For a recruiter, the phenomenon of social media and Web 2.0 seem too good to be true. All those passive (and active) candidates out there, sitting ducks for a clever subliminal marketing campaign… But how to engage with them effectively is proving more tricky than some once thought. In fact, using social media could turn out to be a real Pandora's box if not used with caution. Pioneers in this area have kindly offered their opinions on how recruiters should get to grips with these new ventures.

Despite an informal context, it seems using social media is just like any other recruiting strategy, it still needs careful research and planning. Alex Hens, Managing Director at 3DMarComms.com says: "The best way to use social media to engage candidates is by first ensuring you understand your target audience. If you have an idea of where they may already be congregating online or what they're consuming (by way of web content) then it's a great idea to 'listen' to them first whilst you work out what you can bring to the party. If you're hoping that a couple of tweaked press releases every other month will in any way be engaging then you're setting yourself up for a very public fall, or worse: indifference. Put yourself in the audiences' shoes because they're asking "What's In It For Me?" and if you can't answer that with some degree of empathetic certainty then best manage your expectations right down from the start. Engagement requires the buy in of both parties – and if you aren't offering anything compelling or interesting then you can't really expect to reap the benefits. But once you are confident that you know your audience then the best advice is just to get on with it. You'll soon know whether you're hitting the right note and raising any interest, and then: keep it up; keep listening; stay true to your brand values; show integrity; keep looking for other avenues to broaden that reach. Overcoming the initial inertia is probably the hardest part of the whole thing, after all then you're just doing online what you do in the real world."
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Targeting a specific audience is important for success. Jamie Leonard, from mylonglunch.com says: "The two real uses of social media within recruitment are understanding and engaging. Log into any social media sphere that targets an industry or demographic and eventually people will start talking about their careers; what they like about their job, what they don't like, where they would like to work, what incentives motivate them. If employers can understand this they can tailor their offering accordingly. The engagement part is where most employers get it wrong. Engaging isn't sending out a job spec to everyone in a group you've managed to infiltrate. This really annoys people especially the Gen Y audience that inhabits the land of web 2.0 more frequently than most. Get involved in the conversation that's happening online and do it in an honest way. Let people know what your objectives are and build communication with that group of people. Don't shove a job spec down their throats. A friend of mine has had 18 job specs sent to him through LinkedIn for a job in Florida. He lives in Essex."

Herecomestheboss.com's Director, Euan MacDonald explains how caution certainly needs to be exercised in using social media: "Social media is about user ownership, hence some recruiters and brands that tried to gate-crash certain sites were about as subtle and welcome as a drunk uncle at a wedding. So it's worth remembering the social media encapsulates a vast number of sites – it's not just about FaceAche, but gaming platforms to hobby forums. The trick is to find the users who you can genuinely engage with; in recruitment it's much better to be 'friends' with 150 genuine candidates as opposed to having 150,000 acquaintances who may turn on you. As the economy flies down brown rapids without a paddle, the balance of power as recently shifted to the employer's favour. Candidates know there are more of them chasing fewer jobs and so for the ill-prepared, a social media profile can be the kiss of death on their career prospects – not because there are photos of them drunk and disorderly – but because the 2.0 interactions can quickly reveal how ill-informed they are about the world of work. The wrong opinion or answer can hang there in cyberspace like a terrible passport photo where the recruiter knows that first impressions count, and in that sense, Web 2.0 is a gift to the recruiter looking to separate the wheat from the chaff."

Lucian Tarnowski, Founder & CEO of BraveNewTalent.com says: "Social media enables communication on a mass scale – dialogue has now evolved from monologue to 'multilogue' and this new behaviour must be properly utilised. With the advance of the web, we understand that information published online is permanent, public and accessible by all. Its continued evolution, into 'Web 2.0', adds participation into the mix. Not only is information available, it is also analysed, discussed and evolved by those engaging with it. The communication and maintenance of an employer's brand is therefore now a much more active, involved practice that requires a responsible approach if we are to reap the benefits. Communities of interested individuals, be they customers, stakeholders or potential employees, need to be harnessed and brought into the heart of the communications mix. Creating a universe where people can experience and enter into a dialogue with a brand, ethos and culture will attract a wider audience, deliver more applicants, improve and shorten the recruitment lifecycle at the same time as reducing the cost of engagement. Social media is clearly the single most effective channel through which to build this virtual talent pool."

Benefits and pitfalls

Alex Hens describes the benefits, and possible pitfalls of using social media and Web 2.0: "The very least you should achieve is an enhanced search engine profile (Search Engine Optimisation), because the search engines love regularly updated content - and you should be producing that if nothing else. But the full rewards, if you get it even modestly right, are very compelling:

➢ The potential to broaden your recruitment horizons – reach outside of traditional, potentially stagnant talent pools and desperate active job seekers.

➢ The opportunity to change preconceptions about your business that might otherwise have harmed your recruitment activity (often without you knowing).

➢ Influence / balance online conversations that would otherwise negatively affect your employer brand.

➢ Reach passive candidates, establishing and then maintaining a front of mind presence with them.

➢ Differentiate from the competition - tangibly.

The main pitfall to avoid has certainly got to be underestimating the time commitment this will require. For some people the ability to write engagingly comes more easily than for others, but either way once you've started any such activity then you have to keep it up, otherwise that can often be perceived more negatively than not starting out at all (stagnant blogs or poorly updated social media groups can speak louder of your organisation than the outdated content). Another pitfall is not being prepared. If you haven't listened then you won't know what you might come up against, you won't add any value and worst of all, you might not have anything interesting to say (in the target audiences eyes at least). And finally it's important to remember that nowadays people "trust peers over marketers", so be ready to take the rough with the smooth as people will look to openly validate your messages against other (sometimes disgruntled, often highly cynical) commentary. If your company isn't willing for you to be open and honest, perhaps your Employer Brand is actually as much fiction as fact, then maybe it's best to get that right first before opening yourselves up to the full frankness of the web." Jamie Leonard agrees it can affect companies adversely: "The benefits are that that's where candidates are right now, if they are looking for a job or not. The world is on a network in one way shape or form, so the spectrum of candidates is far wider than any standard job board. But, it's very, very easy to get wrong. Start firing 300 jobs a day out on Twitter and you'll soon find no one is following you anymore. Bad use of social media can have a huge detrimental effect on your employer brand."

What next?

Alex Hens thinks that the web will increasingly force the transparency of employer propositions', certainly within key skills markets. He says: "Companies will begin to understand the tangible business value of being THE 'Employer of Choice' and invest in managing their Employer Brand more fastidiously, doing so from the inside-out, also realising the benefits of actively encouraging an open culture to further enhance the external Employer Brand. Potential candidates on the other hand will increasingly hear about jobs through any number of web touch points, peer to peer networks being increasingly ubiquitous, but will also have more and more sophisticated 'search agent' type tools that will scour the web on their behalf, sifting through information and collating 'must read' lists that will include appropriate job opportunities and articles/comments about previously flagged target prospective employers, all bundled together with their other daily news and active interest subjects feeds. And what this will all mean is a significant shift in the balance of recruitment spend from what is still overwhelmingly focussed on attraction based activity to a far greater investment in long-term Employer Brand management and broad reach digital engagement activity. Why? Because companies will grow to realise that the new web paradigm is more a technology underpinned attitudinal one than a new medium to be controlled, so getting someone's attention becomes a (still) crucial but fundamentally relatively smaller part of the overall business picture."

Jamie Leonard predicts smaller, more policed networks: "In my very humble opinion, I think that people will start to subscribe to smaller networks very soon. Facebook and LinkedIn are great, but what's becoming apparent is that what makes a social network great becomes its biggest problem, it's open. And people will always abuse something, or at least push it as far as they can, that is not policed properly. I really can't stress how close I am to shutting my Facebook account down, because it's just become an endless stream of very irrelevant information and LinkedIn is really getting close to that point. If I was a photographer I'd join picturesocial.com, if I was a teacher I'd join TeachersNetwork.org. Smaller social networks with a heavier vetting procedures will become a lot more popular this year, offer a better user experience and ultimately will be a lot more relevant to people's lives." Jamie Leonard says his new site is the first social network for the recruitment advertising industry, and he only ever expects to have a maximum of 4000 people on it, because that's what the market is. He says: "Smaller, more finite networks will make it easier for companies to find and engage with the groups of people they wish to target, but will also make it easier for those groups to exclude unwanted, intrusive "advertisers", allowing engagement in its purest form."

Alex Hens also feels there will be another big change on the horizon: "Joe Public and the Corporate World have a long way to go to get up to speed with what is possible today. The vast majority still barely get Web1.0, so there has to be a period of catch up and consolidation as the technology already here gets converged and simplified – and that's actually what is going to be the big change: a massive swell of new and existing internet users switching from just accessing 2 or 3 elements of the web resource to becoming immersed in the complete social web. The systems, technology and downright mindboggling cleverness underpinning the web will continue to evolve at a lightning pace too (not least in pursuit of the next next big change – The Intelligent Web), but I believe a large part of the focus will switch from 'what' can be done to 'how' it's done – most importantly delivering the user experience that enables the greatest number of people to engage with each other as efficiently as possible. And with the Internet increasingly being where we store our information and where the software we use runs from (as opposed to on our local hard drives), so barriers to access will continue to diminish and remote functioning capability improve, all furthering the swell of immersed users – welcome to the age of Cloud Computing."

The current economic climate will prove a good test for social media. If recruiters can get this new medium right, they will have the foundations for even greater success in better times.