May
Social recruiting, passive candidates and horses
'If I’d asked my customers what they wanted they’d have said a faster horse’
Henry Ford
10 years ago, I lived and breathed by this quote. I even wrote it on a post-it that I stuck to my monitor which, in retrospect, was as embarrassing as displaying one of those motivational posters that were so popular around the same time (apologies to anyone who had/still has one). At the time, I was managing recruitment marketing at Shell and it encapsulated all the adjectives I thought should be attributed to our function: strategic, nimble, innovative, future-facing.
And there is nothing wrong with that. Let’s face it – recruitment (and by virtue recruitment marketing/employer branding) is all about competitive advantage, isn’t it? Early adopters of innovative techniques, channels, and tools are the ones that trail-blaze where others follow – and of course everyone likes to be perceived as innovative in whatever field of work they do. Why else did the word rank second in a recently compiled list of the top ten overused words or phrases in LinkedIn profiles? But I have a problem with this all-consuming drive to be the innovator. Let me explain:
Ford’s quote seems even more relevant now with online technology having progressed at a staggering rate over the last ten years. Not only are organisations (and agencies) using systems and platforms which couldn’t have been imagined back then, they’re constantly trying to source and implement new emerging ones into their talent strategies. Technologies that provide a suite of options to facilitate engagement, strengthen the employer brand and ultimately streamline the recruitment process.
And there lies the problem. The onslaught and immediate access to these possibilities has meant companies are so quick to implement ‘the new’ without addressing the fundamental basics that are impacting and hindering their talent management strategies. Let me explain why I think maybe your company should hold on before implementing the next ‘big thing’.
Currently, we’re witnessing organisations striving to build talent communities with varying degrees of sophistication and success. Be it through Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Ning or any custom built platform, they moderate groups of passive and active candidates, encouraging interaction and dialogue. It provides the candidate an insight into the organisation, and allows competitive intelligence/candidate insights that allow the employer to build robust talent pipelines. Through ongoing engagement, passive candidates may (possibly) be converted to active by understanding their needs and then demonstrating how they could be fulfilled through opportunities in their organisation.
There’s been some debate about the terminology recently, Kevin Wheeler questions whether communities is the right word, while Jared Woods likens them more to ‘congregations’. Both intelligent, thought-provoking articles but let’s put semantics to one side. The value of building talent communities is self-evident and has been proven: we’re now seeing some impressive social recruiting stats coming through from organisations that have invested time and resources. No, the issue I have is with companies going down that route when they have not addressed fundamental deficiencies in their current candidate-care processes. A talent community needs thought, requires diligent moderation and ongoing attention. And I’m not convinced that the majority of companies are already providing this to candidates.
Over the last month I sent out fictitious job applications for roles advertised by three different companies that had been actively promoting their talent communities, to test my theory.
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Company A: I didn’t hear anything back from after two weeks. Having left a message for the recruiter I waited another week. Still waiting.
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Company B: I received an automated response thanking me for my application. After two weeks I phoned to understand current status. I was told over the phone that I had been unsuccessful. I requested some feedback which was duly given.
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Company C: Again, I received an automated response upon application. After a week I received an email informing me I had been unsuccessful. I requested some feedback. Nothing was forthcoming. I emailed again a week later and to this day am still waiting.
Only one of the three companies provided a satisfactory level of service that a candidate should expect. The other two were exceptionally poor. Yet they manage to moderate communities where success is based on timely and valued interaction with its members. How can you demonstrate such candidate care to passive candidates and while failing to address your active candidates? You can’t.
We all know what happens when someone has a bad recruitment experience. They tell others, who tell their colleagues, who tell their friends – eventually many people are negatively affected by the one person’s bad experience. Now add social media into the mix and their grievances are significantly amplified.
I am not suggesting that you don’t use and embrace social media. It’s a very attractive tool, can be tremendously effective and will be an integral part of your talent management strategy going forward. But be prepared to run a diagnostic on your current processes first – and fix these before papering over the cracks with a glitzy social media careers page.
Don’t make the mistake of spurning or mistreating your active candidates in favour of locating the passive.
David Als will be at the Australasian Talent Conference facilitating pre-workshops on ..Talent Communites.
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