Friday 24 September 2010

Lessons of Digital Recruitment History

Nice simple blog post - it does not need much space but has benefit of being 100% true.
It is this - every single objection i hear about social recruiting/social media recruiting
- not proven
- overhyped
- does not work
- only works for tech/geeks/young people
- no case studies
- USA different to Europe
- dont trust the metrics
- can't make any money from it (this is a supplier issue)

Are exactly word for word the objections - people made about job boards and PPC by print publishers or conservative clients.

and we all know how that one turned out.

Monday 6 September 2010

OME's Social Media Recruitment Advice in as few words as possible

OK - going to try and summarise as concisely as possible - our current advice to recruiters (Sep 2010) on this topic. Please be aware that this by definition is huge oversimplification and generalisation but i wanted to see if i could do it.
  1. Answer question - why are you doing it?
  2. Do it - engage - don't come up with reason to delay - do something now
  3. Its more about time than money
  4. Don't outsource too much to people like us - much needs to come from within
  5. But let an expert guide you, kick you off, assist where there are gaps
  6. Appoint internal social media champion/s and give them external/internal support
  7. Measure but accept measurement tools are not perfect
  8. Don't try and do everything. Possible priority list may be LinkedIn, Twitter and micro/niche blogs, specialist forums etc.
  9. Launch, engage, measure, enhance, review.....

Final Notes

  • we have stopped including Facebook ads in this area, targeted cheap effective advertising fits in snugly next to all other forms of SEM and depending on your recruiting needs - if you are not taking advantage of this source - you are missing out.
  • there is the massive issue of content strategy which i have studiously ignored above - it is very bespoke to each organisation - and requires more space than this list can provide
  • please place any fat proposal asking for £50-70K for social media strategy roll out in the bin - you will be very disappointed