Using Social Media To Recruit
It has become pretty common for companies to create a presence on a social media web site as a means to attract new recruits. Whether it is Marine Corps having a page on MySpace or companies putting recruiting videos on sites like YouTube if you want to recruit the under 25 crowd to come work for you, you need a social media presence.
Putting up videos or MySpace pages are passive attempts at recruiting new employees. But are companies really investing a lot of time and effort into recruiting via social media sites? The answer appears to be yes. An article in the Economic Times covered an IT company called HCL Technologies where 7-10% of their overall new hires come from social media such as blogs and networking sites such as LinkedIn.
“We have a separate team of recruiters who scan blogs, websites such as LinkedIn and Facebook for hiring purposes. We use social media to recruit more than 100 people a month. Over the next two years, one-third of our total recruitment will come from social media,” said Mr Ravishankar B, global head-resource management group, HCL.
This new channel for identifying potential resources is not restricted to the junior level, but involves senior professionals as well. “Around 25-30% of senior hiring comes through social media. It includes portfolios such as group managers and general managers,” added Mr Ravishankar.
That almost a third of their senor hiring comes via social networks is amazing to me. Being active on a site like LinkedIn or Facebook can be a lot more than keeping up with friends. It can also land you your next job.
Filed under Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (2) : Dec 5th, 2007
December 5th, 2007 at 10:06 am
[…] Read the rest of this great post here […]
December 7th, 2007 at 8:06 am
[…] David Wilson at Social Media Optimisation points to a very interesting article in the India Times. In this article, HCL Technologies estimate that over the next two years, two thirds of their recruits will come from social media. 2/3 of recruits will come from social media […]