Helping Fuel social media recruitment for Taranaki companies

22 March, 2012

Helping Fuel social media recruitment for Taranaki companies

Social media is changing the face of recruitment in New Zealand and around the world and employers need to keep up to speed and utilise social media in their own employer brands if they are to “catch their candidate”.

“Even in today’s tough economic environment, where there are more people looking for work than ever before, attracting the right candidate is still one of the biggest challenges faced by an employer," says Fuel Advertising Manager Director, Jason Marra.

“An employer needs to have more than the best ad and offer more than the right job description and salary. In the same way that companies invest in branding to sell products, services and build loyal customers, employers need to build a credible recruitment brand in order to be competitive in a competitive recruitment market.

“Social media is playing an increasing role in helping build and maintain an employer brand.”

Fuel Advertising is New Zealand owned and operated and is a full service advertising agency that has specialised in recruitment marketing since the company was established in 2005. Jason and some key members of his team will be in New Plymouth on Thursday 29 March presenting aspects of social media recruiting to Taranaki businesses.

“In the current market, 84 per cent of job seekers have a Facebook profile and 48 per cent of all job seekers have undertaken at least one job search on Facebook in the past year. LinkedIn – the online professional networking forum – takes that recruitment activity to an even higher level.

“With today’s technology, prospective employees are searching far beyond the Situations Vacant advertisements in the paper. That will always be an important forum, but just as employers research a candidate and their background, the candidate is also now undertaking their own research on the company itself and whether it measures up to their own personal values and goals. Increasingly, social media is where they are turning to for that information. What people say online matters.”

Jason says a recruitment brand is more than just a logo, job ad or style, it includes key ongoing components such as method of recruitment, online presence, media and social media coverage about the company or organisation, reputation, induction programmes, career pathways, commitment to environmental sustainability and much more.

“Recruitment branding campaigns might include internal and external marketing collateral, online and print messaging, maximising the opportunities provided by social media, traditional Public Relations and advertising, and more.”

Jason says setting up and maintaining a social media presence for recruitment does not take as much time as people think.

“There are lots of tools and techniques that exist – many within the existing platforms – that make social media recruitment marketing a cost-efficient and effective tool. We firmly believe that companies cannot afford, not to be in this space.”

Some tips for social media recruiting:

• Establish your company presence or page
• Post upcoming events
• Include short, fun, team biographies, with video interviews of current employees
• Have a discussion board
• Have personalised information about your company
• Make sure you have a social media policy in place to best represent and protect your brand and reputation
• Reduce the clutter
• Allocate 10 minutes a day to networking online

To register to attend Fuel’s presentation on Thursday 29 March, contact Fuel on 07 579 5626.

ENDS

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