Nancy Altobello is a big fan of millennials.

Altobello, Vice Chair of Talent at EY, shared her thoughts on the changing global professional landscape and how companies can attract and nourish top talent–particularly among recent college graduates–at Universum’s Employer Branding Conference this morning in New York.

Talent, and recruiting it, aren’t just on the minds of campus reps and college seniors, says Altobello, noting that in a world where everything is increasingly more complex, talented, skilled labor is more important than ever before–and there’s less of it.

“Talent is now being viewed as an important resources by executives and by boards,” Altobello told Forbes. ”The dichotomy of talent being more important and less available has invented an executive issue.”

Below are Altobello’s observations about how to recruit and hang onto top-notch millennial employees.

1. They’re not all running for the door–if you can keep them interested. 

Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that millennials only tend to stay in each job an average of 18 months. Altobello says this doesn’t have to be the case.

“We’re starting to hear from a lot of people who’ve had two jobs in three years and want to stay somewhere,” she says. “But the work has to be interesting, they don’t want to keep doing the same thing.”

2. When it comes to compensation, cash is still king.

In this way millennials are just like professionals at every other stage of their careers; the best way to attract and keep the best and brightest is to pay them well.

 3. To younger professionals, flexibility is almost as important as salary.

Altobello says in this context flexibility means millennials want choices about how to deliver a job well done. With the understanding that deadlines and client needs must always be met, they want options about where and when they work–and they want their managers clearly on board.

“People are looking for approval around flexibility.”

 4. Millennials want to be regularly evaluated and advance quickly–but they’ll do the work to get there.

It’s a regular drumbeat about millennials: They want to be constantly told how they’re doing and see the payoff.

Altobello says managers need to understand that this is a population accustomed to “quick knowledge”–they grew up contacting their parents over cell phones with a single question, or consulting Google–and to view this as an opportunity. A yearly performance review is simply not the right approach.

“They want the trophies,” says Altobello, “but they’re very willing to earn them.”

5. On-the-job training is essential. 

According to an annual survey by Accenture of soon-to-graduate college seniors and graduates of the classes of 2012 and 2013, 80% of 2014 graduates expect to be formally trained by their first employer, but 52% of professionals who graduated from college within the past two years say they received no training in their first job.

Altobello says the best way to meet your company’s demand for skilled labor is to invest in developing current employees.

“So many skills are teachable and coachable. Most important is on-the-job training. Move them fast through a lot of experiences.”

Follow me on Twitter @KathrynDill. This article was written by Kathryn Dill from Forbes and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Learn more about SmartRecruiters, your workspace to find and hire great people.

“We need to bring recruiting back to its roots as a social activity,” said SmartRecruiters CEO Jerome Ternynck. 

But what is “Social Recruiting“? Even Wikipedia admits, “Social recruiting is a contested term. It is a concept at the intersection of recruitment and the embryonic field of social media. There are several terms used interchangeably including social hiring, social recruitment and social media recruitment.”

I’ve updated the crowdsourced social recruiting definitions, and then added a few of the internet’s most respected definitions:

Social Recruiting is…

Matt Alder, Strategy Consultant for HR and Founder of MetaShift

“Social Recruiting is a concept not a defined technique. The three primary activities of Social Recruiting as Push, Pull, and being Genuinely Social.”

Melanie Benwell, Managing Director at PathWorks Personnel

“Social recruiting is using social media and it’s many platforms to buttress existing recruiting methodologies. Social recruiting is a lot more fun than direct sourcing or mining job boards, so one has to be careful not to spend too much time on social media, as its returns are still being evaluated.”

Bill Boorman, #Tru Recruiting Unconference Founder

“Taking a “social” approach to recruiting on and off line. It;s not technology, its more talk to than apply for.”

Allison Doyle, Job Search and Employment Expert at About.com

“Social Recruiting is when companies and recruiters use Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media sites to source and recruit candidates for employment.”

Sean Charles, Social Business Development Consultant

“Today’s social recruiting is a conversation that takes place in several spaces– public, private and internal (to organizations), where social networking facilitates hiring opportunities.”

Holly Fawcett, Digital Marketing Manager at Social Talent

“Social recruiting is about defining your employer brand that gives employees reasons to pursue their career with you. It’s not poaching staff, it’s not about mass-hires, it’s about jobs and livelihoods with your company, and that message is delivered through contemporary social ideals and methods that reach real people.”

HRZone, Leading Human Resources Publiaction.

“Some people criticize the term social recruiting when used to mean using social media to source job candidates, and say that recruitment that’s truly social needs to be conducted within a purpose-built social network rather than what are essentially public forums.”

Doug Kerken, Employer Branding and Talent Attraction Consultant at HireClix

“Social Recruiting is not simple. It means maintaining a fresh, authentic and accessible employer brand message on 3 major channels; Social Media, Search Engines and the Mobile web. Whether we like it or not society is moving quickly toward a digital, social, on-demand reality. The people we’re trying to “Recruit Socially” expect us to share only the best information with them on their favorite channel. They expect us to be ready for THEM when THEY are ready to engage us. That could mean someone is ready to apply to a job from our Facebook fan page on their iPhone. Social Recruiting is not an endless Twitter feed of job links and instructions to go to our ‘website or ‘this job board’ to browse and apply to our jobs.”

Holly Kolman, Online Problem Solver

I find that as a hyper-active social media user, I meet many people from different geographic locations and different business backgrounds. I do find that it is a lot easier to get recommendations (and give them) via Twitter and Facebook, even though the predominant recruiting network continues to be LinkedIn. I also find a number of experts by the answers they give on Quora. My favorite example of “social recruiting,” though, is the sheer randomness with which a Louisville, KY CFO made a hiring decision based on a chain of events set in motion by a single tweet that I made in 2008. Here’s the story, it’s a good one.

 Dave Lee, Brand Builder for Amazon and US Army

In 2007 as I was taking over the Army Strong campaign for recruiting I began to look at the value of using social media to communicate the value of being a Soldier. Based on my experience I take Social Recruiting to be more than the use of tools (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc) to aid in the recruiting effort. Social recruiting is about connecting candidates with your employers. Its about providing a chance to learn about your culture. We did this in many ways, video responses from Soldiers in Iraq, a website filled with blogs from now almost 800 Soldiers as well as connections on Facebook, Twitter, etc. More about the program can be found on my blog http://DavidALee.com.

Autumn McReynolds, Employment Brand Sourcing Manager at Sodexo Careers 

Social Recruiting is more than sourcing candidates and advertising career opportunities on Facebook or Twitter. It’s about being present and active in a space lends itself to conversation, feedback and the sharing of information between an organization, job seekers and even consumers. You never know which customers today will be candidates tomorrow.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, Founder & CEO Blogging4Jobs

“One must identify, follow, share, and contribute to grow relationships, build rapport, and woo the top talent to your organization.”

Salima Nathoo, Workplace Innovator

“Social recruiting is an ecosystem of discovered and deliberate encounters. Interactions that lead to employment are those where organizational identity aligns with individual stories. Social media is where these narratives are both written and rewarded.

Maro Onokpise, Recruiting Consultant at Healthcare Support Staffing

“Social Recruiting is the future of recruiting. I had a candid conversation with a recruiter friend of mine last week who works for one of the largest recruiting firms in the country. Many of these firms are stuck in the past and don’t want to embrace the concept of social recruiting and the fact that it is getting ready to run them over.”

Robin Richards, CEO of TweetMyJobs

“It is a proactive process for job seekers and recruiters to search, converse, share, engage and refer each other using social media, web-based and mobile platforms.”

Todd Raphael, ERE.net Editor in Chief

“The term “social recruiting” is about as useful as the terms “diversity,” “empowerment,” and “robust’ — in that it has so many meanings that it essentially means close to nothing. I certainly don’t consider the use of social media in recruiting to necessarily be “social recruiting” (I’ve met people who like social media recruiting but dread phone calls and other interaction).

Tony Restell, CEO Social-Hire

“We would define Social Recruiting as being behaviour that encourages free and willing dialogue between both parties in the hiring equation: that’s to say between candidates and recruiters.

This is the equivalent in the connected world of a careers fair. Any candidate coming into the fair can choose to go and talk to any recruiter at the fair – and through discussion they will mutually decide whether there is a good basis for progressing hiring discussions further. In this sense Social Recruiting is highly inclusive.

This is quite distinct from traditional recruitment. Prior to Social Recruiting, all forms of recruiting activity had gatekeepers that would act as barriers to conversation taking place”

Daniel J. Smith, Peer Support Professional with Good Shephard Centres

Social Recruiting to me is the ability to use all the tools at your disposal to create, develop, nurture and watch relationships grow between client and candidate. It is also the ability to find the right people at the right time for the right situation. Timing is key and taking the time to nurture the relationship is one of many keys to success. Thanks for asking for my opinion.

Karen Siwak, Job Search Strategist

Speaking on behalf of candidates, social recruiting involves two way engagement with candidates before they ever submit a resume or access a career site. Without two way engagement, ideally in real time, it’s just regular old recruiting using the latest cool toys.

Tom Summit, Director at Genero Search Group

“Things like “conversations” or transparency or “free and willing dialogue between 2 parties” are all things that good recruiters have been doing for decades. Facebook or Twitter are not required for any of these. In fact wouldn’t you agree that the phone or face to face are really where conversations happen? There isn’t much meaning in the term Social Recruiting.”

Dany Traversy, Editor in Chief at Affaires de Gars

“It’s the process of extending our recruitment strategy to the social media so we can recruit not only the active job seekers, but also the passive ones.”

Madalina Uceanu, Executive Search Consultant at Career Advisor

“I find it very useful to see how different and how common, in the same time, are all definitions of Social Recruiting. I think that we are facing a higher focus on Human than on Resources, making better sense of the need to relate at a more profound level to organizations or individuals, with the support of Social Media channels which increased the visibility of people and/or their interests (making thus sourcing &connecting easier)! But beyond that, I find that face to face interactions and relationship building abilities are still very valuable for the success of the recruitment projects.”

Jacqui Washington, Career Coach

“Social recruiting is when job seekers and recruiters use social networks to connect, educated and inspire people.”

Chris Young, CEO & Founder Async Interview

“Social Recruiting is removing barriers to geography, companies and people by utilizing web communities to increase transparency about a company and/or its employment opportunities.”

Stacy Zapar, CEO at Tenfold & Zappos Employer Branding

“Social recruiting is just communicating with candidates, being accessible, transparent. Better than hiding behind curtain.”

Social Recruiting is the buzz. Is it more about sourcing talent? Engaging with people? Or assssing potential hires? We can be certain that it is evolving into something big. How do you see it – what’s social recruiting?

We live in a digital world where every question, criticism, and kudos can be found online. Companies have broadly recognized the power of social media for advertisement, brand differentiation, and customer service. However, there is also the potential to be globally publicized in a not-so-flattering light. These highly visible PR fiascos may indicate poor financial health or even worse, that the service your company provides just stinks.

On that note, we can’t just “shut Twitter down” when things have gone awry. People pay to utilize services like Angie’s List, but to research a company’s reputation and level of service there are many consumer satisfaction forums such as Yelp!, Twitter, Facebook, and Google. All will certainly point you in the same direction at no cost. Everyone is now a researcher due to the massive amount of information right at our fingertips; whether it’s to check out a potential candidate, a product, a recruiter, an employee, a prospective client, an employer, and the list goes on and on.

The similarities between a corporate brand and a recruiting brand don’t stop there. Our candidates are our customers. They will shout from Twitter mountaintops about how wonderful or horrible their experience was with you. A candidate could possibly vent on their personal Facebook or LinkedIn page, advising their hundreds or even thousands of connections and friends that they should run (not walk) in the other direction when considering that particular staffing agency, recruiter, or company.

My background in the restaurant biz taught me early on that a satisfied customer will tell one person, but someone who had to wait twenty minutes before a waitress even came to their table will tell thirty people about their experience. Protect your reputation! Since flawed humans run this machine, less than ideal circumstances will inevitably present themselves. What kind of response and empathy that the slighted individual receives is an opportunity, quite simply. It’s a chance to show you care, that you’ll do whatever it takes to make it right, and it’s important to impart that what they think and feel is valid (whether you agree or not).

The internet is a place where people will jump on the bandwagon or abandon ship. After all, they’ve never met you and how else can you evaluate a total stranger? WORD OF MOUTH. Yes, I used the caps…it’s that important.

Your candidates want a way to find you easily, view the positions you’re currently recruiting for, check out the company culture, reach out to you publicly, and interact. Respond to each one of them! Everyone can see if you’re quiet, extroverted, or completely invisible. It’s sort of funny to look at inactive social media accounts. A public presence is well, missing, and that is noticeable.

Make an impression and acknowledge all who inquire, even if they’re not currently a fit. Maybe a few years down the road they’ll be your hottest candidate and they’ll remember how you treated them. This person took the time and interest to say, ‘Hey, I like what you’re doing and I want to be a part of it.’ It is pure courtesy to reach out and say, ‘Thank You.’

Colette Resnikoff is a jobseeker in the recruiting and staffing industry with years of experience at Hire International, ManPower and SmartDog. Consider hiring her, or at the very least, follow her on Twitter: @IWannaGetUHired!

SmartRecruiters opened a recruiter marketplace to provide transparency and integration to the values of recruiting services. We display such recruitment firm statistics as CV to interview rate, average time to source, and hiring percentage, as well as, customer reviews and more!

“If you’re not on Facebook, then you’re not out there. If you’re a company and you’re not on Facebook, you’re not in the market,” said Amy Craig of SmartRecruiters at SmartUp: Facebook Recruiting.

Facebook makes a company organic. It gives you insight into the workplace, showing you the people behind the company. Facebook is an effective recruiting tool, especially when it comes to job candidates researching your company. If you have an updated, unique Facebook page, you can increase interest from job candidates, building better talent pools.

When researching a company, social media is a starting point for many candidates.  For example, search a company’s name. There’s a good chance, they’ll have a company Facebook page. So as a job candidate, when you’re researching a company for the first time, naturally you’re going to check out, in addition to their company website, the company’s Facebook. So what are candidates looking for when they check out your company Facebook? Below are four things that your Facebook says about your company, and how you can make your Company Facebook page recruit for you:

1. Work-life balance

One thing that is very appealing to a job seeker is seeing that your company doesn’t just have a ‘come in, work, go home’ mentality. Candidates will want to see photos of your employees outside of working, for example, having fun at a company retreat or an after work happy-hour. Facebook is a perfect medium to show your company’s work life balance, so keeping your company Facebook page up to date with this kind of content is a major benefit for attracting quality job seekers.

2. Coworker comradery

People also want to work for a company where employees like each other.  This too can be shown on your Facebook (if your employees like each other). Take pictures of daily life in your office; coworkers eating lunch together, working together on a project, or playing foosball. At SmartRecruiters, one of our massive light shades began to fall from the ceiling. In a team effort, it took 6 or 7 of us to put reattach it.  The picture is not only funny, but shows the type of comradery we have in our office.

3. Your office

If you have a sweet startup office, building, or location, show it off! Who wouldn’t want to work somewhere unique, especially if their last job was in a 1960s office building with pale pink cubicle walls, in a scuzzy part of town.  If you have an awesome kitchen, unique wall art, ping pong table, or your office is a restored warehouse, don’t hide it.  Your office space is one of the ways that you can brand yourself, so have pictures of your workplace on the Facebook. Allowing a job seeker to take a virtual tour of your office may get them even more excited about the position.

4. Company values

What does your company do outside of work? Whether it be a charity, volunteering, or having a softball team, you can show your company values through your company’s Facebook. Many job candidates are looking for a company with values that align with their own, and showing your company’s involvement with social good or activity outside the workplace shows your company’s values.

Facebook is one of the ways that you can show a job candidate what it is like to work at your company. Instead of reading corporate descriptions of the company, Facebook gives a personal touch to job research. The more effective you are branding your company through Facebook, the more attractive your company will be for job seekers.

Joe Hanson, the @TheJobChaser, is a blogging intern with SmartRecruiters, the free hiring platform, including a free app to list your jobs on Facebook. Joe helped make this video:

Employer branding is people talking about you. With Social Media infiltrating nearly every aspect of our personal lives and the business world, talking about brands has become much easier. From customers talking about brands, to brands talking to customers, it is all accesible. This is great, if you’re the kind of company that does great things (like, Give Labor) and not so great if you’re the type of company people are constantly complaining about. Ultimately, employer branding is how you reach new audiences and keep the interest of old ones. Employer branding puts your company culture on display attracting new customers, and ultimately potential employees.

Check out how these 8 Brands are making a status updates that may make you say, “I want to work here!”

8. Skype. We’ve all heard it, “choose a job you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Skype is calling designers who are in it for the love not the money. They want people to be passionate about what they do, and they are advertising it from the very beginning. Share the slogans that embody your employer branding. By creating work environment full of employees that love what they do, you can bet Skype has great company culture.

7. Washington Post. They fill jobs by asking candidates to fulfill their dreams. The Washington Post relies on writers and their creativity. It’s clear their staff is good at their job even when they are not writing an article. It is not your typical run-of-the-mill job ad, and that’s why it works so well.

‘Ever had dreams of being an on-air news talent? Stop dreaming. – smartrecruiters.com/TheWashingtonP…

— Emi Kolawole (@emikolawole) January 11, 2013

6. Lyft. Have a car? You could be Lyft’s next driver. This job offers flexibility and freedom and they do a great job showcasing that on their Instagram. You identify yourself as one of Lyft’s drivers by putting a pink mustache on the front of you car. Working for a company with a sense of humor, definitely a plus.

5. Indiegogo. Jobseekers want to enter a company where they know after work is done they can have a good time with their coworkers. Indiegogo is an international crowd funding platform. Not only are they creating real business growth, but they are also having fun. They are masters are getting the good word out, and encouraging participation. Check out their Instagram to see how this potential employer is walking the talk.

4. Phreesia is a medical office’s dream, offering an easy patient check-in and payment technology. Not only are the changing the doctor’s office experience, they are doing it in style. Such a good time, in fact, they sport Phreesia-orange shoes. Employees going the extra mile to show off their brand is a good indication it is a place worth working.

3. Fab.com lets you know they embrace all kinds of employees as long as you work hard. They are braking the mold. Their open mindset and willingness to share it is a great indicator of company culture. Not to mention, I’m betting their offices are filled with Fab.com goodies. Oh, the envy.

2. DoveLewis loves their animals and their staff. This animal hospital takes the time to offer public displays of affection to their team. You want to work for someone who knows you’re working hard, and gives recognition when they see you’re doing what it takes.

1. Tekno Point. If this isn’t great employer branding, I don’t know what is. At Tekno Point employees love their work so much they tweet the world about it. Having public brand ambassadors is the best way to make a good and lasting impression. If employees are going out of their way to make a statement about how awesome their work is, I would take their word for it.

I LOVE my work at @teknopoint .

— Saurabh Shah (@saurabhhshah) August 1, 2012

We have all heard it before; perception is reality. Employer Branding is essential to attracting new talent. You don’t want to be an introverted business. You want to be proud of your product, your culture, the way you work. If that’s the case employees will have no problem sharing their brand. Even better, future employees will already be invested in your company mission.

At SmartRecruiters we are thrilled to be able to share our story with you. You can follow our day-to-day on Instagram, hangout on Google+, talk to us on Twitter, like what we’re doing on Facebook, connect on LinkedIn, watch videos on YouTube, and  check out our dream lifestyles on Pinterest. The point is we want to leave an impression, and we want everyone to know what we’re about.

On Nov. 19 SmartRecruiters hosted SocialHRCamp, the first ever global unconference for HR professionals. The mission of SocialHR Camp is “to start truly leveraging and integrating social media within the workplace, to create and drive unparalleled business value. As a true UnConference; highly customizable and flexible, attendees get to create their own learning path, be as engaged as you want to be and get as much out of Camp as you want.”

I’m happy to have organized the San Francisco Camp with the SocialHR team of Jeff Waldman, Founder of Statify, and Salima Nathoo, Founder of GLOW Consulting. Both are passionate about accelerating HR social media adoption. I learned a lot. My only regret was that with three sessions happening at a time, I couldn’t attend every session. I ran a breakout session on “Establishing Your Presence on Twitter.” It was a bit of a who’s who in the HR world. Paparazzi was everywhere!

SmartRecruiters CEO Jerome Ternynck opened the camp by saying, “There are two types of social. The social within the enterprise, where people talk with each other and collaborate. And then social media, where the good word of the company is spread far and wide.”

SocialHRCamp was broken down into keynotes and breakout sessions. Jessica Miller-Merrell, Founder of Blogging4Jobs, opened the day with a keynote of “How Social Media Changes HR.” A big picture view of how much HR has changed over the last ten years, and how so much of that change manifested from the arrival of social media. In the second keynote, when BraveNewTalent Product Marketing Director Kevin Grossman wasn’t channeling his inner social media spirit (see right), he explained  “How to Build a Talent Community vs. Database/Poole.”  Check out Kevin’s Presentation:

By popular demand, the presentations to begin discussions in breakout sessions  were decided:

In “How Social Media Policies Backfire” by Heather Bussing, Employment Attorney, Law Professor, Heather explained:

“My idea on Social Media Policies is that you should not have one. And the reason why is because they often create more liability than protect against behavior because you can’t stop people from doing things with a policy. And no policiy fixes stupid things. You don’t want a policy because it can get you in trouble with the NLRB. And the more you control, the more you – the employer – are responsible for what happens and what the employees do. And the biggest reason is under California law you cannot discipline people for what they do on their own accounts away from work. So you cannot discipline people for off duty conduct.”

Stacy Donovan Zapar, CEO of Tenfold Social Training, gave two presentations: “Social Recruiting: The Old vs. The New” and “LinkedIn: Tips, Tricks & Hacks.” After the first one, I offered her a job (it’s just something people tend to do at conferences, and I wanted to be as hospitable as the folks were to me at HR Tech Conference), and she said something wise – not a like a wise crack but wise as in you seem to know what you are doing in life – about having a great family in San Diego and more connections than any other woman on LinkedIn. Then after the second presentation I was 100% confident that I could boolean search any skill, experience, or accomplishment on LinkedIn. Needless to say, she was very impressed with my LinkedIn URL:

.@davidsmooke My pleasure, Superman!! #YourSecretIsSafeWithMe

— Stacy Donovan Zapar (@StacyZapar) November 19, 2012

In addition to wearing a scarf and concluding SocialHRCamp by tweeting Dr. Seuss truthisms (“Don’t cry because it’s over, laugh because it happened!”), Rob Garcia, Product Strategy & Marketing Director at RiseSmart.com, gave presentations on “Future of HR Trends that Impact Your Role in HR” and “Social HR Tech – Who’s Who in the Zoo.” I recommend thumbing through both presentations for a taste of how vast the impact of social media is upon the world of work:

Jessica Miller Merrell and Rayanne Thorn, EvenBase VP of Communications, ran an “Advanced Twitter for HR” session that touched on everything from automated tweets to brand development to what the sh*t is Twitter. They used no slides. It was refreshing. To learn more about Jessica’s Twitter advice, check out: Twitter for Recruiting, How to Evaluate a Twitter Profile, or How to Recruit on Twitter with Hashtags.

Twitter, Twitter, Twitter! With these tweets, HR mustn’t forget about Facebook! Ben Klafter, Director at SmartRecruiters, explained “How Your Facebook Employer Brand Can Lead to Hires.” People want to work for brands they like. And where do people like brands? Facebook! Faceboook is a great way to turn brand fans into hires.

I wasn’t able to attend “Personal Branding for Workplace Leaders” by Salima Nathoo & Jocelyn Aucoin, the Community Manager at WorkSimple, but social media reported that it challenged the very nature of employee brand and existentialism:

“Internal Social Media” by Meena Sandhu, Marketing Manager at ING DIRECT, emphasized, “Your external brand is only as strong as your internal brand.” Along the lines of social networks changing the way we collaborate, Charlie Nelson, Director at SmartRecruiters, lead a discussion on “The Importance of a Collaborative Hiring Process.” 

Collaborative hiring discussion with Charlie Nelson from @smartrecruiters. “Evaluate as a team.”#SocialHRCamp

— Bob Lehto (@safetybobsf) November 20, 2012

As Steve Jobs said, “You need to have a collaborative hiring process.” SmartRecruiters’ HireLoop gives employers real time updates on their recruiting activities to increase engagement in hiring and fit of hires. Below is how this social network style feed can organize hiring decisions as important as President of the United States:

Mark Babbitt, CEO of YouTern, tackled age and workplace in “Breaking Generational Stereotypes: A Focus on Strengths, Commonalities, and Mission.” The core of the conversation was evaluating the skills we have traditionally thought we need to hire young talent versus valuing the skills that will actually indicate successful hires of young professionals. To learn more about Mark’s point of view, read “Identifying the 10 Soft Skills of a Great Intern.”

Sean Sheppard, VP of TalentCircles, presented “Leveraging Existing Assets to Build a Live Talent Network.” The weight he places on “network ownership” is the all the more intriguing with Facebook’s ongoing terms & conditions “updates.” To learn more about bringing your existing talent pool back to life, check out the slides:

every candidate is a customer says @seanasheppard #socialhrcamp — Jessica Merrell (@blogging4jobs) November 19, 2012

Unfortunately, I missed the sessions of “The Future of Social Employee Recognition” by Rob Catalano, Sr. Director of Marking at Achievers, and “Using Video to Make Your Talent Acquisition Job Awesome” by Imo Udom.  This is a shame because I could write a book on the social aspects involved in garnering recognition for your work, and Imo is a sharp entrepreneur in a space I believe will grow tremendously, video interviewing.

Ana Lucia Novak, the Social Media Architect, presented last, “Architecting a Solid Social Media Foundation.” She did a complete rundown of every tool in the social media toolkit. I don’t want to name names or talk in hyperbole, but Ana Lucia Novak knows every social plugin for every social network.

It was a real pleasure to introduce these kickass HR thought leaders to the SmartRecruiters office. Thank you all for making SocialHRCamp an embodiment of how talent and talent acquisition is more productive when socializing. Until next time, see you on The Twitter!

Way impressed with all the people I met yesterday from @smartrecruiters. These guys love their company and live their brand. #inspired

— Jocelyn Aucoin (@jocelynaucoin) November 21, 2012

.@smartrecruiters Thanks for sharing your awesome space with us! Loved meeting your oh-so-smart team! #AptlyNamed #socialhrcamp

— Stacy Donovan Zapar (@StacyZapar) November 20, 2012

The global HR community has been quite slow to adopt social media into their business practices.  It’s not the latest HR “aha” but it is a call to action.  Tick tock.  There are many reasons and perspectives on why and what to do next and we’re shaking it up and shaking them down in this He Said/She Said discussion.

He Said is the voice of Jeff Waldman, Founder of SocialHR Camp, and She Said is the voice of is Salima Nathoo, Founder of Glow Consulting & SocialHR Camp Organizer.

The Proverbial “Seat at the Table”

HE SAID: Sigh… how many times have we heard about this?  HR deserves a seat the executive table.  I believe, successfully adopting social media into HR practices strategically will absolutely get that seat.  Social media positively impacts so many core functions within HR (talent attraction, new employee orientation, performance management and more) that the results can be off the charts.

SHE SAID: HR already has a seat at many tables.  It’s embedded in conversations about productivity, workforce planning and high potential talent.  The problem is that the shiny new seat at table is rooted in a conventional paradigm—where it seems more appropriate to listen long before leading.  HR is still playing the cost center role instead of taking its place as a center of innovation in every aspect of the strategic and tactical HR leadership job description.

WE SAY:  “Rear view mirror” thinking creates tunnel vision and organizations can’t afford to consciously stay in the dark about social media adoption.  It’s no longer just a war for talent, it’s a global battle for business development and market penetration, and HR is on the frontlines.

Brand is EVERYTHING

HE SAID: We live in a “brand everything” world.  Brand strength is one of the biggest core competitive advantages that any organization can possess.  Brand dictates purchasing decisions because it hits right at the core of each person; that “gut feeling” that we all have about anything.  It does not matter if you’re making a decision to buy a new laptop or picking your next company to work at.

SHE SAID: We all have a brand, already—all of us—as individuals, enterprises and causes.  But does our brand read like a story?  Does our organization’s brand breathe like the people whose individual identities are storylines of the biography of the company?  Good brands have a pulse.  Are your customers and talent feeling the beat on the social street?  It’s about time they did.

WE SAY: A strong brand is what matters, one that has elements of universal connection (shared values), and that can be discovered when and where it matters.  Social media is about conversation and its reach is instantly global.  Make your brand talk in a way that community, candidates, and customers listen.  Imagine the impact it has your organizational vitality.

We’re All Passive/Active Candidates.

HE SAID: I believe that any single person would change organizations if the right opportunity came along.  We have one foot in and one foot out, all the time.  Most people have multiple online profiles: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, About.me splash page and so forth.  Why would a hiring organization not go to the social platforms to hunt down the myriad of public profiles that includes best possible candidates out there?

SHE SAID: Of course we have one foot out the door all the time—we’re career candidates, it’s how we live—constantly testing the waters to see if it’s the best temperature to dive in and catch the next wave to ignite our potential.  Those waves are social conversations that are started by organizations that mean what they say and sell what they mean beyond the job board and career site.  HR has the power to be the wave that people want to ride.  PS It’s a social sunset.

WE SAY: Social media is the single most impactful communications channel today.  The level of social media engagement directly correlates to the quality of future talent that your organization has access too.  It’s time to speed up your social media adoption.

You Community is the Jury

Your organization is always in the Google gossip column.  What’s being said is not always determined by what you are doing in social media as an organization, it’s often, and in many cases, more often than not, driven by inaction.  HR is a social brand catalyst and a set-it and forget-it, slow-roast approach to engagement is not sufficient.  Tick tock.  Get to it.

It’s no secret that social media has and continues to make an impact on the way we recruit, compared to the way we engaged with each other say 6-8 years ago.

When I first started out the traditional method of seeking candidates was through the generation of endless job ad postings and the inevitable long and laborious task of visiting numerous CV search engine sites, all to find that gem of a candidate amongst all the noise that tended to clog up your search. None of these sites can I add, at the time, were linked to the words, low cost!

This process, although straightforward and effective to a degree, was without a doubt a very costly exercise; you couldn’t just sign up with one site. You had to have an account with them all. Partly because job boards seem to go through peaks and troughs when it comes to popularity and you can bet your bottom dollar the one site you weren’t subscribed too would be the one site that everyone seemed to be uploading there CV on that month. Admittedly, this merry little dance would always provide results if you had the patience to follow a rigorous structure to your day. The down side of course was the costs involved and the impact it had on your profit.

Don’t get me wrong there are always be job boards out there that are tailored purely to your individual sector and although they may provide limited results, you can pretty much rest assured that you will find relevant candidates.

However, since the introduction of the likes of LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other preferred social media sites, slowly clients, candidates and recruiters are finding new methods of utilizing these tools far more cost effectively and with much better results.

For example a couple of years ago 90% of our annual budget for advertising and CV search engines was spent on traditional methods like Monster, Total Jobs and Reed to name but a few, along with print advertising. This model would deliver on our targets and give the business the profit margins that set us in the comfortable bracket.

It wasn’t until we invested time into understanding how best to utilize and maximize on these new social media channels that were being talked about so vigorously in the market place, that we really felt the impact. At the time the general consensus by others is that they couldn’t see how you could “monetize” these channels. Many recruitment agencies seemed baffled by this technology and more so were/are reluctant to take that leap. Sadly, today there are recruitment agencies out there who still rely on traditional methods and although their results may be seen as steady or even perhaps slightly declining, the inevitable will happen, which is they will get left behind.

Since we made the decision to understand and action how to engage with our audience via these social media channels, we now invest over 50% of our advertising and CV search/job board spend on social media recruiting, which before were a minority investment for us. I can see this increasing as we look forward to 2012/2013.

This decision has allowed us to build much stronger relationships with our clients and candidates, as well as allowing us to build brand new relationships with candidates that would otherwise be harder to interact with on a daily basis. To put this into some sort of perspective, since making the transition in the way we find and communicate with our audience we have seen an increase in business efficiency, revenue and – that all important word – profit.

As our world embraces the social media revolution or evolution (depending on how you look at this) we as individuals, whether it be for personal or business, are interacting with social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter on an increasingly regular rate via all kinds of devices, such as smart phones, tablets and desktops… and this movement isn’t showing any signs of slowing down.

With so much face time via these sites can you really afford not to invest in understanding how best to utilize these tools? Especially when these channels are far more cost effective than other traditional methods that our industry tends to rely on.

Obviously, the proof is in the pudding but from our point of view the results speak for themselves.

In closing, what I will that we recruit for the marketing and broadcast sector. In this case our audience does tend to be the early adopters to the social media wave, which now dominates most of our professional or personal lives in one way or the other. So it’s probably fair to point out that this article is based on our own experiences. For example, if you recruit for the building and construction trade then the chances are that your audience will have less down time when it comes to social media.

Tom Howe is the Founder of WE ARE THOMAS*, the specialist Search, Selection & Retention Consultancy that focuses within the Marketing arena and lover of all things bespoke!

Photo Credit NSDesigns & KramiumHR

When people talk about amplification in social media, they’re talking about “reach” – how far a message can travel from it’s original broadcaster.  Your own network includes your circle of co-workers, former co-workers, friends, industry associates, customers and other people you’ve come into contact with over the years.

You’re one employee – add the total number of employees in your company and that will give you a combined “first-level” reach.  Of course, all of those people know people and have their own ‘first-level’ connections – and so on and so on.

Obviously, the bigger an individual’s network, or company’s by extension, the larger the potential for reach/amplification… and that’s the most obvious angle where ‘influencers’ come into play with recruitment marketing.  Sharing your opportunities with “influencers” – professionals within your space that are active on social media – with whom your company has a connection is a clear avenue… but there’s other roads worth pursing.

When Chris Hoyt joined PepsiCo back in 2010, he made the statement in his blog announcement that PepsiCo “Gets it.”  So, no surprise he tweeted about his on-boarding experience under the same hashtag:

“In 2nd Town Hall. EVERY leader I’ve heard speak today (~6) have talked about the importance of attracting top talent. #onboarding #GetsIt”  

How fantastic is that?!   Through a series of commonly hashtagged tweets over a month’s time, Hoyt shared part of Pepsi’s cultural ‘DNA’ with the Social Media world-at-large. This recruitment marketing tactic was sticky & it was relevant … not just to PepsiCo talent, either.

Through the concerted effort of connecting PepsiCo with an #onboarding hashtag; Hoyt helped draw in a wider audience through attracting interest of human resource industry and recruiting professionals. They, in turn, amplified his messages through sharing those positive examples of on-boarding experiences with their networks and thanks to the power of Google you can still see remnants of it today, two years later. When asked about the outcomes of the experiment, Hoyt said:

“I had a lot of feedback from people who said had I not done that; they wouldn’t have thought of PepsiCo as a next place of employment for them. And that was great, because it was the proof that with proper exposure we could be included in the answer to the question that we hadn’t even asked:

‘If I asked you where are you going now, where are you going next… what Companies, what brands, make that ‘top 3′ list?'”

So when you start talking about Social Recruiting, it’s not about filling a job as much as it’s about that question.

In Social Recruiting/Recruitment Marketing; our job is getting the Companies we serve into that ‘who’s who’ list of the top three. It’s not about the postings, the number of people who applied via twitter, or vomiting your job postings on Twitter – it’s about positioning your Company/brand to be on the ‘list’ of places people want to go next.

Why?  Because when a recruiter from those top three companies call/send an inmail? People don’t need to be sold; they’re automatically listening – their messages resonates more strongly than those that weren’t top contenders.”

Well said. Let’s review, shall we?  Through this tact, Hoyt:

1. Garnered interest of HR Influencers / Recruiting Influencers through hashtagging topics likely to be searched on twitter:  #Onboarding

2. Through sharing exciting experiences he had; Hoyt tied his Company and Brand to examples of successful culture – leaving a “PepsiCo DNA” imprinted on the web for other candidates to find.

3. With the tag #GetsIt, Hoyt had a little “hashtag fun” that started a fun trend that other people wanted to share and be part of this.

4.By creating fun, exciting, interesting content, Hoyt’s tweets personified PepsiCo as the popular kid everyone wants to be friends with:  positive, smart, understanding, caring. Fun.

5. The best part is that you can use this roadmap as a guide to do similar things for your organization, too.

But What’s the Immediate ROI???

Often when I’m working with clients and suggest these kind of measures, the immediate response is, “But I need hires NOW.”  Totally understand… but here’s the thing: successful social recruiting programs aren’t built at the snap of your fingers. Career Crossroad’s 2012 “Channels of Influence” survey showed that as a Social Media as a direct-sourcing channel yielded less than 4% of over 200k participant hires made in 2011.  That doesn’t mean Social Media is ineffective in recruiting; quite the contrary – Social Media shines as an indirect hiring channel, serving as a the 2nd largest source for influencing candidates’ decision to join a company (or not).

Yes, people still look first to your company website for information; but just as recruiting professionals turn to social media to find candidates?  They turn to the same channel to find info about the companies they’re looking to join – so getting influencers respected in the industry talking about things they like about your organization, things you’re doing right, etc. has a huge ability to yield returns that last long after any one job opening you’d want an ‘Influencer’ to share…. Just like Hoyt did with PepsiCo.

Crystal Miller creates great Talent Marketing and Social Recruitment Programs at M3 Talent Consulting in Dallas. As an advocate for proactive social media in recruiting, she works as the Co-Host of #TalentNet weekly Radio Chat on Twitter/Focus w/ Talent Net Live. Crystal believes, “Candidate first.”  Photo Credit Pepsi Twitter.

Forming Relationships with Candidates Through Talent Communities

Social Media as a source of candidates is increasingly popular but regular, consistent results remain elusive for many employers. There’s some anecdotal evidence about social media successes in recruiting, but these are hard to replicate.  Also, what many employers call social media recruiting is nothing more than broadcasting jobs on social networks. Posting jobs on Facebook does not make the process social, and most recruiters use Linkedin like a job board – they simply search for candidates and then try and reach them. But that should be no surprise – trying to connect with prospective candidates socially is difficult and time consuming.

Mission (Maybe) Impossible

The goal is to form relationships with prospective candidates. The people you are trying to connect with through social media generally have expressed no interest in your jobs. Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to engage them in a conversation, which may result in a relationship over time, which may allow you to convince them to consider a job you have open. In case it wasn’t obvious just remember that a conversation is a two-way street. This is what it makes it social. If you don’t have anything to share then it’s near impossible to form a relationship.

There are no shortcuts here. If you’re not interested in or don’t have the time to form relationships then just send them an email asking them to apply for the jobs you have open and see how well that works… But if you do want to use social media to recruit, then one approach that we’ve found successful is the Irrigation Drip approach to building talent communities.

The basic concept is simple – it’s information gathering, one piece at a time. Relationships are formed one drip at a time. Think about any social relationship you have – it didn’t form in minutes or hours. It formed as you got to know the other party, and vice-versa. The goal is to slowly collect information on candidates through a series of social interactions.

This approach starts with a talent community that attracts candidates of the type you would like to hire. The Irrigation Drip is the process that feeds a database of prospective candidates. As you get more and more information on candidates, a profile emerges. Let’s illustrate this with an example of a situation where this was implemented for a client that provides high-level financial planning services. They wanted to recruit people that had 10+ years of experience in insurance sales, dealing with high-level clients, and capable of establishing long-term relationships. Here’s how information was collected through conversations in a talent community.

The conversations resulted from a series of blog posts around the topics mentioned. The idea is to convert (interview) questions into opportunities for sharing, or provoking participants into sharing the information you seek. In this example, we developed a matrix with a row for each “trait” and offered a number of ways to stimulate a response.
Stimulating or provoking responses can be as simple as writing or commenting on a blog posts.

It worked well – the company made 8 hires, at an average cost of $618. The effort took about 4 months, but the given the profile of candidates they were targeting it was worth it. Most of the candidates were people who would never have applied for the job.

One Drip at a Time

Making social connections is a very labor and time-intensive activity. This is why Linkedin is not much of a social network – the vast majority of connections people have are with individuals they know nothing about beyond what’s on the profile, mainly because there’s rarely been a conversation between the two. One of my best connections on Linkedin is an officer in the Israeli army. I have no idea why he reached out to me but I’ve got to know him pretty well as a result of email conversations that we’ve had where I helped him with his resume. I know of his family, his interests, his aspirations, and his goals and I was able to help direct him to a job with the UN since he was bored with what he was doing. That’s more than I can say about 90% of my other connections on Linkedin.

Recruiting through social media is not a catch-all solution for all jobs. Talent communities work best where they are narrowly focused and the members have a lot in common. That is, they have a lot to share and are willing to engage in conversations. It still takes time to draw them out but an employer that wants to build a community should adopt the Irrigation Drip approach.

Raghav Singh is a partner at The A-List, a Minneapolis-based staffing services provider that specializes in global recruitment.  His career has included work as a consultant on enterprise HR systems and as a recruiting and HRIT leader at several Fortune 500 companies. Raghav also works with social media vendor Cachinko.