Networking: It Really Does Matter in Attracting Top Talent

Today’s best professionals have their choice of prospective employers. Meet this challenge head-on so you can optimize your brand and outpace your competition.

The Value of Social Networking

Social networking has changed the face of how we hire and do business. Social media profiles have become standard tools for researching and evaluating talent. Each site – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and others – provides its own diverse platform to find top talent.

• Facebook has been around for more than a decade and has well over a billion active users. This makes it an obvious choice for recruitment purposes.
• LinkedIn has 277 million users and more than 2.1 million groups. It remains a favorite for job seekers and recruiters. As of 2013, an impressive 94 percent of social media recruiting took place on LinkedIn – and an equal percentage of business owners used internal and external social networking to find talent and build their hiring strategies.

Social media has streamlined how companies find and vet candidates. It is responsible for finding more than 40 percent of candidates and close to 15 percent of hires. It also has:

• Improved candidate quality.
• Increased the number of people applying for positions.
• Built the number and strength of employee referrals tenfold.

With the growth of online platforms to promote their brands, many employers have evolved from a model of candidate relationship management to a model of building a talent network from which to recruit. This is not just a place to post jobs … it is a place to attract people. It is a viral product and service community that creates magnetic attraction among candidates, customers and partners.

• Social media profiles highlight experiences and interests that tie into a person’s professional lives, skills and passions. Engaging with candidates via their profiles allows you to form a relationship even if a candidate is content at their current job.
• Have an active social presence as an employer. Beyond job postings and candidate interactions, post updates about positive developments at your company and among members of your workforce. Get current employees to participate by joining in the conversation. Your social media channels serve as great places to showcase your corporate mission. This will help you reel in like-minded talent.

The Role of Your Recruiter

As companies globalize and seek more specialized skills, the role of the recruiter becomes increasingly important. The more focus on high-powered sourcing you put on the shoulders of executive recruiters, the better.

• Measure recruiters on their ability to strategically source and attract passive candidates, often from competitors.
• Have hiring managers play a key role in the process. Partner them with recruiters on sourcing and assessment responsibilities.

Assessment Science is Dynamic

The science of talent assessment will never stand still. Personality and skills assessment tools have been around for decades. Today, driven by the power of the cloud, their strength has mushroomed.

• Work with a recruiter who applies Big Data. Recruiting is the number-one application for Big Data in HR. The most advanced thinkers in talent management analytics start by measuring recruiting. This is the most data-rich part of the process.
• Companies that effectively measure recruiting outperform their competition. Among all the HR, talent and leadership programs you work on, hiring the right people in the first place is the most critical.
• Create a research-based, authentic brand. Have your recruiter work with your senior marketing executive and promote your brand, not only on your careers page, but also on the front page of your company website. A large percentage of visitors to your site are looking for jobs, so grab them quickly.

The executive recruiters at BrainWorks offer unparalleled resources, expertise and market intelligence as you build your successful talent acquisition and management strategies. Read our related posts or contact us today to learn more.