I was able to catch several of the sessions from Monday's #SocialRecruiting Summit via the video stream, and couldn't help but be impressed by some of the great examples of ways companies are using social media for recruiting.
But another thing I noticed is that these companies that are held up as bright, shiny examples for social recruiting have a culture that fosters a great work environment, and makes people want to work there. You can bet that this attitude towards treating employees well starts at the top and permeates through the management ranks.
Social media doesn't make them great companies to work for, social media simply makes it easy for them to make their great culture and environment very visible to the outside world, especially to future employees.
That makes the flip-side true. A few days ago I was working with a sales manager who's looking to hire 4 or 5 inside sales people in the next 30 days, and has been frustrated by how hard it is to find strong candidates. I was coaching him on how to add social recruiting to the mix, to profile some successful sales people, and give prospective candidates a feel for what its like to work there.
He mentioned two things that startled me. First, the company has a ban on the use of social media of any kind at work, and second, that employees really don't like working there. (I suspect the two points are connected) I won't go into why, but suffice it to say that a social recruiting strategy for this company could backfire, and make it more transparent that this is a bad place to work.
Using social media for marketing or recruiting is about being genuine, personal, and transparent. You can't pretend to be something you're not. Social recruiting can't make a bad workplace look good.
