Social Networking - An Effective Talent Acquisition Resource?

Maximizing the effectiveness of social networking tools has been my latest conquest in an effort to investigate the value of social media. As a resource for HR, specifically relating to recruitment & staffing, I am finding that "getting creative" with regards to one’s social networking efforts can produce fabulous results.

As a non-traditional approach to attracting talent, The Selection Group continues to experience success in utilizing social networking as a means to identifying excellent, above-average candidates for various recruitment requests. Last month, in an exciting “green-oriented” search to identify an avant-guard applicant, a LEED Project Coordinator for the commercial construction industry in Toronto, admittedly, I was overwhelmed with the tremendous response we experienced. Utilizing shared connections and progressive contacts who very willing share their wisdom and experience; qualified applicants were quickly identified for our client.

It is very refreshing to witness business professionals, who are regular users of social networking tools, collectively demonstrate an extraordinary quality with regards to their business attitude; their willingness to share. When asked for assistance, countless individuals generously provide us with supportive ideas, resource referrals, associates and contacts in an effort to help.

Tell us how you use social networking as a talent acquisition resource? Which applications have generated the best results?

COMMENTS:

Elizabeth Lowry, Technical Recruiter at O'Brien & Gere in Philadelphia: I use Facebook and Linkedin to source. Linkedin you can search very similar to Monster but Facebook is a little trickier. Depending on where you are searching you might need to change your location so you can search that network. You have to be careful not to constantly change networks; I believe you can only do this 2 times in 60 days. From there, I would type in environmental engineer and everyone with environmental engineer in their profile in the Philadelphia network will come up. More and more people are moving towards private profiles so you don't have access to their current employer, title, or year they graduated. You can try and find more about them elsewhere on line by googling their name or you can send each candidate a message with some information on what you are looking for and asking if they are interested or know anyone that might. I get a really good response from this. Good luck!