{"id":999881595,"date":"2017-01-19T12:38:00","date_gmt":"2017-01-19T12:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dice.npgdev.com\/?p=614073450"},"modified":"2017-01-19T12:38:00","modified_gmt":"2017-01-19T12:38:00","slug":"integrating-social-recruiting-workflow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dice.npgdev.com\/hiring\/recruitment\/integrating-social-recruiting-workflow","title":{"rendered":"Integrating Social Recruiting into Your Workflow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recruiting isn\u2019t an easy job. To find the best candidates, you\u2019re constantly calling and emailing, attending conferences, studying industry trends, and trying to anticipate your client and company needs. It\u2019s even more challenging for technical recruiters, who must keep up with changing frameworks, languages, and hardware development while continually hunting for candidates who don\u2019t always want to be found.<\/p>\n

And somehow, in the midst of all this, you\u2019re supposed to figure out how to make social recruiting work because, you know, everyone in the tech industry is on Facebook, Twitter, GitHub, and other platforms.<\/p>\n

Take heart, though: Social recruiting doesn\u2019t have to be difficult, especially if you keep things in perspective. \u201cSocial media is just another way for recruiters to practice their craft,\u201d observed Torin Ellis, a diversity and recruiting strategist in Baltimore. \u201cIt\u2019s got to fit into your foundational recruiting skills. I still believe in the phone, but social media lets me get in front of more people.”<\/p>\n

For Ellis, social media is something you simply build into your routine in an appropriate way. Defining \u201cappropriate\u201d is the tough part, since it takes a degree of experimentation to determine which channels align closely with your audience and which tools help you use those channels to the greatest effect. But, he added: \u201cIt\u2019s less about the skill, and more about the will.\u201d<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s get started.<\/p>\n

Your First Steps<\/h3>\n

Don\u2019t complicate things for yourself. Emily Ceskavich, the Orlando, Fla.-based social media marketing manager at Social-Hire.com<\/a>, a social marketing agency serving recruiting teams, recommends beginning with one channel so you can be consistently active.<\/p>\n

\u201cFind tools that will allow you to cut down the time you\u2019re spending on things that can be automated or better organized than copy and paste, so you\u2019ll have more time to focus on high-impact activities such as engaging your audience and building relationships with the influencers they already trust and hold in high regard,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Day-to-day, this means spending your time networking in the communities your candidates are hanging out in\u2014such as industry tweetchats, blog communities or tech sites such as GitHub or Stack Overflow\u2014or finding upcoming conferences via hashtags. \u201cIt\u2019s better to start with 15 minutes every day and work your way up rather than start with an hour and find that it\u2019s too much for you to maintain,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Ellis agrees. \u201cGrab one channel for 30 days. Learn its nuances. Take notes, measure your activity, then re-calibrate,\u201d he said. After that, you can decide whether to stick with the channel, add another, or look for new avenues entirely. Because social media is ultimately about engaging, Ellis suggests using Twitter as your first platform, then adding GitHub when you\u2019re ready.<\/p>\n

Tools Make Life Easier<\/h3>\n

As Ceskavich mentioned, an important part of integrating social recruiting into your workflow is tools. While there\u2019s a wide range available, she particularly likes these:<\/p>\n