking the time to engage daily with a social network of industry-related HR professionals, eventually develops a contact circle including dozens of potential future candidates for the business. In so doing, he or she is theoretically saving a lot of money for the company, which would otherwise have been spent on old style recruitment: throwing an advertising net out into the ocean and hoping that not every respondent was a throw-back rather than a keeper.
The international social media marketing consultant also shows that HR departments using social media may save money for their companies by improving the lot of the existing employee. Some of an HR department’s role, after all, is to develop and maintain the best possible working environment for the most valuable resource in a company’s roster – its employees.
By giving those employees a forum for expression and empowerment, through internal social media groups, the HR department can forestall problems long before they become serious. It can monitor the effectiveness of departments and may be able to suggest beneficial moves for internal employees between departments.
The international social media consultant is also there to suggest that the modern HR department use its own internal social media presence to form a link between upper and lower echelons. Potentially ensuring a lower staff turnover and a lower spend on recruitment.