The World is going mobile. Technology’s quickening development is bringing a major change in the way people and companies work.
Some of you are at work, some of you are in a car or using public transport and others are simply doing your own thing, but all whilst reading this article – the likelihood of it being read on your mobile device is very high! As sad as it sounds, our phones are always by our side!
As a result of the mobile device being everyone’s new ‘best buddy’, we can see that to get a message across in this day and age, and to make everyday life easier for the end user – one needs to be able to access most aspects of our life through our phone. Just to prove the point more, HubSpot, shows that 91 percent of smartphone users have their device within reach 24 hours a day!
Although there are more people with phones than those that have jobs, over 60% of those that hold a satisfactory job, are open to pursuing new opportunities. As the saying goes ‘the grass is always greener on the other side’. Employers are always on the look out for good talent and potential employees are always looking for great Employers. Without having a mobile recruitment search platform, one is effectively giving up on more than half of the potential talent and great jobs out there.
According to “Beyond” 77% of job seekers are using mobile job search apps. This number of applicants using mobile devices to find and apply for new job prospects is growing exponentially; more so in the international market, as the mobile device is sometimes the only access people have to the Internet.
According to Aberdeen research, “Social and Mobile Computing, enables organizations to provide their end-uses the experience that is connect (social), everywhere they go (mobile), with access to data whenever and wherever it’s needed (cloud).” A site or app that combines social, mobile and cloud is tough to come across, although there are some platforms that are finally managing to link all these together, such as Tomigo. Tomigo has developed the recipe of using one’s existing employees and their social networks to recruit new talent. Not only are Employers such as Siemens, L’oreal and Reuters to name a few, using this new social recruiting solution but their employees are enjoying rewards for linking their bosses to new employees they introduce.
At the end of the day – the main goal of a company is to hire exceptional talent. As Steve Job said, ‘A-players like to work only with other A-players’. Cracking into the social network of existing successful employees, allows the company to find more “A team” players suited to that Company’s culture. In order to achieve this goal of exceptional talent, the need for more interaction, more communities, stronger social branding/rewards and the capability to search, apply and receive jobs alerts is necessary on mobile devices. Tomigo has cracked this nut.
So hopefully by now each one of you has scrolled down your “new best buddy” – your mobile device and realized that the future of recruitment, from both the recruiter and the job seeker’s point view, is that of the smart phone!
![tlnt-logo[1]](http://blog.tomigo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/tlnt-logo1.png){kind=logo}
Tech-savvy, socially conscious and heavily connected on social media: These are attributes shared by members of both Gen X and Gen Y.
Jesse Eisenberg plays FB CEO and member of Gen Y Mark Zuckerberg
Generation X is the generation born after the post-World War II baby boom, from the early 1960s to the early 1980s. Generation Y, also known as the Millennials, was born between 1981 and 2003. The group is large and has almost twice as many members as Generation X. Gen X employees are moving up the ranks, taking over from Baby Boomers and balancing family commitments. Gen Y, graduating during a time of economic uncertainty, are entering the workforce fully charged, with major ambition and desire for career development.
Winona Ryder, Gen X icon.
But what’s the difference between today’s Facebook-loving, T-shirt-wearing Gen Y employees and their free-spirited older friends in Gen X? (Think the 1994 movie Reality Bites vs 2010′s Social Network). And how can recruiters target these two groups using social media?
Gen X vs. Gen Y: How to spot them?
Trust: Gen Xers, often known as “latchey kids.” grew up watching their parents being laid-off by corporate giants. As a result, they developed a subtle sense of distrust of large corporations and question how much they can trust their employers. Gen Y, on the other hand, are actually more loyal to employers than either baby boomers or Xers. Nonetheless, their top priority is their own career development and they will move on if it will help meet their goals.
Social Media: Both are major users of social media and mobile devices, with 83% of 18-29 year olds using social media and 77% of those aged 30-49. However, the millenials make less of a distinction between work and play and are more likely to be open networkers, with more cross-over between the social and professional realms.
Work Style: Having been raised by parents affected by the hip 60s, Gen Xers have been taught that rules should and can be questioned. Millenials have been described as “pressured and programmed.” They want the system to be fair, but they do tend to believe in the importance of a system.
Family: Gen Xers are in the prime of their childrearing years, and are ever involved in work-life balance. The parents of Gen Y individuals have been called “helicopter parents,” always hovering, and far more involved in their children’s professional lives than any previous generation.
Social Consciousness: Here’s an area where the two groups are more alike than different. Both want to see companies take an active role in social welfare and both are motivated to help others.
How to use social recruiting to target both of these groups?
Communication with candidates in real time: When Gen X and Y candidates request more information about your company, make sure to respond immediately. This will reassure the slightly wary Gen X candidate that she is important to the company. It will also appeal to the Gen Y candidate’s desire for order and a systematic approach. This is why mobile recruitment is so crucial today.Whatever specific method you use to recruit these two groups, it is clear that these folks can be found online…a lot. So if you are tapping into social recruiting , you’re halfway there.
Tomigo is a social recruiting platform that helps recruiters and HR departments leverage employees’ social network connections to hire top talent. We’re hosting guest blogger Will Thomson, a respected blogger for the recruitment industry.
By Will Thomson, Bulls Eye Recruiting
As an e
xperienced recruiter with many years in the industry, I know there are some people I just can’t help. Why? They aren’t willing to help themselves. Their career history and qualifications have nothing to do with it. I know they could do anything they want. The fact is that deep down they don’t want to make a change.
I call these people “Paralyzed Candidates”. I am not referring to physical capabilities. Such individuals get comfortable and are scared to make a change. I understand it. You can clock in and clock out and you know what to expect every day. You have a salary that you are comfortable with, and you know when you are going to take time off for your vacation every year.
But somewhere deep inside, you are discontent. You are not happy with the direction of the company, the management, the salary, and your coworkers. You just don’t feel challenged anymore. How do I know you are not content? I’ll tell you. I hear it from you all the time! It could be yearly or daily, but I know you are miserable.
My advice to the Paralyzed Candidate. DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! If it doesn’t work out, at least you can say you gave it a try. If you stay on good terms, you can always return or look for something else.
Here are 10 things you are missing if you are the Paralyzed Candidate:
1: Happiness. Say it with me. Happiness! Do you love your job? I honestly can say I do. Do you dread waking up in the morning? C’mon. Life is too short, so snap out of it; there is grass greener on the other side. I promise! I’d love to see a smile on your face. I’m pulling for you!
2: Challenges. Once you make that change, you will be tested. Things may not be easy, but that isn’t a bad thing. Aren’t you sick of the TPS reports?
3: Meeting new people. Your network expand and you will be exposed to various ideas and views that you haven’t thought of if you stayed with your current company.
4: Learning new technologies. You will be a dinosaur if you don’t learn a new software and expand your technical expertise.
5: Potentially more money. Have you hit the glass ceiling with your current company? Someone out there is looking for an individual with your skill set.
6: Career advancement. Are you at an organization where you simply can’t move at all? You work with a company that offered absolutely no movement. Your manager has been in the same role for 30 years and he/she isn’t leaving anytime soon. So why again are you staying at this place?!
7: Better hours. Are you working nights or weekends? Sounds miserable to me. I sold houses for years on the weekends and had no life. Do you travel seven days a week? Want your life back? Take control.
8: Shorter commute. Do you spend hours in your car commuting? Is it affecting your family and personal life? There is no reason to spend half your life in a car.
9: Better work-life balance. Do you know some companies offer a flexible workforce – even telecommuting? Yes; it is new. More companies are offering it than not. It is amazing!
10: You could be a part of the next big thing. There are a number of companies out there with some really great ideas. They could change the world. Would you like to be a part of the team that started Facebook or Twitter? The next great idea is just around the corner and you could be a part of it!
If you fall into the category of a “paralyzed candidate,” I hereby challenge you. If you have evaluated all of your options and have come to the conclusion that the company you work for is not fulfilling you, stop complaining and get active. You will be a different person. The above advice is something you already know and have known. Hopefully I have helped you get out of your ‘career wheelchair’. Good luck!
About the Author: Will Thomson has lived in Austin, Texas his whole life. He is a husband and father of two, and has been in recruitment and sales for 18 years. He has worked for companies such as Aerotek, Balfour, Rainmaker, Dell, and most recently Ebay. He received his undergraduate from The University of Mississippi, and his Master’s Degree from St. Edward’s University in Austin. Thomson has recruited some of the most sought after talent around the globe, and is a regular blogger for the recruitment industry. His writings are exclusively about past experiences and what he has learned from them. Thomson’s message: ” I want others to live their life to their fullest potential. I want you to hit the bull’s eye. I give career advice to help others find their dream job and everyday happiness. I truly want you to get it right, the first time.,”
More companies are turning to employee referrals as one great solution to their staffing needs. We know that the popularity of such programs is on the rise and that experts are blogging about the money and time saved with this method. Yet, many recruiters still ask themselves the all-important question: What will motivate employees to refer their friends?
The answer to that might surprise you. Evidence suggests that while rewards and gamification play a key role in employees’ decision to refer, altruism, the desire to “pay it forward,” is actually a key motivating factor.
During the 1940’s, Harvard sociologist Pitirim Sorokin first talked about a part of our brain that is programmed for altruism. More recent studies in neuropsychology have confirmed this idea. In the last decade, in the wake of the economic downturn, we have seen new proof of this tendency.
Today words like transparency, fair trade and sustainability are regular parts of our vocabulary, as consumers have begun to demand that companies make ethics an important part of any business decision.
A good example of this is Microsoft, which has built a reputation for its charitable giving, a factor that has actual aided in recruitment. “When you’re living through a time when unemployment is up and when people see more human needs, there is a greater focus now on what companies and employees are doing to address those human needs,” according to Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith.
The ‘Millenium generation’ has been vocal about the importance of balancing their work success with helping others and many Baby Boomers (once hippies) are returning to those same values. One need look no further than the tremendous surge of volunteerism in the wake of Hurricane Sandy to see this in practice.
This same trend is sweeping through recruitment. As unemployment has risen, there has been a parallel surge in helping friends find employment and helping employers build a great team. Social media has been the primary forum for this kind of sharing. Professional groups on LinkedIn and Facebook are bursting with individuals sharing available jobs with their friends and contacts. In many cases, their only motivation is the desire to help others during a difficult time.
Hans Gieskes is President & CEO of Cision AB group and recruitment expert wrote of employee referral programs: It’s not about financial rewards; it’s about prudent people carefully managing their social credit balance sheet to first of all help people whose relationship they value.
Of course, motivating employees to make referrals goes beyond expecting them to do so for purely altruistic reasons and investing in a fun, competitive rewards program will certainly help employees make the time to do it. But, when deciding on your recruitment methods, it helps to remember that many employees today are actively looking to “pay it forward.” The feeling of helping others – including their employer – is actually very rewarding.
And the result for the hiring company just happens to be a happier, more motivated staff.
You want to hear a secret? Many employed people are spending a significant portion of each day at work researching additional job opportunities.
A recent Adler Group study revealed that 83% of LinkedIn users out of 225 million registered users are passive job seekers. With a proven track record, on the one hand, and an eye for opportunity, on the other, passive job seekers are highly sought after by recruiters.
Although many try to determine how to reach this group, the path to success can be summed up in one word: mobile. Passive job seekers check opportunities online throughout the business day. They are networking on LinkedIn, researching interesting companies online and checking job posts on Facebook. However, they can’t use their company-owned computer for this kind of surreptitious job searching.
They use their smartphones and mobile devices to search for job opportunities.In a recent mobile survey, 63% of the respondents said they have searched for a job on their mobile device and 72% want to receive career opportunity information on their mobile device. Smartphone usage grew by 50% from 2011 to 2012 and is still climbing.
For passive job seekers, being able to use a mobile app attached to their personal device is the only way to stay connected throughout the day. So companies who want to reach these candidates must invest in a targeted mobile recruitment strategy.
How to Target Passive Job Seekers with Mobile Recruitment
1. Fully mobile platform. If your company page is mobile friendly, but as soon as you click on a link, it sends the reader to a regular webpage which is hard to read on a mobile device, you have just lost a potential candidate. Passive job seekers do not have the time or the interest in making an intense effort to read about potential jobs. If it is not mobile ready, they will not read or watch it.
2. No job boards. Employed job seekers will not spend hours searching through lists of available positions. They prefer to do their job searching as part of an overall interest in networking or learning more about their field. Make your mobile app both entertaining and informational, and they’ll check it out.
3. Super quick response time. Unlike the unemployed, most passive seekers are trying to fit their job search activities into their busy work schedule. Like most mobile users, if they do take the time to get in touch with a potential employer, they will only stay interested if there is some kind of response within minutes.
4. Regular daily posts. Most passive job seekers search at regular intervals during the day, based around their work activities. Automated job posts that appear at certain high-traffic times will work best.
5. Choice of SMS, e-mail or other alert systems. Mobile users like options. Make sure to offer job posts and other information in a variety of formats including e-mail, social media and SMS.
As smartphone usage continues to grow, we can expect a total revolution in job searching. 91% of all U.S. citizens now have their mobile device within reach 24/7, replacing wristwatches and alarm clocks. (Fiddlefly). It seems only yesterday, that we fully transitioned from paper to online searching. Now, we are immersed in the next move, from PC to mobile recruitment.
Most companies haven’t fully understood this yet. 90% of Fortune 500 companies don’t optimize their career sites for mobile usage.
So, those companies designing a detailed mobile strategy are already way ahead of the game!
Tomigo CEO Tal Moran guest blogs on Brazen Careerist about Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point and its lessons for social networking.
Recruiters are usually folks who like people. Their interest in human behavior and how it interfaces with organizational structures is often what led them to pursue their field of interest. So, it makes sense that many recruiters and HR professionals might feel hesitant to dive into the deep waters of social recruiting.
They wonder how a social media network can understand the best way to match a person with a job? How can it “know” what kind of candidate to target for a specific p
osition?
In some ways, such questions are justified. Technological tools can never take the place of professional experience and know-how. But targeted usage of social recruiting is the perfect complement to people power. It amps up your recruiting strategy and brings it to the next level.
Still a little fearful? Let’s go through the top 5 fears of social recruiting and debunk those myths that keep you from success.
1. Fear: The best candidates are not active on Facebook or LinkedIn. They are employed and at work.
Truth: We all know the numbers by now. Facebook has more than 500 million members and LinkedIn has more than 100 million. Individuals who use social media sites are actually more tech-savvy and also tend to be “early adopters” of new trends, great candidates for most jobs. And most of them are employed. Social media has become the new forum for “passive job seekers” to tacitly check out what is available.
2. Fear: It takes too much time and effort to advertise jobs on social media. I just don’t have the budget for that.
Truth: Actually, it is far less expensive to advertise on Facebook and LinkedIn than it is to use a job board. You can increase your ROI in less than a month. Moreover, think about investing in a platform like Tomigo that helps you leverage your employees’ social connections– that takes even less time.
3. Fear: We are fiercely protective of our brand. We don’t want the jobs misrepresented and we want to maintain our positive brand associations.
Truth: You can control the way your jobs are advertised on social media. By creating job postings and having employees and others “share” them, you get all the control and all the benefits.
4. Fear: I’m not a tech person. I don’t even know how to start.
Truth: You don’t need to be a social media ‘maven’ to recruit using basic, easy-to-use platforms. If you don’t feel comfortable creating a basic post yourself, avail yourself of new technological tools that can do it for you.
5. Fear: Social recruiting targets the young and inexperienced. It might be o.k. for locating entry-level workers, but I need to hire managers.
Truth: More than half of all social media users in the US are between 25 and 44. Thirty percent of LinkedIn users are between 45-54, with the average user being 44.2 years old (Doubleclick). Here’s another surprise: The average age of a Facebook user is 40.5 years old.
With all these convincing reasons, isn’t it time to face the fears? The overall longtime benefits are just too great to pass up.
Almost every job vacancy at a reputable firm elicits a deluge of resumes. No surprise, given today’s economic climate. How do companies sift through what’s available to find those golden resumes that represent great hires?
Many companies are increasingly using their own workers to accomplish this. This trend, covered in a recent article in The New York Times and in this great post by Dr. John Sullivan, saves companies unnecessary hassle. Instead of recruiters working their way through a barrage of often inappropriate candidates on mass job boards, the process is managed by employees, who often know best what the job entails and who will fit the job culture.
While job board usage is slowly trending down, hiring through friend referrals remains solid. A candidate that has been referred by a company employee is 3-4 times more likely to be hired that one who came via a different source. (CareerXroads 2013 Report)
And new anecdotal evidence proves that hires through friend referrals are actually growing. Employee recommendations account for 45% of non-entry-level placements at Ernst&Young, up from 28% in 2010. Enterprise Rent-A-Car reports that the proportion of workers hired through employee referrals has risen from 33% to about 40% in the last two years. (NY Times)
The reasons for companies to join the trend and increase employee referrals are pretty clear. Here are just a few:
Beyond these obvious benefits, there is an added twist to employee referrals today. They are different than they were just a decade ago.
Social media networks are changing the way we ‘befriend’ people, widening our circles, increasing diversity and bringing us together – all at the same time. This means that today’s employees are more and better connected than in the past. Where as previous employees networked with people in their own neighborhoods and communities, today’s employee may have hundreds or thousands of diverse connections available to her via social networks.
Social Media Networks: The New Employee Referral Frontier
Companies that leverage social network connections get the best of both worlds. They reach reliable, relevant candidates, on the one hand, and score major company publicity using social media, on the other.
So how do you reach your employees’ connections? Here are a few tips.
1. Generate a buzz. Make sure employees are not just sharing text-based job ads on social networks. Use the opportunity to market your company in creative ways. Pictures, humor, videos, pithiness – these things work especially well on social media.
2. Motivate your employees to share jobs via social media. Create and maintain a really fun rewards program for employees who get involved.
3. Move beyond LinkedIn. Some of the best candidates may be your employee’s friend on Facebook or a member of her circle on Google+. Encourage them to share on all their networks.
4. Listen to your employees. Once they get motivated, to get involved, they’ll have new ideas for finding great hires. Happy employees are a precious resource.
