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Colleges increasing use of social media to recruit

By TROY L. SMITH Rochester Business Journal November 4, 2011

Twenty years ago, a glossy catalog was the primary symbol of college recruitment. Ten years ago a student could type a college's name in a search engine. These days, the process can be condensed into a two-minute YouTube video, a Face book profile or a short post on Twitter. "Social media has become a great addition to our ability to build relationships with prospective students," said Ashley Hennigan, assistant director of undergraduate admissions at Rochester Institute of Technology. Of the 2,750 new undergraduate students this fall at RIT, more than 2,000 joined the university's Face book page aimed at new students, Hennigan added. RIT's use of social media falls in line with a growing trend across the country. A 2008 study conducted by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Centre for Marketing Research showed 61 percent of college admissions offices were using at least one form of social media. An updated version of the study found that number rose to 100 percent in 2011. Face book is the most commonly used social media site, with 98 percent of colleges and universities saying they have Face book pages. Each of the seven colleges and universities in Rochester with student populations of more than 1,000 has a Face book page. The local colleges' official Face book pages collectively engage more than 48,000 users, mostly students. Lauren Courtney, a 20-year-old senior at RIT, said social media play an integral role in student life on campus. "When event advertisements for concerts and speakers appear around campus, there is almost always a social media site attached to it," Courtney said. "I also find that Face book, Twitter and other social media sites provide a helpful and exciting first impression for incoming students. I used the RIT Face book network the summer before my freshman year to meet many other incoming students, many of whom are still my good friends." The biggest area of growth in college social media use has been with Twitter. The Dartmouth Centre study found that 84 percent of schools have an official Twitter account (up from 59 percent last year). Local colleges such as RIT, Nazareth College of Rochester and St. John Fisher College each have more than a dozen active Twitter accounts representing various departments, majors and organizations. St. John Fisher has seen both its Twitter and Face book pages grow during the past year. Since September 2010, Fisher has gained more than 1,600 new users on Face book and more than 750 new followers on Twitter, mostly students, said Kate Torok, senior communication specialist. "Social media has given Fisher another way to communicate with our students, both current and prospective," Torok said. "It gives us a space to have great conversations with them. We can find out what they want to hear from us and analyze their response to our content. I think the main benefit is that it gives the college and our students an opportunity to interact in a way we never

had before." Entities such as USA Today and StudentAdvisor.com recently have ranked colleges based on their social media profiles, much as the Princeton Review ranks schools based on academic programs or extracurricular activities. Klout.com is a leading social media analysis site that measures social media users' online influence, based on number of followers and interaction on sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. It recently released its annual list of the "Top 10 Most Influential Colleges" in social media. No Rochester-area colleges were ranked in the top 10, but RIT, St. John Fisher, the University of Rochester, Nazareth College and SUNY College at Brockport all received above-average scores. During the past year, several local colleges have branched out into other realms of social media such as YouTube or Foursquare, a location-based social networking site that allows users to check in at a location using a mobile device. Hennigan said RIT offers students incentive-based contests to encourage social media use. "Our blogs are very popular, and our YouTube channel has been another great way to extend the campus visit for prospective students," she said. "The ability to connect prospective students and accepted students with our community online 24 hours a day, seven days a week has been invaluable." 11/4/11 (c) 2011 Rochester Business Journal. To obtain permission to reprint this article, call 585-546-8303 or e-mail service@rbj.net.

2. Social Media Recruiting

Move over employment agencies and job boards. Social networks are powerful new tools in finding the right hires
Premium content from San Antonio Business Journal by Dan R. Goddard Date: Friday, February 25, 2011, 5:00am CST

Related:
Media & Marketing, Human Resources
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COURTESY OF LAUREN FOX

Michael J. Long, head of culture branding for Rackspace, is beefing up the companys online recruiting and retention with an employee-driven blog.

Related News

Rackspace buys IT consulting firm SharePoint911 Rackspace, Redapt co-develop branded cloud-computing product San Antonio stock performance mixed on Tuesday Chronic Care upgrades virtual health platform for Android phones Rackspaces fourth-quarter earnings top $25 million Using social media to recruit and retain employees is a new and still-developing concept,

but human resources professionals are realizing the value of using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube to pinpoint the best candidates for jobs and to forge new and deeper relationships between employees and employers. Rackspace , an industry leader in cloud computing and hosting services, has jumped into social media HR with a blog called Racker Talent that features posts by employees in four categories: About, People, Culture and Careers. Twenty-seven Rackers, averaging two posts a week, have been writing about what its like to work for the high-

tech company that now has about 3,300 employees spread across 28 countries on four continents. We have our core values, and we encourage our bloggers to express how these core values are manifested in the workplace, says Michael J. Long, head of culture branding for Rackspace. Its a very positive way of engaging with our employees, and telling their stories can be transformational. We hire a lot of smart people and some of them are among only five to 10 people in the world who can do what they do.

Personal touch
Take, for example, Racker Theresa Hankins, a veteran of the U.S. Navy who in her spare time enjoys perfecting her cookie baking skills, getting tattoos, taming cats and being a total beer snob. Hankins blogs in an irreverent way about how being a recruiter for Rackspace is different than working in other human resources departments where she felt like an icky rule monster. I yearned for a place where I could hold my head high and proudly proclaim that Im not only a recruiter, but also a part of an awesome HR team who is here to help, Hankins writes. ... And maybe I could wear a cape and tights and that is what brought me to Rackspace. Last year, Rackspace hired about 450 people, but received more than 30,000 job applications. Long says the openness of social media gives the employer and potential employee a better chance to size each other up, cutting down on pointless applications. It (the blog) gives potential Rackers the chance to look behind the curtain and learn more about our corporate culture, Long says. Theres the age-old problem of culture fit, but I think the use of social media can help both employers and job candidates get to know each other better. Its a more efficient way of answering the Will I fit? question and much more engaging than a career page. Its a win-win for the company and employees. But companies have to be careful about controlling the content. Long says he vets each post and has it checked by one other person. Were not against a little controversy, but we are asking Rackers to tell why theyre here, Long says. We also have to make sure a Racker isnt revealing information that might be construed as insider trading that can get them into legal trouble. But we had one blogger who talked about how he had trouble in school; then found what he wanted to do when he joined Rackspace. We get a wide variety of posts, and the company culture means different things to different people. Long says the Racker Talent analytics show that since the inception of the Racker Talent blog people now spend nearly three times as much time on the Rackspace Web site and visit nearly three times as many pages. Readers of Racker Talent made up 25 percent of all users, and Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Quora were all top referrers in January.

Social media also has led to other ways of interacting with potential Rackers, such as organizing and promoting Meet and Geek receptions at high-tech conferences. A low-key approach usually works best with social media; its not a hard press, Long says. And I think it can help companies save on recruiting costs because its a lot cheaper than placing print ads.

Rhyme and reason

Rackspace has long been on the cutting edge of social media. For years, its been using Twitter and Facebook for customer service. But companies who are new to the game should look before they leap. Morgan Hoogvelt, NAS Recruitment Communications director of business development for South Texas and Louisiana, works with companies to develop their Internet recruiting and social networking. But he says each company should develop a clear plan to follow in using social media. A lot of times the idea is to throw up something and see if it sticks, Hoogvelt says. But you cant just do social media to be cool. You have to understand why you want to be on social media to ensure youre making a strategic move and not a trendy one. You have to know which platforms are going to work best for your strategy. Instead of banning social media in the workplace, organizations should create a social media policy that gives employees ideas of what to do instead of what not to do. Everyone in the company needs to be involved. And you have to develop staff to monitor your site and update on a daily basis. For small companies, social media can be much more cost effective than traditional advertising, Hoogvelt says. A lot of small companies have great stories and social media is a great way to tell them, Hoogvelt says. But many small companies still rely on word-of-mouth and old media to get their stories out. However, studies show that now most job applicants start their searches online. Maintaining a site and keeping the content current requires some investment, but its proving to be the easiest and most efficient means for reaching the best candidates. Methodist Healthcare , the second largest employer in the San Antonio, has experimented some with social media and now intends to develop a full-scale strategy to implement in 2011, says Sonya Aldy, director of recruitment who, ironically, was discovered through social media. We have a Facebook page where we can promote activities and hot jobs, but we want to increase our presence online during the coming year, Aldy says. People are getting away from print. We know that we have to have a strong presence on Google , and that means using key words for SEO (search engine optimization). Were not blogging, but it is something were looking at for the future. LinkedIn is becoming a key way of locating candidates for major leadership positions, Aldy says.

LinkedIn is also a good way of finding passive candidates, like me, Aldy says. I wasnt looking, but Methodist Healthcare liked my profile, gave me a call and here I am. A video on YouTube of transplant operations at Methodist Hospital has helped in recruiting transplant specialists, Aldy says. The transplant video helps set us apart from the competition, Aldy says. There are ways of using social media to target, say, nurses living in a certain geographic region. And mobile apps can reach nurses who are too busy working to spend a lot of time online searching. Were also finding that its not just the younger generation thats using social media. Our online efforts are getting responses from all generations.

Research third-party tools

Paperclip advertising on Facebook is becoming a popular way for employers to target qualified job applicants, says Theresa Maher, director of job seeking community relations for Phoenix-based Jobing.com. The ads will pop up on your page if, for example, a nursing degree is mentioned in your profile, Maher says. Twitter is a little more work, but you can use the Twitter board to sift specific opportunities. Companies are constantly pushing jobs on the Twitter wire. Social media can present more real-life information about a company; its more personal and informal. But social media is new to recruiting and the follow-through is not always the best. Generally, a company needs to have staff that can make sure the content is updated regularly so it will actively engage job applicants. Jobing.com provides software that a company can use to update its entire social media from a central source. Basically, you do your update on one page and it spiders out to all the different social media sites, Maher says. Mostly, we work with companies and our clients realize that they cant reach the best job candidates out there if they arent on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. Job seekers, however, should be aware that social media applications are also being used to rate and compare employees, and many companies now routinely use LinkedIn and Facebook for background checks. So you probably want to tidy up your Facebook profile, maybe deleting those goofy party pictures, before starting your job search online. Recruiting with Social Media: A few HR blogs to get you started talent.linkedin.com/blog: LinkedIns official blog for employers who want to recruit through the social networking site. fistfuloftalent.com: A multi-contributor blog that covers all things recruiting and includes oodles of social networking strategies. recruitingblogs.com: With more than 3,000 members, this is a veritable cornucopia of recruiting bloggers. Its a bit busy, but youll find plenty of posts on using social media for your recruiting purposes. jobsinpods.wordpress.com: Jobs in Pods is a new media recruiting tool that features over the phone interviews with actual employees & recruiters. In each Jobcast youll hear about their jobs and what its like to work there. This firms blog features regular information on using social media to recruit.

theredrecruiter.com: Michael Long, featured in this Business Journal story, had his own firm and a social media recruiting blog before he became head of culture branding for Rackspace. His blog co-written by three other HR professionals gives advice on harnessing the Internet for recruiting. talesfromthedigitalside.com: Written by Laura Shanon, Vice President, Interactive Sourcing & Strategy at Bernard Hodes Group, this blog has a wealth of information about online recruiting tips and tools. Shanon has more than 10 years experience with digital recruiting. thetalentbuzz.com: Originally founded by Jason Buss in 2008, The Talent Buzz is an online news and information channel for the recruiting and human resources community. Today, the entire network and community spans 60,000+ professionals. sixdegreesfromdave.com: Written by the principal of Dave Mendoza & Associates Inc., a recruitment-training firm, this blog highlights social networking, HRindustry leaders, sourcing gurus, global-staffing practices and more. DAN R. GODDARD is a San Antonio freelance writer.

3. Best

practices for using social media as a recruitment strategy

Document Information: Title: Author(s): Best practices for using social media as a recruitment strategy Sherrie A. Madia, (Director, Communications, External Affairs at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) Sherrie A. Madia, (2011) "Best practices for using social media as a recruitment strategy", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 10 Iss: 6, pp.19 - 24 Job boards, Recruitment, Social media, Social networks, Talent Research paper 10.1108/14754391111172788 (Permanent URL) Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Citation:

Keywords: Article type: DOI: Publisher: Abstract:

Purpose The aim of this article is to explore how HR professionals can best use social media in their search for talent.

Design/methodology/approach This article discusses the current state of social media for recruitment and its relation to job boards, and examines best practices, including consideration of a social media recruitment strategy plan, appropriate resources and the importance of a content strategy and social media policy. The best practices are based on a comprehensive review of literature coupled with experiential accounts from practitioners and the author's firsthand experiences in crafting successful social media strategies. Findings While levels of awareness and adoption continue to develop both for recruiters and job applicants, organizations must consider adding social media to their overall recruitment strategy to meet the goals of being cost-effective, targeted, and strategic; remaining competitive; and sourcing top talent. Originality/value The article points to the need for starting small, gauging response, and utilizing an iterative approach to the inclusion of evolving social networks for optimized recruitment.

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