There is something about a new year that is very intriguing to me, maybe it’s the idea of getting to start fresh or maybe it’s the concept of not knowing what is coming next. Either way, I assume this is why year after year we make resolutions to improve, change, or alter what currently is. According to a poll on http://www.usa.gov/index.shtml, the top three (3) most popular New Year’s Resolutions for 2012 are to get fit (1), to save more money (2), and to find a better job. Here are some ways to tackle these resolutions and make 2012 a year of success, personally and professionally.

Resolution #1: Get fit.  Now, I’m no fitness expert; however, what I have noticed is the more you exercise, the better you look, and ultimately, the better you feel.  I only started going to the gym a couple of weeks ago, and I have already noticed a huge boost of energy to my daily routine. Unfortunately, I understand how the gym isn’t right for everyone, so why not start small and use your lunch break as an opportunity to become more active by walking around the nearby department store?  After all, it is the little steps taken that go a long way. In the workspace, more and more HR departments are becoming “socially fit”. What does this mean? Leverage social recruiting tools to attract top candidates. The more visibility your job postings have, the more candidates you will reach. Here’s a secret: Streamlining your HR processes is much easier than streamlining your fitness schedule. Start in the workplace and hope to see results fast!

Resolution #2: Save more money. If your resolution this year is to save money, here is a great tip that I received from a coworker. I was told to automatically divide my direct deposit into two separate bank accounts, the “primary pay the bills” checking and the “build a house, a home, and a family someday” checking. By using this innovative idea, I was able to save money without too much effort at all.  Similarly, an onboarding solution allows HR to get online documentation from new employees prior to their first day of work. This allows companies to save on time, paper, and money during the onboarding process and helps get employees started faster!

Resolution #3: Find a better job. Well if this isn’t right up a recruiter’s ally, I’m not sure what is!  If you are looking for a new job, leverage your past experiences to get noticed. Optimize your Linked In, Facebook, and Twitter accounts by updating job information and specialties that can allow you to shine.  If you’re looking for a great growing company to work for, check out the iCIMS career portal (Note: they didn’t tell me to put this in, I did it all on my own!).  If you are happy with your current job (which I hope you are), meet this resolution from the other end of the spectrum and optimize the opportunity presented by adding talented employees to your own staff! What should you do? Positively influence the candidate experience by creating a company-branded and user-friendly career site. It is important to find the most qualified candidates, but also ones who understand the company’s mission and culture.

Today could be the day you make the decision to change your life and/or your HR processes. Only you can decide! Feel empowered by the New Year so much that you make the change to create a more fantastic YOU and a more fabulous HR!  When change is for the better, how can you choose not to?

The other day, I set aside some time to listen to HRHappyHour Episode 128, titled The Consumerization of HR. Having a background that has little to do with technology, I have found myself taking roles in companies that are very much technology driven. What I’ve consistently found in each of these roles is that you do not have to be an expert in technology to work in technology. In some cases, being a consumer with a passion for detail is just enough. While it takes the work of experts from various areas to build a successful product, I like to believe that consumers also play a big role on how technology evolves.  So, as soon as I saw this title, I thought it might be right up my alley.

As a consumer, we all know that there are certain things that just catch on and spread like wildfire. Over the course of the last 10 years, social media is one of them, and I know we’ve only hit the surface. According to Constellation Research, 75% of the workforce is mobile – with 45% of that workforce retiring in 10 years. Those retirees are making room for a new wave of workers; most, who I’m sure, choose to make social media a part of their daily lives. With more than 800 million active users, the average Facebook user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events.

A few years ago I was tasked with working on a project that defined employee policies associated with social media usage. Those guidelines seemed more like restrictions. Shortly after, the company reversed its position, largely due to the fact that the Marketing Team jumped on board and began to create a social media team, with the goal of increasing the brand’s social presence. The guidelines that once stood as restrictions were refreshed and we were on a new task to actually build the organizations’ social media presence from within the company – starting with the employee base - our brand ambassadors. Designated brand ambassadors were identified and asked to lead the way and set an example for the rest of the organization to follow suit. While some thought this might open an area of risk for the organization based on what employees may post while on the job, the majority of employees took this as an opportunity to spread a good word about the organization.

With everything that is new, there is always an associated or perceived risk. However, as time marches on some of these items that were once risky, become the norm. I’m sure there were few people in 1903 who expected the Wright Brother’s invention of the first successful airplane to evolve into full fledged fleets of 747s with Direct TV access. While it’s hard to compare the airline industry to the infiltration of social media, it’s safe to say that social media is here to stay and will continue to expand our options for driving actionable plans in various sectors.    

As organizations continue to find useful ways to put these personal and professional networks to work, I look forward to seeing how the landscape continues to evolve within HR. How does your organization utilize social media to build your employee brand and employee engagement levels? What successes have you seen by incorporating social media into your recruitment plans?

Just two weeks ago, I attended a conference in Philadelphia regarding social media’s influence on the business world as we know it. It’s amazing to see how different departments are leveraging social media in their day-to-day tasks. In fact it’s great. However, for those of you who haven’t jumped on board the social media train, you are missing out. Let’s take HR for example. Recruiters know that they should get involved, so what’s stopping them? Simple. Those professionals have forgotten why they should get involved and thus, have delayed setting up their company profiles. Perhaps if we can remember the end goals of using social media in HR, recruiters won’t delay any longer.

Reason # 1 – It’s where your candidates are. In this day and age, top talent is moving around and in order to stay in touch with this talent you need to know where they are and where they are going. Social media sites also allow recruiters to engage and spread their talent net. Bottom line: recruiters have access to a much larger talent pool than they had before.

Reason # 2 – Everyone else is doing it. Your competitors are perusing their talent pool freely on LinkedIn and Facebook looking for their next game changer. What if you could find them first? Beats the heck out of passive recruiting via cold calling.

Reason # 3 – To improve your company image/brand. Top talent is pickier than ever. They want to know more about the company they are applying for. Make it easy for your candidates by providing this information on the social media sites they are already on. Give them a sneak peek into your company and what a great place it is. You can reel top talent in without even lifting a finger (well except for when you had to set up your profile).

Reason # 4 – Cutting down time-to-fill and cost-per-hire. Social media is free. Yes, I know what you are thinking. Social media is not free - it takes time and personnel resources. Which is very true. But, I promise that making the case for allocating time to social recruiting will be much easier (especially with finance) than using a sourcing firm that costs $x/month. Not that I have anything against sourcing firms. Social media is immediate and updated instantly, which allows you to find the appropriate candidates faster and cheaper. Further, if you are already using an applicant tracking system, even better. Some ATS allow you to post jobs out instantly to all of your social media sites – connecting the job seeker and open requisition faster.

Reason # 5 – And, so on. There are a ton of reasons why you should be on social media. Research a bit more if you don’t believe me.

So you know the reasons why you should do it…now on to the how. The conference provided some great tips on driving your social recruitment campaigns. Here are three starter tips to implement (I, of course, take zero credit for these tips).

1. Leverage only what you can handle. As a newbie to social media, optimize one platform at a time. Start with LinkedIn. Make sure your company’s profile is up to date. Have employees share their experiences in the group. Write up a quick snapshot of your benefits. Once you feel comfortable with your LinkedIn efforts, move on to another platform making sure to keep up with your LinkedIn as well.
2. Get your employees involved. Employee referral is one of the best ways to win new top talent. Why not have your employees participate and share news about your company via social media? Not only will their network see the news but your credibility as a good company to work for will increase. If you are shaking your head at this idea because you are concerned with what your employees will say, then maybe you have a bigger problem surrounding the culture and positive work environment of your company.
3. Create a social media policy. While getting your employees involved does open a lot of doors (if you are a good company you shouldn’t be afraid of that), you should take the necessary precautions. Lindsay Lebresco from Lilly Pulitzer made a great point in saying, make a simple social media policy and make it part of your new hire packet. By having employees see your social media policy from day one, you are encouraging them to think that employee involvement in social media is the norm.

Social recruiting is here to stay, so stop pushing it off and get started today. Hey, that rhymed. Good luck!!

I’m afraid to say that the rising internet technology has spoiled us into thinking all we have to do is ‘Google it’ to get the answer to our questions. While this may be true for finding out where to get the best cheesecake or how to lose 10 pounds in 2 weeks, there are still some answers that cannot be found so simply. Every day, HR professionals are trying to learn more about HR software, but unfortunately, they just don’t know where to look. And, while many of these people are aware of what HR software is, there are still too many other questions left unanswered.

‘Why should I implement HR technology when I haven’t in the past?’
‘Which features are most important in an applicant tracking system?’
‘What is a reasonable price for my size company to spend on HR software?’ and most importantly…
‘Which vendor is right for me?’

These are a just a few of the many questions that come to mind when inquiring about HR technology, but where do you go to find these answers? Sure, you can call different vendors and inquire about each one separately, but how do you know you are getting bias-free answers with your company’s best interest in mind?

Many HR Professionals are taking this matter into their own hands and using various social media websites to find their answers. Websites such as LinkedIn and Recruiter.com that have boards for questions and answers are great for neutral answers. Most people are leveraging the answer boards to receive feedback and suggestions from other users who have HR needs similar to your own. Most people who have had either an excellent or horrific experience using HR technology are eager to share their opinions and advice with others. By doing this, recruiters and hiring managers are gaining bias-free answers and also networking and contacting these people for any other HR software questions.

Another advantage of using social media outlets to ask questions is that they generally provide quick turnaround. With LinkedIn having over 100 million members, Facebook having over 150 million active members and Twitter having about 2.5 million members, there is a good chance that your question will get noticed by someone who has the experience to give you a valuable answer.  Here’s an example of someone on LinkedIn who was looking for feedback on the iCIMS Talent platform and received 8 responses from iCIMS clients who had experience implementing and using the system.

Joining recruiting websites is another way to get your HR answers. Recruiters and hiring managers alike are joining websites such as ERE.net in order to stay informed on top HR technology news and join community groups with topics that interest you. For example, one informative community group on ERE.net is ‘ATS Implementation’. In this group, contributors “discuss all aspects [of ATS implementation] from vendor selection to ‘Going Live,’ best practices, and all the issues associated with adding an ATS to recruiting function.” Even without writing questions or posts of your own, simply reading through other questions can give you insight and answer questions you hadn’t thought of.
    
Although these social media sites can facilitate the evaluation process, it is also essential to identify your own specific needs. What sort of processes do you need to incorporate into your ATS? Make sure the vendor you choose is configurable enough to meet those needs. Need more help? Check out this ATS Handbook Whitepaper that can help you find the perfect HR solution for your company!

What is Recruitment Marketing?

According to good old ERE:

Recruitment marketing used to mean writing job ads and placing them in newspapers. Today, it covers a wide range of disciplines that includes creative, copywriting, SEO, web analytics, pay per click, video, blogging, and social media marketing.

For now, let’s skip to the last part…Social Media, or in HR terms: Social Recruiting. Do you currently have a social recruiting program? If you don’t, maybe you should… In a recent CNN video, these social media sites are said to be “taking the teeth out of job search websites”. Essentially, more money is being pumped into these social media sites, while many of these job search websites are suffering losses. If this is any indication of the way the recruitment industry is going, I’d say social recruiting is here to stay (at least for the next decade).

However, the major problem with social recruiting is the comprehensive nature of these sites. Navigating through Linkedin or Facebook for recruiting purposes can quickly consume a recruiter’s time. So while this recruitment marketing piece is very desirable, it is not easily attainable (manually speaking).

So, the big question is how do you make social recruiting not only desirable but also attainable. Take a step back and ask yourself:

1. What tasks do you need to complete in order to get top talent to submit an application via social recruiting efforts?
   • Choose social media sites to leverage.
   • Post jobs to all social media sites, career sites, etc. 
   • Build branded email campaigns to connect with your social media contacts.
   • Reach out to candidates proactively via email/phone.
   • Analyze source effectiveness of each social media site.
   • What else?
2. Which of those do you feasibly have time for without working outside of the 8-6 work day? – Keep in mind social recruiting is only one aspect of recruitment marketing.
3. Which tasks can you automate?
   • Send mass emails using a communication tool – don’t waste time emailing one person at a time.
   • Post jobs to all social media and career sites at the same time – don’t waste time going to each site to post jobs. 
   • Copy job templates – don’t waste time reinventing the wheel.
   • Store data electronically with an ATS – don’t waste time manually accumulating data to report on. Leverage an applicant tracking system so you can visualize source effectiveness in a matter of seconds.
   • What else?

Choosing Automation

While automation through technology solutions is not meant to replace HR professionals it will facilitate the process and automate essential tasks that recruiters just don’t have time for. For example, recruitment marketing solutions would probably be your best bet as they can help you automate your social recruiting so you don’t have to spend hours navigating your Linkedin account. Now, social recruiting is much more attainable.

P.S. Did you know that Linkedin recently announced their 100 million member mark? Crazy right? And that’s only one piece of social recruiting and recruitment marketing…

What about you? Do you have any other tips to share on improving a social recruiting program?

…But as recent events have shown, it may be "Tweeted", "Liked", or even "Shared". While Social Media sites such as Facebook did not cause the wave of upheavals happening across the Middle East where citizens have languished in poverty for decades under corrupt and repressive regimes, they certainly seemed to have accelerated the revolutionary process. There once was a time when revolutions were lengthy drawn out struggles, with the American and French Revolutions spanning 8 and 10 years respectively. More recent 20th Century revolutions were often shortened to a handful of years, or even a matter of several months as in the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia or the Fall of the Berlin Wall, perhaps owing to ever improving communications technology as an organizing tool. This time, fully armed with instantaneous access to thousands, or even millions of followers through Social Media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook, protesters in Tunisia and Egypt have carried out Revolutions that can be counted in days, 28 and 18 to be exact.

While current events have brought full focus on the influence that Social Media now exerts on daily life in a most dramatic manner, it is quickly becoming apparent that this avenue of communication and interaction is affecting all of us in many surprising ways, both big and small. In one interesting anecdote, a former classmate and friend who has a PR Firm in New York City was so intrigued by all the conversations he was having with his Social Media connections about an upcoming convention in Las Vegas that he had not planned to attend, that he decided to send a Flat Stanley version of himself (or “Flag Greg”) to the gathering instead, so as not to miss out on any networking and branding opportunities. And where did I learn about the escapades of Flat Greg? His journey is all being chronicled on Facebook, of course!

One might argue that PR professionals using Social Media to network may not seem like such a big surprise, as their business revolves around innovative messaging techniques and venues, but what about the road crews tasked with patching the epidemic of potholes left behind as this winter’s record breaking snows melt away?  Burly workmen in orange reflective vests and hardhats might not meet the image that most of us have of Social Media mavens, until you get your first look at the New York City DOT’s “Daily Pothole”. With this surprisingly entertaining site, you can report that teeth rattling crater you just ran over on your street, as well as see images of pothole repairs in action, and track statistics on citywide patching and repaving efforts.  So far over 2000 Facebook users “Like” this site, and I bet you will too!

Some emerging practices related to Social Media usage are starting to raise hard questions, however, as well as offer cautionary tales about what each of us chooses to post on our online profiles or tweet to our followers.  Reuters reports, for example, that trial lawyers are turning to Social Media as part of the process of vetting perspective jurors, piecing together far more complex profiles of their available jury pools than ever before. Closer to home, recruiters are increasingly visiting Facebook and LinkedIn profiles of candidates to gather a more complete profile of prospective employees, and in a recent survey of Canadian Human resources professionals, 43 percent responded that they thought it was somewhat or very likely that profiles on Social Media sites will eventually replace resumes entirely.

Granted, 43 percent is not a majority, but whatever the future of resumes might be, Social Media is undeniably becoming a force to be reckoned with for Human Resources departments, and recruiting in particular. In January 2011 alone, Facebook led the pack of the Top 10 US Web Brands in terms of the time spent on the site per person, beating the #2 site, Yahoo, by about 5 hours. And while the top ranked brand in terms of unique audience, Google, came in at 6th place for time spent per person, the capability to display the Social Media activities of your own network directly within Google search results has just recently debuted, weaving an even more complex web of information and social relationships. The statistics on the explosion of Social Media usage are everywhere. Did you know that Facebook users in China increased sevenfold in just the last month? If just the sheer numbers of potential candidates out there alone isn’t reason enough to include Social Media in your recruiting campaigns, then here are 10 more reasons, as related by HR.BLR.com. One of my favorites is #7, Low Cost, very appealing in a tough economy.

So, how can you spark your own Social Media recruiting revolution? It is much easier than you might think with the tools offered by the iCIMS’ Recruitment Marketing Solution. Through the iCIMS Talent Platform, you can post an unlimited number of jobs to over 300 Social Media sites, including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, create a job openings tab on your Facebook page, and more.  But no tool would be complete without a strategy, and so I am happy to announce a free webinar that will help you in your efforts to craft your plan of attack: 

Need a Hiring Advantage? Try Social Media!

In this presentation, industry expert Elaine Orler of Talent Function will eliminate the hype and focus on the substantive value of social media as it relates to recruiting.

Date: Wed, Feb 23, 2011
Time: 02:00 PM EST
Presenter: Elaine Orler
Hosted by: ERE

Finally, there is no time like the present to practice your Social Media skills, so be sure to give the share button below a good workout and let all your friends know about this blog and the webinar, and make this blogger happy by clicking on 5 stars in the rating bar as well. 

Over the last few years I have visited hundreds of clients and have heard two common initiatives: branding and social media.  Unfortunately, I have seen few, if any, successfully accomplish one of these initiatives and even fewer accomplish both.  I’m sure a few people will read this and think that they are ahead of the curve or that this blog post cannot possibly be about them because they have a Facebook page or Twitter account. But I am willing to bet you a Monday morning coffee and doughnut that you really aren’t even coming close to what you could be doing.

Just creating a facebook page or twitter account is not enough by a long shot. I can hear the Field of Dreams line in my head now. “If you build it, [they] will come.” If only that were true.  Here are some thoughts that could help you get a strategic plan together for branding yourself and using social media:

1. If you have a following on facebook, your fans are NOT logging into your page to see what you are up too. Most people on facebook (at least in my experience) only look at what is posted on their wall. I would venture to bet that most people have over a hundred friends, but never log into each friend's home page. Most users only pay attention to the friends who are posting updates to their status. The same thing applies to companies I am fans of, out of sight out of mind. I need to see your updates on my wall. Post something everyday!


2. Don’t be afraid of negative comments on your facebook page BUT be prepared to answer them. I don’t think any of us are foolish enough to believe that we have a 100% satisfaction rating. But, what I want to know is that your company is willing to fix or address issues that arise.



SOME POSITIVE FEEDBACK:





3. 1/3 of all social media users are accessing their accounts from their mobile devices. It isn’t enough to just have a site accessible by the home computer anymore. Nowadays, more potential candidates are seeking career sites via their smart phone. By implementing a readable and mobile-friendly site, recruiters can up the anti in their war for talent and drive home more quality candidates to fill their talent pool.

 

4. Know your audience. The branding that your Marketing department has in mind may attract me to your social media page, but what information do you have posted that will make me want to work for you? Are you posting information about what your company does for the community? What about your benefits?  How about some stories regarding the amazing employees that you have already recruited? How long do people stay on average at your company? Think about it from a candidate’s point of view. If I, the candidate, already have a good job and financial security right now, why would I want to change jobs?  You are going to have to paint me a pretty darn nice picture to get me to go home, update my resume and mentally prepare myself for everything that goes into changing jobs. This will not happen with the branding that Marketing is putting out. It’s up to you to sell me and change me from a passive candidate into an active candidate.

 

5. Posting on twitter is a little like fishing. When fishing, you figure out what depth the fish are at and what type of bait they are attracted to. Even then it could take several casts just to get a nibble; therefore, you need to be persistent. Candidates are probably following a hundred or more friends, celebrities and companies. Updates fly by and if I don't log in within a short period of time of your post, I will probably miss it. You may have to post several updates a day on different topics until one catches and I finally check out your career section.

 

6. What about the opposite? If I happen to make my way to your career site, are you offering me the option and encouraging me to follow you on Facebook or Twitter?

 

7. Have you ever made a small video about a day in the life of some of your most common positions? If I clicked on the video that was posted, I could visualize myself doing that job. Job descriptions are great but some people are visual learners.   

 

8. What about all those job postings that you have out there? Did you know that as a candidate, I have a way of tasking search engines to send me postings that fit my location and job types directly to my facebook or twitter inbox?

As my Dad used to hammer home to me throughout my teenage and college years, “Hoping and wishing is not a plan.”  With a little strategy and planning, you can turn passive job seekers into active job seekers and hasn’t that been the goal for years?

“Come on man, everybody’s doin’ it!” Ok, so despite the saga of teen dramas that suggest otherwise, this is probably not a phrase you regularly heard during adolescence. However, you probably did succumb to Mullets, Furbies, Beanie-Babies or cut-off jean shorts. What does this list of déjà vu invoking items have in common? They are all past trends! While we have finally figured out that talking owl/hamster robots are incredibly creepy, there is much debate over whether Facebook and other social networking sites are here to stay, or will fall into this familiar pattern.

Much like trends, social networking sites must maintain popularity for success, because the power of social networking is dependent on the idea that the users’ friends are also users. Many argue that Generation Y will never loose interest in social networking sites. According to mashable.com, a survey conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project indicates that two thirds of technology experts surveyed believe that Generation Y will continue to use social networking tools into adulthood. In contrast, a survey done by Roiworld suggests that Generation Y is rapidly loosing interest in Facebook, claiming that “one in five teens with a Facebook profile has decreased or discontinued their use of the site as of April 2010.”

Conversely, Generation X’s use of social media is rapidly increasing. This may be the result of the increased use of social networking in the HR Industry as a means of recruitment. Social Networking sites are exceedingly professionally beneficial. By participating in a social network, companies can easily increase “branding”; then, when they do need to recruit, their brand is already known to the public. With social networking sites, companies can rapidly increase their contacts, especially because they are doing so in a forum where people are already interacting. In addition, social networking can increase employee engagement and showcase the “human face” behind the company.

With numerous benefits, why shouldn’t all companies utilize social networking? It’s simple - the benefits of social media require openness in other areas. Just as there was some logic to the “business in the front, party in the back” theory, despite the embarrassing general haircut, companies must consider the benefits of connectivity in exchange for company privacy. By connecting through social networking, employees are given an influential voice. Though this can increase positive media coverage for the company and provide a forum for receiving advice, it does open the company up to the public (for more information on this, check out Tuesday's blog on Corporate Transparency).

So, although mashable.com says social media is here to stay, and Roiworld says it’s a fading trend, the bottom line is that companies should utilize social networking sites because talent does exist on them. To ensure that the risks do not outweigh the benefits, the company must craft a clear HR Strategy detailing what they are looking for and how they will find it. They should consider that Facebook or MySpace may be more useful in finding summer interns and recent college grads, while Linked-In or Twitter would better resources to fill executive positions. Further, they should consider whether they are going to actively pursue candidates, or just set up pages to facilitate passive recruiting. So, just like the great memories you have from summers in your cut-offs, social networking in HR (even if it turns out to be only a trend) could be a great source for scouting talent and produce lasting positive effects.

According to Socialnomics.net, it took radio 38 years to reach 50 million users. Television acquired that amount of followers in only 13 years and yet the Internet reached 50 million users in only 4 years. That all sounds pretty impressive, yet consider this: From its creation in 2004, Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months! That might cause you to re-evaluate your idea of impressive.

Even if you do not personally use Facebook or other forms of social media, chances are you know someone who does, or have seen it enough to know what it is and how it works overall. In fact, it is believed that Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres combined have more Twitter followers than the population of Norway, Panama, or Ireland. It seems almost impossible to comprehend the effect that social media has had on today’s generation. This Generation Y, and now even Z, is clearly changing from a Sunday-morning-classifieds reader to a blackberry-using-technology guru. Because of the speed of communication available through social media outlets, it comes as no surprise that people turn to it for everything from connecting with old friends and finding new ones, to getting text updates via news sites and RSS feeds. Socialnomics.net goes on to claim that if you were paid $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia, you would earn $156.23 an hour. The point is, these web-based social outlets are more prevalent than ever!

With such tools at our fingertips, people are coming up with more and more ways to manipulate them for various uses.  As we all know, many companies are taking advantage of social media and networking sites for recruiting purposes as ways to find applicants. As today’s job seeker is changing, social media comes as the best way to reach them. Thus, if companies are going this route to find top talent, is it inevitable that their recruiters must also jump on the bandwagon and display social media proficiency?

Let’s suppose you do not use any forms of social media in your recruiting process. Newspapers still exist, right? A joint study from Classified Intelligence and ERE Media surveyed human resources executives, and revealed that yes, newspaper and thus print ads still exist, but 70% surveyed ranked them either ineffective or VERY ineffective. In fact, according to Career Builder, a whopping 94% of the top 500 U.S. companies said that they used online sources to seek out job applicants and roughly 30% through social media. That number can clearly be expected to rise in the following years. Thus, what is a recruiter to do?

I feel the lesson here is: familiarity. As with any profession, one needs to possess the necessary skills to get the job done and to succeed within the industry. In this case then, it is important for recruiters to be actively aware of social media happenings as this may ultimately be just another necessary job skill. Having a recruiter that knows his/her way around social media simply benefits the company because again he/she will be able to know where to source more talent than someone who is clueless to the idea. Companies now are even building social media into job descriptions as they hire “Community Managers,” which are essentially in charge of keeping the company’s social media networks and sites to date. This enables a company to gain greater presence and awareness through the online community and thus opens more channels to job applicants who are already on social media sites to begin with. Being social media savvy then is quickly becoming another qualification among recruiters.

At this point you should probably be halfway through completing your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles. (That was a joke!) In all honesty though, when times change you often have to change with them. As the saying goes, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. In other words, when social media is readily available to the HR world, a good recruiter needs to make sure that he/she is on top of it. Being up to date on the latest trends in recruiting can only help your company in the long run. After all, it is said that in the future, we will no longer need to search for products or services as they will simply come to us via social media. Oh, I’m definitely going to tweet that!

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, networking is:

1. the exchange of information or services among individuals, groups, or institutions; specifically: the cultivation of productive relationships for employment or business

Rather rudimentary, don’t you think? Basic, yet terrifying...We all hate networking, excluding the lucky few of course. It may be the fear of being awkward; the fear of offending someone; the fear of embarrassment or just plain laziness. But it is also this same fundamental process that lands people jobs, among other benefits. According to a SHRM poll, 75% of the firms accounted for cited networking as the recruiting method in place.

Kelly Moeller points out just how important networking is in the business world for those searching for a new job in her informative blog post. But there is one more important aspect to networking: professional development. Think of a recent blog post you read or an interesting article that a friend told you about. The depth to which knowledge can be incepted is immeasurable.

Well, as we all know, technology has made networking a whole lot easier. With the injection of “professional networking service” sites into mainstream culture, people are better able to network with one another (arguably) due to the stress-free environment, zero time pressure and opportunity to carefully exchange business ideas or knowledge with one another. When you have the time and when you feel comfortable, you can respond. Moreover, you can give back to not just one person, but hundreds of thousands of people. But this is two-fold, without user participation, these professional networking service sites would be useless.

It’s much easier than it used to be, so let’s all get out there and start networking today!

Speaking of which, if you are in the NYC area and are looking to network with other HR professionals, check out the iCIMS NYC Networking Group, where you will have access to informative articles and white papers, great discussions, and most importantly, speak with some of the greatest HR thinkers in New York. If you aren’t in the New York area but still want to network, check out iCIMS 10th Anniversary to register for a networking session near you. Network in Denver on June 3rd, in Philadelphia on June 15th and in California on June 28th.

Also, stay tuned for an iCIMS Networking Group in your area!