Image courtesy of Flickr/Ryan Hyde
Here are the must-have items in any talent manager’s toolkit to maximize recruiting in the age of transparency, according to industry experts.
1. Invest in improving employer-facing versions of the top networking sites. It’s not enough for recruiters and hiring managers to be using the consumer versions of these sites. Experts say it’s worth the minimal upgrade cost to invest in employer-facing products like LinkedIn’s Talent Solutions or Monster’s TalentBin.com.
Additionally, make sure hiring teams are mobile-optimized. Half of members visit LinkedIn from mobile devices, and about 40 percent of LinkedIn job views come from mobile, said Joseph Roualdes, senior manager of corporate communications and talent solutions at LinkedIn.
2. Bring a marketing mindset. It’s critical to be in constant communication with marketing and external public relations teams to build a company’s presence on professional networking sites, experts say.
Talent teams must be aligned with the higher-level marketing strategy and branding being built. Partnership with marketing team members, or other creative thinkers, can also help talent teams think of different ways to approach potential hires.
“When you’re sourcing, you’re now able to save templates in terms of outreach, refine a search faster, and you don’t have to recreate communications to every single potential hire,” said Marisa Mayer, head of talent management at Eastwick, a New York-based creative and social-media agency.
In terms of putting a marketing spin on that candidate outreach, Mayer said it’s critical to think beyond recruitment. “In the old world, recruiters pushed out to candidates ‘one on one;’ the big shift [now] is that we’re now talking ‘one too many’,” she said. “You’re talking to an entire network of people, which is why being present in this new space is key for employers — these are your customers too and best in class brands don’t differentiate the two.”
To that point, current employees should also be brand advocates on career networking sites. “We try to instill a talent ambassador mindset in our company that extends beyond recruiters,” said Brett Underhill, director of recruiting programs at financial services firm Prudential Financial Inc. “We want all our employees to have a proactive presence on these sites so we’re constantly raising the presence and profile of our brand.”
3. Know your ROI. Ultimately, all experts say career networking sites have largely expanded and made more visible an entire talent population, which includes those actively looking for a job and those who are happy where they are. To make sure hiring teams are investing their time wisely, it’s important to understand and measure the success of all your outreach methods to both passive and active candidates via networking sites and through other more traditional measures. Even if a talent pool is vastly expanded, talent managers still have to apply the same metrics to the success of that hire.
“At the end of the day, employers still need to track cost per hire, time to hire, how long it took you to get that hire in the seat,” said Peter Kazanjy, co-founder of TalentBin.com. “Those are the key success metrics no matter how you’re reaching out to potential hires.”
