Growing a reputation as an employer of choice through social media

Por Gamal H. Mustafa

Talent Recruitment is perhaps one of the most overlooked advantages when companies decide to enter into the social media realm. However, a well manage page can tell a lot about your company- not only to your potential customers, but to your potential employees as well.

In social media, people’s perception of your brand get build as you talk about your organization’s culture, and great talents like to be associated with companies that they perceive as equally great. By helping people understand what is like to work at your organization, you can build excitement on great talent that will be enthused to come to work for your organization, even before the job opening is posted. That makes it easier and less expensive for you to find great talent for your organization.

But social media is not about telling people who you are. Is about starting a conversation and allowing you to learn about the people that interact with you and allowing then to learn about you. It is no longer a monolog, but a dialog. For a Human Resource Manager this is a great advantage, because social media is about making a connection with humans and not with technology.

Still, if you are no convinced, consider the following: I was once told that a recruiting company had a presence on the video game called “Second Life”. When I asked why a company would invest money and resources on something like that, and I was simply told “We go where the talent is.” And it make sense, if you want fish, you fish where the fishes are and not where the view is nice.

Now let’s consider how much information you can learn from a candidate’s resume vs. what you can learn by searching for a candidate’s name on LinkedIn, Facebook or even Google. You get a better picture of this person as a whole, you learn about his attitude, you learn about his past employers, his past associates, and in some cases about the recommendations people may have about them.

But this is two-way too. Candidates are also using social media to research the culture of companies that interest them. They are still using the corporate website to read information about the company, but it’s through social media that they get to interact with employees, vendors and customer to get a full sense of what a company is all about. Not only that, but an smart candidate would also research about their interviewers by searching for their name on LinkedIn to get a better idea of who is interviewing them and to better prepare them for an interview.

So how do you grow your reputation in social media? Be pro-active: Assume that applicants and new hires would be searching you and your company and even trying to figure out the identity of possible interviewers ahead of time, make sure that what people read is accurate.

Have a strong social media presence that creates a strong company brand. Make sure that your company’s profile states that your company is an “equal opportunity employer.”

While social media should not be used to make final employment decisions, it can be used as an extension of the resume, a conversation starter that gives the interviewer a deeper understanding of the candidate. Give them a “heads up” that you will be reviewing any and all publicly held social media accounts.

How to start? Tell stories. Share interesting news and useful insights, talk about a-day-in-the-life of your employees, give insights into your corporate culture, and teach people how to grow their careers, and engage them in a conversation.

* Gamal H. Mustafa is Senior Software Architect, Doral Financial Corporation.